#cc!seph

For the most part, Sephiroth avoided the general public. Not that his preference was necessarily to stay within the Shinra complex, and most certainly not within the offices if he could help it. Other locations were all well and good when he didn't have an immediate mission to accomplish, but those times were rare. Frankly he didn't want to be staying around anywhere after a mission was completed, for a wide assortment of reasons.

It wasn't as if he could simply wander off into the heart of Midgar, however. Luckily a change of clothes seemed to be enough to disguise most of him, hair generally too long to simply tuck under whatever hat he also planned to wear, so a good deal of it ended up tucked into the back of his shirt. Thoroughly uncomfortable, but it managed to change both the way he walked and held his posture. Useful.

It got him to plenty of little hole-in-the-wall places with brilliantly good-terrible food, but even more importantly it allowed him to explore used book stores. Antique shops. Tiny shopfronts hidden amongst the wide assortment of other doors that lead to windows into the lives of other people. And, sometimes--

There was no intentional thought behind it, no particular reason or idea or actual realized compulsion that lead to the motion. Truth be told, Sephiroth was very particular about keeping himself separated most of the time, hands to himself in any situation that was not sparring or the immediate need to administer first aid.

Genesis had been leaning over a book. Which book was suspected but not known, and a bit of hair had fallen in his face. Sephiroth hadn't made the full realization that his hair had been getting that long before he witnessed fiery strands moving, moved himself--

"You should try it sometime. Just standing there, being the projection screen." The words weren't spoken with any kind of anger or accusation. In fact, there was a concerning lack of anything. No intonation, no emotion. A blank canvas.

"It's so... easy. Isn't it?" Uncertainty started to creep into his words at last. "It should be easy. Reading from a script if you speak at all. Just there to be while the cameras flash. It's so, so easy."

He was in the middle of the much-hated mundane task of pretending to put effort into a report when it-- Happened.

In the middle of winter. Back from a mission that turned out to graciously be a whole lot of nothing, but that meant some amount of boredom. And paperwork to go along with it. How it went from that to--

Well, it. Wasn't a bad thing. This very, very vivid image of... a smile. And not much else. Not much else at all. Little left to the imagination behind tight purple--

It was exceptionally warm in there, even with the heat on. Even considering the leather, a SOLDIER's body temperature was... It was, uh.

Sephiroth looked down at the page, noticing he'd stopped mid-word. Mid-page. Mid-report.

YOU!... You're not aftaid of me?

Lazard, praying to every deity he knows that if he breathes through his nose slowly enough, his erection will go away:

No, General, I trust you

Anyone else would recoil from the anger in glowing, slitted eyes. Sephiroth knew very well that sometimes he managed to get that particular fight or flight reaction from the director without meaning to, barely there, barely perceptible... to anyone who wasn't so very enhanced.

He watched, unblinking. Waited. Measured the space between Lazard's breaths and the thudding beats of his heart, waited to parse the scent of him and the exact dilation of his eyes behind the glasses.

The SOLDIER's grin spoke of danger.

(Because somebody was too prideful to abandon a mission when it turned out to be an ambush and somebody else had to maintain a neutral facial expression throughout a meeting while having a panick attack)

"I handled it. I was confident that I could handle the situation, I was trained for--"

"You can't be trained for every surprise, Sephiroth." Despite Lazard keeping his voice down, his fear and stress had quite clearly turned to anger. Not to mention the worry, the horrible sickening little drip-adrenaline kick that hadn't yet completely worn off.

"I was trained to handle surprises." The SOLDIER argued. Not that he really meant to argue, but maybe it was a different sort of urge to fight.

"You were also trained to know your limits and when to retreat for the overall success of the mission." The director flinched in surprise at his own outburst. Really, it wasn't that much louder, but it was too emotionally-charged, too full of the anxiety he'd been bottling up, locking behind doors that none of the other executives were allowed to see.

Lowering his head slightly, it wasn't entirely an act of submission. It was... acknowledgement, maybe. He'd rarely heard Lazard raise his voice, and knowing he was the cause of that... "I was confident that it wasn't beyond my abilities." He reiterated, softly. "The second wave of attacks delayed me and my return to the helicopter. If it's your preference, I can make more of an effort to return at the predetermined time in the future."

The blond sighed deeply, some of the anger leaving him. "Is that the best I'm going to get?"

[caller ID: Angeal Hewley]

"Angeal, I can't talk right now, I've got to--"

"It's about Lazard."

"Hold on. Alright, I'm listening."

"He passed out at his desk today."

"He-- What happened?"

"You happened."

"Pardon?"

"You didn't follow the script."

"Journalists who refuse to stop asking me personal questions irritate me."

"Yeah, I get it, I know. Lazard does too, but this time..."

"I was perfectly polite."

"You said your perfect evening ended in flaking body fluids off leather."

"I... suppose that was a little more direct than I'd initially wanted to be, but it was very effective in ending the barrage of que--"

"You're lucky everyone thinks it's a cold because he's been working so many hours!"

"Was that his excuse?"

"No, mine. Happened to walk in on the power breathing. It was a decent excuse to get him out of the office for the rest of the day."

"Mm. Thank you for that."

"Yeah yeah, just consider not being quite that honest in public again?"

"What makes you think I was being honest?"

Anti-honesty hour meme | accepting but eternally slow

Sephiroth almost, almost, leaned just the slightest bit forward to bite that offending finger, which he supposed might have made his answer a great deal more believable. SOLDIER metabolism could be woefully swift, after all. (Sadly his restraint in not biting that finger showed enough.)