Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Paint The Town ❯ Coffee Break ( Chapter 5 )

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Paint The Town

Coffee Break

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Zack lounged back in the cushy leather couch and sipped his coffee. It was Shinra Executive Grade java, meaning that the bitterness would linger on his tongue till well after lunch, but a begging-caffeine junky could not be picky. Besides, Sephiroth seemed happy enough with his cup.

The General sat at his desk and carefully swiveled his chair so that his back was to the other man. A plain white mug sat steaming on the desk, a bit too close to the edge by Zack's estimation, but where the General put his coffee was nobody's business. Zack was glad enough that the man seemed less tense than he had all morning. It seemed all the man needed was an occasional distraction.

"Hey, Sephiroth?"

"What?"

"Aren't you gonna ask me how my back's doing?" Distract away, Oh Master of the Play. Zack grinned at the high back of his General's chair. The silver-haired man did not even turn, still occupied with rustling through a drawer.

"You got your painkillers, didn't you?" was the reply. "Why concern me with the ongoing drama that is your lower back?"

Zack rolled his eyes, though the other man could not see it. "Well, I'm doing fine now. I just thought that maybe you would like to know that." He swirled his half-full mug around, trying to spot the pale bottom of the cup beneath the black liquid. The company brew was a murky one. "No more early morning trips to the doctor for us."

"Good." Fine. Enough. You have my full permission to shut up now, Zachary. The dark-haired man filled in all the implicit commands in his friend's one-word reply. Of course, `implicit' was the key-word.

"My girlfriend's the one who really fixed me up. Man, she's got a good touch with this kind o-,"

"Zachary, please!" Sephiroth leaned aside and glared back at the man. "The last thing I need to hear about is your girlfriend's healing ability!" Zack was astounded.

"What? What? No, Titan's ass-crack, no, it's not like that!" He slammed his mug down on the chipped-and-slashed coffee table. "Get your mind out of the gutter! It's nothing like that!"

"What do you expect me to think, with that kind of talk coming from you."

Zack was seeing red now. "What do you mean coming from me?"

"Word gets around, Zachary." The General poised one hand over his coffee mug but did not pick it up. He seemed to be letting his fingers get a steam-cleaning. Zack grated his teeth as he watched.

"What are you saying? That I'm some kind of man-whore?"

The General chuckled. "You said it yourself, Zachary. I don't repeat rumors but I do keep my ear to the wind. Judging from your words, you're no stranger to the stories." Zack blew out a long breath and slammed his booted feet down on Sephiroth's battered little coffee table. He meant it to annoy, since there was no sense arguing with the truth, but a couple of heel-dents were small potatoes next to the slash marks on this thing.

"It's different this time," he mumbled grumpily, wishing that Sephiroth would turn around and talk to him face to face. "She's not like the rest."

"You're actually serious about this one, aren't you?" The General actually seemed a bit surprised. And he was steaming his hand over the coffee again.

"Uh huh," Zack mumbled in an almost off-hand way. He narrowed his eyes at the General's hand. The silver-haired man was a strange one and he had some odd quirks and habits, but Zack could not figure out what this finger-steaming business was about. He leaned forward quietly and watched the man remove his hand briefly, only to hold it just above the rim of the mug again.

After four or five rounds, he gave up and just sat back to finish his own cup. This would have to go down as another mystery about the reclusive General, just like what kind of underwear he wore or where he came from or what under the gods' blue sky could drive him to experiment with poison now and then. Zack froze.

He stared again at the man, at the way Sephiroth kept fiddling reaching into his desk and back up to the cup. Everything slowed down for Zack. Even his own breathing seemed to loud.

He saw it. There was a brief flash of white between the General's long fingers and the very soft crinkle of paper as a fine powder poured smoothly into the mug. Zack sat immobilized, unable to believe that the man would attempt this again right in front of him. How long had this been going on?

Sephiroth stirred the coffee once with a pen and then gracefully lifted the mug off the desk. Zack sprung into action.

"General! NO!" He leapt into the air and slammed into the back of Sephiroth's chair. The white mug flew forward, hit the wall and shattered. The top-heavy chair toppled forward too under Zack's weight. Zack rolled with it and ended up sprawled in a heap on top of his General. All he could do was lie still and catch his breath. He kicked a bit to shove the chair off himself, then looked down at the other man.

Sephiroth lay face down in the coffee soaked carpet, perfectly still but for the fingers that twitched dangerously close to the shards of his coffee mug. "Zachary." The voice was low and eerily dignified. Zack gulped.

"Yes, Sir?"

"Get off me."

"Yes, Sir."

He rolled off and away and tried to make himself as small as he could in the shadow of the desk. Sephiroth rolled over and gave him a frighteningly blank look. "Must you get in the way of the simplest things, Zachary?"

That galvanized Zack. "What do mean `get in the way'? Am I supposed to just stand by while you put that poison in your system? Just because it won't kill you right away doesn't mean you'll get away with it forever! It'll catch up with you and one day you'll just fall right over. You have got to stop doing this to yourself!" He kept ranting on and on.

Sephiroth's eyes glazed over. He tuned Zack out, sat up and looked around. His coffee mug was broken and his coffee was all gone. He would have to get another mug and what was left in the pot would be cold by then. He would have to ask that damned secretary to bring more. She would probably pour him a cup herself if he let her.

But it would be black. No milk, no cream and definitely no sugar. Big, tough, sword-wielding killers took their coffee bitter and murky. Everyone knew that. Sephiroth studied the damp brown stain on his carpet mournfully. Nobody ever asked how he took his coffee. Nobody even considered that maybe, maybe he would like a little cream and sugar. Or a lot.

The one time he had reached for the sugar in his Academy days, the older students had laughed their heads off and called him `fairy'. That had started the strangest use of covert tactics in the history of the Shinra Army. Sephiroth drank his coffee black only when he had to. In his own room, or his office, he wanted it his way. And this time, that damned pest of a man had gotten in the way.

Zachary was crawling across the room on hands and knees now, gathered the larger shards out of the damp, warm carpet. "Look, I don't pretend to know what drives you to this, but I'm worried about you, man. It wouldn't be the same if you fell over again and didn't get up."

"I liked that mug," Sephiroth said sadly.

"Hm?" Zack looked down at the shards he had tossed into the waste basket he was now dragging along with him. "It's a plain white mug, Sephiroth."

"It wasn't plain white." Sephiroth protested weakly, distressed by the recent loss.

"The Shinra logo doesn't count. I'll get you another one." Zack snapped and reached for the near-perfect circle that had once been the mug's bottom. He drew his hand back when it encountered some unexpected sludge. "What the…" He picked the piece up and examined the residue.

Tiny white cubes drifted slowly in the bare minimum of brown liquid necessary for fluidity. It looked familiar. Zack glanced at Sephiroth, but the man was quiet and morose. Zack stared at the goo on his fingers and then back at Sephiroth. Hesitantly, he stuck out the tip of his tongue and tasted the sticky sludge.

"It's sweet!" He looked at his hand in surprise. Sephiroth said nothing. Zack examined the contents of the waste basket. Right beneath the broken mug was a small heap of torn and empty sugar packets. "It's sugar? How much did you use?" Sephiroth sighed.

"Seven."

"Seven?"

"Seven sugars and four artificial sweeteners." Sephiroth drew his knees up to his chin. "My whole stash."

"Twelve doses of the sweet stuff? Man, Seph, that's a lot." The two men just stared at each other for a while. Zack went back to picking up shards. Sephiroth leaned back against the wall and wrapped his arms around his knees.

"I don't have any more sugar," Sephiroth murmured to himself. "I'll have to sneak more from the executive lounge. Or the kitchen. Or the Cafeteria."

"Sweet Shiva, Sephiroth, why don't you just buy your own?"

The General looked down sadly. "I don't do my own groceries. Shinra doesn't think it would be very good for the company image." Zack was speechless for a while.

"Damn." He threw the shards in the waste basket and set the chair upright. "Look, Sephiroth, I'm sorry, man. I had no idea." Sephiroth rose slowly and took his seat. Zack fidgeted and stepped backwards. "I'll be back in a minute, `kay?" Sephiroth nodded half-heartedly. Zack left.

Sephiroth surveyed his wreck of an office. The carpet desperately needed cleaning. It was ash-ridden and now coffee-stained. His coffee table had taken some abuse this morning and there was a corner missing from his desk. The ceiling could stand some small repair, but the smoky blast marks did not truly bother him much. So long as the ceiling would not cave in. He would hate to have Palmer land on him, even if it would give him a semi-justifiable excuse to skewer the fat bastard.

Sephiroth sighed and reached for the phone, hoping that Julia was not so inept that calling maintenance would be beyond her. Zack burst in before he could press the button.

"Yeah, sweetheart," Zack yelled back through the door. "I do what I want in this office too!" He slammed the door shut and grinned at Sephiroth. He held up a white cardboard box.

"Look what I brung ya!" He crossed the floor quickly and put the box right under the General's nose. "Filched fresh from the lounge, just for you."

Sephiroth prodded the box with one hand. "What is it?"

"Open it up and see, silly boy!"

Sephiroth glared at the man but did as he was told anyway. Inside was a variety of fresh donuts. The General's eyes widened as he stared. "You stole the whole box? Won't anyone miss it?"

Zack shrugged. "Well, sure, but they won't know what happened to it. Go on, eat up. Get your medicine for the day." Sephiroth stared, breathless and overwhelmed.

"I can't eat all these by myself."

Zack grinned. "Good, I was hoping you would say that." He swooped in and yanked out a chocolate-frosted one. "No sense letting excess go to waste."

Sephiroth deliberated a while before picking up one that was laded with powdered sugar. He held the thing delicately between two fingers.

"Jelly donut, eh?" Zack said around a mouthful of donut. "You're hardcore, man." Sephiroth gave him something like a very tiny smile and reached for his files. He flipped one folder open and began to read, cheerfully balancing the pages on his knee while powdered sugar floated down to his black pants.

"Thank you, Zachary," he said quietly. He did not look up at Zack, not sure of how to face the situation.

Zack was grinning insanely now. Finally, the General was being civilized. "You're welcome, Sephiroth."

Sephiroth sighed happily and took a big bite. Red jelly flew out the other end and hit front page of the report with a wet splat. Both men froze with donuts in their mouths. Sephiroth drew back and chewed quickly, with a nervous slant to his brow. He swallowed and held the page up. Zack came around to survey the damage.

"Oh, man, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen," he began to babble as they watched the blob of jelly begin a slow crawl down. "I should have warned you about that, or gotten a saucer or at least a napkin."

Then Sephiroth lurched forward and slurped the jelly right off the page.

Zack's donut fell to the floor but the man did not notice. Sephiroth calmly set the report back in the folder and studied the faded brown stain that was left behind.

"If anyone asks, I'll tell them I had to kill a bug."

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Time: 2 hrs 9 mins

No music - headache

Notes: "Mommy, mommy, look, it's General Sephiroth and he's buying toilet paper!" Zack's math was intentional =P This one's dedicated to Nicolle, who wanted to see Seph suffer, though I don't think he suffered too badly in this one.