Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Paint The Town ❯ Setting up House ( Chapter 11 )

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII is the property of Square-Enix. No profit is sought from this work.

 

Paint the Town

Setting up House

 

At thirty-four minutes past the hour of ten o'clock, General Sephiroth, seasoned military strategist and war hero, made a small addition to the very brief list of things that unnerved him - Zack wielding power tools.

 

“Here I am, Sir!” Zack posed in the hallway, brandishing an electric drill like a gun and a smile like a broadbeam floodlight. “Let's make some holes!”

 

Sephiroth's grip tightened on the edge of the door as he took in his second. Zack, his nose neatly decorated with a small bandage, was out of uniform - it was Saturday, after all - and he had wrangled up a toolbelt from somewhere. He had a wide assortment of drill bits and wrenches attached to him and a tape measure that had seen better days stuck out of the pocket of his jeans. He carried a small knapsack that Sephiroth could only assume held more tools.

 

“Well, come on, Sir, I'm here to help you get your new stuff in place. I walked with everything we could possibly need, little housewarming present for you and everything,” Zack explained when it became clear that his General was beyond speaking for the moment. Sephiroth had half a mind to slam the door shut and not open it for a week.

 

It was not that he was afraid, mind you. Never afraid. A six foot tall man who easily wielded a six foot long sword had little to fear in the world. There was not much in general to fear from a man wielding an electric drill, even if he was pointing up to the ceiling as if he intended to rob a bank with it. No, it wasn't that.

 

It was simply because it was Zack. Sephiroth could not deny it. His second put him on edge much of the time. Right now, it was because of a certain feeling in his gut, an inexplicable dead surety that anyone who could wind up with a turtle attached to his proboscis had no business handling anything that involved electricity and hard moving parts.

 

Zack's smile faltered under Sephiroth's assessing glare. “Well, you gonna let me in or what? I spent half the morning trying to rustle up a ladder.”

 

The buzzer sounded and Sephiroth palmed the keypad at the side of the door. He did not speak himself, only took note of who dared to ask for entry to his abode. He sighed as he keyed the panel to allow the delivery men access to the building, then stepped aside to let Zack in. It was no use trying to keep the man out with deliveries being made. Zack was a SOLDIER, a damn good one, Sephiroth had to admit. He would find someway to sneak in and keep making a thorough pest of himself.

 

Sephiroth would keep an eye on the man, though. The last thing he wanted was for Zack to have some unfortunate accident with that drill. An accident, in and of itself, would not have been so bad, but not in Sephiroth's nice new apartment.

 

Zack shouldered the ladder, swaggered in and took a look around. He could feel his superior's glare on the back of his neck, but he ignored it. He had come to help. And to make sure that his cranky, morbid General wasn't in too bad a mood.

 

The boxes of books had been pushed to one side of the living room. A few deliveries had already been made for the morning.

 

Several half-assembled bookshelves lined one wall. The entertainment center had been pulled out of place and the tangle of wires trailed along the floor. Sephiroth apparently had not gotten around to running the wires out of sight yet. A wild mix of assorted rods and brackets formed a small pile along the window and in the far corner, away from the general mess, stood the pale marble statue the General had chosen in the antique store. Zack deliberately trained his eyes away from a marble face that was too familiar.

 

He set the ladder down near the window. “I'll get started on the curtain rods, okay?”

 

Sephiroth stared for a while before slowly nodding in approval, at a loss at what to do. He didn't know exactly how to put the rods up himself and he didn't have a ladder or a drill lying around. But Zack handling powertools while balancing on a rickety ladder…

 

Sephiroth turned away, reminding himself that Zack was a SOLDIER, First Class, no less. Just because the man occasionally had altercations with pet store reptiles…

 

Zack yanked a rod up from the bottom of the heap and yelped when an overlapping one flew up and knocked him lightly on the forehead. Sephiroth resolutely turned away and buried himself in putting up shelves. He would not look. If he wanted to get through the day, he would not look. He would pay his second absolutely no attention. Not for anything less than a complete decapitation.

 

“There are instructions,” he said tersely, waving vaguely towards a sheet of paper on the far end of the pile. Maybe that could keep the bloodshed down to a minimum.

 

There was a short rap on the door. Sephiroth turned to answer it. He heard Zack fussing with the tape measure behind him. He ignored it and turned to face the deliverymen. He glanced over at the cargo - a couch, a loveseat and an armchair, all in soft black leather, just as he had chosen the day before.

 

“Where do I sign?” he asked quietly, not looking anyone in the face. The men were all stunned speechless. The General hoped none of them would start babbling. Behind him, Zack swore at the instruction sheet for having six different languages, then dropped the drill on the carpet. Sephiroth pulled the door in behind him a little. Maybe a little worshipful blather wouldn't be so bad.

 

The one in charge was a professional, though, a grizzled man with the stocky build that told of a life of heavy lifting. He held up his clipboard. “Right here, and here, Sir.”

 

Sephiroth nodded and took his pen out of his pocket. He signed slowly and carefully, pressing hard to make sure he got all the layers. If he made a neat enough signature here, maybe he would not get asked for an autograph. He was aware of the three younger men in the hallway prodding each other and staring at him even though he did not raise his eyes. He withheld a sigh. This was why he usually stayed in military bases and Shinra buildings even on his days off. Life in the public eye was not something his upbringing had prepared him for.

 

The buzz of a drill filled the air in a quick burst. “Whoa, that was close!” Zack yelled to no one in particular. Sephiroth stared at the wall ahead of him as he handed the clipboard over.

 

“Thank you, Sir. You want us to bring it in now?” The delivery man stood waiting an answer. Sephiroth broke from his gazing and stared down at the man with an unintentional sharpness. The man looked away hurriedly. There were few SOLDIERS who could bear the sight of Sephiroth's slitted gaze. A civilian barely had a chance.

 

Sephiroth mulled over the man's words. It was bad enough that delivery required people coming into the hallway, invading even this small part of the Shinra residential complex where he resided. He did not want strangers in his apartment.

 

The drill started up again. “Oh, crap!” Zack yelled.

 

Sephiroth really didn't want strangers in his apartment. “I require no assistance,” he said brusquely. “You may leave.”

 

“Whoo, that was lucky!” Zack hollered in the background. “Almost swallowed a screw!”

 

Sephiroth stared at the wall ahead of him, waiting for the men to clear the hallway. He absolutely would not turn around and look any sooner than he absolutely had to, never mind if Zack was choking or bleeding in there.

 

“Um, you sure y-,” one of the younger men began. Sephiroth glared at him.

 

The boss herded them down the hall. “You have a good day, Sir.”

 

Sephiroth nodded. It was strange how everyone automatically called him `Sir'. He stepped back into the shadow of the doorway, waiting for the men to turn the corner. He could hear the younger ones begin jabbering as they moved out of sight.

 

“Oh my god! That was him, wasn't it! It was really him!”

 

“I thought he'd be taller, maybe. But dude, he was friggin cold, yo!”

 

“I wonder where he keeps his sword. I wish we could have seen that.”

 

“I wonder who that was making all the noise in the background.”

 

“Maybe it's his bitch!” There was laughter.

 

“All right, y'all shut it! That's no way to talk about the man who won the war.”

 

Sephiroth frowned. He peered down the empty corridor, toying with the idea of giving the boys a close personal look at the masamune. Of all the strange things that came of being an instant `celebrity', the hushed debating about his personal life was hardest to understand.

 

A loud `thunk' reached him from inside. He exhaled roughly, blowing fine strands of hair out of his eyes. With one more check to be certain the hallway was empty, he stepped out and hefted the couch off the floor.

 

It was not too heavy for him, but it was unwieldy for one man to carry. He shuffled back and forth, concentrating only on turning the corner and getting the thing in the door. He refused to look up from the task even as he entered the living room. He kept his head resolutely down. He was afraid of what he might find.

 

He pushed the couch into place and took a look at the floor. There were no bloodstains on the carpet. That was a good sign. He glanced upwards, half-expecting to find Zack hanging mutilated over the ladder with curtain rods sticking out of his chest.

 

Instead, the dark-haired man was holding a tiny level up a faintly-penciled line on the wall and nodding to himself with a satisfied grin. The brackets were already in place, all neatly spaced, even and if the level was any indication, in a perfectly straight line. The ceiling did not look like it was about to fall. There were no gouges in the wall and Zack looked like he was in one piece.

 

“Got it in one!” Zack raised a fist in triumph. “A perfect installation!”

 

Sephiroth was surprised. It showed only as a blank silence. Zack grinned at him and made his way down the creaky ladder.

 

“What d'ya think, General? Ready to put up those girly-ass curtains?”

 

Sephiroth ignored the insult to his drapes and stepped closer to inspect the work. “You did that quickly,” he said.

 

“Yep,” Zack revved up the drill one more time and holstered it in the toolbelt. “I know my power tools.”

 

“I would have guessed otherwise from what I was hearing,” Sephiroth said.

 

“Aw, the ladder's rickety is all.” Zack slapped the ladder to show his commander how much the thing wobbled. “I jacked it from a janitor's closet on the way over here.” He held his hands up in self-defense at Sephiroth's disapproving frown. “I'll put it back as soon as I'm done.”

 

Sephiroth just nodded and went to retrieve the rest of his furniture. He spent very little time actually arranging anything. He had decided beforehand exactly where he wanted everything. The shelves were up neatly against the wall, awaiting the loads of texts and books to fill them. The living room furniture formed a neat oblong shape around the dinky little glass coffee table, the only thing that had survived the destruction of his last apartment. The entertainment center was soon reconnected and shifted back into its new position between the shelves. Zack had proven his unexpected usefulness by drilling holes and mounting hooks for the General's new photographic prints.

 

Sephiroth had the bulk of his books unpacked and shelved in short order. It was much easier now that he actually had a place to put them. He stared at the neatly ordered rows of leatherbound classics, ancient texts on war strategy, histories of nations and boundaries and politics and discourses on virtue and leadership. Some of it had been required reading in his academy days. Some of it he had felt would be a good supplement to that basic knowledge. There were even a few of the literary classics that had become part of his general education, things he was made to read simply because it was a good idea to have read them. There wasn't much variety in the whole collection.

 

He was pulled out of his mulling over his limited tastes by Zack's relaxed holler. “Where's your drapes, Sir?”

 

Sephiroth pointed at a large bag in the corner. Zack rifled through it, yanking out the neatly folded drapes and spilling the frothy ones everywhere. He got tangled up for a moment and Sephiroth fully expected to see him trip, but the dark-haired menace untangled himself with a laugh and got down to the business of figuring out which panel went on which rod.

 

“Don't know why you picked these complicated curtains, General,” he mumbled, sitting on the floor to sort the mess out. “Sheer on light rod, dark on the broad, no, wait, this part has to loop back over here.” He stopped and looked up at his commanding officer. Sephiroth was staring back at him with a fair amount of interest.

 

“Something the matter, Zachary?”

 

Zack nodded. “You got girly-ass taste in drapes. My mother would love this stuff.” He seemed to remember exactly who he was talking to because he dove headlong into his task again. A few moments passed in which he was acutely aware of his General's stare on his head. But the danger passed and Sephiroth moved to the far wall to pick up his pictures.

 

Sephiroth was a little surprised to find that putting up pictures was just as time-consuming as all the heavy lifting. He knew how he liked his books ordered. There were only so many places the shelves could go. But pictures… these were a different matter. Did he want the sunset photo high and the cactus shot low or the other way around? Did he want the desert rose picture in the living room where he could see it while he sat or near the door so it would be the last thing he saw before leaving for the day?

 

Eventually, he realized that it didn't matter what order he hung them in, because if he decided later that he didn't like it, he could just rearrange them as he saw fit. He smiled to himself and stopped fussing. When he returned to the living room, he found that Zack had proven remarkably competent with figuring out the `girly-ass curtains'. The lighter panels were already up over the window, only just blocking the worst of the morning sun. Sephiroth was relieved to have at least that little barrier. He went to the corner to hoist his little statue into place.

 

He set the marble girl down in the corner near the bookcases. She seemed to fit in well there, pale against his dark shelves. He rotated her in place a bit, trying to find the best direction for her to face while Zack made his way up the rickety ladder with a heavily-laden curtain rod.

 

Sephiroth caught a swooping flash of dark out of the corner of his eye and hit the floor immediately, taking the statue down with him. The curtain rod swung into the space where his head had been and the dark, heavy drapes trailed over him. Zack yelped and retracted the pole with one hand. His other hand kept a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the window frame while he struggled to bring the ladder back into balance.

 

Sephiroth scowled up at him from the floor, showing no concern for how close his second had come to a nasty spill. “Why don't you be more careful with that thing?” he snapped.

 

“I'm sorry, Sir,” Zack bowed his head, grimacing at his gaffe. “I didn't center the rod right and the ladder wobbled too far.” He made a show of adjusting the curtain rod properly in his arms and taking a safer, more sturdy stance on the ladder. “Besides, you ducked, didn't you?”

 

“That's beside the point,” Sephiroth grated.

 

Zack narrowed his eyes at the man. “Look, nothing's broken and no one's hurt. No harm, no foul, okay?” He froze. Sephiroth continued to scowl up at him from the floor but Zack wasn't meeting his eyes anymore. The General looked down at what had caught his second's attention.

 

In his rush to the floor, Sephiroth had cradled the statue of the girl to prevent it from taking damage from the impact. One of his arms curled around her head, keeping it off the floor. The other hand was cupping a pale, marble breast.

 

Sephiroth quickly slid his hand further down in an effort to keep things decent, but the girl was naked and there weren't exactly a lot of options available. He winced and gingerly removed his arms completely, letting the statue sink gently to the floor. He looked back up at Zack. For some reason, the man seemed rather pink.

 

Zack snapped out of his horrified daze when the General turned green eyes on him. He turned away immediately and resumed wrestling the final rod into the brackets. He would not speak of what had just happened. It was ridiculous really. So the position had looked a little cozy. It was a statue, not a real girl, even if it did look a lot like… Zack resolved right there to never introduce his girlfriend to the General. It was bad enough he would have to see her marble doppelganger every time he came over. He didn't think he could stand seeing them both in the same place together after that little gropey moment.

 

The last groove snapped into place and Zack stepped carefully down the ladder. He stepped back to survey his work. The General had quietly set the statue to rights and was observing Zack's work at the windows.

 

“Not bad, eh?”

 

Sephiroth nodded. “It looks like it should.”

 

“Glad I could help,” Zack said, folding the ladder up. He felt that he should say something more, but there was some tension in the room. What exactly did one say to one's superior after hours when all possible work was done? “So… it's a pretty good-looking bachelor pad now. All you need is a mini bar.”

 

Sephiroth frowned. He was not sure what to do himself now that there was no common goal in mind. Did he invite Zack to stay a while? What could they possibly do? It was the weekend and surely someone like Zack had better things on his mind than work. Other than work, Sephiroth could think of nothing they really had in common. Offering the man tea was out of the question after what had happened the last time.

 

Zack rocked back and forth on his feet. “So, I guess I better go stash the ladder back where I found it.”

 

Sephiroth nodded. “Zachary…,” he began. “What do you normally do on your weekends?”

 

Zack blinked at the question. “Well, uh, usually at this hour, I'm keeping my girlfriend company.”

 

Sephiroth turned away. He would have the peace of his day back. That was good. “Thank you for taking the time to help me with this,” he said calmly, inclining his head.

 

Zack's easy grin returned. “No problem. Mind if I use your bathroom to wash up?”

 

Sephiroth pointed him down the hall and sat down in his new armchair. He looked around the room, at the stark contrasts of dark and light he had almost subconsciously chosen. Only his new photographic prints added any color to the monotony and for a moment Sephiroth found himself wondering if they would have fit better if they were black and white.

 

The sound of running water stopped and Zack emerged from the bathroom looking oddly pleased with himself. “I'll just get the ladder out of the way.” Sephiroth barely registered the man's crossing the floor. “I can let myself out,” Zack hollered. “Call me anytime if you need anything!” The General heard the door slide shut.

 

The silence grew and filled the space. The room no longer seemed so empty, but there was something cold about the stillness. Sephiroth almost wished Zack had stayed longer. His chatter was mindless but it filled the space. The General sighed.

 

A few hours of getting used to his new space would take care of it. He stood and shook his hair out behind him. It flowed straight down, not like the soft curls etched in his little statue's cold marble. Sephiroth gave the thing a closer look. He could not for the life of him understand why he had chosen it in the first place, but it fit in well with his black-and-white life. He shook his head at the thought and went to wash up.

 

He had his head leaned over the sink when he spotted something unfamiliar on the back of the toilet. He rubbed the water out of his eyes and took a closer look. Zack must have left something behind.

 

It appeared to be a small stack of magazines with a large sticky-note over the top one. He recognized Zack's angular scrawl.

 

`Everybody needs some bathroom reading material. I'm done with these so I thought maybe you could use them.'

 

Sephiroth huffed. It seemed innocuous enough and he had been thinking about adding some variety to his library. He lifted one corner of the note and peeled the thing off.

 

He dropped the magazines as soon as he saw what lay beneath. Some of them fell open to reveal that there was, in truth, very little `reading material' to be found between the covers. And these were used. Sephiroth had a sudden urge to scrub his hands with bleach. He poked the glossy pages with one booted toe in an effort to make them flap closed. It was a wasted effort. If he wanted the things gone, he would have to pick them up and that likely meant touching them. Sephiroth sputtered in his frustration and an angry cry ripped from his throat.

 

“ZACHARY!”

 

But the man was long out of ear-shot and Sephiroth had to deal with his little problem on his own.

 

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 

Time: 3 hours 2 minutes

Music: Bach by the Sea

Notes: I'm very delinquent about updating this story, but I don't forget about it, in all its messy, unbeta'ed `glory'. I've reentered school and I'm struggling mightily with the course load. The only thing I can say is enjoy college while you're there because it really is the final playpen. Everything after it is pain.

 

But I'm hanging in there (by a thread), so don't count me out just yet! See you around!