Monstrosity (Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, Zack)

[solitaire-au]

On 12/16/2023 at 1:14 PM, SexualOddity said:

Thank you so much  I agree… with all of that really. It might be that I’m doing Zack a disservice because we never really see him in a position where he’s getting this kind of physical assistance (beyond being bailed out in combat), and there is a scene where he accepts (emotional) help from his girlfriend, but I just get the impression that getting physical support in particular would be a really hard pill to swallow. I think that’s because he is usually in the role of being the capable one, and, as you said, he’s very independent. He does a lot of making himself feel better without much outside input. He’s also very much all-action. I think he’d have a hard time confronting the fact that he can’t help himself.

 

 

Yeah. I think you’re right. Although, Zack did start off as a minor character didn’t he? Wasn’t he just supposed to be there to represent the polar opposite of Cloud?
 

A lot of people, men especially, will be OK, or at least less reluctant, to accept emotional and/or physical support from their partner because they view it as “this is the one person I can let down my guard down and be vulnerable with,” and yet they might not be able to do that with anyone else, not even their closest friends or family.

[SexualOddity]

7 minutes ago, solitaire-au said:

Yeah. I think you’re right. Although, Zack did start off as a minor character didn’t he? Wasn’t he just supposed to be there to represent the polar opposite of Cloud?
 

A lot of people, men especially, will be OK, or at least less reluctant, to accept emotional and/or physical support from their partner because they view it as “this is the one person I can let down my guard down and be vulnerable with,” and yet they might not be able to do that with anyone else, not even their closest friends or family.

Kind of, yeah. He is a minor character in the original game. (For the benefit of anyone else reading - this story is based on the prequel in which he’s the protagonist.)

 

His original purpose is kind of complex but to (over)simplify: Zack is there as the person Cloud wished he could have been. A key journey for Cloud in the main game is coming to understand and value who he ACTUALLY is, distinct from his original plans/dreams for himself (as represented by Zack).

I think that fed into Zack’s character design because Cloud needed to look up to him as someone who was self-assured and able to handle things in a way that Cloud felt he couldn’t himself. Then when they fleshed out Zack’s character in the prequel we learn that Zack can be a bit TOO self-assured and his journey was more about learning how to pump the breaks and think things through. 

[solitaire-au]

I think you did a really good job of depicting how his friends are only just starting to realise how awful allergies are, and how it’s not just a matter of “dose up on the meds and it ceases to be a problem because there’s a quick recovery time,” which would be what they’re used to from their experiences with mako.

I like the idea that Dale is desperate to get a lid on his anger and try and hide it from the others, but he can’t just walk out of the dorm, so he keeps disappearing to the bathroom to try and deal with it. Having him come back into the room while squeezing the life out of the flannel (as if it was a ShinRa exec’s neck) while trying to remain calm and get Zack sorted out was a nice touch.

There’s a sniper character in SW: The Bad Batch (his name is Crosshair) who fans often interpret as being this cold, unfeeling person. But if you read between the lines he’s actually a roiling ball of emotion who is really poor at emotional regulation, so he normally tries to suppress things and stay silent. As a kind of emotional safety valve, he chews toothpicks, and you can often tell what he feels onscreen by the way he handles the toothpick. And while he doesn’t speak much, when he does talk, his words are often dripping in emotion, especially sarcasm, disdain or bitterness.

Anyway, I see Dale as being this levelheaded guy who usually doesn’t have a problem keeping calm because he typically allows himself to express his strong emotions and then move past them, but the current situation with Zack is pushing all his buttons and he’s really struggling to stay on top of it and be his usual self. He’s starting to see that exploding out of anger is not going to help Zack, but the injustices inflicted by ShinRa make it really hard for him to keep control of himself.

The part with the note drives home that even Zack’s closest friends find it difficult to grasp the concept that Sephiroth is a human being who does normal things; he’s not just a kick arse hero who only does sweeping heroic deeds of majesty like something from Loveless.

Love as always! 🥰

[SexualOddity]

Thank you so much! The character in the Bad Batch sounds really cool. I love characters who have stuff going on beneath the surface that we only see in glimpses. (I think that’s what most people are like irl, though probably to varying degrees.)

 

I think Dale is kind of like that (or at least I’ve wanted to write him that way). Even on a good day I think there’s quite a lot of stuff that’s repressed, but it’s usually much easier for him to keep his feelings below the surface. As you’ve said, this is a really tough situation for him, though, and his normal methods aren’t really enough. I’m really looking forward to exploring that more in the rest of the fic.

 

Thanks for your thoughts on note, it was really helpful to hear how that came across. I like Sephiroth’s character. He has this legendary status in the game. He’s incredibly powerful and celebrated, but it’s also a very lonely position for him. 

 

[SexualOddity]

So I had a double-help bonus in this chapter - lucky me! As well as @solitaire-au who has beta-read every chapter and made this story so much richer with her insightful comments and her endless generosity with her knowledge of science/medicine, I had some extra assistance from @Sequoia with the middle scene of this chapter. Both are amazing people - hugely talented, and informative, and patient. I’m incredible grateful to have their support. Thank you, both.

 

—

 

Mandatory Personnel Request:

Zack Fair - SOLDIER, First Class

Report to Science department, Floor 67, Midgar HQ - ASAP

Bring all prescribed medication and supplied mobility aids. Everything else will be provided.

 

Zack’s throat was suddenly dry. He reached for the canteen and tipped it back for a swig, but apart from the single drop that splashed his tongue, it was empty again. Kunsel stood, taking the canteen and padding off towards the bathroom.

 

Zack stared at the words, his head heavy and blank. He should organise himself, but his body wasn’t listening to the prompting of his brain.

 

There were gonna be more containment pods.

There were gonna be more allergy attacks.

He was going to be alone.

 

Those were all pointless thoughts, though. Acknowledging that stuff wouldn’t change anything. Zack’s phone said go, so he was going. That was how his life worked, for the most part.

 

He leaned forward, braced his hands against his thighs, and forced a deep, determined breath.

 

“You want this?” Dale pressed. There was this very particular stare that he had. It dragged you in and dropped the rest of the room into dim focus. “You want them to make you this combat drug?”

 

Zack took a quick little breath of air and released it in a defeated sigh. His nose ran faster than he could wipe it clean, but somehow his face remained so tightly stuffed with gunk that his head ached.

 

“I think I need it,” he mumbled, burying his face in tissues.

 

Dale pressed his lips together, regarding Zack with a slow nod. “Okay then,” he said, softly determined. “Guess we’d better get you ready.” He heaved himself up to stand. “Finish that sandwich. You don’t know what time they plan to feed you.”

 

“Water by your side there.” Kunsel said, nodding at the re-filled canteen on the bed.

 

“Oh.” Zack hadn’t even noticed him setting it down. “Thanks, man.”

 

“Okay,” Dale rubbed his palms together, addressing the room. “Zack’s gonna have an allergy attack, and it’s gonna be fucking intense. When?” he asked, turning his focus on Zack. “Soon as we get out in the hall?”

 

Zack stared at his lap, thumbing pointlessly at the latch of the canteen. “Um, yeah, m’hh… maybe. Definitely when we… uh…” He wrinkled his nose and pressed his hand against his wound. “When we pass the… training… rooms… ARR’ISHHHEW!”

 

“Bless you.” Dale strode into the centre of the room, as if he were leading a mission briefing. “Reckon I push the wheelchair, and you guys carry Zack’s stuff.” When he returned his attention to Zack, issuing orders with unquestioning confidence, the maroon fabric of his Second Class uniform barely registered in Zack’s brain. Within the four walls of the dorm, official rank didn’t apply. It was a relief, honestly.

 

“You just press down on those stitches,” Dale said. “Hold your breath if you can. See how that goes.”

 

Zack nodded, his mouth slack and open.

 

Sitting sideways with one arm on the back of his chair, Marc tilted his head to rub at the side of his neck. “You know… that private elevator is pretty small. Dunno if we’ll all fit with Zack’s wheelchair.” He mashed his lips. “Why don’t you leave this one to me and Kunsel?”

 

Fixing Marc in his sights, Dale dropped his chin, narrowing his eyes. “Alright, what is your angle?”

 

“What? I can’t just—“

 

“It’s not working, Marc,” Dale said, flatly. “Cut the bullshit.”

 

With a grunt of resignation, Marc’s shoulders slumped. His crooked nose wrinkled in a dissatisfied grimace.

 

“It’s a bad idea.”

 

“What is?” Dale huffed.

 

“You,” Marc said. “Going up to R and D.” He raised his eyebrows expectantly. “You’re not doing so great. Are ya?”

 

Dale broke away, rolling his eyes. His shoulders were locked rigid, set too high, near his ears, and his lips curled inward as he sucked his teeth.

 

“Can’t say I’m happy about any of this either,” Marc continued. “Think I’d like to give Hojo a piece of my mind. But he’s a Director, and we can’t just march up there and chew the guy out. Not without a plan. Which probably means that you…” Marc speech was slow and deliberate, “need to be a long way away from the labs.”

 

Dale wheeled around, laser-focused on Marc. His words quickened. “You saying I can’t restrain myself?”

 

Marc met Dale’s glare, unflinching. “That’s about the length of it, buddy,” he said, at last. Though he didn’t baulk, there was no judgement in his tone. He sounded… sad, if anything.

 

When Marc spoke, something shifted in Dale. He recoiled, his eyes widening.

 

“Kunsel? Zack?” Marc continued, softly, “Either of you wanna jump in and disagree?”

 

Zack made a great business of inspecting his fingernails. By his side, Kunsel shuffled in awkward silence.

 

“Think we’ve settled it.” Marc’s voice stayed quiet, but it was firm. He set a hand on Dale’s shoulder, pushing backwards until they faced one another square on.

 

To Zack’s surprise, Dale let it happen.

 

Marc ducked, forcing eye contact. “Don’t you worry about this, okay?” he told Dale. “We got Zack’s corner.”

 

If Zack had have tried any of this shit, he could only imagine the kind of explosive results that would have followed. Dale had always responded to Marc a little differently, though. Something must have passed between their eyes as they stared each other down, because Dale clapped Marc on the arm and immediately marched off to the bathroom.

 

“He alright?” Zack asked.

 

There was a rush of water as the taps ran fast once again.

 

“Let’s just get you up there, buddy,” Marc murmured, his gaze lingering on the closed door. As though someone had flipped on a switch, he stood straighter, appearing to recover his energy. “Tell you what,” he said, turning back to the room with a grin. “Ask him yourself later. Don’t think you’re getting away with not keeping in touch.”

 

—

 

Much as he had been hungry, Zack had lost all motivation to chew food that he couldn’t smell and could barely taste. He forced the sandwich down his throat regardless, more as a delaying tactic than anything else. He finished another canteen of water, and he used the bathroom — that was an excellent time sink, given that he was so slow and wobbly. After that, his brain scrambled, but came up short of legitimate excuses to stay in the dorm.

 

“We only have two of these,” Dale said, holding a shower cap in each hand. “Zack should wear one, and whoever is gonna push the wheelchair. The other guy will hafta keep his distance.”

 

Marc snatched one of the caps and flung it at Kunsel. “Tag. You’re it.”

 

Kunsel slipped it over his short hair without complaint. “You should take my tablet,” he told Zack, heading over to his wardrobe.

 

“No point,” Zack groaned. He set down his tissues reluctantly to accept the second shower cap. Scowling, he fought with his hair, struggling to force new spikes under the plastic faster than the last set could spring free. “You know what I’m like with movies,” he said, helplessly. “I can’t concentrate.”

 

Kunsel rocked back in a crouch, the drawer open in front of him. “Even if there’s nothing else to do?”

 

Zack managed a dubious frown. His nose dripped, but no matter how hard he sniffed, there was no air getting in.

 

Oh, for fuck’s sake…

 

He had to sneeze. Apparently, putting on a shower cap was a job to tackle in instalments. With a huff of frustration, he made a grab for tissues and clutched his hip.

 

“Huh… Hh! Hrr’EHTCHYEW! HEHTCHUH!”

 

“I’ll see if I can put some games on it,” Kunsel said, sitting back onto the floor and tapping at the screen.

 

Zack wasn’t sure games would be any better, but he thanked Kunsel anyway, wheeling his chair to the trashcan. He supposed he would need new hobbies, at least until the medics gave him clearance to hit the training rooms.

 

“Right.” Marc stood at the desk, transferring Zack’s pills from Wutai to the plastic bag from the Midgar infirmary. Helpfully, it was a decent size — they may have overestimated his need for tissues, on reflection. “You got… five boxes of meds in here. That right?”

 

“Yeah.” For about the fiftieth time, Zack pushed the same fucking clump of hair under the shower cap and tried to wipe his nose on his upper arm.

 

“Put some of these in.” Dale said, emerging from the bathroom with a cardboard box. “Lozenges,” he explained, showing Zack. “Zack-friendly.”

 

Zack gave a stuffy laugh. “Thanks.” He’d have asked for one there and then, but he’d probably spit it across the corridor once the sneezing fits began. “I get all the hair in at the back?” he asked, turning his wheelchair so that Dale could see.

 

Dale snorted. “No.” He passed the lozenges to Marc and batted Zack’s hand away, taking over.

 

“Right. So, meds, lozenges, crutches…” Marc jerked a thumb at them, propped against the desk. “Tissues,” he said, pointing at the box that Zack was already raiding again.

 

“Tablet,” Kunsel added, as he set it on the desktop. He laughed, looking over his shoulder to meet Zack’s eye. “It’s like we’re packing you off to school.”

 

Marc lifted his head slowly, fixing Kunsel with a withering glare. “No one here but you went to school, asshole. Least not in any way you’d recognise.” There was resentment in his tone, but it probably wasn’t aimed at Kunsel. “Fucking Upper Plate privilege,” he muttered, testing the strength of the plastic as he packed the tablet into the bag.

 

Zack smirked as he watched Kunsel squirm, and Dale chuckled as he messed with Zack’s hair. It wasn’t intentional — at least, not when it was coming from Kunsel — but Midgar residents, even ones who travelled, constantly forgot how different the world was outside the city and beneath the elevated plates on which their homes were built. Marc never let anyone get away with that shit.

 

Kunsel frowned. “Not a lot of infrastructure in the country, I get that,” he said, with a glance at Zack and Dale, “but I thought ShinRa ran education programmes in the slums?”

 

“Yeah, bullshit,” Marc scoffed. “They’re only down there to headhunt. If they want you for SOLDIER, they don’t much care if you know two plus two.” When he turned towards Zack, there was a wicked gleam in his eyes. “Probably for the best. If that was on the entry criteria, there’d have been no hope for our buddy, here.”

 

“Hey!” Zack lifted the tissue box above his head, as if to throw.

 

“Oh, yeah? Giving that up, are ya?” Marc said, with a devilish grin.

 

Zack set the box back on his lap, grumbling, and unable to deny that it’d been an empty threat. He caught Marc’s gaze, though, and there was comfort in the maddening expression he wore — the little scrunch of his nose, the conspiratorial crinkle around his eyes. Marc was always a grounding measure when things turned rough. As long as he was still making fun of him, Zack knew the world hadn’t veered too far from its course.

 

A message tone sounded sharp and short behind Zack’s back, quickly followed by a sigh that was equal parts exasperation and exhaustion. When Zack rotated his chair, he found Dale hunched over his phone.

 

“Work?” Marc asked.

 

“Yep,” Dale said, hitting the consonants with resentful emphasis.

 

“When’d you get back?” There was an ominous note in Marc voice. It hadn’t been long enough. Marc knew it. They all knew it. That was how it was every time, lately.

 

“Early hours of this morning,” Dale confirmed. “And I did their shitty training in between.” Snorting derisively, he pulled his eyes from the message to glower at his laptop, stacked with the others on the desk. “Haven’t finished the mission report yet, either, so I’ll be doing that on the chopper again.”

 

“Fuckers,” Marc spat.

 

Dale’s lips thinned. “Cam spent most of the night chasing down the perps from the resistance attack. You wanna know when they sent him out?”

 

“Well, clearly before me and Kunsel got back.”

 

“Midday.”

 

“Right,” Marc said, his voice tight and terse. “Well, he’ll be a wreck when he gets in.”

 

“Noooo.” Dale drew out the word with heavy sarcasm, stomping across the room. “Not possible is it? He’s got mako in his blood. That means he can handle everything.” He wrenched the wardrobe open and dragged out a duffle bag.

 

In the four years that they’d been friends, Zack had seen Dale angry on a very frequent basis. It was usually a loud, blustering kind of anger that appeared with little warning and departed just as readily. It was harmless, and, not that Zack would have admitted this to Dale, but, for the most part, it could safely be ignored.

 

Lately, though, there had been something different — a colder, seething kind of anger that didn’t depart at all. It seemed to settle deep in Dale, re-surfacing each time ShinRa popped into one of their inboxes with a fresh demand.

 

ShinRa had always overworked SOLDIERs, and everything had worsened two years ago when mass-desertion took out a third of their numbers. In the past couple of months, though, since the departure of the SOLDIER Director, ShinRa’s expectations had reached unsustainable proportions. Zack’s usually-boundless energy had been flagging, even before the attack in Wutai, and he knew that the guys were starting to fray. Their minor injuries that should have healed between jobs had developed into persistent, nagging issues. Zack had found it increasingly difficult to convince them to join him for any training beyond the basic drills that they needed to stay functional. Even the frequent bickering in the dorm room had changed, taking on a sharper, more impatient edge.

 

Zack watched Dale mutter to himself, sitting at the desk as he rifled through a box of materia. His shoulders drooped, and, though his hands moved with an irritable energy, his eyes were flat and dull and stripped of character.

 

“You gonna be alright?”

 

Dale’s head shot up, his expression suddenly pained. “Yeah.” He gave a sharp shake of his head. “Yes, Zack,” he said, firmly. He wet his lips, his forehead creasing in worried lines. “Are you?”

 

Zack faltered, seeking a response that was both reassuring and at least an approximation of the truth. Ultimately, he shrugged, managing a weak grin. 

 

“I guess I’m about to find out.”

 

—

 

When they made the trip back through the corridor, Zack’s reaction was weird.

 

He started itching almost as soon as they left the dorm. Sharp needles scratched in his eyes and prickled down the length of his nose. He squinted. Tiny muscles in his face tightened. His already-drippy nose streamed, and he fought the urge to sniff, afraid to breathe in more of the smoke.

 

He pressed a hand against his stitches, buried his face in tissues, and waited, recognising the stubborn pressure between his eyes as start of a sneezing fit. It didn’t progress, though — not on the first corridor, not on the second, not when they were halfway to the entrance of the barracks. By that point, all Zack could think about was sneezing. He seriously considered a glance at one of the mako lights that were spaced along the ceiling. That was a nice trick for a single sneeze, though, or two. If he tried it now, it would be the death of his flimsy command over his body. He could only guess at how many sneezes it would take before he could wrest it back. Treating it like a battlefield judgement call, he made a snap-pick to favour short-term discomfort over longer-term, keeping his eyes cast down as Kunsel drove them down the metal corridor.

 

Marc dropped his pace, having ushered away curious witnesses and too many people wanting to ‘help’. “How you holdin’ up?” he asked, as he fell in beside Zack.

 

Zack’s brain was doing better than his capacity for speech, apparently, because all he could manage were allergic huffs and grunts. “Uh… um… Uh…“ He squeezed his nose through the tissue, screwing up his face. “I’hh! Hih! Itchy.”

 

Something about the way that Marc pulled back made Zack think that he was unnerved, but, if that were true, it didn’t translate to his actions. “C’ming up on the main floor,” he said, a note of warning in his tone. “You wanna hold your breath?”

 

“Outside the r’hh! The r’HUH..!”

 

“The training rooms? Kid, the whole floor is—“

 

“Can’t last,” Zack gasped.

 

Marc silently shifted Zack’s med bag to retrieve his keycard from his pocket. His tilted his head back towards Kunsel. “Speed,” he said, simply.

 

As they approached the communal area, Zack took as even a breath as he could manage and stared at the door as though it were an opposing army. There were SOLDIERs behind them, watching from the thresholds of their rooms, but their whispers faded as Zack marshalled his concentration. Even the burning in his stuffed-up nose became a little less intrusive. They reached the entrance, and, in his peripheral vision, Zack registered Marc’s hand at the keycard reader.

 

With an electronic bleep, the door slid open.

Edited January 12 by SexualOddity

[solitaire-au]

I loved this, as always. They’re great characters. 🥰

When Dale is in charge, he tries his hardest and compartmentalises his difficulties away for another time. When he lets Marc take over, because he’s no longer the one leading, he can’t keep his exhaustion and emotions at bay any more and I really started to get a sense of how worn down he’s become, even though he tries his best to stay on top of it. (And to hide it from everyone, but Marc is very perceptive and sees through him.)
 

And it’s nice to see Zack finally start to twig about the pressure everyone had been under. (But if he had better awareness, he might have noticed it sooner!)

[SexualOddity]

I think Zack probably did already have some awareness of how rough things have been, both through the effect on the others and his own experiences of work prior to his injuries. If that didn’t come across, though, that’s absolutely on me, obviously. I do think he’s becoming increasingly aware of the toll that it’s taking on the guys, and I completely agree with your comments about Dale and Marc.

[SexualOddity]

“HRRRESHHHEW! HESHSHEW! H’ESHHHEW! HAH’HESHH!”

 

Zack swayed, pushing his feet against his footrests in a struggle to hold himself steady. Sucking air through gritted teeth, he pressed harder on his injured hip. He could only hope that his stitches were still intact. Sneezes had been bursting from him in brief but breath-snatching fits. They were aggressive, even by his standards, his battered muscles working in overdrive to blast them through his clogging congestion.

 

“Shit, Zack.”

 

Kunsel’s voice broke past the pain and itching. It sounded wrong: thin and breathless, and Zack scrabbled for words to reassure him. It was a pointless endeavour. Even if he’d have thought of something, he had as much chance of intelligible speech in that moment as he did of completing an assault course.

 

“Think we just gotta let him get on with it.”

 

Marc didn’t sound right either. His words were strained, like they’d been pulled too tight. There was a grim practicality in his tone, though, and Zack clutched it like a rope on a grappling hook. The itching in his eyes and inside his nose was overwhelming. He couldn’t stop; he couldn’t slow down. He could strap in and ride it out, though. That was one thing that he could do.

 

“AH’SHYEW! HEH’SHYEW! ’SHYEW! HEH… SHUH! HEHSHUH! HhhRSHSHYEW!”

 

He hazily registered the chime of a bell and the lurch of forward movement. Remembering where he was, he dropped his gaze, watching the floor as its mako-green tinge was replaced by brighter, cleaner illumination from the summer evening sun.

 

At the soft sound of a shaky breath behind him, Zack looked up, sacrificing the tissues at his nose in favour of shadowing his eyes. There was a shuffling footstep, and the breath came again: quick, and urgent, and slightly to Zack’s right.

 

“Hh… Hh’UHtchuh!”

 

“Oh, don’t you fucking start!” Marc scolded. He trapped the crutches under his arm and slid Zack’s keycard from his pocket.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” Kunsel said, with a sniff. “Still too bright out.”

 

“Then keep your eyes down!” Marc lifted an arm, shielding his own face as the plastic cylinder rose. “You know how to deal with being enhanced.”

 

Kunsel didn’t object, and Marc wouldn’t be so crabby if he wasn’t stressed. Zack knew that, but he bristled anyway, in Kunsel’s defence.

 

The private elevator was for the bigwigs and their staff. SOLDIERs rarely used it, and Kunsel wouldn’t know how it operated. Who would step through elevator doors and expect to walk into daylight? Come to think of it, who would put a plastic tube on the outside of a skyscraper in the first place?

 

The answer niggled in the back of Zack’s brain, quiet, but persistent amidst the allergic clamour.

 

ShinRa would do that.

 

Because they cared more about how things appeared than whether they could reliably function.

 

“Do you… need… tiss… hh… ihhh..?”

 

“I’m good, buddy,” Kunsel said, rubbing Zack on the back.

 

“HAH’ISHHHEW! ISHHHEW! HAH..!”

 

With the short, sharp ring of its bell, the elevator stopped.

 

Oh, fuck.

 

Zack’s stomach flipped, and a strange weightlessness almost had him convinced they were falling back down the elevator shaft. His nose burned, straining for the next sneeze, but it was an agonising, mind-blanking moment before the rest of his body could connect.

 

“HEH’RUSHHUH! UHSHHUH! HEHT’SCHYEW!”

 

He snatched a bleary glance at the corridor and immediately pulled back. His eyes ached, and his nose tingled all over again.

 

“HEHK’TCHEW!”

 

The numbers ‘67’ dominated the wall, their mako light too bright in the dim space for Zack’s overworked system. His skin prickled as hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He’d had this feeling before, stepping on to a mission field, knowing instinctively that a sniper had sights on him, but not knowing where they were.

 

Zack risked releasing his stitches to clutch his forehead through the plastic cap.

 

This was home territory. What the hell was wrong with him? It made no sense to be so rattled. He’d been working solo missions behind enemy lines by the age of sixteen. If he couldn’t summon enough courage to sit alone in a lab and sneeze for some scientists, then he was a disgrace to his training.

 

He squeezed his hands into fists, and then he relaxed his resistance, daring the relentless itch to do its worst. Its response was violent and instantaneous.

 

“HHT’ISHHEW! ISHHEW! ISSH! HIHT’ISHHUH! HH..! HUH..!”

 

“Someone order a horrifically allergic guy?” Marc announced, striding ahead of Zack’s wheelchair into the open-plan lab.

 

If someone answered, Zack didn’t hear it. He teetered dizzily, right on the edge of a sneeze, his breath reduced to short, painful pants.

 

“ISHSHEW! SHEW! HAH’AHH… ISHHEW! HUH… UH’HH… HH..! HRR’IHSHHHEW!”

 

He flopped against the wheelchair, only opening his eyes when he realised that an argument was happening around him.

 

He wiped his nose with his deteriorating wad of tissue and brushed away tears with the back of his hand. He recognised Charisse, standing among a small group of lab assistants. Her head was raised, her shoulders back, and she seemed to be holding her own against Marc, who levelled her with a thin-lipped glare.

 

“Hey, buddy.” Kunsel crouched beside Zack’s wheelchair as tense voices continued behind him. “We didn’t wanna leave you. Not while you were still so… um…” His eyes tracked nervously over Zack’s face. “Like this.” He glanced over his shoulder at the research assistants. “These guys wanna move, though, and… I think, uh… We might hafta go.” When he held out Zack’s keycard, his expression was so racked with guilt that you’d think he was handing Zack to the Crescent Unit to collect a bounty.

 

Zack prodded at his brain, still seeking that encouraging sentiment, but his mental energy was sapped, frittered away on allergies and pain and lack of sleep.

 

Kunsel leaned back, resting his hand on the floor as he turned to address Charisse. “Can we visit?” he asked, tentatively.

 

“It would take forward planning,” Charisse said. “We’d need the right systems in place.” Her gaze dropped. “And we’d need permission from Professor Hojo.”

 

Zack gave a stuffed-up snort into his tissues.

 

That’s a no, then…

 

“We’ll phone you, kid.” Marc’s speech turned cold and exact as he scowled at Charisse. “I assume that’s okay with your boss?”

 

Charisse gave a stiff nod, her lips pinched shut.

 

Still clutching his tissue, Zack waved desperately, squirming at the thought of sneezing with Kunsel so close. He braced his stitches with his free hand. “Move b’Hh…! ba’HAH’ck! EH…” He snapped the tissues back to his face. “HEHISHHEW! HEHT’ISHHEW! HEH’ISHHEW! HEHT… SCHYEW!”

 

When he hauled himself upright, everyone was looking his way.

 

The stony mask hadn’t dropped from Marc’s face, but, when he spoke to Charisse, a momentary uncertainty flashed in his eyes. 

 

“Are you guys gonna look after him?” 

 

Almost as soon as the words had left his lips, he lifted a hand, turning away. “You know what? Don’t answer that. Not like I’d believe it anyway.” Ignoring Charisse, he addressed Zack directly. “You got this, Fair?”

 

“Yeah,” Zack said, with more confidence than he felt.

 

“Good kid. Don’t take any shit.” Marc’s tone was pragmatic and firm, as though he were ordering civilians out of a combat zone.“You need us, you call. You got that? We’re the backup.” At Zack’s nod, he handed the bag of meds and the crutches to a lab assistant, who took them with a frosty glare. “C’mon Kunsel,” Marc said. His loose hair swung at his shoulders as he tipped his head towards the door.

 

Kunsel hesitated.

 

Zack wriggled his nose, weighing his returning capacity for speech. “Kunsel,” he said. “You can go. It’s fine.”

 

Kunsel wrenched away, as though a spell had been anchoring him in place. Without asking permission, he plucked the bag from the research assistant’s hands and retrieved the tissue box to hand over to Zack. “I’ll call you later,” he said, his voice strangely hollow.

 

They’d barely turned their backs before Charisse took over, talking through their plans with an air of reserved professionalism. Zack largely tuned out. If he stretched the limits of his advanced hearing, he could follow the rumble of the elevator as it came to carry his friends away. His concentration slipped, though, because the tickle in his nose exploded, flipping from the suggestion of a sneeze into an urgent, screaming demand. He almost dropped the fresh tissue in his rush to bundle it to his face.

 

“ARRRISHHHEW! ISHHHEW! HISHHHEW! HEHT’SHYEW! HAHT’SCHYEW!”

 

By the time he was able to take a breath, he could no longer hear the elevator. 

 

Marc and Kunsel were gone.

 

“Bless you,” said Charisse, not fully meeting his eye.

 

Zack gave a self-conscious laugh. “Uh, yeah. Thanks.” He tried to blow his nose, but all he could produce was a ticklish buzz. At least he had dry tissues to clean himself up. Man… Kunsel. He was so damn thoughtful. Zack should do a lot better by the guy.

 

“Zack,” Charisse said, dragging his attention back to the room.

 

He scanned the expectant faces, wondering if he could pull off an answer that would suggest that he’d been listening.

 

“We’re going to take you to your room now,” she explained.

 

“Great!” Zack said.

 

His forced grin faltered when one of Hojo’s team moved behind his wheelchair. Ignoring the resistance from his hip, he twisted in his seat, feeling oddly defensive when the assistant grabbed his push handles and the chair jerked with the releasing brake. Zack had never laid eyes on the guy before. 

 

He straightened his back, massaging his hip, and he let his other hand hover near the wheel. It would have been easy enough to wrench the thing back under his own control, but he wondered how many times the assistants would tolerate him stopping to have a sneezing fit. 

 

Probably not many. 

 

He returned his hand to his chair, leaning on the armrest in what he considered a reasonable impersonation of casual indifference.

 

“Guess this is, it then.” He turned his head as much as he could without pulling on his wounds. “I’m Zack, by the way.”

 

“I know,” the assistant said, flatly.

 

Right. No one here has a fucking name.

 

They wheeled him down an unfamiliar corridor in silence. Zack jiggled his right boot against the footplate. His nose itched with renewed insistence, and he was almost grateful for the distraction.

 

“Huhhh… HhT’ISHH! ISHH! HUHT’ISHH! HUHt’ISHHUH! HUHT’ISHUH! HUHT‘SHYEW!“

 

He registered the slowing of their pace through a haze of ringing ears, aching abs, and dripping nose. When he scrubbed the tears from his eyes, he could just make out some rooms up ahead of him. Behind one of the windows, there was an opaque blue structure that might have been a tent, but that was all that he could catch before they pushed him through a door on the left.

 

He found himself in a small room, and his immediate impression was that nothing fit. There were hints at what the space had once been, but Zack couldn’t quite piece them together. On his left, four neon-orange hazmat suits hung from a rack. On his right, there was a coiled hose mounted on the wall. All around, shelves and hooks had been cleared of whatever they had once stored. Makeshift shower equipment seemed to have been bustled into the shell of the old space. The shower itself was just a head attachment on a stand, with a long tube and a pump at the other end. Two assistants brought in a huge bucket of water, and they dunked the pump inside.

 

The door in the far wall kept pulling Zack’s focus. It had a handle. That was weird. A manually-operated door was a curious sight in a ShinRa facility, but it certainly didn’t resemble the wooden doors of Zack’s youth. This one was made of dull steel, like almost everything at Headquarters, and it had the same hazardous chemical signage that Zack had seen in the mako labs. The mixture of modern and traditional made him feel disorientated, like he’d been plucked from reality and no longer existed in one place or the other.

 

As he used the room, though, he began to feel differently. There was a handrail beneath the shower. When Zack shifted onto the plastic seat they’d provided, he actually felt steady. From there, he could easily reach shampoo and shower gel on top of a small portable shelving unit. Someone had thought this through, he realised. That was an unusual feeling. Even in the SOLDIER section of the infirmary, the surroundings made everything harder. SOLDIERs were untouchable, according to ShinRa. No one accounted for them having injuries.

 

In this room, though, Zack might be able to shower on his own, eventually. Folding his body would need to be less painful, and his sneezing fits would need to be less frequent. He wasn’t there yet, but it felt close, almost tangible. He sat back in the shower seat, puffed up with hope. When two assistants stayed in the room, wanting to help him take off his clothes, he didn’t even tense.

 

By the time Zack was back in his wheelchair, his curiosity about that manually-operated door was ready to burst from his chest. “So, that’s gonna be my prison?” he asked, trying to dab water from his hair without mussing it up.

 

“That’s going to be your clean room,” corrected the assistant who had pushed his wheelchair. His expression was disapproving, and his tone was stern.

 

Zack’s smile slipped.

 

So, joking isn’t a thing here, either…

 

Zack set his towel on the handrail and dragged his turtleneck over his head, fast, rushing to return his hand to his constantly running nose. It was only when his touch set off a fresh wave of tickling that he remembered that the water was off, and he could go back to using his tissues. If only he could remember where the box had gone…

 

“Do you… hah-have m’hh..! m’Hh! H’ESHHHW! ESHHEW! TSHYEW! ‘SHYEW! HuhEHSHEW!” He kept his hand cupped around his face and groaned. “M’sorry. Can you pass my tissues?”

 

“We provide tissues,” the wheelchair pusher told him.

 

“Uh… that’s great, man,” Zack snuffled, “but unless you’ve got any in here…”

 

“Just give him the ones he came in with,” answered the other assistant. “It’s not like he’s in the actual room.”

 

Wheelchair-Pusher huffed, but he retrieved Zack’s bag from under the now-plastic-wrapped uniform that Zack had arrived in. “What’s this for?” he asked, holding up Kunsel’s tablet.

 

“Oh. Er…” Zack pulled himself up straighter, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. “It’s for… entertainment?” he said, hopefully. He kept on grinning, but it was strained.

 

“We’d need to check whether that’s permitted,”the older assistant replied.

 

“Okay…” Zack winced as Wheelchair-Pusher tucked the tablet under his arm. “Right. Uh… Can you just be careful with it? It isn’t actually mine.”

 

The assistant didn’t answer that, but at least he handed over the box of tissues. Zack felt for the opening blindly as he watched Old Guy join Wheelchair-Pusher in rooting through his bag.

 

ShinRa liked the world to know about their enhanced fighters, so there were some public relations expectations for SOLDIERs. While most people were only interested in Sephiroth, some recognised all of the First Classes. That had been a strange thing to get used to, but what was even stranger was this opposite feeling that Zack had had sometimes, since his injuries — like he wasn’t visible at all, relegated to spectating while everyone else worked on his shit.

 

Old Guy took out three boxes of Zack’s tablets and handed them off to his colleague.

 

“Wait!” It was only Zack’s hip that reminded him that he shouldn’t be trying to leap to his feet. “I need those,” he rasped, pain trapping his voice somewhere near the bottom of his throat.

 

“You’ll get them.” Old Guy murmured, returning his attention to removing Zack’s nasal douche from its box. “We just need to transfer them to a plastic container.”

 

When he handed over Zack’s med bag, all that was left in it was his tube of cream and the nasal rinse bottle, both separated from their outer packaging. The throb in Zack’s hip was deep and dull. He wondered how long it’d be before he was re-united with his painkillers.

 

Silently, Old Guy lifted a trashcan.

 

“This mean I’m done?” Zack asked, setting his bag on his lap and dutifully disposing of his tissues.

 

“Yeah, time to go,” Wheelchair-Pusher agreed. He balanced the crutches across Zack’s armrests.

 

“You’ll need to wheel yourself through,” Old Guy explained. “No one goes in that room unless they’ve washed up, or they’re wearing a suit.

 

“Oh…” Zack frowned, following the assistant’s gaze to the hazmat suits, hanging from the rack on the wall.

 

“Your handler intends to join you shortly,” the assistant continued.

 

“Er… My what?” Zack said, with a nervous laugh.

 

In the first human reaction Zack had seen from either of them, Old Guy flushed and lowered his eyes. “Sorry,” he muttered. “We don’t typically have people in these rooms.”

 

“Hoookay,” Zack said, wide-eyed. He recovered quickly, though, giving a thoughtful hum as his gaze shifted between the two assistants. “Guess this is new for all of us, huh?” He turned his chair, no longer quite so eager to learn what was behind that manually-operated door.

 

Congestion might have been keeping Zack from getting enough air, because he felt a little woozy when he realised that the door locked from the outside. There wasn’t much chance to dwell on that, though, because as soon as it was unlatched, Wheelchair Pusher pulled it open and stared at Zack, waiting.

 

“Right, then.” The pitch of Zack’s voice rose higher than he’d intended. He shut his mouth, swallowed, and tried again. “Guess I’ll catch you later fellas.”

 

Neither assistant reacted, but Zack tossed them a lazy wave, regardless, and he wheeled himself through the door, alone.

[solitaire-au]

Marc and Kunsel are clearly shaken up by starting to see for themselves how bad Zack’s allergies truly are. And I guess it’s probably sunk in that they haven’t even seen how severe it really gets when his symptoms are at their worst.

Ohh, I loved the little details like Kunsel’s photic sneeze reflex being triggered. And Marc implying it was due to their enhancements (and maybe all SOLDIERs experience it?) and then shielding his face from the sun. Zack trying to talk through his sneezes and asking Kunsel if he needed tissues. And then Kunsel rubbing his back. And again when Kunsel grabs the tissues off of the lab assistants to give back to Zack as a final way to help before he has to leave because he’s thoughtful like that. So sweet and adorable! 🥰

I’m still working on my One Prompt fic so if I take too long to beta the next chapter, just send me a reminder to get my arse into gear.

[SexualOddity]

Ah thank you so much  Yeah I thought photic sneezing could be a SOLDIER affliction. There’s not much detail given in the canon about the specific effects of the enhancements beyond ‘super soldiers’, so, of course, my brain interprets this as an invitation to invent effects that are… relevant to my interests 😅🙈 I figured enhanced vision >>> sensitive eyes >>> photic sneezing was probably a reasonable leap. 
 

Edit because I forgot to say: I hadn’t even clocked the photic potential of the elevator until a comment in your beta feedback waaay back in chapter 3. So it’s been a while, but it was actually you who set the foundations for that moment with photic-Kunsel.

Edited January 19 by SexualOddity

[dw124]

Omg, I didn't realize how far behind I was until I actually had a chance to sit down and read it all at once. Poor Zack, those fits. He sounds so miserable.

And even without any context for the game's storyline or the characters, I just love Zack's buddies so much. They way they all communicate with each other and take care of Zack is just great. Totally love those kinds of found family dynamics.

Can't wait to see what will happen next!

[SexualOddity]

2 hours ago, dw124 said:

Omg, I didn't realize how far behind I was until I actually had a chance to sit down and read it all at once. Poor Zack, those fits. He sounds so miserable.

And even without any context for the game's storyline or the characters, I just love Zack's buddies so much. They way they all communicate with each other and take care of Zack is just great. Totally love those kinds of found family dynamics.

Can't wait to see what will happen next!

Oh wow, thank you so much for taking the time to catch up and comment. I appreciate it so much 🥰

 

You’re not missing too much from canon when it comes to Zack’s friends. Only Kunsel is canon, and he’s featured so little that you could probably read ten different fanfics and find ten different interpretations of him. We don’t get much to go on. When I first started drafting this I would have complained that, for a game that’s mostly set in SOLDIER, Crisis Core doesn’t have nearly enough SOLDIER characters, but it’s actually made me realise that writing OCs can be the most fun ever, so I can’t really object too much 😅

Thank you so much for all of your support with the writing. Your help has been incredible and it’s made me enjoy this process so much more.

 

[solitaire-au]

15 hours ago, dw124 said:

And even without any context for the game's storyline or the characters, I just love Zack's buddies so much. They way they all communicate with each other and take care of Zack is just great. Totally love those kinds of found family dynamics.

Can't wait to see what will happen next!

I know, right? I love that kind of dynamic, too. He’s got a great team of friends supporting him. 🥰

[SexualOddity]

It turned out that Zack’s curiosity hadn’t been entirely squashed by the unease in his gut. By the time he crossed the threshold of the clean room, the desire to poke around would have been irresistible, if a stronger urge hadn’t already had him narrowing his eyes. He moaned and tipped back, staring at a ceiling light as if he were underwater, willing the brightness to penetrate his allergic tears.

 

The itching burst with immediate need. His aching ribs flared, and he arched his back, his hip responding with a warning twinge.

 

“HAH’RISHHHEW!-IHSHEW! HISH’SHUH!”

 

Zack shot upright in his seat as the air split with a tremendous roar. Everything tumbled from his lap. His crutches clattered to the floor, but the sound was swallowed by the much louder crash that thundered through the back wall. Muscles twitching with adrenaline, Zack stared at the metal, astounded that it hadn’t buckled.

 

“Holy shit,” he murmured.

 

He swiped tears from his eyes and knuckled his nose, watching the wall. His back was all wrong — too manoeuverable and too warm without the weight of his sword. There had been no further sound. If he provoked another onslaught, how long would those metal panels survive, he wondered. Shock had ended his sneezing prematurely, and, if he didn’t let the fit conclude, pent-up need was going to drive him insane.

 

Reasoning that whatever was in the next room could probably inflict worse discomfort, he pinched his nose and held his breath. It took a toe-curling moment of tickly nothingness, but eventually the urge gave enough ground that he felt safe to wheel off in search of tissues.

 

He navigated the fallen crutches and his bag of meds and discovered several boxes on the second shelf of a metal storage trolley. After wiping his face clean, he tried a few optimistic nose blows. The congestion wasn’t shifting, though, and messing with it was baiting the ever-present itch in his nose. He gave up in favour of scoping out the rest of the room.

 

There were three five-litre water bottles on the top shelf of the trolley. He was tempted to grab one and take a drink, but one was labelled ‘boiled’ and all three were next to a basin tub, jug, and paper towels. Most likely they were meant for washing and for his nasal rinse. He left them be, choosing instead to investigate the tall tent that he’d spotted through the window.

 

He didn’t manage even half the short distance. His hand froze on the wheel and then snapped to his septum. His nose had taken sudden and violent offence to being ignored. He clamped his mouth shut as his top lip tried to curl. His hands balled into fists and his mind emptied. The yearning grew to an agonising peak.

 

“Ah!” he gasped. “Ah! Hah..! Aah…”

 

His nose twitched dangerously, threatening to provide the tiny nudge that was all he would need to send him over the edge.

 

“Hh’hh..! Hh…hh..!”

 

Oh, fuck.

 

His hand shot to his stitches.

 

“HRRISHHUH!”

 

There was a barrage of clangs and thumps as the wall was bombarded from the opposite side. Zack’s eyes widened, even as another sneeze tried to tug them shut. He fought the urge, watching for a crack in the metal, but no measure of pig-headed determination could keep his body from reacting.

 

“Aah…AHHISHHUH! ISHHUH! ISHH! Hh! ISHH! HISHHUH! HISHUH! HAH’SHEW!”

 

Zack panted, dizzy, and relieved when his lungs didn’t immediately fill for another round. On the other side of the wall, the hammering stopped, replaced by a long, low, threatening snarl.

 

“I tried, alright!” He yanked tissues from his box in petulant irritation and managed to rip one in the process. “Not like I like it either, buddy.”

 

Of course, the door burst open in that moment, and Charisse rushed through, her narrow braids wet and hanging loose to her waist. She set a zip-lock bag on the bed and bundled her arm into the flapping sleeve of her lab coat. Her eyes darted between Zack, the chaos on the floor, and the back wall that had been the source of all the damn trouble.

 

“Is everything okay?” she asked, breathlessly.

 

“Yeah,” Zack scowled. “I met my new neighbour.”

 

“I heard.” Still staring at him, she slipped a band around her hair with a deftness that left Zack impressed, even with the looming threat of a monster crashing into his room. “I did plan to let you know,” she continued, her eyes drifting back to the wall, “but it’s nocturnal. It wouldn’t usually—”

 

“Think I woke it up,” Zack interrupted. “Is that thing gonna break into my room?”

 

“The wall’s reinforced. It’ll hold.”

 

Zack gaped. “Are you sure?”

 

“We had Director Tuesti look at it.”

 

Zack shut his mouth, prepared to concede the point. Reeve Tuesti was the Director of City Planning. That was probably a big job wherever you were, but Tuesti worked in Midgar. The buildings he constructed had to survive on metal plates three hundred metres in the air. Asking him to keep a monster out of Zack’s room was probably equivalent to handing a regular army assignment to Sephiroth.

 

Zack tipped his head at the slashes raked into the metal. They peppered the intersecting wall just like the rest of the clean room. “He check it before or after those score marks?”

 

“Both,” she said. “Nothing is kept in either room that can take out more than five millimetres of reinforced metal. The Director has deemed that acceptable.”

 

“Right,” Zack said, reluctantly. “Okay. Well, I’ll have to test his reckoning pretty soon. Whatever you got in there doesn’t like when I sneeze. It’s gonna have a rough few days, now I think of it.” His hand stilled mid-rub at the nape of the neck. He sat up straighter. “Wait…It’s nocturnal?”

 

“We do intend to move it,” Charisse’s voice was clipped, and she didn’t meet his eye. “We just need to arrange another airtight facility.” She pressed her knees together, reaching for Zack’s crutches and med bag with a careful crouch.

 

“Hey, doc…”

 

“I’m not a Doctor,” she said, tapping at the text on her lab coat. It read, ‘Senior Research Scientist’ in black, embroidered letters. To Zack’s surprise, she rose, leaving Zack’s gear behind on the floor. “You know my name.” Her gaze sharpened in a squint that was almost accusatory. “I thought you’d insist on using it.”

 

Zack shrugged. “Seemed like you didn’t want me to.”

 

“Oh.” The furrow of her brow deepened.

 

“So…uh…It was you who set up the shower room, I’m guessing?” Zack asked, wheeling himself over to check out the rest of the space.

 

“Yes…” she said, cautiously, making a fresh attempt to tidy up the mess. “That was my responsibility…”

 

“I’m a big fan.” Zack lifted the door of the tent as he continued talking. “Not often lately that I can reach stuff. And the shower was warm.” He shot her a mischievous grin. “You’ve upgraded.”

 

He peered into the shadowy space, trying to make his brain catch up with his eyes. Inside the tent, there was a frame with high armrests at either side and non-slip caps on its feet. From it, hung a bucket. It had a bin-bag lining and a toilet seat lid. Zack’s mouth fell open.

 

“Oh, boy…” he said, with a despairing laugh.

 

“I know some of this is less than ideal…” Charisse stood near the bed, his crutches in hand.

 

“Guess I should thank you for putting the tent around it,” Zack said, letting the canvas drop. “Seems like more of a ‘you’ initiative than a Hojo one.”

 

She propped Zack’s crutches against the wall before she spoke, and, when she did answer, her speech was broken with pauses as though she were choosing her words carefully.

 

“ShinRa own majority shares in Altec — the primary manufacturer of pharmaceuticals,” she added, when Zack only shrugged, staring blankly. “They will run drug trials like this on a regular basis, and I had hoped we might use their resources…”

 

One isolation cage was much like another, as far as Zack was concerned, but he watched Charisse anyway, more interested in her guarded demeanour than in the content of her words.

 

“It was decided that liaising externally would cause unnecessary delay, since Professor Hojo had determined that everything could be managed in-house.” When she looked at Zack, she softened slightly, and he wondered whether he saw something nearing concern in her eyes. “Your safety is a factor, too,” she continued. “People know your face. Once we take you outside of the building, you’re at risk of being recognised by anti-ShinRa elements.”

 

“Eh, I served in the war; I’ve probably had worse digs.” He flashed her an easy-going grin and sniffed aggressively behind his tissues. That was a mistake. Sharp prickles pierced the congestion clogging his nose and sinuses. He groaned and shut his eyes, letting the tickly spark catch alight.

 

“Hh…HH..! HAH’TISHH! T’ISCHH! T’SCHEW! HUHT…SHYEW! HUH…TISHHEW!-ISCHYEW!”

 

This time there was no thumping, just a deep, guttural snarl.

 

“Well, that’s an improvement,” Zack said, glancing at the wall. “Might be hope for our relationship yet.” He wiped his nose and turned his chair, wheeling closer to Charisse to throw his tissues in the trashcan by the bed.

 

“Wait,” she said. “Can you use the red bin for used tissues and the black one for everything else?”

 

“Er…sure.” He eyed each trashcan in turn before wiping his nose again and dropping all of his collected tissues in the red one. “Guessing I don’t wanna know the reason for this?”

 

“Probably not.”

 

“Eeesh.” Zack spluttered, taking fresh tissues from his box. “You guys need a pay rise.”

 

Ignoring him, Charisse nodded at the ziplock bag that she’d brought in with her. “There’s your tablet and the rest of your meds there.”

 

“Oh. Er…” He frowned. “Thanks. I can have the tablet, then?”

 

“Yes. Sorry.” Charisse turned a little too quickly, muttering her reply as she crossed to the desk at the side of the room. “We could use a little practice at accommodating human needs.

 

“We’ll be keeping your outside contact to a minimum,” she said, her authoritative tone returning, “so, as a general rule, I’ll talk to you through the speaker system. I wanted to come in today to help you get established and to show you what we’ll need from you while you’re here.”

 

She waved him over, holding out another tablet. This one was in a thick rubber case that reminded him of the soles of combat boots. It was loaded with pre-prepared charts for him to rate the intensity of all manner of allergy symptoms: sneezing, watering eyes, ‘nasal secretion’…

 

He grimaced as he swiped through the pages.

 

“I need you to complete these forms now and after every test, and between the hours of 7am and 11pm, a buzzer will sound every four hours to remind you to fill out a new copy. All you need to do is tap the relevant boxes. We’ll access these documents remotely to review your results.

 

“There’s also these,” she added, taking a hard plastic carry case from the back of the desk and unfastening the clips. “These aren’t needed after tests, but, following the buzzer, you’ll take readings that will be relayed to us automatically. We can send someone to help if your symptoms become too much of an impediment.”

 

She removed a monitor with a large screen and demonstrated attaching its various accessories. There was a blood pressure cuff, a finger clip, and a temperature probe to go in his ear.

 

“Temperature?” Zack said. “That’s an allergy thing?”

 

“These readings aren’t part of our data collection,” she told him. “They’re a request from the medical department. I understand that infection risk is high due to the nature your injuries.”

 

Zack didn’t respond. A provocative, teasing edge had amplified the itch in his nose. By the time he’d recognised it in one nostril, it was in both. Then, with a seized breath, it erupted through the centre of his face.

 

To his horror, he realised he’d frozen, unprepared, in his chair. He slammed a hand to his hip, grunting both in pain and frustration as he almost dragged the monitor from the desk with the pressure cuff wire.

 

“AYY’ISHHH! ISHHH! HISHHH! Hhh! Hh..! H’TCHYEW! Hh’TCHYEW! HUH’USHHUH! HTCH’CHYEW!”

 

“Sorry…” he groaned, only realising when he uncurled from his shoulder that Charisse was detaching his equipment. “I’m still…” He waved helplessly at his face. “The air, on the SOLDIER floor, it—”

 

“It’s fine.” Her smile was almost kind as she removed the clip from his finger. “Bless you.”

 

He shrank away. With her professional shell lowered, she reminded him of that vulnerable moment in the labs, when she had whipped off the monitoring probes attached at his septum. He thanked her, but he concentrated on retrieving tissues while he did it, feeling too exposed for further eye contact.

 

“Come on,” she said. “I’ll show you how you can get a hold of me.”

 

He was quiet while she showed him how to adjust the bed. There were controls to lift and lower the head and feet, and a button that he could use to call for help. From there, she mapped out the room for Zack like he would guide a team through field plans pre-assignment. As she spoke, his nose hounded him until sneezing was inevitable. All he could muster in response was dull acknowledgement and slow, resigned movement to brace his wound.

 

“We’ll send someone to the door at—“

 

“HAHT’CHAH! HAH! HiH…”

 

Even the monster only offered a grumpy growl. Zack didn’t blame it. He’d had enough as well.

 

’HAHT’CHH!-TCHH! TCHUH! HIH’TCHUH! hih..? TCHUH! HIH’TCHUH! HTCH’ISCHEW!”

 

“Bless you. You okay?” After his confirmatory hum, she picked up her explanation as though she’d never been interrupted. “Someone will bring a clean toilet bucket at 7am daily, and food and water will be lowered from that panel above.”

 

Zack raised his head. This morning he had stood below identical bars, contemplating pull ups in a monster’s cell. Now, he had a set of his own.

 

He pulled away, the ceiling lights troubling his eyes and irritating his nose.

 

“Don’t forget your charts,” Charisse said, already departing. “One now and one on every b—“

 

“HEHP’TISHHUH! ISHHUH! Huhh’Ehh’heh…N’hh’no-Huh! HUH’RESHHUH! Don’t go yet,” he managed, in an exhausted sigh.

 

She turned, waiting for him to speak.

 

Right. Speak. He should probably do that.

 

“I wanted to thank you,” he said, at last, letting his shoulders drop. “It’s, um…It’s not often I can’t look out for myself. Normally,” he added, in a reluctant grunt. He dropped his head, rubbing his scalp as he spoke in a mumble. “After the test…If you hadn’t been there…”

 

“It’s okay.”

 

Charisse’s eyes flicked upwards, and Zack noticed a security camera flashing with a repetitive green blink.

 

He moved his hand to his hip. Those lights above were gonna be really damn annoying.

 

“HTCH’CHUH! USHHUH! HHRUSHHHUH!”

 

“You weren’t in a fit state to leave,” Charisse said, soft, but certain.

 

Hand still cupped at his face, Zack huffed with empahatic laughter and wound up making himself cough.

 

“It wasn’t my idea to send you off.” Charisse said, her words quickening.

 

“I know,” Zack said, clearing his throat. “It was messed up, though. You get that, right?” He stared, wide-eyed and earnest. “They didn’t even give me my crutches.”

 

Charisse gave a sharp little nod, her eyes fixed on the floor.

 

“But you did. And you got me to the infirmary. I didn’t want that, but I probably needed it.” He shifted his head, peering up at her face. “I owe you one. I’ll make good on it too. ‘ever you need someone in your corner.”

 

There was a silent moment when Zack thought Charisse might say something else, but her expression smoothed into her typical neutrality. “Try to get some sleep tonight. We’ll assess your readiness for testing in the morning.”

 

Smiling at the hint of warmth in her voice, Zack pulled his arms inward and raised his chin in a SOLDIER salute. “I’ll catch you later, doc,” he grinned.

 

“I told you, I’m not a—“  She broke off, casting her gaze upwards instead and shaking her head. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she told him, already heading for the door.

[SexualOddity]

Quick little author’s note: Since the characters in this scene refer to a conversation they had in Humanity (the story that precedes this one), I thought I’d drop another link for anyone who may want to refer to the original conversation. You don’t need to have read it, everything you need for this story is here in this chapter, but for anyone who does want to take a look, the referenced conversation is in the very last scene of this fic.

 

—

Zack eyed the cream on his finger, feeling like he’d lost his damn mind.

 

A good SOLDIER chose the right tactics for his circumstances. Stealth work had never been Zack’s favourite, but if he needed to kill a sleeping hippogriff, he would not be disturbing the thing in the process. He frowned at his little blob of ointment. This felt like launching a full frontal assault on a sleeping beast.

 

He’d learned that hard way not to rush to claim victory, but after nearly thirty minutes in the clean room, he couldn’t help the flutter of hope in his chest, telling him he might be done with sneezing fits. The last couple of bursts had only had two sneezes at a time. They were still violent and exhausting, but he could handle them. He got time to prepare beforehand and to recover after. That gave him a certain level of control. It was like the scheduled exertion of a training exercise or a well-managed assignment. On the battlefield, or in training, Zack had no reservations about committing his energy to the point of exhaustion. He enjoyed it. Extending beyond that point was different, though. That was bad news, under any circumstances.

 

He’d about decided to wipe the cream away on the back of his hand and accept whatever break the universe would offer him, when his nose threatened to drip. He’d have assumed it was making some kind of counter-argument, but it had gone for more than five straight seconds without being smothered in tissue, and this was just how it reacted now.

 

He reached wearily for the box on his lap, keeping it still with his wrist while he felt inside. Zack swung a sixty pound sword for a living—muscular endurance wasn’t usually a problem—but he’d been holding tissues to his face for so long that his arm was aching. Wincing, he half-wiped, half-dabbed the same chapped, cracked bit of skin that had been leaked on and rubbed at for nearly two days straight. It seemed ridiculous to complain about uncomfortable skin the day after taking arrows through his leg, but, fuck it, it was sore.

 

He glanced down at his hand. He’d instinctively kept the cream intact and ready on his fingertip.

 

Ugh, fine.

 

Time to charge at a hippogriff.

 

Tossing his tissues in the red trashcan like a good little lab rat, he shuffled on the bed until he found the best position for his exit wounds.

 

His upper lip wouldn’t be very sensitive, he reasoned, so he figured he’d start there. That assessment wasn’t incorrect, but the movement tugged and pulled on his nose so much that it might as well have been. It was a quivering mess before his ointment-covered finger had even made contact.

 

His breath hitched.

 

Fuck.

 

His finger hovered, useless and hesitant, a few centimetres from his skinned and swollen septum.

 

Okay, he coaxed, guiding himself like a prospective recruit. We hold our breath. We do this quick, and we do all it in one go. Then, we sneeze. But at least we’ll know that we’ve gotten through it.

 

He sucked in air, deep and quick, and he clamped his mouth shut. The brush of his fingertip was every bit as bad as he’d been expecting. It was like igniting a bomb. His lips twitched, and then parted…

 

A shrill ring broke through the near-silent room, and Zack jolted. He yelped when the movement jarred his hip, and his lungs filled the second that he recovered his breath.

 

“AYY’ISHHEW!”

 

Behind the wall, the monster screeched, and Zack flinched all over again.

 

Smooth, Fair. Really fucking smo—

 

“HA’YIHSHEW! IHSHEW! Hehh…ISHHEW! Hah’ISHH!” He smeared the rest of the cream on his wrist and whipped his phone from his pocket, giving a despairing laugh when he noticed the caller ID.

 

“Timing needs work, Miks,” he croaked, grabbing more tissues from the box.

 

Not that there’d been a lot of good times for phone calls lately. That might not bode well for his social life in the upcoming days.

 

“…What’s that noise?” Mikaela asked, after a moment.

 

“Oh. Er…” The tide of fury from next door had settled into grumbling growls, now beginning to quiet. Zack searched fruitlessly for an explanation that wouldn’t cause her to overreact. “It’s not bothering me,” he said. “Can you, maybe…just not worry about it?” His brow lifted hopefully, but it was a desperate swing, doomed to failure. He might as well as ask Aerith not to grow flowers or Marc not to crack jokes.

 

“Zack…”

 

She’d said his name in that way before, usually in the infirmary after an ill-advised training decision.

 

“Please?” he said. “I’m tired. Anyway, I’m gonna sneeze, and I’ll hafta—Ugh, hang on.”

 

With his phone in his right hand and tissues in his left, it took him an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to brace his stitches.

 

“HeHhh…ISHHUH! ISHHHUH! HISH’YEW! Huh’Uhh…HUH’IHSHYEW!”

 

Fits again. Fucking great.

 

His phone had fallen safely to the mattress, dropped to brace his stitches, but his fingers twitched, reluctant to release his hip to pick it up. After an experimental crinkle of his nose, he reached for the speaker button instead and returned his hand to his wound.

 

“Sorry. I’m he—”

 

“You need to tell me about that noise,” Mikaela insisted, speaking over the receding snaps and snarls. “Are you in your clean room?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“With a monster?”

 

“It’s not in the ahh-actual room—AH’TISHHUH! HAHT’ISHHUH! HAHP’TSCHYEW!” He fumbled with the tissue box with his free hand.

 

“Are you serious?”

 

“They’re gonna move it,” he said, in an exhausted monotone.

 

“You can’t think that’s acceptable?” The pitch of Mikaela’s voice rose dangerously.

 

“I’m not…” Zack closed his eyes, shaking his head. “Miks, I just wanna do the tests and get out of heh-here…HEY’EHSCHYEW! ESHHUH! HEHP’TISCHEW! Ugh!” He scrubbed his nose extra hard, just out of spite.

 

“Zack…”

 

Well, there was his name again. Zack got the impression he was going to hear a that a lot.

 

“…Suzie told me some things…”

 

He sank his face into his palm, dragging his fingers down his cheek.

 

“Are you there?”

 

Damn it…

 

Zack had been Mikaela’s patient since his enlistment, five years earlier. He’d been one of the first SOLDIERs that she’d taken on as an apprentice. He could deal with her anger. He was used to it. But this? The pained undertone that had slipped into her voice? That was new. Mikaela didn’t agonise over things. She barrelled in, and she sorted them out.

 

Rousing himself, he grabbed the phone. “Got you at my ear,” he said, “but I gotta put you on speaker again soon. I’m gonna keep sneezing, and I need my hands.”

 

“Okay..?”

 

“But there’s a camera on me.” Remembering the ceiling lights, he made a conscious effort to avoid glancing upwards. “You might need to keep that in mind.”

 

“Oh,” she said, understanding clearly dawning. “And I’m at your ear now?”

 

“Yeah,” Zack scrunched his nose behind his tissue. “For the minute.”

 

“Are you being mistreated?”

 

“No,” he huffed, dredging up what patience he could muster. “I know what Suzie thinks, but most of the bruises are my own dumb fault. Besides, Miks, I’m a SOLDIER. If someone wants to mess with me, they’re not gonna have an easy time.”

 

“Hmm.”

 

“What?” he snapped. He clamped his lips shut belatedly, annoyed at having been so audibly frustrated.

 

Mikaela’s voice was quiet. “Being a SOLDIER isn’t always the protective factor that you think it is.”

 

Zack screwed his eyes shut. His head pounded. “Huh?”

 

“You can be vulnerable to mistreatment for reasons other than a lack of physical strength.” Her voice was patient, and reasonable, and exasperating. “I’m not convinced that your training helps you to defend yourself. Not against ShinRa, at least.”

 

Zack rubbed his forehead back and forth with his fist as he held his tissues. No one was making any sense lately, but he could summon neither the energy nor the brainpower to tell them why. Anyway, his nose was tickling, and he’d either have to get on top of that shit or grab his stitches so he could sneeze. Hoping for the best, he clamped the tissue to his nose and pinched his nostrils shut.

 

“I want you to know that we are pushing for better care for you in that place—the whole SOLDIER medical team. And Suzie. It’s just…It’s more difficult than it ought to be. President Shinra thinks the sun shines out of Hojo’s ass.” She paused, her tone taking on a bitter, sarcastic bite. “And the Directors are more than happy to explain how enhancement keeps SOLDIERs from ever having a problem. They read too much of their own propaganda.”

 

“It’s working, though, Miks. I…Heh!” He pinched his nose tighter and concentrated, forcing his breath to stay even. “They’ve already put some stuff in place.”

 

“Like what?” she fired back.

 

“Checking temperature, blood prrehh-ssure—”

 

“Oh. Okay, good,” Mikaela cut in, sounding genuinely encouraged. “Scent-free cleaning products?”

 

“Can’t smell a whole lot either way. But, I guess…probably?” His nose twitched in his hand. “I haven’t noticed a-hh! a problem. Listen, um, I…h’ehh…heh!”

 

“Sorry, sorry. Put me on speaker,” she said, hurriedly.

 

He nodded, realising too late that that was stupid. The hitching breaths that were preventing speech were apparently also a challenge to sensible thought. He let the phone and tissues slide from his grasp and braced his hip.

 

His eyes rolled back when the tickling peaked, but the fucking sneeze wouldn’t come. With an agonised little grunt, he forced a squint at the light above him, and, mercifully, his chest gave a painful heave.

 

“HRESHHEW!-HESHHEW!-HEHSHEW!”

 

There was a predictable but poorly-timed roar from next door, right as Zack hit the speaker button. “Don’t say it,” he groaned, eyeing the handset.

 

“I didn’t say a thing,” answered Mikaela, but he could hear the displeasure in her voice.

 

Zack couldn’t offer a pleasing response to Mikaela or the monster, though, because the tickling in his nose had re-surged, and it was reaching maddening proportions. He ducked his head, growling as he scrubbed his nose in furious circles.

 

“Are you okay?” Mikaela asked.

 

Without processing what he was doing, he stopped rubbing and stared blankly across the room, his face and body slack. It was only when his hand flopped against his thigh that he remembered that he needed more tissues. His head dropped back further as he pawed at the box, his turtleneck growing damp from the lengths of his still-drying hair.

 

“Zack?”

 

“HR’ASHHHEW! ASHHYEW! Ha’HAHT’CHYEW! Ughhhh…”

 

“Bless you,” Mikaela said. There was a hard edge to her tone, but it was probably a response to the exasperated howl from behind the wall. Poor monster wasn’t getting far with sleep. It was probably growing as miserable as Zack.

 

“The sneezing was slowing down,” he moaned.

 

“Did something change?” she said, distractedly, likely still listening to the continuing snarls.

 

“I put cream on my nose.”

 

“You…What?”

 

Zack dragged himself up, rallying the energy to switch his tissues and dab at the mess on his face. “It’s the same thing as the strong smells, Miks. Bad idea to touch my nose a certain way.” He sighed, and, when the air left his lungs, it seemed to leave an empty space in his chest. “I just wanted it to hurt less when I wiped ihh-it-Hiy’ESHhEW!-EHSHEW!-EHSHEW!” He grunted in frustration, slumping over with his elbows on his thighs. A thread of pain shot through his hip in response, and it took all of Zack’s rapidly dwindling restraint to keep from throwing things. “On the week I can’t walk,” he muttered, “I didn’t expect it to be my itchy nose causing all the problems.”

 

When Mikaela didn’t answer right away, Zack shot a sideways glance at the phone. He could almost see the olive skin creasing at her brow as her eyes narrowed in scrutiny.

 

“You said a lot this morning,” she said, eventually, “about accepting your allergies and injuries. And being patient with yourself while you recover—”

 

“This morning?” He cocked his head to scratch at his scalp.

 

“When we spoke on the phone.”

 

Zack sat up, wincing as he rubbed his hip. “That was this morning?”

 

“Oh, buddy,” Mikaela chuckled, “I just did three nightshifts on Wutai-time, I can’t tell anyone what day it is. But it was about twelve hours ago.”

 

“Wow,” he breathed. Propping himself up with his hands, he leaned back, letting his eyes drift, unseeing, along the far wall.

 

A day since Wutai.

 

Two days since normality.

 

He tilted his phone and hit the button to turn on the display.

 

Eighteen thirty-five.

 

Forty-eight hours ago he’d been in the VR. Taking out sims without a care in the world.

 

As soon as he’d had the thought, though, he knew it wasn’t true. Still, he hadn’t had a physical complaint in the world, and that seemed more than good enough.

 

“Do you feel differently? About the things you said?”

 

Zack’s head jerked up at the sound of Mikaela’s voice.

 

Right. He’d been trying to have a conversation.

 

“No…” he said, slowly. “None of that has changed…”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Yeah.” There was quiet as his brain worked too slowly. “S’harder than I thought.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I don’t like their tests, Miks.” He didn’t like his voice either. It sounded too small for his body.

 

“That’s reasonable, buddy.”

 

“Not like I wanna have allergy attacks in battle, but at least no one was staring at me, then.”

 

“Hey,” Mikaela said, firm, but kind. “You told me you were done with worrying about what you look like.”

 

“I remember,” he murmured. He could still feel an echo of that determination, he realised, but it was too distant for such a recent conversation.

 

“It’s gotten difficult,” Mikaela said. “I know. But you’re a SOLDIER. You put yourself in difficult situations on a regular basis. Right?”

 

“I guess.”

 

“Treat it like an assignment. Just gotta do your job.” Her voice lightened to a gentle nudge, like a prod from Marc’s pointy elbow when he was supposed to be cleaning his kit. “It won’t blow anyone’s mind when you have an allergy attack. They know what you’re there for.”

 

“Yeah,” he said, distracted by the stirring of another sneeze. He pressed the tissue against his septum optimistically, but his left hand was already closing around his stitches. “You’re right. Maybe I just n’hh…need to, uh…S’huh-sorry! HAH’EHPTCHYEW! HEP’TCHYEW! HEHP’TCHUH! Ugh.”

 

“Bless you.”

 

He braced his hands against his thighs, feeling tossed like a rag doll. For a moment, he just let himself slump there, tolerating the ache in his hip, but then he sat up, tired, but buoyed by renewed purpose.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

“Yeah. Sorry,” he said, absently. “Was thinking, I might actually get some more sleep. See if I can hit this fresh.”

 

“Okay,” Mikaela said. “Yeah, you shared my nightshift hours yesterday. How much sleep have you had?”

 

“Got a couple of hours in the d—uh, in my old dorm room.”

 

“Yeah, sleep sounds good, buddy.”

 

“I’ve got charts to fill out, but I could take another nap in between.” It felt weird to be planning out nap time like it was a mission objective, but he’d take anything that made him feel he could still exert a little influence.

 

“Suzie give you decongestants?”

 

“Oh. Uh, in the…hh..! in the hospital…Hh’HUSHHew! Snf!” He scrubbed his fist against his nose. “They might wanna put them in my combat meds, so they wouldn’t let me take any away with me.”

 

“Right.” Mikaela didn’t volunteer any further thoughts, but Zack suspected that she had some.

 

His eyes drifted to his bag on the bed, knowing that his nasal rinse bottle was still in there, along with the little saline packets, but, after his experience with the cream, he figured it probably wasn’t worth it. “Should sleep okay,” he said, hoping that his grin carried into his tone of voice. “M’tired enough.”

 

“Okay.”

 

One day, Zack was sure, Mikaela would be content to accept his baseless optimism, but it sounded like this was not that day.

 

“I’m gonna trust you not to be too laidback.” There was a stern note in her voice that reminded him of skipped check ups and misplaced medication. “Don’t just try to roll with everything. A bunch of people have very high standards for how we’d like to see you treated.” Her speech slowed, and her meaning was clear in the way she emphasised her words. “Set similar standards for yourself. Some things are worth putting up a fight.”

 

“Alright,” Zack said, and he couldn’t help his stuffy laugh. For someone who had never seen a battlefield, Mikaela could start a fight about anything, as long as it concerned her friends or her patients. It wasn’t Zack’s style, but he’d be lying if he pretended he didn’t admire it. “Enjoy your boring shift in Wutai,” he told her, and, this time, his grin was genuine.

 

“I’m off, Zack. Tonight and tomorrow. Which is no bad thing, because I intend to make some calls about that monster.”

 

Zack groaned. If he could be bothered to switch his tissues to his other hand, he’d have picked up the phone just to bash it against his head.

 

“I’m sorry buddy,” she said, her voice as nonchalant as an infuriating shrug. “You’re gonna have to let me have your back with this. You focus on taking care of yourself.”

 

[SexualOddity]

 

Zack’s phone rang again, soon after he’d spoken with Mikaela. Very soon after. He almost wondered whether Kunsel had been hammering the redial button, but he didn’t mention a struggle to get through, and Zack didn’t ask. They kept the subject matter light. Zack appreciated that, knowing it was likely a deliberate choice for his benefit. Kunsel had been growing more like Dale lately, always wanting to nudge the conversation onto more serious topics.

 

Zack figured out how to adjust the bed, and he was the most relaxed he’d been in the clean room, leaning up against the mattress, snuffling into tissues while Kunsel told him about the useless rookie that the army had sent to support his assignment with Marc. Zack was distracted, though, by shuffling above him. As he craned his neck for a closer look, a flat plastic box descended on a rope.

 

“HRRASHHYEW! ASHHYEW! ASHH!”

 

Oh, for fuck’s sake…

 

Did they really need this many ceiling lights? There were rows of them interspersed between the metal panels above. He’d count them, just to confirm how excessive it was, but it’d only make him sneeze.

 

“Bless you, bud,” Kunsel said, on the end of the line.

 

“Thanks. Hang on.” Giving his nose an extra wipe before relinquishing his tissues, he eased his legs off the bed, tucked crutches under each arm, and went to investigate the box that had settled on the floor. Through the plastic, he could make out a carton with rice and some kind of meat. And a bottle of water—fucking finally.

 

“Thank you?” he said, squinting up at the bars. It was a snatched glance, and he couldn’t see much beyond the beam of the lights “HeHh..!”

 

Oh, shit! Stitches!

 

“HMP’TSHHH!”

 

He lurched to the right, shoving his wrist through his crutch. Reaching into the gap between the poles, his left palm found his hip.

 

“HEH’ISHHEW! HEYYISHHHEW!”

 

After a scrunch of his nose, he was satisfied that he’d finished sneezing, but his dawning realisation was a grim one. The crutches weren’t compatible with bracing his stitches: high risk of falling over, high risk of dropping a crutch.

 

He’d been enjoying standing up straight.

 

“Doing okay, buddy?”

 

“Yeah.” Zack called, turning his head a little towards the phone on his bed. “Yeah, I’m…alright…”

 

Except that the container was on the floor, and he was standing, with crutches and a useless leg.

 

“You gonna tell me what those noises are now?”

 

“No,” Zack bristled, glowering at the far wall. “You gonna let it drop?”

 

Unable to find a better option, Zack released his grip on the crutches.

 

“Zack?”

 

Zack tuned out the questions from Kunsel and the ache in his abs, and he locked his core. Body rigid, he tilted, lifting his left leg behind him. Once he was confident of his balance, he took a shaky, but steadying breath and bent his supporting leg. The pain of dropping to the floor made his whole body shudder, but he squashed his yell to a less embarrassing grunt.

 

“Zack!” Kunsel’s voice was a mess of concern and annoyance, and it was probably good that he didn’t have eyes on him.

 

“I’m fine,” Zack wheezed, with no idea whether Kunsel could hear. He lifted his forehead from the floor and managed to speak a little louder. “I’m coming back.”

 

Pushing the box ahead of him, he made miserable, halting progress on his hands and good knee, dragging his left leg behind. If anyone was watching through the security camera, he hoped they were getting a good laugh—someone ought to.

 

“Zack,” Kunsel said, increasingly insistent. “What’s going on?”

 

With his good knee supporting his weight, Zack lifted his hips, pressing his palms against the mattress to haul himself up. Once he’d got his right foot under him, he collapsed, rolling on to his side on the bed.

 

“Zack, will you fucking talk to me? What’s happening?”

 

“I’m here, I’m here,” Zack managed, through gritted teeth. “I just…I had a food delivery.”

 

“That was a food delivery?”

 

Kunsel’s scepticism could not have been more obvious. It had been a lame attempt from the outset, even if it was technically true.

 

“It didn’t sound like—“

 

“Just tell me the about the rest of your assignment,” Zack answered, more sharply than he’d intended.

 

Once the pain had slackened, Zack sat up, but, between sneezing and co-ordinating eating with breathing through his mouth, he couldn’t manage much conversation. He didn’t want the food to go cold, though, and he definitely didn’t want to end the call, so he was grateful when Kunsel was willing to keep up the chatter. Some of the tension left his voice eventually, once Zack was functional again and making the appropriate listening noises. He even remembered that Zack’s meds had to be taken while he had his food. Kunsel was good at things like that. He always knew what he was doing.

 

When nineteen hundred hours rolled around, the buzzer made Zack jump. After wondering whether he was becoming a skittish Plains rat, he said a reluctant goodbye to Kunsel and blasted through his charts and readings.

 

Sleep came instantly, once he’d made it back to bed, but it didn’t last. Just after twenty hundred, there was a resounding crash from the cell next door, followed by clattering claws. For the second time that day, Zack woke scrabbling for the sword that wasn’t on his back, with a spasming hip and a throbbing chest. This time he was also desperate to sneeze, because, of course, one of the many ceiling lights was positioned right above his bed.

 

“AIYYISHHUH!”

 

He sneezed into his forearm, remembering too late that he was supposed to be holding his hip. He thumped the mattress, infuriated, and, not for the first time, he resolved to get through the rest of his recovery without further risk to his stitches.

 

There was a bark from behind the wall, and Zack recoiled as though the thing had huffed monster breath into his face.

 

“You’re getting into it with me?” he snarled, managing a glare between rasping coughs. “Nice.”

 

He rubbed his throat, swallowing repeatedly, but any hint of moisture seemed to disappear deep within the skin inside his mouth. He felt for the water bottle that they’d sent down with his food.

 

Empty. Of course it was.

 

Fuck it, he was having the washing water. He needed a drink.

 

Apart from being stuffed to oblivion, his nose felt relatively okay, but pain pulsed like a heartbeat in his hip. He wasn’t taking any more chances. He’d have sat in the wheelchair, even if his crutches weren’t still strewn on the floor. He wheeled around them—again—wondering whether Charisse might come back and pick them up for him like before.

 

It was a question to consider at a more hydrated moment, he decided, focusing on holding the jerry can steady in two hands. The water came out faster than expected, and he had to pull away when he wanted to breathe and set it down entirely when he sneezed. By the time he returned to the bed, he had a wet patch on his shirt, but he felt less like he’d been in Corel, guzzling sand from the desert floor. He’d take it. He even picked up a spare tissue box to take back to the bed with him, so that was a bonus.

 

He avoided catching sight of the light as he laid back down. That was a point of pride, as far as Zack was concerned, since the positioning made it really difficult. Not that it would make a difference, because there was already something purposeful about the way his nose was tickling, but he was taking every win he could get.

 

He shut his eyes, tilting his head back against the bed. One hand floated to his face while the other drifted down to his hip.

 

“HeyyISHHUH! ISHHUH!”

 

He slumped, turning his head for an exhausted glance at the wall.  His neighbour had kept up a backing track of intermittent clangs and scratches, and it was still reacting to his sneezes, but it was with series of yaps instead of with roars. They seemed considerably less rage-induced than earlier, almost a friendly acknowledgement, in comparison.

 

“Not so annoying when you’re not the one trying to sleep, is it?” he said, pointedly. He laughed, though, as he helped himself to tissues. It was a rueful laugh, but it was something.

 

He rolled onto his right side and was considering further sleep when his phone rang in his pocket. He checked the display twice before he answered and was still surprised to hear Cam’s voice on end of the line.

 

Hauling himself up to sit, Zack covered the receiver until the pain backed off. “You sound beat,” he said to Cam, once his breathing had evened out. “Why’re you calling me?”

 

“Got off work,” Cam slurred. “Wanted to see how you were doing.”

 

Zack pulled the phone from his ear just to narrow his eyes at it.

 

At one time or another, Zack had seen every one of the guys succumb to exhausted collapse. To everyone’s annoyance, when he was approaching that point himself he had to chatter, even without a hope of making sense, just to burn off the last of the adrenaline. Marc and Aidan could be similar if something had gotten them especially fired up. For Marc, it was usually something that he’d done, for Aidan, somewhere that he’d been.

 

Cam never did it, under any circumstances. Cam would hunker silently over his phone or Kunsel’s tablet until he was ready for sleep. Honestly, he wasn’t the type to call to chat even when he wasn’t absolutely tapped.

 

“You’re dead on your feet, dude. Go to bed.”

 

Cam ignored that, to begin with. Before long, though, he could barely put two coherent words together. Then, he did admit defeat.

 

Zack stared at his phone for a minute after he’d gone, but he was too worn out himself to make any sense of the experience.

 

He set his mind to another nap, but, now that he wasn’t quite so wrecked, it became apparent that he didn’t know how to fall asleep without breathing through his nose. There was also the intermittent monster noise, the constant ache of his hip, and the fact that he couldn’t find a light switch. Those things didn’t help, either.

 

He did sleep eventually, but it was fitful. After waking up for a third time, he hit the button to check his phone display.

 

Twenty-two fifteen.

 

He had forty-five minutes before his next symptoms chart. It didn’t seem worth fighting for the limited sleep he could get before the buzzer. He grabbed the bars of the bed guard, raised on the wall side, and he tried to pull himself up. Halfway to sitting, he lost his momentum. His determination warred with the stiffness of his hip and came out defeated.

 

“Shit,” he ground out. Back rigid, he fell against the bed, and got a faceful of ceiling light for his troubles. “Hh…HhTSCHHuh! Fuck!” He shut his eyes against the beam and added his groans to the barks of the monster.

 

After a moment of clenching his jaws, the hottest of the pain subsided, but it left behind an intrusive, unsettling throb.

 

Worse than before.

 

He dismissed the thought, too uncomfortable with the sickly lurch that it prompted in his gut. If he wanted to continue to have a career, he realised, he’d better figure out how to stop straining his leg, and figure it out quickly.

 

He yanked at the bed controls, annoyed at remembering their existence too late, and he saved his box of tissues before it toppled from the rising mattress. At least he’d retrieved the bottle of washing water during one of his wakeful periods. Having it in the bed hadn’t made it any easier to sleep, but it did mean he could avoid another trip to the storage trolley. He had pain meds on his tongue and was trying to take a drink without spilling on the bed, when his phone lit up with a message.

 

You awake?

 

Zack frowned at the handset, lowering the bottle. He swallowed the tablets and drank until he felt less choked by the dryness of his throat. Then, he pulled his phone onto his lap to reply in the affirmative.

 

How you feel?

 

Getting by.

 

Well enough to talk?

 

Long as you don’t expect much sense.

 

I never do, buddy

 

Zack smirked. He could lose the use of his leg, discover allergies out of nowhere, and get stuck in isolation with a monster, but there were some things that were still predictable, and Marc would always be an irritating fucker.

 

“Are you guys running a rota system?” Zack asked, as soon as he answered the call.

 

“Hey. Check you out,” Marc said, with exaggerated pride. “Not as dumb as you look.”

 

Zack rooted in the tissue box one-handed, tensing in anticipation of more scratchy-ass paper at his nose. “You don’t have to entertain me, you know?”

 

Marc snorted. “When’d you last go five minutes alone in a room without hurting yourself?”

 

Zack didn’t offer an example. Boredom hadn’t always led to the greatest decisions, on reflection.

 

“You sound fucking wiped, though. You rather just hit the sack?”

 

“No point,” Zack grunted. “Got charts to fill out in forty minutes.”

 

“You say that like it’s a problem, but I’ve seen you sleep on a five minute train ride...”

 

Zack scrubbed his tissue under his septum. “I wasn’t this stuffy then.”

 

“Fill out the forms now and then sleep?” Marc suggested.

 

Zack squeezed at his nose and only partially squashed a tickle. “I’m, um…I’m gonna put you on speaker,” he said, distracted. Taking a risk, he delayed bracing his hip long enough to rub the corner of his eye. “The…uh…” He wriggled his nose. “The charts have gotta be done every four hours.”

 

“At night?” Marc said, clear in his disapproval.

 

“This is the last one…t’Hh!-today-HuhESHHHuh! ESHH!”

 

Zack hadn’t even noticed the yapping from next door until Marc gave a thoughtful hum. Zack hated that hum. He’d heard it from all kinds of people, usually before a pointless conversation that satisfied nobody.

 

“Kunsel told me about the background noises,” Marc’s voice was stern, but probing. “Said you wouldn’t talk about them.”

 

“Smart guy, Kunsel,” Zack said, flatly. “Knows his stuff.”

 

Marc hummed again, and Zack’s lips thinned. “You know that won’t fly with Dale, right?”

 

“Monster might be gone by the time he gets back.” Zack’s hunched his shoulders at first, sulky and stubborn, but, for no reason that he could fathom, the fight left him like the air from his lungs after a gut punch. “I don’t want it to be a big drama, Marc,” he pleaded, hating the whine in his own voice. “All I want…is…”

 

“You alright?”

 

“Ye’ehh-Hh..!”

 

“Ah,” Marc said, in understanding.

 

“HHRRESHHUH!-ESHHUH! ESHHYEW!”

 

“Bless you. You okay?”

 

“Yeah,” Zack said, wiping at his nose.

 

“So, you’re still sneezing...”

 

“Yep,” Zack grumbled. “And the lights here have been making it a million times worse.”

 

“Seems like less than when we left, though.”

 

Zack frowned, considering this. “Yeah.” After a breath, he softened a little. “Yeah. I’m getting better. It’s just…I dunno.” He pushed his fingers into his hair, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand. “It’s been hours; I’ve had meds; I’m in a fucking clean room. What do I have to do to make it stop?”

 

“Just wait, I think, buddy.”

 

“Ughhhh…”

 

“Yeah, you always were shit at that.”

 

Sliding his right foot closer, Zack rested his arm on his knee as he held his tissues at his face. “Hey Marc…”

 

“S’up?”

 

“Is Dale okay?”

 

“Oh.” Marc paused. “It’s a long-ass answer, that.”

 

“Yeah.” Tissue squeezed in his fist, Zack tapped his knuckle on his lips in an agitated beat. “I kinda fucked up.”

 

“What’d you mean?”

 

Zack was pretty sure he didn’t imagine the note of trepidation in Marc’s voice.

 

“I could have just gone to my room.” The words tumbled from Zack’s mouth in a rush of concern. “It was really tough on him, wasn’t it? Having me wheeling around the dorm?”

 

“You think he’d do better with you hurt and alone in your room?” Marc’s voice pitched up in disbelief.

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Fucking hell, kid, sometimes you act like you’ve never met the guy…He coped a lot better for having you in the dorm,” Marc said, with a firmness that suggested absolute certainty.

 

“Alright,” Zack murmured.

 

“It’s not only about…” Marc began haltingly, but it didn’t take long for his decisiveness to return. “You know what? We’re gonna hafta catch you kids up on some stuff. It’s long overdue. Lemme talk to Dale. Maybe Aidan, too. We’ll get back to you once we’ve gotten our shit together.”

 

“Marc…” Zack’s hip twinged as he sat up straighter.

 

“Not now,” Marc said, definitively. “I need Dale involved with this one. Anyway, how ‘bout we save the serious conversations for when you can take in air with your mouth shut?

 

“Order for the day,” he continued, before Zack could interject, “is mindless jabber. Which should be easy for us, since that’s all we do anyway.”

 

“But—“

 

“What’ll it be, kid? Cool new combat tricks? Women? Not your girlfriend again,” he warned. “I don’t feel like throwing up today.”

 

“Okay…” Zack said, reluctant to let the subject change. He had a thought, though, prodding at a devilish part of him that he hadn’t felt since the containment pod. “I can tell you about the hot scientist they got takin’ care of me?”

 

“Zack,” Beneath Marc’s chiding tone, there was a touch of amusement. “Please tell me you didn’t flirt with one of your allergy torturers.”

 

“Um…”

 

“How many times do I have to teach you about self-preservation?” Marc was laughing now, and it made Zack smile.

 

“Shit!” Zack stiffened like the target of a lightening spell. His eyes snapped to the camera above.

 

“What? What’s up?”

 

“Hh! Hah..! Hah’ISHHEW! ISHHEW! ISHHEW!”

 

“Zack?”

 

“Er…Fuck.” Zack scrubbed his nose with his wrist, and, not seeing a way out, he gave a helpless laugh. “They got a camera on me, buddy. That scientist? She’ll probably watch this back.”

 

Marc cackled. “You utter fucking moron.”

 

Maybe it was exhausted hysteria, but Zack laughed so hard that he struggled to stop. It was murder on his abs and the muscles of his chest, but he was past caring. “Well,” he gasped, cradling his torso as he finally got a grip on his breathing. “Wonder when that’ll come back to bite me?”

 

“New topic?” Marc suggested with a chuckle.

 

“I think so, man.” Zack wiped tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand. It was nice to know that, for once, they weren’t solely allergy-induced.

 

“Probably for the best,” Marc said. “Means nothing coming from you, anyway. You say it about everyone who’s female. You do know that you’re shit at being in a relationship?”

 

“Don’t get me started.” Zack slumped dramatically and then tilted his head, scratching his neck with a grimace. “I wouldn’t do anything. This stuff just comes out. Dunno how to switch off that part of my brain.”

 

Marc sniggered. “It’s not your brain that’s the issue, kid.”

 

Before he could attempt some kind of comeback, Zack’s attention was arrested by a repetitive tapping: slow, regular, and hollow. His eyes locked on the window. And on Hojo—thin and hunched like always, but dominating the space. He had acquired a pair of wireless headphones and a microphone, and he was prodding the glass like he was examining a microscope slide sample.

 

Zack lowered the tissues from his face. The laughter died on his lips.

 

“I gotta go.” His voice came out in a whisper, squashed and distant. “I think…I think duty calls.”

[SexualOddity]

Silently, Zack reached to press the button to end his call with Marc.

 

Professor Hojo peered through the window, his eyes narrowed in scrutiny as he scanned the walls of the clean room. Raising his hand to his headset, he brought the microphone to his characteristically downturned lips.

 

“There is something rather poetic,” he purred, “about a SOLDIER in a monster cell. I assume you can appreciate the similarities?”

 

Zack’s chest tightened. He could have sworn that the temperature dropped. It was almost a surprise when a mist didn’t form on his strained breath.

 

Once, he would have dismissed Hojo’s comment as typical of the Professor’s incomprehensible babble. Not any longer. There were too many negative associations with the comparison of SOLDIERs to monsters.

 

In the year preceding his death, Zack’s mentor Angeal had described himself as a monster frequently. Zack would have liked to have said that those memories no longer affected him. It was over now. Angeal was dead. That was what he’d wanted. It was what he’d been wanting for some time, probably. And it was certainly what ShinRa wanted.

 

Everyone had what they wanted.

 

Except Zack.

 

And Sephiroth, most likely…since he had been Angeal’s friend. Anyway, everyone seemed to have moved on, and Zack had been trying to do the same.

 

But he didn’t like the word ‘monster’. Not when it was used in reference to humans.

 

When Zack raised his head, he found Hojo staring directly at him. He shifted his attention rapidly, returning his tissues to his face, grateful for something to hide behind as he wiped his nose before it dripped.

 

Curiosity flashed in Hojo’s eyes, and one side of his mouth curved in a slow, sardonic smile. “You are still symptomatic,” he observed. “Rather an annoyance in light of our endeavours here, but it is so very interesting.”

 

“Is it?” Zack said, dully.

 

He scrunched his nose. Fuck it all, he was going to sneeze. He held his breath and tried to be subtle about pressing his finger under his septum.

 

He should just get it over with. It wasn’t as though the Professor hadn’t seen him sneeze. He shuddered, imagining Hojo’s beady eyes boring into his back as he curled up, helpless, on the containment pod floor. Scrubbing a knuckle against the side of his nose, he decided he could hold off a little longer.

 

“I should not have been so quick to agree to your release. It was wasted opportunity to observe the fullness of your reaction. Regrettable,” Hojo declared. “It seems it would have made quite the interesting case study.”

 

Squeezing his nose through the tissue, Zack took a careful breath before he trusted himself to speak. “I guess it’s your lucky day Professor, ‘cause that reaction never really stopped.”

 

Once again, Hojo reminded Zack of a Gongagan reptile, splaying his fingers on the glass like a clinging lizard. “Fascinating. Though, perhaps,” he conceded, “in light of your blood work, unsurprising.”

 

“Yeah?” Zack brushed allergic tears from his eye with the back of his finger and wondered whether anything he could say would encourage Hojo to leave more quickly.

 

“The concentration of histamine in your blood following exposure was quite beyond our expectations.” The tip of Hojo’s tongue curled over his lips.

 

“‘Suppose that explains feeling this lousy,” Zack grumbled. He shut his eyes, forcing his breaths to stay steady and shallow.

 

“You might be interested to know that your results were considerably above the reference range from our original allergic SOLDIERs.”

 

Zack pulled the tissue from his face, the ticking in his nose immediately forgotten. “From your who?”

 

“The other SOLDIER members who were…” Hojo’s lips twisted in a sneer, “similarly afflicted.”

 

“There were others?” Zack pulled himself closer to the end of the bed. “Who was it?”

 

“Discharged a decade ago.” Hojo said, with a dismissive flick of his hand. “Useless as combatants given their…sudden impairment following enhancement.”

 

“But, I—“

 

“It would, of course, have been far simpler to remove you as an operative, but, as you are aware, it took quite some time for your defects to become apparent. In the interim, the President has become rather attached to the notion of retaining your services.” Hojo turned his right hand in his left in a slow, thoughtful, wringing motion. “Indicative, I fear, of a lack of imagination on his part.”

 

“So, that means…”

 

“The directive from the President is to use our considerable resources to ensure that SOLDIER do not lose any further First Class operatives. Your division appears to have been rather careless of late.”

 

Zack was fairly confident that Angeal and Genesis’ desertions had more to do with the experimentation on them by the Science Department than anything connected to SOLDIER. They were out of the picture either way, though, and Zack wanted to continue to have a livelihood, so he figured he’d better stick to the point.

 

“So, they don’t want to—“

 

“Your position is secure. For now.” Hojo’s voice was oily. His words slithered down the length of his tongue. “Provided, of course, that I provide a solution to your predicament.”

 

“Okay,” Zack said, uncertain. “And you plan to…do that, right?”

 

Hojo waved his hand in an elaborate arc. “I live to fulfil the whims of the President.” He brought his bony forehead closer, hands clasped behind his back. “And I can’t pretend I don’t have my own, separate interests in the enterprise.”

 

He turned so abruptly that it made Zack flinch, taking shuffling steps along the length of the window. “For more than a year I have been stymied. I have scoured my data, seeking the deficiency in my simulated monsters, the weakness that caused the whole pathetic collection to fall to you in combat.” He reached the end of the glass pane and swivelled, stroking the dark shadow of stubble on his chin as he reversed his direction, edging closer to Zack.

 

“The problem, as it transpires, was one of focus. I have been scrutinising my specimens.” Hojo’s movement stopped, and he turned towards the window. Head cocked downwards, he studied Zack from beneath his heavy brow. “All this time, I should have been looking…at you.”

 

A pricking sensation climbed Zack’s back, like a spider crawling under his shirt.

 

Hojo spread his palms against the glass once more, his eyes gleaming. “You may be the key to unlocking the true potential of the SOLDIER project.”

 

“Project?”

 

Another word that Zack associated with Angeal. And the things that ShinRa did to him. He tried to swallow the sour taste in the back of his throat.

 

“An unparalleled scientific undertaking.” Hojo pulled back, puffing out his chest. “To create a breed of fighter that is fundamentally superior—faster, stronger, more resilient. No one has ever conceived of such a venture, far less brought it to fruition.” A drop of spit flecked the glass as he began to speak quicker, his words fired from his lips with venom. “But the project was a disappointment from its inception. Woefully inconsistent, spewing ten third-rate samples for every one with a modicum of real potential. I had long since abandoned hope of creating a SOLDIER capable of even a shadow of the greatness of Sephiroth.” He lifted his eyes, and Zack shrank under the intensity of his focus. “But you…You are intriguing.” He paraded once more in front of the window, waving his arms in grand, sweeping gestures. “I suspected as much, of course, when I observed your combat testing, but your immune response…that, that is confirmation. You may be the single most successful example of SOLDIER enhancement.”

 

“Okay?” Zack rubbed his forehead, struggling to keep up. “I mean, that’s nice and all, but it’s not true. Angeal and Genesis were more powerful. Sephiorth is way more powerful.”

 

Hojo shooed Zack’s words with a quirk of his wrist. “They are products of different methods.”

 

Zack supposed he’d known that. He assumed Angeal and Genesis had undergone mako infusion just like every other SOLDIER, but their original enhancements took place through ‘Project G’. Before they’d even been born, Hollander, the now-disgraced ShinRa scientist, had manipulated their genetics. They never knew, not until their mid-twenties, when their bodies began to break down.

 

“Wait,” Zack said, Hojo’s words registering. “Did you say Sephiroth?”

 

“Your response to your allergen,” Hojo continued, ignoring Zack, “was not only amplified. It was amplified in comparison to your SOLDIER peers. That can only suggest,” he said, his steps quickening, “a more absolute bond with the enhancing agent.”

 

“The enhancing…” Zack fumbled. “Do you mean mako?”

 

Hojo’s steps stopped suddenly. The corners of his lips inched upward as he dropped his head. “If you like.”

 

“If I…”

 

“If I can only replicate this phenomenon, propagate it in other, newer SOLDIERS, men who are free from your specific,” Hojo waved towards Zack as he scrubbed at his nose behind the glass, “limitations. You could be the herald for the future. The sub-standard prototype that ushers in a new generation of enhancement.”

 

Hojo lifted his arms in the air, eyes wild and staring, and Zack realised that he expected a response, but the Professor’s words were sweeping over him, failing to take root. Too many of them were unfamiliar, and Zack’s brain was foggy and stuck on information that he didn’t fully comprehend.

 

SOLDIER…project? Bond with enhancing…agent?

 

“If I…like?” he repeated, uselessly.

 

He was only hazily aware that his nose was prickling again.

 

Hojo’s searching eyes drilled into Zack as if there was data to read beneath his skin. “The fundamental question,” he said, “is why you? Why should you succeed where others have failed?”

 

“Hh! ’CHSHH! ATchISHHEW!”

 

“Speak!” Hojo screeched, pounding the glass. “Or do you lack even the most basic of capabilities?”

 

Zack snapped instinctively to attention, struggling to remember Hojo’s words. “I…uh…I had a great mentor?” he suggested. His nose ran, and he bundled his tissue back to his face. “And I…I train a lot…I…”

 

There was a thump as Hojo slammed the thick window with both palms. “Unscientific claptrap! Think! Or is that requiring too much of you? I need factors that would produce a genetic or physiological change.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Birthplace?”

 

“Um…” Zack closed his eyes extra tight when he blinked. “Gongaga.”

 

“Primitive jungle,” Hojo muttered to himself, “Nearby mako reactor, possible airborne mako exposure—hardly unusual. Familial genetic disorders?”

 

“What?”

 

“Diseases that run in your family” Hojo enunciated every syllable, his features pinched as if he smelled a foul odour.

 

“Uh…I don’t think there are an—”

 

“Age on enhancement?” Hojo demanded.

 

“Thirteen.”

 

“Ah.” Hojo stilled. His expression cleared. “Thirteen. Rather young?” There was a new glint of energy in his eyes.

 

Zack shrugged. “Thought I’d give it a shot.”

 

Hojo gave a long and curious hum, steepling his hands at his lips. “Age of enhancement…plausible. True optimisation is, of course, impractical, but, thirteen…Thirteen could be achieved.” He was still muttering, pacing by the window, when the sound of the buzzer filled the clean room.

 

Zack’s lips moved, but his own voice in his ears didn’t seem like it belonged to him. “Um…” he murmured. “I’m supposed to…”

 

“Yes, yes, go, go.” Hojo answered, dismissing him with an impatient wave. Creases formed in his sagging skin as his mouth lifted in a one-sided smile. “I believe I have research proposals to write.”

 

As Zack completed his charts and readings, his hands shook. He resolved to shut off his brain, to fix his mind on the task before him, like he’d done a million times, but it wouldn’t rest. It poured over and over Hojo’s words and failed to grasp at anything. When he’d finished, he held his head in two hands, as though he could support the weight of his swirling thoughts. He had an edgy, restless sense that some of those thoughts were important, but he couldn’t begin to pluck them out of the confusing storm.

 

He shoved the tablet and the monitoring device to one side, realising he had no memory of anything he’d recorded. Hoping he’d completed it correctly, he turned his chair. If only he could get to his feet. Exercise was Zack’s solution to everything: fear, worry, over-excitement…Normally, if he felt like this, he’d get in a workout, or a training session, if possible. If not, he’d do squats wherever he stood. Everyone laughed at those constant squats, but they were quick and convenient, and they blazed through his excess energy and kept his mind sharp.

 

The pain in his hip had become a constant, droning presence, like the room’s air filters with their continuous hum. Squats were going to be beyond his reach for some time. He lifted the heel of his good foot, jiggling his knee as he searched the room. There were still two full water jugs on the storage trolley. They wouldn’t be much of a challenge for his mako-enhanced muscles, but at least they’d get him moving. He wheeled over to take a hold of them, and he tried out a range of curls and presses from his chair. Using both jugs at once, he had to stop constantly to wipe his nose. He switched to one at a time, with the other hand holding tissues, but the throbbing in his hip turned sharp, his core tightening to compensate for the unbalanced weight. He slammed the bottle back down on the trolley with an aggravated thump, and, without warning, the lights went out above him.

 

Zack sat for a moment, staring into the darkness, before he reached for his phone. The battery was low and the screen already dim, but he switched on the torch and rested the handset against his stomach. The light lasted long enough to wheel toward the bed, but he didn’t even manage to de-activate the beam before the power ran out.

 

No calling anyone, then.

 

He pulled himself onto the bed and curled up on his good side, clutching tissues to his nose. Lying in silence, he wrapped his free arm around his chest and passed the night listening to the thumps and thrashes of the monster in the room next door.

 

[SexualOddity]

A.N. Hey anyone reading. Hope things are good. Since I’m introducing Aerith here and mentioning the little bit that Zack knows about her background, I thought I’d provide some more information for anyone who’s curious. You don’t actually need this detail. Everything you need to understand this story will be in the fic itself. I’ll put it in a spoiler box to make it easier to skip. (It is spoilery, but so is the whole fic).

 

Spoiler

Aerith currently lives with an adoptive mother, but her late birth mother was the last pure-blooded member of a race that predates humans. ShinRa call them ‘the Ancients’ and they are very interested in them because they were said to have a link to the ‘promised land’, which is supposedly rich in mako. (They sell mako as an energy source as well as using it to enhance the combat abilities of SOLDIERs). ShinRa pre-birth experiments on Angeal and Genesis were actually unsuccessful attempts to create Ancients by genetic engineering.

—

At night, the sounds of the monster were sudden and erratic and they echoed from the metal walls. Before Zack’s room sprang to life, though, there had been a rare stretch of silence. Quiet filled the cell like a padded bedspread, holding Zack in a cozy limbo as he hovered between sleep and wakefulness.

 

The lights switched on first, all at the same time and with no warning. Then the buzzer snatched the calm, leaving Zack with only the slow, dawning memory of where he was and why so much of his body hurt. He squeezed his eyes more tightly shut before he let them open.

 

“HHR’ASHHUH!”

 

Scowling, he clenched his fists. If they left him alone much longer, some serious vandalism was going to happen to those ceiling bulbs. The monster gave a jovial bark, like a friendly good morning.

 

Of course it fucking did.

 

Remembering the bed controls, he raised himself up, making meds a top priority. His chest had seized, refusing to properly expand. Short and shallow breaths seemed to be working okay for his body, but they were freaking him out, prompting a stream of unnecessary danger signals, telling him he wasn’t getting enough air. He swallowed painkillers and muscle relaxers with huge gulps of water and figured they’d help, but, not for the first time in recent days, he cursed civilian medication and its insistence on being so fucking slow.

 

He supposed he wasn’t in a position to complain. He hadn’t exactly sprung into action himself. Time seemed to be running on a delay, like he’d fallen out of step and couldn’t grasp at anything. It was only after a yap and a clatter from next door that he realised he’d been sitting motionless on the bed, holding tissues at his face and staring into his lap. He roused himself with a shake of his head and eased into his wheelchair, but his plans to use the bathroom and complete his charts were interrupted by a knock on the door.

 

He stood frozen for a moment, as if he’d forgotten how to respond. Knocks didn’t fit with this place. In the labs, people barged into his room, and rooted through his bag, and lowered his food to the floor where he couldn’t reach it. A second knock followed, though, so he couldn’t have imagined the first.

 

“Er…come in?” He wheeled closer to the doorway, peering at the join between the door and its metal surround.

 

Zack had seen the hazmat suits hanging in the shower room, but he still drew back in surprise when the door opened to a fully-suited woman carrying a stack of buckets and another plastic box of food. She held them out without a word.

 

“Thank you..? Uh, sorry, one sec.” Zack gave his nose a hasty wipe and shoved his tissue into his pocket before accepting everything that she offered.

 

“You need to collect the used buckets and give them to me,” she said, her voice muffled by her face-piece.

 

For the first time, Zack looked properly at the buckets and realisation dawned: one red, one black, one with a bin bag lining. He brought her his trash cans and the toilet bucket, but he could only carry one at a time, gripped between his thighs as he manoeuvred the wheelchair. He kept his movements slow and smooth and hoped he wouldn’t have to sneeze. He’d have rubbed his nose to keep it in check, but that was physical contact, and, lately, it might end up causing more problems than it solved.

 

“Do you think I could have a power bank?” he asked his visitor as he handed over the toilet bucket.

 

“A what?”

 

He couldn’t see much of her expression behind her visor, but her eyes were genuinely blank.

 

“To charge a phone?”

 

“Oh.” The assistant blinked as though she’d only just remembered the term. “I’ll speak to my supervisor.”

 

When she set down one of the buckets to shut the door, his chest responded with a lonely little pang. He didn’t know what he’d have found to say to a girl in a hazmat suit holding his toilet bucket and used tissues, but he was pretty sure he could have enjoyed the attempt.

 

Alone again, he took stock of the tasks he needed to complete, and he set his mind to getting through them. Progress was slow. The memory of his conversation with Hojo sat like a boulder on his gut. An agitated, twitchy part of him would have liked to smash it and examine the shards, but tiredness formed a dragging pull on his body. His eyes were heavy in their sockets. Even his arms were limp as he wiped his nose, tapped his answers into the tablet, and forced his way through a lukewarm lump of canteen oatmeal.

 

When he finally made it back to bed, he wrapped his blanket in a tight cocoon and rolled to face the wall, trying to shut out the clatters and clangs from the monster. It was easy enough to blame the noise, at first, when sleep wouldn’t come. Eventually though, the room fell quiet, and Zack was stripped of that excuse. His uniform felt unfamiliar against his skin. He turned that over in his mind, trying to puzzle it out. It was all he ever wore. He slept in it on assignment. It stood for something different in here, though, that was what he suspected. It stood for something he didn’t recognise.

 

Maybe Charisse would know what Hojo meant by ‘enhancing agent’.

 

Rolling on to his back, he stretched his leg, trying to ease the tightness in his hip.

 

“Are you awake?” It was Charisse’s voice, distorted through the speaker, but human and familiar.

 

“Ye’ehh…” He pressed his hip more firmly and twisted towards his shoulder. “HehhIHSHYEW! Hh…ISHhew!”

 

The monster howled.

 

“He’d only just gone to sleep,” Zack said, his voice dry and sarcastic as he jerked a thumb at the far wall. “Poor cub.”

 

“You’re still sneezing?”

 

“Oh. No, I don’t think so.” He eased himself up on his elbow, snuffling as he searched for his tissues. “I…have a problem with bright lights. It’s a SOLDIER thing.” He waved in the general direction of his face. “Enhanced vision, sensitive…eyes.”

 

His voice drifted into awkward silence when she didn’t respond. He supposed this was new information. ShinRa did their best to hide the parts of enhancement that didn’t work. SOLDIERs were issued with face-covering helmets and were trained to keep their eyes subtly shielded when off duty and in public. Now that Zack thought of it, he should consider actually wearing his helmet in future. If there was one thing he’d learnt from the smoke grenade saga, it was that it was a bad idea to let the resistance discover ways of making SOLDIERs sneeze in combat.

 

“Anyway,” Zack continued, pointing upwards, “that li—HehhASHHYEW! I need to stop looking at it,” he muttered, burying his nose in tissue. “Snf! Normally, that light wouldn’t be bright enough to get me, not from a standing start. But I guess I don’t have a lot of standing starts lately.”

 

“Is this better?” Charisse said, through the speaker.

 

The room dropped a few shades, and Zack lifted his eyes again. “HehhASHH! Hh! HiyyASHHEW!” He laughed. “Guess that’s your answer…”

 

“Okay—bless you. Try this.”

 

This time, when Zack looked upwards, he could maintain a steady gaze. He wiggled his nose as he waited, but nothing happened. “Think that’s the one, doc, thank you.”

 

“We’ve had this discussion.” Charisse said, flatly. “My job title is sewn into my coat. You’ve seen it.”

 

“Yeah.” Zack closed his eyes, flopping against the bed. “But that has more than one syllable.”

 

“So does my name, that you wanted so badly.”

 

Zack hesitated, only raising his head once he’d remembered that the dimmer light made it safe. He narrowed his eyes. “So, what you’re saying is…you would like a nickname.”

 

The sound he heard could have been a crackle on the speakers. It could also have been an exasperated sigh. Charisse hadn’t learned, yet, that that sort of protest only stoked his drive to mischief. He set his palms over his face and rubbed his eyes with his fingertips, but his head was stuffy and unresponsive. All he got for his efforts was uncomfortable pressure behind his brow.

 

“Brain’s not working,” he admitted. He pointed at the camera as a mark of his intent. “I am gonna come up with something.”

 

“Zack.”

 

“Yeah?” he said, shifting his hand to prop up his head.

 

“I’m sorry about your food delivery,” she said, softly. “They should never have let it drop to the floor.”

 

“Oh,” His pathetic crawl across the floor played over in his head. He turned away, imagining Charisse’s security camera footage, and his voice dropped to a resentful mumble. “Yeah, that wasn’t good.”

 

“I will be making sure that those boxes are lowered into your hands from now on. I’m also hoping to get you a mobility grabber. That should allow you to retrieve things that accidentally fall to the floor.” Her voice was earnest and emphatic. “How is your leg?”

 

Zack glanced at the camera before he answered. Sometimes she seemed so caring that part of him ached just to crumple. She was still part of the team here, though. She still worked for Hojo. That made it hard to know where he stood with her.

 

“Leg’s probably the same,” he said, tonelessly. “Couldn’t walk yesterday, can’t walk today.” He reached for the bed controls to sit himself up. “Actually, I wanted to ask, I saw a physio in the infirmary, when I first got to Midgar. I think I was supposed to go back…”

 

“He’s coming to see you tomorrow.”

 

“He is? In here?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You gonna make him put on a hazmat suit?” Zack said, with a weak smile.

 

“He can wash and change if he prefers.” Charisse’s voice, through the speaker, was unconcerned.

 

“Okay.”

 

“You haven’t done your nasal rinse yet, have you?”

 

Zack’s shoulders slumped. He glowered at the camera. “No.”

 

“Can you?”

 

“Yes.” He gave a laboured sigh and shuffled towards the edge of the bed.

 

“I understand it helps flush out allergens from your system. That’s exactly what we need right now.

 

“Yeah, I’m doing it,” he droned, lowering onto his right leg. “I’ll sneeze. Don’t send in the troops or anything.”

 

He did sneeze. Furiously, at first. It wasn’t until the worst of it had passed that he could empty the saline from his tub into the toilet bucket without spilling. After that, it was only occasional, but it went on for another ten minutes. He took paper towels back to the bed to mop the solution that still dripped from his nose. It took him a while to forgive the painful abdominal workout and the salty taste in the back of his throat, but he did have to acknowledge that his head felt lighter, free from some of the stuffy pressure in his sinuses. He even slept, once the monster had gotten over its fury at another interruption.

 

He had disturbing dreams, dreams of the lab facility that he’d discovered with Sephiroth. He remembered peering into Hollander’s mako tanks to find monster clones with the faces of Angeal and Genesis. This time though, within the green liquid bubbling in the container, the faces twisted, morphing into his own face, and the faces of his friends, a horrifying tangle of human and beast.

 

His hand slammed to his ribcage as he woke, as if to keep his heart from bursting out. He snapped upright, noise blaring in his ears, and both hands flew to his hip as he doubled over with a breathless cry.

 

“Oh…Shit!” he spat, the sound finally registering as the stupid fucking buzzer.

 

Running a clammy hand through his hair, he glanced at the speaker, but no voice came crackling into the room.

 

Good. Hopefully no one was watching him losing his mind in this place.

 

There was a screech of frustration from the monster, though, and Zack turned listlessly towards the far wall.

 

“I know, buddy,” he murmured. “That makes two of us.”

 

After a long drink and another set of recordings, he did manage to sleep again. It only lasted until another box of supplies descended from the ceiling, but as it lowered—into his hands this time—Zack realised that his day may finally be improving. As well as the box of food, he received the grabber that Charisse had promised, lowered on another rope. Better yet, not only did his meal box contain a second bottle of water alongside the one that they usually sent, but nestled next to the food was the power bank that he’d requested at the door.

 

His hands shook in his eagerness, and he had to stop for a breath just to get the wire into the charging port. Employing considerable self-restraint, he set the phone on the bed and gave it some time to charge while he drank his water and tackled his meds and uninspiring food.

 

There were two missed calls in his log, one from Aerith and one from Cam. He rubbed his palm up and down his uninjured thigh, trying to decide who to call back first.

 

Cam would be simpler, but Aerith didn’t have a cellphone, and at this time there was a reasonable chance of catching her at home for lunch. If he had to force a grin and pretend he didn’t hear the disapproval in her Mother’s voice, he’d like to actually speak to Aerith for his pains. His symptoms seemed to be receding, too, that helped. Better to do this when he could cause the minimum possible worry. Sucking one of Dale’s menthol-free lozenges, he spent longer steeling himself for the phone call than he had for the assignment that had caused all the trouble in the first place.

 

He tried to sound healthy and relaxed while he struggled through a brief and uncomfortable chat with Elmyra. Then, mercifully, she went to get Aerith. Ordinarily, he loved Aerith’s voice. It was sing-song, and joyful, and always pleased to hear from him. That was a punch in the gut today, though, and he almost invented some crap about having to stay away for work, just to avoid the little wobble in her constant cheer.

 

She deserved a lot more than his bullshit though, so he told her everything: about the attack in Wutai and the arrows the surgeon had pulled from his leg, the surprise allergy, the drug trials, and the combat meds he needed before they’d release him from Headquarters. He hated himself a little when her delight at his call changed to a more deliberate, measured positivity. For just a second, he could have been convinced to wheel right out of the clean room, leaving his uniform and his career behind.

 

Aerith confused him. All at once, she was the last person he wanted to see him struggling and the only person he wanted to see him that way. He knew that she was different, that she was desirable to ShinRa in a way that put him on edge. He didn’t know what that meant, not in a practical sense, but he did recognise an otherworldly air behind her smile and her silliness. It was easy with Aerith. She stepped right past his shell, and she sat with him through bewildering feelings without needing him to say a word.

 

They talked for more than two hours. Eventually, the tension across his back released, and the remaining pressure cleared from his head. It probably wasn’t entirely her influence. It was getting easier to breathe through his nose. It even stopped running, towards the end. He supposed he should keep the drug trial moving, stop talking and use the call button to ask for the next test. He kept allowing five final minutes, though, just a little longer to listen to her voice before the next nightmare. He was on his fourth set of five minutes when he realised it was almost fifteen hundred. He did say goodbye then—hurriedly, before the buzzer woke the monster and he had to have yet another conversation about the bellowing in the background.

 

Once his charts and readings were completed, he went to get the grabber. He figured the break in the constant sneezing was an opportunity to get back on his feet.

 

“You watching me, doc?” he said, raising his voice for the benefit of the camera. He tilted his head, trying to work out how to get a grip on the crutch on the floor.

 

Charisse didn’t answer at first, and Zack had accepted that he’d have to lope over to the bed to try the call button, when the speaker clicked into action and her stiff reply filtered into the room.

 

“I’d just come to look at your charts. Do you need something?”

 

He closed the grabber’s jaws around the crutch’s hand grip. “No, but…” He grinned at the camera. “I feel better. You might wanna put an end to that joy, unless it’s too late in the day.”

 

“It’s not too late,” she said, “but I do need to check your data. Let me power up my computer.”

 

“Okay,” Zack chirped. He caught the crutch by its rubber pad and slipped it between his thighs to free up his hands.

 

“You seem happier.”

 

“Well, I’m breathing through my nose,” Zack said, squeezing the trigger of the grabber to retrieve the second crutch. “It’s great. I recommend it.”

 

“Would you like to hand over that power bank when you give us your buckets each morning?” she said. “I can get it charged for you.”

 

“Oh.” Zack glanced upwards. “Er…thanks. That’d be great.”

 

“I get the impression that your call helped, today,” she explained.

 

Zack stilled with the second crutch in his hand. He sat back in his chair. “Right. So…you…you listened to that call?”

 

“I didn’t listen,” Charisse bristled. “I checked in a couple of times. You seemed to talk for a while.”

 

“Yeah, we, uh…” He laid his crutches across his armrests and turned his chair to face the camera. “So, you know that that wasn’t…”

 

“I know it wasn’t a buddy, yes.”

 

“I shouldn’t have flirted with you.” The words tumbled out before he could think. “It was a bad idea. For a bunch of reasons.”

 

“It’s okay.”

 

He bent his head, rubbing at the nape of his neck. “But it’s not that I don’t…I mean, if I wasn’t…” His speech petered out, replaced by a slow, sickly twist in his gut. Fuck, he knew that feeling. It usually followed decisions that were catastrophically dumb. He lifted his head to the camera, wincing. “I can’t finish this sentence without making everything worse.”

 

“Probably not,” Charisse said, simply.

 

“Can we start over?”

 

“There’s nothing to start.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, but not unkind. “You’re my…”

 

Her silence hung in the air, and Zack’s buoyant mood flattened.

 

“Your latest Science project?” he suggested.

 

“What?” She said, sounding genuinely surprised. “No, I…”

 

“It’s fine.” He shut his eyes and rubbed at his forehead. “Let’s just get this over with.”

[solitaire-au]

Loved this. Poor Zack. Just when things get better for him, and he feels better physically and emotionally, it can’t last.

[SexualOddity]

10 hours ago, solitaire-au said:

Loved this. Poor Zack. Just when things get better for him, and he feels better physically and emotionally, it can’t last.

Hey 😊 Thank you so much for letting me know you liked it. Ngl, sometimes I do wonder if I’m a little bit evil. I’ve been trying to assuage my guilt by reminding myself that I also invented him some extra friends to help make it better. 😅

Edited March 14 by SexualOddity

[SexualOddity]

Charisse had left to make arrangements for the test and, since Zack had stopped sneezing, the monster was finally getting some sleep. The clean room had descended into a rare hush.

 

Zack didn’t like it. The jittery twitches in his muscles were too noticeable. If he couldn’t discharge them with exercise, he was determined to ignore them, and he’d rather not have that task made more difficult. Crutches in hand, he hobbled to the bed to return that other call. He figured he could drag enough conversation from Cam to occupy his mind until Charisse’s disembodied voice returned.

 

As he unlocked the phone, he was distracted by a message from HQ.

 

Mandatory Personnel Request:

All SOLDIER operatives.

Report to Level 49 lobby immediately or on next return to HQ. Antipyretic drugs will be issued. Commence medication if temperature reaches 37.8 degrees or higher, and report to the infirmary if temperature has not reduced after sixty minutes.

 

Zack’s face pinched in confusion, and he brought the phone closer for a second read. It didn’t make anything clearer, but he supposed Cam might be able to explain ShinRa sending medical advice by text message.

 

After a couple of rings, Cam’s phone clicked over to voicemail.

 

“Oh,” Zack said, out loud.

 

The drone of the standard SOLDIER greeting seemed suddenly ominous, like the subtle sounds of a waiting ambush. Zack forced a calculation from his overtired brain.

 

It had to be less than twenty-four hours since Cam had spoken to him, newly returned from his last assignment and incoherent with exhaustion. When the bleep signalled that it was time to speak, Zack struggled to keep his voice level.

 

“Hey, buddy,” he said. “I guess you’re working. Was calling you back, but, uh, just phone me again if you need me. Hope you’re alri—“

 

He lowered the phone when the door opened.

 

“Hey.” Zack shut off the call and stowed the handset in his pocket, swallowing to release the tightness in his throat.

 

The guy who entered wore a lab coat. He was short, and dark-haired, and…remarkably unresponsive. Eyes down, he bustled across to the bed and set a clear plastic carry case on the mattress next to Zack.

 

“Why’s it so dark in here?” he complained. “Will you turn up the lights, Charisse?”

 

There was a buzz of static over the speaker before Charisse spoke. “Oh. Um…”

 

“Yeah, do it,” Zack said. “I’ll be fine.”

 

“My colleague will be handling all of your blood tests,” Charisse told him, as the room brightened. “He has plenty of experience with this type of procedure. He performs the enhancement process on all new SOLDIER recruits.”

 

“Oh.” Zack perked up. “So, you work on humans?”

 

“I work on SOLDIERS.”

 

“Okay…” Zack’s eyes narrowed.

 

Blood Test Guy nodded at Zack’s arm and raised his eyebrows, waiting.

 

After a moment of confusion, Zack turned his wrist, holding out the tube that Charisse had inserted the day before. His gaze stayed on the guy’s face.

 

“So, I’m curious, Doc,” Zack said, leaning back a little so his face was visible to the camera as he watched Blood Test Guy work. “What do you do? When you’re not doing this?”

 

“I’m responsible for the care and the evaluation of our monster samples,” Charisse explained.

 

Zack’s lips twisted. “Of course you are.”

 

“Is there a problem?”

 

“Nope,” Zack said. “Just finding Hojo’s work allocations real interesting.”

 

Blood Test Guy emptied a syringe of clear liquid into Zack’s tube, sending a cold sensation snaking towards his shoulder. When Zack’s phone rang in his pocket, the scientist’s eyes bored into Zack. His gaze travelled down and back up Zack’s body, slowly and deliberately, his lips pulled downward in a contemptuous frown.

 

Zack shrank back reflexively, fumbling in his pocket and wincing at the shrillness of the ringtone. He glanced at Dale’s name on the display before shutting off the power and tossing the phone onto the bed.

 

“Sorry ‘bout that,” he said, with his best attempt at a placating grin.

 

Blood Test guy returned his attention to his syringe, as if no one had spoken, and Zack’s smile dropped.

 

“Can you show Zack the card system?” Charisse asked, through the speaker.

 

Blood Test Guy took a small, transparent messenger bag from the carry case and dangled it in front of Zack. There was a red, laminated card visible behind a box of tissues, but Zack was much more interested in another container, clear plastic in the centre, with metal caps at either end, just like a potion bottle.

 

“Is that..?”

 

The visible liquid glowed, like a health potion, so it probably contained mako. Most of the SOLDIER consumables did. It was the easiest way to create an instantaneous effect. This one was a little more green than the typical health-potion-blue.

 

Zack glanced at Blood Test Guy, but he was busy attaching a new vial to the arm tube.

 

“You’ll wear this bag when we take you into the pod,” Charisse said. “Can you see the white and red cards?”

 

“Yeah.” Resting the bag on his lap, Zack slid his fingers between the cards as he peered inside.

 

“We want you to hold up the red card if you would consider yourself unable to safely engage in combat and the white card if you want us to remove you from the test.”

 

Zack turned his head to the camera, incredulous. When the now-brighter light caught him in the eye, he recoiled, bracing his hip, but the sneeze he’d been expecting never followed. He kept his eyes down, just in case.

 

“Really?” he said, already irritated by the whole process. “You want me to wave a white flag?”

 

“It’s not my system,” Charisse muttered, and at least she had the courtesy to sound embarrassed.

 

The rest of the preparations were similar to the ones before his baseline assessment. After blood tests, he was strapped up in monitoring equipment. Just as he started to think he knew what to expect, though, there was another click from the door handle. With a whir of wheels on metal, a bizarre contraption was pushed into the room, with no one following. It appeared to be a huge box made from soft plastic, wrapped around a metal frame.

 

“This is the wheelchair you’ll use to travel to and from the testing pod,” Charisse explained.

 

It took Zack a second glance to confirm that it actually was a wheelchair, with metal poles at the back to lift the cover above where a person’s head would sit. His brow furrowed as he noticed the seat. It was absolutely covered in restraints: long ones at chest and stomach-height and several shorter ones where his arms and legs would be.

 

He was going to ask about them when Blood Test Guy grabbed his chin and turned it back in his direction. He clamped a hand at the back of Zack’s head, holding him steady as he inserted probes into his nose. Zack measured his breathing, choking down his instinct to fight as he tolerated the guy’s hands on him.

 

If Charisse was still watching, she didn’t comment.

 

After that, Zack supposed he must be ready, because Blood Test Guy unzipped the plastic cover of the wheelchair. He folded the door over the top of the hood, revealing the seat and those fucking nylon straps.

 

With the front open, Zack could approach it like any other wheelchair and sit himself down. After the effort it had taken to retrieve his crutches, he didn’t feel great about letting them fall to the floor. He doubted his chances of getting Blood Test guy to prop them up for him, though, and he figured he had the means to recover them again later.

 

He jerked backwards when the scientist came closer, taking hold of a strap.

 

“Whoa. Hey,” Zack said, holding up both palms. “Why’re we strapping me in?”

 

“This is for your safety.” It was Charisse again, over the speaker. “If you have a severe reaction, we don’t want to risk you falling from the chair. It should also make it easier for us to take blood samples and to remove your monitoring equipment.”

 

Blood Test Guy hadn’t waited for Zack to agree. He was already tightening the restraints around his torso.

 

“Oh, hey, no,” Zack said, laying a protective hand over his thigh as the guy moved downwards. “Took an arrow right there. Can we, uh…”

 

He was going to suggest keeping the strap loose, but he still remembered the baseline test, and his body jerking out of his control as he sneezed in spasms. He wet his dry lips.

 

“Can we skip that one?”

 

The guy didn’t speak, but he moved on, leaving the thigh restraint open as he bound up Zack’s calf and ankle. A chill spread beneath Zack’s skin, as if another syringe of liquid had been pumped into his arm.

 

“Hey, Doc,” he said, his nervous laugh turning a little wild. “This test, it’s…it’s gonna be better than the last one, right?”

 

“If it isn’t,” Charisse answered, as Zack’s right leg was fastened into place, “we’ll have done a poor job with the prototype drug.”

 

He supposed that was as much reassurance as he was likely to get.

 

Blood Test Guy slung the messenger bag over Zack’s head and zipped up the wheelchair’s cover, closing Zack inside. With that, his role seemed to be complete. He pushed Zack through to the shower room, where someone in a hazmat suit took over, wheeling him down the corridor. Zack was almost entirely pinned to the chair. Only his arms were free, and, like his left thigh, they were laid over unfastened belts. He tried to ignore it, just as he ignored the uncomfortable firmness of the thin, plastic seat, but he never had liked feeling constrained.

 

At the doorway of the pod, assistants in hazmat suits surrounded Zack on every side. One unzipped the transport cover, and the others unclipped it entirely from his chair. From there, Zack could lower his arms to the wheels and propel himself through the entrance, leaving the hood behind him in the hands of Hojo’s staff.

 

It was Charisse’s voice that Zack heard first, relayed through a speaker, as usual. At her instruction, he unpacked his bag, setting the prototype drug and the red and white cards ready on his lap. Zack’s hands left a thin sheen of sweat on everything. He hoped they wouldn’t slip when he tried to open the bottle’s latch.

 

“As before,” Charisse told him, “to maintain visibility, we’ll be using the allergenic ingredient in isolation. Data from the recent attacks suggests that you may need to contend with multiple grenades at any given time, so the gas will be pumped in at a consistent volume equivalent to three times the amount that would be found in a single smoke grenade.“

 

“Right.”

 

Zack didn’t ask whether that was more than they’d used for his baseline test. He figured he might not want to know.

 

“In the field,” Charisse continued, “you will take your drug as soon as you become aware of exposure. For the purposes of this test, we will alert you when the smoke would be clearly visible, and that’s when you will consume the medication. If you notice a reaction before then, however, please take your dose as soon as that happens. Do you understand?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Due to your injuries, we can’t incorporate combat testing in these trials, but we want you to limit your actions to those that would be available on the battlefield. If you have to respond in any way that would not be possible in combat, then you’ll need to hold up your red card.”

 

“Copy.”

 

When Zack finally found the nerve to lift his eyes from the potion bottle, the suited assistants had departed. There was only Charisse at a desk on the right and Professor Hojo with another scientist at a computer terminal on the left.

 

Hojo’s eyes flashed with anticipation as he met Zack’s gaze. He stalked closer to the pod.

 

Just like any other job, Zack reminded himself, stroking the latch of the potion bottle.

 

“Well, then,” the Professor announced, “we will discover whether Science can compensate for the failings of your biology.”

 

The line of Zack’s mouth grew tight. He watched as Hojo’s fingers twitched, a minute gesture in Charisse’s direction. She leaned over her desk.

 

In the ceiling of the pod, a light buzzed. Outside, the guy at the terminal tapped on his screen. Zack breathed through his mouth, no longer trusting the air.

 

There was a click from the speaker, but Zack didn’t need Charisse to tell him to drink the medication. The bottle was at his lips, the trace of an itch breezing across the skin inside his right nostril. It was faint, and, three days ago, he would have missed it. But things were different now. He knew what was coming.

 

He drank with purpose, consuming the unnaturally cool liquid in three, determined draughts.

 

Fist raised, he almost scrubbed his nose before his brain kicked into gear.

 

Combat, he remembered, envisioning his sword in his hands.

 

He touched his arm to his face instead, sniffing sharply. Mercifully, the tickle backed off. His eyes, his throat, his nose, they felt…still. Calm. He sat up straighter, tuning in to the world outside his body for the first time in the past few minutes.

 

“Are you still pumping the gas?” he asked.

 

“Yes, we are,” Charisse said, warmly. Her head was down, bent over her desk, but there was a glow to her cheeks as they bunched with a small, contained smile.

 

Zack’s eyes darted between the scientists, uninvited energy beginning to sing under his skin. “It…It works. I think it works.” Zack’s voice shook.

 

Apart from Charisse—who met his gaze briefly—no one reacted. Zack didn’t care. His mind was spinning, already imagining bursting through the Church doors and taking Aerith in his arms. He lifted his fingers to his cheek in wonder, struggling to believe that he was surrounded by the same chemical that had been consistently reducing him to a mess of tears, snot, and, frankly, fucking misery. This was his future in his hands again. It was his career, and the chance to play his part in shouldering the burden of the SOLDIER workload. It was freedom—escape from the endless metal walls of HQ and a return to the air and the colours of normal life.

 

He trembled, struggling to contain his excitement. He could kiss the whole damn Science team, Hojo included.

 

“In combat,” Charisse said, stern and professional, “you may be in the presence of smoke for a significant period of time. For the test to be considered a success, you will need to tolerate sixty minutes of constant exposure, followed by a further thirty minutes of intermittent exposure. That will mimic one hour of combat, and thirty minutes to get yourself to safety.”

 

The rising elation in Zack’s chest halted, mid-swell. It took him a moment to speak, as though the connection had broken between his brain and his tongue.

 

“I have to be in here for an hour and a half?” he managed, eventually.

 

“Yes.” Charisse’s voice was even and neutral. “If you can withstand exposure as I’ve described without a reaction that would render you unfit for duty, your drug can be approved for field use. Until then, we need you to self-monitor and wait it out.”

 

“An opportunity for rumination, I would suggest.” Hojo’s teeth gleamed as his lips pulled back, reflecting the mako light above him. His voice, through the speaker, was quiet, but something about his silky tone made Zack’s guts feel like maggots wriggling inside of him.

 

“You have depended on me from the very beginning,” Hojo sneered. “Your worth and your position were gifted to you through the SOLDIER project and by my enhancement procedure. And once again, here were are. It is only by my expertise that you can tolerate the very air in your lungs.” Hojo’s demeanour lightened abruptly as he stood up straighter, tilting his head with a sickly smile. “A helpful reminder of your relative place.” He turned on his heels, pausing as he passed Charisse’s desk. “Have his data relayed to me once the testing is complete.”

 

Hojo had begun to cross the walkway before Zack realised his fists had clenched around the objects he was holding, squeezing the potion bottle almost tightly enough to crack it.

 

No.

 

There had been too little sleep lately, and not enough exercise, and altogether too many confusing developments. It was throwing off his ability to brush off this crap. Forcing his chest to expand, he granted himself one last second of indignation before he exhaled. He was discharging his emotions, he told himself, just like he had dropped combat-nerves, and grief, and desperation on a thousand battlefields across the Planet.

 

A reprieve was a reprieve, no matter who it came from, and this pod was just another battlefield. Zack didn’t have the luxury to quibble over the source of his victories. He hunched his shoulders and dropped them, trying to let the tension release. Angeal had taken great pains to direct him to a zone in his mind where his thoughts were clear and his actions purposeful. He would find that now, for what remained of his ninety minutes. Then, he would leave Hojo and his lab behind for familiar dormitories, and training rooms, and military choppers.

 

The door was sliding open for Hojo to depart when Zack felt an almost imperceptible pinprick at the side of his nose. He sniffed, and was ready to dismiss it from his notice, when a second followed at the tip. The next was deeper, wider—a needle instead of a pin. Then, one, two, three jabs in quick succession, and the whole of his nose burst into overwhelming prickles.

 

He froze. His pulse beat fast in his throat.

 

“Wait,” he squeaked, as Hojo stepped out of the door.

[solitaire-au]

Poor Zack! 😢 He got what, a minute, maybe two, before the allergic reaction began?

Actually, a thought that just occurred to me, would they have a timer counting down in the test pod got somewhere visible for him to see? Or perhaps they’d have one for next time?

[SexualOddity]

Definitely not long. Five minutes maybe?

 

I did think about a clock. It would definitely make this easier to write 😅 Third person limited is my favourite perspective, but it’s hard sometimes, not being able to describe things that Zack doesn’t know. 
 

I’m not sure how much they’d care about his experience. They know the time, and I think they’d think that’s all that matters. (Charisse is different, but I don’t think she’d have much say in the actual test.) Maybe I can have him come up with some way of keeping track. Perhaps something happens on a scheduled basis and he can use that to mark the passing of time. I do like the concept of people being creative when they’re stripped of the tools they would usually rely on. I’ll give it some thought. 
 

 

[SexualOddity]

“Professor, we’ve got a significantly elevated pulse rate.”

 

It was the male assistant, still standing at his computer terminal.

 

The door re-opened. Behind it, stood Hojo, his head raised as he stroked his chin.

 

“Interesting…”

 

Zack tuned him out. He sounded too fucking excited by the whole thing. It stirred up some tetchy part of Zack’s brain. He didn’t have time for it. Things were moving quickly now. The itch in his nose was spreading, hitting his eyes, and his throat, and his ears, like flames sweeping through dry grass.

 

Combat.

 

A still-responsive part of his brain prodded at him.

 

Combat!

 

That was right. He wasn’t out. Not yet. He needed to think like a SOLDIER.

 

He inched his feet outwards in the only battle stance that his restraints would allow, and he clamped his lips together. They twitched, allowing a tiny breath.

 

Report, he demanded of himself, as needle-sharp shocks of itching tugged for his attention.

 

The assistants were at their stations, Zack noted, cataloguing his surroundings. Hojo was approaching down the walkway. And he was saying…what was he saying?

 

Zack reared backwards. He dropped the empty potion bottle.

 

“AYYISHHHEW!”

 

Shit.

 

“Remember to assess your fitness for combat,” Charisse said, calm and fucking patient, as the metal lid of the flask clanged against the floor.

 

Zack’s right fist clenched. His muscles tensed against his restraints.

 

He could salvage this. He’d sneezed in fights before. It was never ideal, but it happened. Sunlight was a menace, and colds were annoying, but not as annoying as staying home sick. One sneeze wasn’t a big deal.

 

The question was whether he could stop at one…

 

His face scrunched, and his lips twisted. Hojo’s mocking voice continued to fill the small space, but Zack wasn’t listening. He lowered his head as far as he could without compromising his vision and wished he could hide his face in his arm.

 

He knew the rules, though. If this were combat, he’d have had neither arms nor time to spare. He was only justifying keeping his hand at his hip because, by the time he was back on active duty, he shouldn’t have any stitches to brace.

 

His nose felt raw, volatile, and its constant dripping began again in earnest. Hoping to interrupt its flow, he gave a hasty sniff.    

 

Oh…

 

His eyes widened.

 

The brush of air was explosive in his already-twitching nose. The skin inside rebelled, scrabbling to eject the chemical. His throat constricted. He fixed his mouth shut, holding his breath. His nostrils flared.

 

“HMM’PTCH!”

 

Bright spots flashed in his vision, and the noise he made was half-gasp, half-cry of pain. His head flew back with a tremendous breath, and the hope that had been so tangible just moments before trickled out of his grasp.

 

“HAAHTISHHHUH!”

 

His chest heaved as he dragged in more air. His body was out of sync, charging towards a chaotic peak. As it tore away from him, Zack was left behind. Flat. Numb. Empty.

 

He’d been okay.

 

He’d been in this room while they’d pumped in grenade gas, and he had been fine.

 

He could barely keep his hand steady as he raised the red card.

 

“AH’TISHHH!-ISHHH! HAH’TISHH!-ISHHH!-ISHHUH!”

 

He hoped they’d seen the card. Physically, mentally, he couldn’t hold it any longer. He was surprised to feel relief, though, as it dropped to his feet. All it meant was failure and further captivity, but he didn’t want to fight any more. He curled inward, as far as his hip and his restraints would allow, and he buried his face in the back of his forearm, shutting everything out.

 

Not everything.

 

The worst of it was inside, and he couldn’t contain it.

 

“HIIYYISHHSHYEW! ISHSHYEW! IHSHHEW! HIH’TISCHYEW! TIHSCHYEW! HUHT’ISCHYEW!”

 

Dread gripped colder in his chest each time his lungs forced out one sneeze only to immediately fill for another. At the same time though, he couldn’t sneeze enough. Every nerve: in his face, in his head, even the tingling in his arms begged for relief, forcing his lungs to drag in the next wave of allergen-fuelled air.

 

“HAHT’ISHHEW! ISHHEW! ISHHHEW! T’ISHH! ISHH! ISH’SHYEW! IH’TSHYEW! IHT…SHYEW! HIHT’SHHYEW! ISHHYEW!-IHSHYEW! HAHT’TISHHEW!”

 

He flattened his palm against his chest and panted, fighting for a proper breath. He needed tissues, but they were in his bag, now dangling from his wrist as he braced his wound. With a strangled grunt, he tipped backwards, the next wave taking too long to hit. There was a voice in the pod, Charisse’s maybe, but he couldn’t…he couldn’t quite make out…

 

“HEH…HEH…HEH’TISHUH! TISHUH! ’TISHHUH!-TISHH! HUH’TISHHH! ISHH! HUH’TISHHUH! HEH…HH..!”

 

“—to raise the white card if you want us to—”

 

“HT’TISHHHUH! IHSHUH! IHSHUH! IHSHUH!”

 

There was urgency in the way Charisse enunciated her words.

 

White card…white card…

 

His fingers grazed its sharp, laminated edge. It had slipped between his thighs at some point, and, instinctively, he’d tightened them, holding it in place. His lungs heaved at the air like he was drowning.

 

“HARRRISHHYEW! ISHHHHEW! HRR’ISHHHYEW! ISHHHEW! ISHH! HUH’ISHHH! ISHHHEW! HUH’ISHHH!”

 

Someone was speaking frantically outside the glass. It sounded like Charisse, but Charisse was always so business-like and in control.

 

Zack scrubbed away streams of tears and took the white card in his trembling fingers. When he heaved himself upright though, his eyes locked with Hojo’s, and the Professor’s were hungry, already blazing with gleeful victory.

 

The scene before Zack froze, like a still photograph. Months of monster-testing sessions raced through his mind: the increasing venom in Hojo’s snarl as each new simulation fell to Zack’s blade, the twitch of Hojo’s fingers, more frantic each session, as he swiped at his tablet, scrabbling for a reason why Zack had thwarted his expectations.

 

In that moment, even with Zack’s chest shaking, and his nose twitching, and itchy fire burning his eyes, everything settled into repulsive clarity.

 

Hojo was just a petty-ass fucker.

 

“HEHRISHHHUH! ISHH! IHSHUH! HUHR’ISHH! ISHH! ISHSHUH! HUH’HH…HRRRISHHYEW!”

 

Zack dragged himself up like this was a fight and the disgusting crap on his face was the blood and the grime of battle. His eyes found Hojo—now a bleary haze of black and white—and he flung the white card to the floor beyond his reach.

 

There was a burst of voices, but Zack didn’t care. He was done with them now. He slumped into a less painful position and laid his right arm over his face, resolving to get through this any way he could.

 

“AH’ISHHHHYEW! ISHHHEW! HUHT’ISCHHEW! HUHT’ISHHH!-ISCHYEW! HUHT’ISHHYEW! HURRISCHHH!”

 

Charisse’s voice was a muted buzz outside the pod. She sounded insistent, but she wasn’t using her microphone, and Zack didn’t have the energy to push his hearing beyond its natural limits.

 

Hojo was…oh. He was laughing. Fucking dickhead.

 

“RAahAHSHCHYEW! AHSCHYEW! AHSCHYEW! AHSHYEW! HAHR’AHSHYEW! AHSHYEW! HH’HH’HHRRASCHYEW!”

 

He grabbed the armrest as he hit a temporary lull. The pod was spinning, even though his body had quit launching against his restraints. He raised his fingers to his temple, as though that could soothe the dizziness, but his face crumpled, a catch in his breath lifting him towards another fit. His hand shot back to the armrest. He’d abandon all hopes of covering his mouth and nose, if he could just keep his sense of where he was in space.

 

“HIH’IHSHYEW!-ISCHHEW!-IHSCHHEW! HISH’SCHYEW! ’SCHYEW! HIH’SCHYEW! HIHT’TCHYEW! HIHT‘TCHYEW!“

 

He had no idea how long had passed when the sounds from the scientists changed. Hojo wasn’t laughing. He was…shouting? Zack’s brain was scrambled, though, and he couldn’t make out any words, only noise, shrill and grating, breaking through the itching in his eyes, and prickling in his nose, and pain in his chest and his throat and his head. He pitched forward, the jerk of his ribs and the pressure of the restraints a double assault on his muscles.

 

“HRR’AHSCHHEW! AHSHYEW! ASHYEW! HR’ASHH! HRRASHH! HRRISHHEW!-IHSHYEW!-IH’SCHYEW! HARRISHHSCHYEW!”

 

He breathed in helpless gasps, bursts of sneezing tripping over one another until his lungs felt ready to flip themselves inside out.

 

“RaAAH’ASCHYEW! ASCHYEW! SCHYEW! HAH’ASHSHYEW! AHSHYEW! ‘TCHYEW! TCHYEW! TCHYEW! HAHT’TCHYEW! ’TCHYEW! IHTCHYEW! TCHYEW! HR’AH…HAH! HITTCHYEW! ITTCHYEW! HAHRRISCHHYEW!”

 

Charisse’s voice came filtering through the speaker, but Zack only heard words, not full sentences. He probably didn’t catch them all, and what he did hear wouldn’t stick in his head long enough to piece together any meaning.

 

“HAHT’TSCHEW! SCHYEW! HAHT’TSCHEW! ‘TSCHEW! TSCHEW! HAHT’TSCHEW! SHYEW! HAHT’TISHHYEW!”

 

When the next sneeze didn’t immediately follow, Zack fell against his restraints. His depleted muscles trembled, and he clung to his stitches like a ledge over a cliff.

 

A thump on the pod stopped a building sneeze, and Zack bolted upright too quickly for his hip. He scrubbed away tears with a stiff and shaky arm.

 

Charisse was behind the glass. She was wearing a headset. He didn’t think she’d had that before.

 

“Can you wheel yourself out?” she said.

 

His eyes snapped to the door, and his hands shot to his wheels. The lights over the entrance were green. The pod was unlocked. He squinted, even at the muted light.

 

“KHHSHEW!-IHSHEW!-ISHSHEW!”

 

Oh, fuck!

 

Releasing the wheel, he slapped his palm against his hip.

 

“AGH…HAH’TISHHEW!-ISHHEW!-ISHYEW! HAH! HAH’HAH…HAH’TISHHH! I…I can’t…”

 

Shit. His voice was shot.

 

His gut lurched as though he’d stumbled into an ambush. He couldn’t wheel himself out. He couldn’t communicate. He needed to get out of this room. And the fucking door was open.

 

“HEH’TISHYEW!-ISHYEW!-ISHYEW! ‘SHYEW! ‘SHYEW! ‘CHYEW! HEHT’CHYEW! HEH’TISHHYEW! HEHT—”

 

Someone was tugging at his wrist. Ignoring the pain, he pressed more tightly on his stitches.

 

“We’re just taking off your bag, Zack.”

 

Zack was twitchy with adrenaline, and he recoiled from whoever was at his side, but Charisse’s voice sounded calm and self-assured once again. He loosened his grip just long enough for someone to prise something from his fingers, and then he clamped his hand back down.

 

“ISHHHEW! ISHHHEW! ISHHHEW! HIH…”

 

“—im the tissues,” Charisse was insisting.

 

”ISHHEW! ISHHHEW! HUH…ISHHEW! HAHT’CHYEW!”

 

At some point, the box landed in Zack’s lap. He secured it between his legs and sneezed into his shoulder, scrabbling to open it one-handed. His fingers were clumsy, though, and his head was tipping back.

 

“HIHT…CHYEW! ‘CHYEW! IHTCHYEW! HITCH’CHYEW! HIH—”

 

Wait. He was moving. Why was he moving?

 

He twisted in his seat, but it hurt his hip, and his eyes were full of tears, and he couldn’t fucking see.

 

“HHh…HAHHT’ISHHHUH!”

 

Fuck! Shit.

 

He fumbled the tissue box and only saved it from a fall with the very tips of his fingers. He abandoned his attempt to pull tissues free, just clinging to the box like it was ShinRa cargo retrieved on a recovery mission.

 

“HIH…ISHHUH! HISH! HISHH! HUHT’ISHH! HUHT’ISCH! ISCH! ISH’SHYEW! HISH’SHYEW! HURRISCHHYEW! SNIFFFF!”

 

The instant he hit a lull, he tore out tissues and bundled them to his face, soaking them instantly.

 

“Whe—where..?”

 

Even with drier eyes, he didn’t find any answers in his surroundings.

 

The pod…was moving? No. The hood? On his wheelchair?

 

“What’s-HEH! HEH’ISCHHUH! HEH’ISHSHUH! HEH’ISHSHUH! HEHT…CHYEW! CHYEW! HEHT’TCHYEW! HEHTCH’ISHHUH! ISHHUH! HTCH’ISHHUH!”

 

He gave up talking. He couldn’t string a sentence together, and it’d be a miracle if anyone understood him if he did. He clung to his tissues and his hip, and he let people shift him along to whatever else they had planned for him. Why not? That was how his life fucking worked lately.

 

“AHH’TISHH! ISHH! ISHH! HUH’TISHHH! HUH’TISHHSHYEW! ISHHYEW! ’SHYEW! HIHT’SCHYEW!”

 

Everything passed by in a blur of snatched images. His sluggish brain tried to piece them together: restraints for his right arm, Blood Test Guy, an antiseptic smell that made him sneeze harder, finger clip, those Goddamn nostril probes, monitoring belt, then a shower.

 

The uncomfortable plastic seat of the wheelchair finally made sense when he remained in it for much of his wash. He still had the grab bar that Charisse had installed for him, but it was barely any help when he was sneezing so much. His left hand had to stay on his stitches. With his right hand on the bar and someone at his left side, he could just about manage, but when he started thrashing with sneezing fits, it became a feat of balance to rival anything he’d ever attempted on assignment.

 

“Shitting hell,” Old Guy said, as Zack crashed into the newly-dried chair, dressed in a clean uniform and already building up to the next fit. “If we leave him unstrapped, he—“

 

“HAHT’ISHHHEW! ISHHEW! IHSHEW! HIHT’CHYHEW! HIT’CHYEW! HIHT’ISHHEW! ISHHEW! HUHRRISHHSHEW!”

 

They strapped him back in and left him there sneezing, with water dripping from his hair, while a bunch of conversations happened around him. A phone call, from the sound of it, and then an argument. Zack couldn’t follow it, and he wasn’t in a position to ask questions.

 

In the middle of what felt like an endless volley of sneezing, when he could do little but let his body convulse, he started moving again. By the time he caught his breath, he was in the clean room, and someone was pressing the rubber-covered tablet into his hand. Zack immediately tossed it on the bed and slung his arm across his face for another sneezing fit.

 

“HARRISHHYEW! ISHHEW! HAH’ISHYEW! ISH’SHYEW! SHYEW! SHYEW! HAH’ISHHYEW!”

 

Zack blinked frantically, trying to clear his vision, but the other person was just a bleary shape hunched in front of him. He only realised it was Old Guy once he recognised his voice.

 

“Can you get yourself on the bed without falling?”

 

Zack could feel the guy’s hands at his abs and then his chest.

 

“Ye-ehhh! Hh! HAHRISHHEW!” He rocked forward, and his stomach flipped when he wasn’t buffeted by wheelchair straps. He braced both hands against the bed and only just managed to get one back to his hip before the next sneeze swelled inside of him. “ISHHYEW! ISHYEW! ISHH! HEH’SHYEW! SHYEW! ESHH’SHYEW! EHH’SHYEW! HUH-ESHHYEW! ESHHH! Snifff!”

 

Ughhh…

 

He wiped his face with the palm of his hand, wishing he knew where the box of tissues had gone.

 

Zack registered the sound of a tiny movement, like an awkward shuffle.

 

“Right, well, er, remember to fill out those charts. Be seeing you.”

 

Zack supposed that he left. SOLDIER hyper-awareness was a fucking joke at this point. He couldn’t keep track of what was right in front of him. His focus narrowed, consumed by the itch lodged permanently in his nostril and the pressure that was building between his eyes.

 

“HAHH’TISHH!-ISHH! HARRISHHUH! ISHH! HRRR’ISHH! SHUH! ISH’SHUH! IH’SHYEW! SHYEW! HISH’SHYEW! SHYEW! HARRISHHHEW!”

 

He was near enough to the bed that he could drag himself onto it, and he was delighted to find he’d left a box of tissues there before the test, open and accessible and now right by his hands.

 

With a pillow squashed under his hip, he realised he could brace his stitches hands-free. He lay propped between his stomach and his left side, his left hand covered in tissues and clamped around his face.

 

His symptom charts had never taken longer, even though the maximum value was an easy pick for most of the scales. His watering eyes were a nightmare. He tried breaking off to wipe at them properly, but as soon as he’d cleared his vision, he exploded into a sneezing fit that flooded it all over again. In the end, he settled for a lot of blinking and figuring out where to tap mostly by memory.

 

Once the charts were complete, he flopped onto his back, but the lights on the ceiling were still bright, and his sneezing turned frantic. Then, he flipped to his side and found that the light from his phone was almost as bad. He’d already had to prod clumsily at the tablet, rushing to turn the brightness down. That grenade chemical had seriously fucked him over. Lights were always a problem, but he could look at a damn screen. Once he had his phone display dimmed to a level he could tolerate, he blinked until he could read his notifications.

 

Four missed calls from Dale.

 

Well, he was probably already mad.

 

Zack was wondering how long it would be before he could manage a text message response, when a sharp ring sounded, and a different name flashed up on the screen.

 

Aerith.

 

Fuck.

 

Even if he’d have wanted her to hear him like this—and he was pretty sure he didn’t—there was no chance in hell he could hold a conversation. But the room was cold and stark and even his own body was working against him. Aerith…she didn’t make sense. She was so small. He didn’t know how her tiny frame made him feel so cocooned. Her skin was warm, and she smelled like flowers and kindness.

 

He stared at the phone for a moment and then pulled it closer to his chest, stroking her name as he kept on sneezing.

[solitaire-au]

That chapter was so 🥵!