Work Text:
Sephiroth wasn’t an alpha. Not really, or so he’d implied absently to Zack once. People just assumed and he saw no reason to correct the notion.
Honestly, Zack had thought guiltily at the time, it explained so much about him and the way everything dynamic related somehow managed to soar over his ridiculously tall head. Zack had originally put it down to Sephiroth being raised – if that was the word he wanted – by beta-majority scientists who dismissed the relevance and importance of dynamic socialisation, but realising he just didn’t have the same world view at all had answered so many questions Zack didn’t know he had.
It was still hard to believe sometimes, and no wonder nobody had ever thought otherwise – Sephiroth smelt like an alpha, showed his teeth like an alpha when annoyed or stressed, he had that rock-solid confidence that most people assumed was from being the most dominant alpha around but was really just from being sure of himself regardless of actual dynamic. Zack knew at least one omega with the same surety everybody read into Sephiroth. Alpha, beta, or omega was irrelevant to that kind of thing, but people did like to assume. Especially about alphas. Even more about Sephiroth.
Everything ‘off’ about Sephiroth’s interactions with others could be – and was – simply dismissed as Sephiroth being Sephiroth. As far as everyone was concerned, Sephiroth was an alpha. What he actually was Zack didn’t know and Sephiroth couldn’t explain because he had no idea just how much of the world he was actually missing not being an alpha, beta or omega at all. Not that he cared.
Usually it was fine. Usually Sephiroth was just Sephiroth. Zack might have to elbow him sometimes to keep him from accidentally staring down an alpha to the point of tears – of humiliation or anger usually, though sometimes just plain confusion at what they’d done to deserve it – or cough to remind him not to casually touch an omega he had no idea might read the gesture as courting, or step in if Sephiroth forgot what he’d never known about appropriate assignments for various dynamics – he thought they were all equally capable of everything and sometimes that just wasn’t true, there were biological or environmental factors to consider that Sephiroth just didn’t.
The troops loved him for that one, thought it meant he respected their strength more than their dynamic and would just make a joke of it rather than see it as something wrong with him, something weirder than just social ignorance.
Zack assumed Genesis and Angeal used to give the same kind of help – well, Angeal, really, he was willing to bet – and it wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t.
Not until his friend Cloud collapsed suddenly while walking with Zack, like a puppet with its strings cut. Zack had taken him to the medical wing thinking it was nothing serious, thinking he’d just overexerted himself, thinking maybe he hadn’t eaten or hydrated enough.
Except that Sephiroth was there too, a crowd of doctors surrounding him, chattering away at each other while he stared into the middle distance, oblivious to their panicked attempts to get responses from him.
He wasn't oblivious to everything. He turned his head towards Zack as he barrelled into the room, and his eyes – his eyes dilated, fixed upon Cloud, limp in Zack’s arms. His nostrils flared impolitely to catch a scent – Cloud’s scent, Zack knew with a bone-deep certainty he couldn’t explain, though he’d later tell himself all manner of comforting excuses: Sephiroth was familiar with Zack’s scent already. Sephiroth was trying to filter and find the new sensory input. Sephiroth was overwhelmed. Sephiroth was not an alpha and Zack shouldn’t forget that. He didn’t do things for the reasons Zack would do them. It was different. It was different.
Sephiroth smelled wrong. It had to be at least part of the reason he was getting checked out, but the obvious answer to the question of why Sephiroth was there didn't make Zack feel any better. Sephiroth had always smelled like an alpha to Zack – to everyone – but even under all the antiseptic and processed mako and healing materia scents that layered every healing facility Zack had ever had the misfortune to be in the difference in Sephiroth was obvious. He smelled… sick. Rotten. Almost like… Like a bonding gone hideously wrong, almost.
Sephiroth couldn’t bond. Didn’t understand the need, and didn’t know how.
His eyes, pupils as wide as Zack had ever seen them, never left Cloud as Zack set him down carefully onto the nearest bed, fussing obviously to try and avoid looking anywhere else.
“Get out,” Sephiroth snapped at the doctors, exerting his will in that way he had that looked and felt so much like alpha dominance it sent them scattering instinctively. Even excluded from the order, just watching it happen, every hair on Zack’s body suddenly felt like it was standing on end.
“Hey – hey, I need someone to check my friend,” he said, trying to grab as one as they reeled past him, sprinting for the door, but the need to avoid the threat in Sephiroth’s voice was stronger and more instinctual than any desire to tend a patient, and they shook Zack’s hold off with adrenaline-fuelled ease.
Sephiroth moved. Zack could hear the rustle of leather, the tap of his boots, the soft hiss of dissatisfaction as if he’d moved wrong after an injury he didn’t have – he didn’t smell injured or in pain – but didn’t look up or away from Cloud.
Something was wrong. Something was hideously wrong. Maybe if he just didn’t look everything would be okay.
“He’s fine,” Sephiroth said, and the muscles in Zack’s back tightened for some reason, screaming at him that something dangerous was behind him and he needed to move, to get away, now, now, now. He’d never heard Sephiroth sound like that before. “He doesn’t need a doctor.”
“You don’t know that,” Zack said, even though he’d thought it himself the entire time he’d been carrying Cloud there, debating with himself over whether or not he was being overcautious, wondering if Cloud just needed to rest somewhere comfortable, if he wasn’t just going to cause Cloud more trouble than he solved.
“I know,” Sephiroth said, and Zack turned to look at him, heart in his throat because something about the way he said it… Sephiroth stared back, expression perfectly blank.
Cloud stirred and Zack was instantly dismissed from Sephiroth’s attention, his eyes darting down to catch every twitch and shiver, his lips parting slightly. Zack had seen his expression somewhere before, and it took him a long, incredulous moment to place it – too many TV shows to count, actors trying to portray an alpha overwhelmed by an omega at first scent.
Cloud wasn’t an omega. Cloud had never said and Zack would never be so crass as to ask, obviously, and if there was one thing Shinra didn’t skimp on it was suppressants and scent-blockers for active duty troopers – SOLDIERs didn’t mask well, something about the mako rendered even the strongest blockers moot – but he was almost sure Cloud was a beta. He found himself sniffing anyway, and almost choked, reeling back with eyes going wide.
Cloud smelled claimed. He hadn’t five minutes before but suddenly he did, and Zack’s head whipped around to stare at Sephiroth, who was… smiling. Not the smile Zack had often wished he’d do more but something else, something just as off and wrong as his scent.
It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t possible and Zack was… Zack was having an olfactory hallucination, he’d inhaled too much mako somewhere somehow, an old head wound was suddenly relevant, something, anything.
Cloud opened his eyes, saw them – saw Sephiroth, his gaze as instantly fixed upon the SOLDIER as his was on Cloud – and recoiled, his sudden fear and confusion so pungent and sour Zack had to slam his hands over his nose to try and block it out, heart speeding up with sympathetic terror.
“What have you done?” Cloud said, trying to scramble backwards, shattering every hope Zack had been clinging to as hard as he could. “What is this, what have you done?!”
He’d never thought Cloud would ever look or sound like that directed at Sephiroth. Cloud hadn’t exactly been subtle with how much he looked up to Sephiroth – Zack respected his desire to never call it what it probably was, even though a crush on Sephiroth was the most normal thing in the Shinra army. His terror – his hatred, if Zack’s nose wasn’t playing him false the way he prayed it was – was jarring.
Sephiroth’s smile widened. “Cloud,” he said. Zack hadn’t been sure he knew Cloud’s name, and certainly never thought he’d be hearing him say it like an alpha in rut.
“No,” Cloud said, shaking his head, his eyes darting around – to the windows, to the doors, Zack realised, his heart sinking, seeking escape. “No, no, what is this--”
“Whatever the world, the time, the place, you will always belong to me,” Sephiroth said. Coming from anyone else it might have sounded like something out of an overwrought novel about destined mates, like something romantic. From Sephiroth it just sounded matter of fact, not an exaggeration at all.
It had to be, though. Sephiroth wouldn’t do what he seemed to be implying he’d done – whatever was happening it couldn’t be what Zack’s instincts screamed it was.
Sephiroth reached down to Cloud before Zack could stop him – if he could even get past the natural disinclination to interfere with another alpha’s interaction with their omega, which he couldn’t – and settled his hand upon the back of Cloud’s neck, cupping the vulnerable curve of his skull, pressing gently to force his head up, to focus on Sephiroth rather than escape.
“Cloud,” he repeated, a distinctly satisfied alpha purr that made Zack want to leave the room, give them privacy, even over all the more sensible parts of his brain trying to remind him that however much Sephiroth looked and smelt and acted like one he wasn’t in fact an alpha, and that Cloud probably wasn’t an omega, and there couldn’t be a bond between them...
Except there obviously was. Not something Zack was familiar with, not something natural like an alpha-omega bonding, but there was something.
“Where are we?” Cloud whispered, staring at Sephiroth’s face like the rest of the world no longer existed with Sephiroth there to take all his focus, like everything else just faded away in comparison. “This isn’t – this isn’t…”
“It is. And it isn’t,” Sephiroth said, as if he knew exactly what question Cloud was struggling to articulate. His fingers moved against the back of Cloud’s neck, the tiniest shift, stroking the vulnerable skin. A threat as much as a caress, something in Zack whispered, though he had no reason to think so. “Some worlds diverge more than you know. Regardless of the trappings I am me and you are you. That’s all that matters, isn’t it?”
“What trappings?” Cloud said. His eyes looked hazy, overwhelmed in a way Zack had only rarely seen, like an omega suppressed by an alpha trying to keep them calm. He kept blinking as if he was trying to shake it off, but still couldn’t tear his eyes away from Sephiroth.
“Oh, I think Zack could explain those better,” Sephiroth said, broad shoulders moving in a shrug. His hand stayed on Cloud’s neck, a collar. “I am as set apart as I have always been. The type of humanity makes no difference to me.”
“Zack?” Cloud said weakly, and finally, finally, managed to look away from Sephiroth, remember the rest of the world existed. “Zack!”
“Hey Cloud,” Zack said, pasting a smile on his face. Still here, I still exist, thanks. “Buddy, you scared me – oof!”
Cloud lurched forward, Sephiroth’s hand forced to lift from his neck before it could hurt him, and threw himself at Zack, wrapping his arms around his middle. He was sure Cloud wasn’t as strong usually, but adrenaline could do the weirdest things. His hand lifted, meaning to pat Cloud’s back, and froze mid-gesture as he caught Sephiroth’s poisonous stare out of the corner of his eye. He swallowed, every instinct screaming that he was in the wrong to invite a claimed omega to seek comfort in him over their alpha –
Sephiroth was not an alpha. Cloud was not an omega. They were not definitely not mated, not even temporarily bonded. Zack’s instincts were going haywire, he could comfort his friend, he could, he could...
“Zack, you smell stressed,” Cloud said, and then blinked as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just said. “Smell,” he repeated. “You smell stressed. What… why would I say that?”
“Probably because I do?” Zack offered, trying to laugh as if his stomach hadn’t just dropped to somewhere near his feet. Why would Cloud sound so surprised, so confused by the very idea? It was a little rude to point out, sure, but it wasn’t wrong, not the way Cloud’s tone implied it was, like he’d said something weird. “It’s fine, Cloud, we’re all a bit stressed out, yeah?”
“Yeah, but…”
“Are you feeling any better?” Zack interrupted, speaking a little louder than he meant to, wincing at how rude he was being, talking over someone – an omega, his wrong-wired instincts said, confused by the way he could detect Sephiroth’s scent twining with Cloud’s, as if they’d just shared a heat or rut or even just a bed. They’d been in the same room together maybe five minutes, it wasn’t possible. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t…
Sephiroth wasn’t an alpha but before today he’d never been unnatural. Not normal, sure, but not unnatural.
“I…” Cloud’s eyes darted to Sephiroth, and away. “Yeah… yeah, I feel… a little better?”
“Are you lying to me?” Zack said mock-sternly, and heard something from Sephiroth’s direction that almost made him turn, a soft huff that almost sounded like laughter. His scent swelled, rich with amusement, and Cloud’s tongue darted out to wet his lips, his eyes dilated. A perfectly understandable response to something so rare and glorious – even Zack couldn’t help but relax with the alpha he followed in such a good mood.
Except Cloud shook himself, looking baffled and more than a little freaked out by his own response, cheeks going red and mouth pressing into a grim, confused line as if he didn’t know what had come over him. He sniffed as if to distract himself, then sniffed again, and his mouth dropped open, turning from Zack to Sephiroth and back again.
“What is – why can I –”
“What it means to be human can change,” Sephiroth murmured. “It’s fine, Cloud. We are different regardless.”
“No we – I’m not like you--”
“You’re more like me than Zack here,” Sephiroth said, his mouth curving up in that wrong little smile, one hand pressing against his broad chest, his heart, before sweeping out towards Cloud – a theatrical gesture Zack had seen used in plays and nowhere else, too romantic, too over the top for casual everyday use in a no longer as formal, stratified society: you and I are made of the same heart. When had Sephiroth even seen it? Did he know what it meant? Did it even have any meaning to him at all?
“Cloud, you’re probably still really disoriented, huh?” Zack said loudly. “Someone should probably let you rest a little more, let me get you something to drink, a potion, see if you feel a little better. You really worried me, just collapsing like that.”
“I – did I? I’m sorry.”
“You never apologise to me,” Sephiroth said. His tone sounded offended where his scent indicated only amusement. “I’m hurt, Cloud.”
Cloud straightened, focus back on Sephiroth again as if it had never left, the sort of singular focus mates tended to have for one another. “You--”
“Rest, Cloud,” Sephiroth said, and even Zack couldn’t help but sway a little at the force of his words, his will. Alpha among alphas, who wouldn’t?
“I don’t want to,” Cloud said, the words slurring a little but still more coherent than Zack could have managed. Mates were exempt from each other’s will, weren’t they, outside of life and death situations – it was trust in their bonding that led people to assume it worked the other way around, that bonded mates exerted more power over each other.
They’re not bonded, Zack reminded himself, although he didn’t know any more if he believed it or just wanted to have hope. He’d have been thrilled for Sephiroth if it had happened not even a week ago. He’d have been delighted for Cloud. Why did he feel sick?
“I need – I need –”
“Answers can wait,” Sephiroth said, and he sat beside Cloud, who suddenly looked so small. Everybody looked small next to Sephiroth, really, even if they technically matched him in height or broadness. He just had that something that convinced everyone of his alpha state, whatever it was – presence, maybe. As a trooper in Shinra's army Cloud was an adult by all of Midgar's metrics, and Zack had never considered him a kid the way he might have if they'd met before leaving their backwater villages... But Sephiroth was so much bigger and suddenly all Zack could see was how easily he could manhandle Cloud, how Cloud would struggle to take--
Zack made a strangled noise in his throat, watching Sephiroth casually remove his boots before lying down beside Cloud, both of them moving to accommodate each other seemingly without even realising it, twisting and turning in the least movements required to find where they best settled, fit with each other.
“We have time.”
“Time,” Cloud echoed, eyes half-closing, relaxed seemingly despite himself in Sephiroth’s arms. Obviously the safest place you could ever be, Zack had heard more than one omega speculate wistfully.
“It’s normal, what is between us now,” Sephiroth said, mouth curving again, eyes glancing towards Zack, bright with some strange amusement. “Zack will tell you, I’m sure.”
“Tell me…?” Cloud murmured, and Zack could almost see him fighting against his instincts to stay awake, to leave his alpha’s embrace, to fight against the soothing pheromones Sephiroth was producing as naturally as any alpha.
“All about the alpha and omega birds and bees,” Sephiroth said.
“What are those?” Cloud asked, eyes closing and breathing evening out into sleep before he’d even finished his question, voice trailing off into nothing as Zack stared at him, wishing those coward doctors would come back, do something, anything, something was obviously seriously wrong with Cloud that he’d forgotten something so basic –
“Let him sleep,” Sephiroth said, and Zack put his hand down, dropping the emergency contact button blankly. He didn’t know why he’d been trying to use it. “Leave us.”
Zack turned on his heel and was out of the door and halfway down the corridor before he stumbled, leaning heavily into the wall and mouthing what the fuck what the fuck over and over again. What had just happened? To Cloud, to Sephiroth, to him?
He whirled, ready to march back into the hospital room, and found he just… couldn’t.
They’re fine, his instincts said. You don’t disturb an alpha and omega so soon after bonding. You don’t, you don’t, you don’t…
“Sephiroth isn’t an alpha,” he heard himself say. It was the first time he’d ever said the words out loud. “Whatever that was, it’s not…”
He broke off and just stared into the distance blankly, mind racing. That wasn’t what anyone else would think. If the doctors talked, if anyone walked in and saw them, it was all over. Nobody would ever believe…
Believe what? Zack didn’t even know what he believed, and he’d witnessed it all. Cloud would be…
Already the scent of Cloud’s fear was fading from Zack’s memory, already he was struggling to remember the way Cloud had recoiled from Sephiroth, instead of the way he’d yielded to him. Nobody would believe him. Nobody would think Cloud was… trapped?
Zack mulled the word over, testing it in his mind. Trapped. Why did he think that? Sephiroth was his friend. Zack liked him. Why did he think…
“What are those?”
Something was seriously wrong.