Unresolved Spaceship Tension [Open to Zack, & Aerith and Cloud later]

[silver_soldier]

With Integra and Sora having left - and the girl who'd been on Zack's shoulders, whoever she'd been, having vanished at some point - Sephiroth gestured to Zack (not that he probably needed any prompting) to follow him back into the hotel. He was still without a coat - it seemed like forever since he'd lost it - and Zack wasn't wearing one either,

Comments

[twilight_dark]

The fact that Sephiroth had to go ahead and explain himself really just made matters worse. Of course, it was something he'd do, and Zack was exactly surprised by it, but it was like having salt rubbed in his wounds. The general had always been blunt. There were no games to be played, and no tact to be enforced. It was something Zack liked about the man, but he had to admit that sometimes it stung.

Did he have a problem with her? The fact that she was general when Sephiroth should have been was something he had a hard time facing as well, and his old general had to know that. But it wasn't just that...

Really, Zack wasn't sure what it was. After all, the fact that Sephiroth even had another friend should have been a cause for celebration. Since he didn't exactly know what he was doing, maybe it would be best to brush it off. Zack ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "No... I don't know. I think I'm just a little out of sorts, seeing as some girl I'd never met before ambushed me in my sleep not too long ago." He wasn't sure if Sephiroth was going to buy it, but it was worth a try.

[silver_soldier]

Zack's success was half and half. On the one hand, Sephiroth could fully believe some girl Zack had never met before had ambushed him in his sleep; with Zack, one eventually became accustomed to hearing tales like that and taking them at face value. (Less because Zack wouldn't make up such stories and more because he never really needed to.) On the other... "There was a time you'd have practically had to have a hose turned on you to prevent you turning that into some sort of lewd joke," Sephiroth observed, rather startled. If Zack could say something like that without a hint of amusement, something was further wrong than he'd imagined. "Was it that red-haired girl? She was only a child."

[twilight_dark]

"Which is exactly why I didn't make the joke," Zack responded with a small smile. "Come on, Seph, you know I'm not that bad." He drew the line at sixteen, usually, and even that was pushing it.

The general was more than a little sharp today, though. He had to be concentrating really hard to have caught something like that. Then again, Zack figured he'd given his friend a reason to pay close attention after that earlier comment.

"Anyway, it shouldn't be hard to find our way. I'm sure they sell maps pretty cheap over at the gummi hangar." They weren't stupid, after all. How hard could it be to just follow instructions? Sephiroth knew how to pilot, so he wouldn't mind being navigator.

[silver_soldier]

"I never knew anything was safe from a joke from you." Sephiroth raised a slightly sardonic eyebrow. "It's not like you would have meant what you were saying in any case."

At the mention of maps...Sephiroth wasn't entirely sure whether to be self-conscious or to refuse to allow Zack to change the subject. He wasn't blind to the fact that something was bothering his friend, but if Zack wasn't going to come out and tell him what it was there wasn't much he could do about it - although Sephiroth wanted to make Zack aware of the fact that he knew his friend was deliberately steering the conversation away from the problem. It hadn't been so many years that he'd forgotten Zack's cues. "I've never actually read a star map," he admitted. "The worlds I found, I discovered by luck, and I just memorized those routes once I knew them. But I never paid attention to the route to Hollow Bastion, and I have no idea how to get to there from here in particular. And, of course, when I first left Hollow Bastion there were no maps made yet anyway." That was the one inconvenience of his travels between worlds; Sephiroth knew how to get from world to world only by a strictly linear path. He had, for instance, been to Halloween Town, but he could only have returned there (assuming he wanted to) by traveling there from Deep Jungle, because he didn't know how to reach it from any other world.

However, the possibility of Zack showing him how to read a star map was intriguing.

[twilight_dark]

"I don't know," Zack admitted as he scrubbed his hand through his hair. "I don't want to end up grossing myself out." It was true that he might not have hesitated in the past, but everyone mellowed out a little as they got older. It didn't mean he was a sourpuss or anything like that!

At the pause, Zack wasn't sure what to do with himself. He knew that Sephiroth was deciding between pressing him and letting it go, and he mentally sighed in relief when he chose the latter. "I don't know how you got around that way. I usually hitch rides, but I made sure I knew that the people flying the ship knew what the hell they were doing." He smiled, to make sure Sephiroth knew that there was no malignancy to the comment. Trying to figure things out blindly without asking for help was very much something Sephiroth would do. While he was practical about battle, tactics, and that sort of thing, he was stunted in anything that involved interacting with others.

It was handy how well they complimented each other, really. "Don't worry, I'll take care of it. They aren't that hard to read, promise."