Pater Familias

I respectfully credit all Original Creators, namely Squaresoft, which became SquareEnix,for these characters. In this way, I pay homage to my Fandom's Original Creator, and illustrate my Community's belief that Fan Fiction is "fair use". I do not claim to own these characters. I do not make money or gil from using these protected characters, nor do I wish to make money or gil from them. In other words, I am borrowing these characters to entertain the adult fanfiction community, but I am doing so with the highest degree of respect to the engineers, game designers, music makers, voice actors.




I didn’t know where Sakura had gone after nine, but I forced myself not to focus on it too much. I was tired, operating on about half my blood supply, and woozy. Person after person filed by me, arms out for their immunization. I almost jabbed them at random, uncaring if I hurt them or not.

“Yo, Hojo,” Reno said, bringing my attention to his face.

“What?” I asked sourly. I stabbed him and pushed the inoculation into his bloodstream.

“I wanna know,” he said, leaning close. “How do you get the chicks?”

I stared at him dumbly for a moment, trying to assimilate his question. “Women,” I said after a small amount of time. “You want to know how I attract women?”

“Yeah.” Reno grinned at me. “You always had about three after your scrawny ass and I want to know how you did it.”

“It’s simple.” I pulled the syringe free and pressed a cotton ball to his arm. “Treat them like they’re better than you.”

“What?” Reno scratched his head.

“Treat them like they’re better than you,” I repeated. “Women are much more complex creatures and they value that you acknowledge that.” I wrapped a small bandage around his elbow. “They like being cherished and they demand understanding. Just shut up and listen to what they tell you, repeat it back to them and apply it.”

Reno blinked. “Yo,” he said. “That’s fucking profound.”

“No, it’s common sense,” I answered. “Now, get the hell out of here. I have seven hundred and forty three people after you. You keep dominating my time and I’ll throw you in a cell for experimentation.”

Reno departed post haste. He knew I meant my words.

For another five hours I shot people up. I called a halt to it shortly before quitting time, sending a hundred and five people back to their departments. I felt wiped out.

I slumped over the work table, smelling astringent cleansers and bleach. I needed a hit.

Slowly, I dragged my tired body to my office and sat down. My arms felt heavy. I opened a drawer and pulled out a box.

Sweet, beautiful cocaine.

I cut a line and snorted it without benefit of a straw. Almost instantaneously I felt a surge in my energy. I put the box away and peeled off my lab coat. I’d waited all day to have fun with Burnside, but now I was free to play.

Whistling, I made my way down to my private lab.

Burnside and Andrews both started acting up the moment I breeched the inner door. I grinned, feeling like a god. These men were mine. I could do what I wanted without any stricture.

I visited Andrews first.

He rushed me the moment I opened the door. I caught him by his neck and slammed him onto the sluice grating. His mouth and nose hit the metal and erupted blood. “Haven’t learned your place yet, have you?” I asked rhetorically, stepping back.

He sat, his hand going to his bleeding face. “Fuck you,” he groaned, feeling his tender flesh. “Crazy son of a bitch. You set bugs on me!”

“And I fully intend to keep doing so,” I informed him. “I just thought I’d give you the chance to overpower me for your freedom.”

Again he ran at me and again I smashed his head onto the grating, delighting in the crunching sound of the cartilage collapsing in his nose. As he rolled in pain, I injected him with Hypnocol. “Be still, puppy,” I commanded, bringing up batch number two of insect repellant.

I coated him, went out and released the insects. I’d go back to him in twenty minutes or so. My schedule remained flexible.

My next specimen waited for me on the other side of the door, taking a cue from me. I let him get close. His offensiveness still lay fresh in my mind. I wanted him to cause trouble. Here, in my own personal lab, I could slam him around as I wished, make him pay for the trauma he’d caused Sakura.

He came at me, breathing fire. I closed the door and backhanded him, sending him to the floor. “Tough guy,” I commented, walking close. “Let’s see how dangerous you are, really.”

Burnside, panting got up. “You’re a son of a bitch,” he swore. “Ain’t no way some little sawed-off fucker can get the best of me.”

“Oh, really?” I faced him, arms spread wide. “Then take your best shot, Burnside.”

He flew at me in a flurry of fists and anger, striking me again and again. Pain blossomed in every part of my body, but Jenova and mako rushed to repair me, weaving me back together on a cellular level. I let him beat me until he panted, until he staggered with the amount of effort it took to remain upright, until I had dozens of broken bones and bleeding injuries.

He fell to his knees, satisfied by my stillness. “There,” he announced.

“There,” I repeated, licking my split lip. Even as I sat up I felt my last bone knit. I spat a wad of blood to the side, bringing up a tooth. In five minutes I’d have new one.

“Simpleton,” I said, standing up. “You don’t know how pathetic you are, not yet.” I advanced upon him, watching his eyes grow larger with every step I took. “You can’t thrash me hard enough,” I told him, smiling through the pain of my lip mending.

“What the fuck?” Burnside tried to get up and meet me, but I threw out a leg and took him down to lay flat on his back. He gaped at me, shocked.

How I loved that expression on a lab rat.

“Not too bad for a little, sawed-off fucker, eh?” I asked, lashing out. My fist brought a geyser of blood from his face.

“Holy fuck,” he gasped, rolling away from me. He had stamina and pain tolerance, and he sought to gain a moment to collect himself.

Not likely.

“Oh, there’s nothing holy about me,” I answered, kicking him so hard in the stomach that he vomited. “I am infernal, Mr. Burnside.”

He could not recover from one blow before I sent him another. In minutes I reduced him to a bleeding, trembling mass of flesh. He crawled, hauling his formidable mass across the white floor, leaving a massive smear of purest red. I licked the blood splashes from my mouth, savoring the fear in him. He tasted of dread and despair, the cleanest, most pure forms of agony.

I came forward, grabbing him by his hair. “I see you’re afraid now,” I taunted, hauling him upright. “And, you should be.” I tossed him down to the farthest corner, thrilling at the spurt of blood as his head hit concrete. “You can’t beat everyone with your strength, Burnside.”

“Oh shit, leave me alone,” he moaned, revealing his weakness to me at last.

Grinning, I went to the door. “Whatever you wish,” I said, stepping through. I hit the sun lamps, sending a stream of hot light in upon his bleeding hulk.

***************************************************************************


“Father?”

I blinked. Sephiroth’s white on white coalesced in my vision, but in a blur. I groped for the bedside table, finding my glasses. I put them on and looked at him with some degree of accuracy. “What?” I asked. I felt so tired my temper sat on the shortest fuse imaginable.

“Miss Leijanna came to the apartment to talk to Aerith, but she intends to come down here to visit you,” Sephiroth said. “I thought you’d want the warning.”

“Thank you,” I mumbled, forcing my body to sit upright. His attempt at decency banked my ire, somewhat.

“Here.” He handed me a plastic bag. “Fresh coke. You’ll want it, I imagine.”

“I love you,” I told him, scooping up a small measure with my fingers and snorting it up my nose in an instant.

“I gathered that,” he said, giving me a tiny smirk. “You need a vacation, father.”

“I know.” I sneezed and rolled onto my back. I felt the cocaine rushing through me, spurring me to activity.

“I’m serious.” Sephiroth set the bag down on my bedside table. “A week in Costa del Sol would be good for you.”

“I’ve got to finish the immunizations tomorrow,” I argued without energy.

“So do them and take off,” he urged. “You look better than you ever have, but that doesn’t mean you can’t collapse.”

I looked at him, seeing the worry in his eyes. It hit me like a ton of bricks.

My son cared.

I knew that he did, by now. He’d shown me as much for weeks and weeks, but sometimes it still felt so very new and shocking. I didn’t merit such compassionate regard.

I reached out and ruffled the crest of his silver hair. “After tomorrow I’ll go to Costa del Sol for a week, I promise,” I told him. “You aren’t going to lose your whack-job old man for awhile yet.”

“Good.” Sephiroth handed me a glass of cold water, his eyes pleased. “Because I’ve only just recently started to know him and I’d like to explore his psychotic behavior further.”

I chuckled. “I’ll be fine, son,” I said. “It helps me more than you know to realize you give a shit.”

Sephiroth stood up and looked at my lab coat, which I’d thrown over the back of my dressing chair. “Had a bit of fun before you came home?” he asked lifting the white fabric up. The coat had so many splatters of dried blood on it I was surprised no one had stopped me at the metro.

Then again, does one attempt to stop an obvious mad scientist on his way to somewhere?

He pulled my covers down, inspecting my rumpled clothing. “You need to change,” he told me. “Unless your woman finds dried blood stimulating.”

“The dried blood of her old boyfriends is an aphrodisiac to no one but myself, I’m sure,” I said, getting up.

Sephiroth threw me a pair of pants and a sweater. “No tie, for Shiva’s sake, father,” he said. “And take out that messy braid.”

Exasperated, I stepped into the fresh pants. “What are you, a fashionista?”

“I have experience with being seen,” Sephiroth said, sniffing. He moved behind me and began taking my braid out. I felt him examining the texture of my hair. “Except for the color,” he said slowly, “it’s just like mine.”

I understood his sudden pause for something like this. At times I would look at him and see parts of myself, gaining a fearful amount of genetic perspective. He was the best of me and his mother, literally.

“Most Wutainians have this sort of hair,” I said patiently. “Slick and fine and black. Yours…” I shrugged. “I honestly don’t know why you got hair that color. Lucretia’s family had brown and red hair.”

“Mako?” he asked, picking up my comb.

“No.” I winced as he hit a rare tangle and just ripped through it. He was still a child sometimes; he didn’t think about knots. The fact he would stand behind me and comb my hair was also telling toward his innocence. He didn’t think about it being unmanly or strange. He seemed to want to be with me as often as I’d allow it, catching up for lost time.

Sephiroth was really a very gentle and open person underneath all that flash and drama.

He’d make a good father. He would never enforce silly morals, refuse to play or be unsupportive to his child.

“I heard that,” he said. “Thank you, father.”

“How often do you listen to me?” I asked, half amused and half irritated.

“I hear you all the time now,” he answered, finishing his combing job and stepping back. “All I need is line of sight.”

A bit dismayed, I turned and looked up, meeting his eyes. “Don’t you hear things that bother you?”

“Nothing you can think will ever bother me.” Sephiroth sauntered out of the bedroom. “Like Aerith, you never lie to me in your thoughts or your speech; I can depend on you.”