Warnings: some m/m content

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Paint The Town

First Aid

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There were few things Sephiroth appreciated as much as the stillness of early morning. In that brief halfway point between day and night, peace reigned, even for a SOLDIER, and the dawning day made even Midgar seem fresh and new.

He rose before the dawn every day, a habit acquired during training, just so he could enjoy the solitude. With no movement around him, and no sound, it was easy to pretend that there was no one else in the world, that he was free to be alone.

Sephiroth treasured his time away from prying eyes and the demands of his position. He would make himself coffee and sip it standing near his window. It was a small comfort that he could rise from bed most mornings and while away the time instead of having to rush out of a tent and brace for war. Here, in his apartment, his space in the building, his time was his own.

When the phone rang minutes before he normally rose from under the covers, he was not pleased. He answered politely and clearly nonetheless. Emergency calls from Commander Heidegger or even the President himself were not completely out of the question. The caller this particular morning, however, was completely out of line.

"SEPH!" Zack wailed into the phone. Sephiroth winced and was glad no one could see it. "SEPH! I hurt! All over, man, I can't move!"

Sephiroth rolled his eyes. "What is this about, Zachary?"

The other man's voice sounded tinny and strained over the phone. "I can't move, Sir. My back hurts like hell. I feel like I've been run over by a herd of elfadunks!"

"So what do you expect me to do about that?" Sephiroth was half a breath away from putting the phone back on the hook and rolling over for a few minutes more sleep.

"It's YOUR fault I'm hurting like this," Zack hollered. "I can barely drag myself across the floor!" Sephiroth winced again. Even over the phone, Zack was loud. The General took a deep breath and rubbed his brow with his free hand.

"So?" he asked.

"Well, if you broke me, you should fix me!"

Sephiroth frowned at the phone, forgetting in the haze of half-sleep that Zack could not see him. "Is that how it works?"

"Yes, Sephiroth!" Zack huffed into the phone. "I swear, if you don't help me get fixed up, I will phone you every minute of the day!"

Sephiroth almost growled. "Yesterday you said you were fine."

Zack's voice was full of pain. "Well, I'm not fine now, okay? It just got worse overnight." There was a sound almost like a sob. "Please, Sephiroth, at least try to act like a decent human being. I tried to walk down to the infirmary myself but I can hardly walk anymore."

Sephiroth ordinarily would not have cared whether a thing was decent or proper or not. He did what suited him best, but he had an uncomfortable feeling that Zack would make good on his threat. He sighed quietly. "Fine. I'll be at your door in a few minutes." He put the phone down without waiting for a reply and got up to salvage what peace he could for the day.

Ten minutes later he was at Zachary's door, looking as polished and unruffled as ever. He had brought a wheelchair from his own apartment. He never had gotten around to returning it to Hojo after the last time he had left the man's office in it. Sephiroth pressed the buzzer and the door slid open.

Zack was lying face down on the floor. He looked up with a strained grin as Sephiroth entered. "Hello," he said and flopped back onto the floor. He was still in dark blue flannel pajamas and the top had ridden up his back partway so Sephiroth could see the ugly bruise. It was like a storm cloud going south on Zachary's tailbone.

Sephiroth grunted and hauled his Second up. Zack hissed with the movement but offered no resistance. Sephiroth lowered the man into the wheelchair and pushed him out. Zack leaned forward in the seat, gasping each time the wheels went over so much as a ridge in the carpet. Sephiroth found the whole thing to be rather melodramatic.

"It can't be hurting that badly, Zachary."

"How would you know?" Zack snapped. Sephiroth frowned.

"Can you walk at all?"

Zack breathed heavily. "Yeah, but my back hurts so much it's really hard. You really know how to beat a body up, you realize that?"

"It's what I get paid for." Dry and clipped as ever. Sephiroth's apparent lack of concern began to grate on Zack. The look of pain on his face became a dark frown in the elevator. When the door opened to the infirmary floor, Sephiroth pushed the chair out hard. The way it jolted over the gap between elevator and floor was too much for Zack.

"Goddammit, can't you go easier than that?" he shrieked, alerting the entire floor to their presence.

Sephiroth was nonplussed. "I'm getting you to someone who can help as fast as possible. That was what you wanted, was it not?" Zack folded his arms and grumbled under his breath. Sephiroth frowned. He had already been woken out of what little sleep he could get and had his morning hours taken away by this noisy soldier. The least Zack could try to do was show a little gratitude. "Why should I even bother with this?" Sephiroth snapped.

Ordinarily Zack would have been wary of the General's temper, but the man's stubborn attitude, combined with his pain, pushed him beyond reason. He whipped his head around. "Because it's your fault my ass hurts like this!"

This was too much for Sephiroth. He was not called on to take back-answering from subordinates. Zack had gotten away with too much already. "You were the one who asked me to join you," he declared. "You were practically begging for it yesterday, so don't pretend that it's all my fault."

"But you didn't have to be so rough!"

"Take it like a man, Zachary. I don't go easy on anyone."

Zack was raging. "That's probably why you're stuck by yourself. Who would want to be your regular partner if you're going to be as brutal as that?"

"Somebody who can take it, obviously," Sephiroth pushed the wheelchair furiously down the hall. "If you're complaining about yesterday, we'd better not do it again. You got kid-glove treatment and you can't handle that!"

"I wouldn't be in this situation now if you'd just taken care of me afterwards!" Zack roared. Neither of them noticed the stares they were getting from the personnel on the floor.

"You said you were fine," Sephiroth snapped again. "Besides, it's not as if you were bleeding."

Zack faced front again and grumbled. Heads snapped away from the sight of Shinra's top field general wheeling his Second-in-Command down the hallway. The General was obviously not in a good mood.

After a while, something became apparent to Zack. "Isn't Hojo's treatment office on the other side of the floor?"

"Yes, Zachary."

Zack frowned. "Then why are we heading away from it?" He thought he heard an exasperated sigh behind him.

"Zachary, whatever they told you about SOLDIERs needing special medical care is a lie. If it's not a spell or a strange infection, regular medication will work just fine." Sephiroth knew this from his own experience. He had quite a stock of over-the-counter medication in his cabinet, mostly for headaches. It worked fine, despite the warnings Hojo had given him over the years. The skinny old scarecrow just wanted any excuse to monitor the mako-enhanced SOLDIERs, especially Sephiroth. The General gave him no more chances than absolutely necessary. He had more than enough 'appointments' there as it was.

Remarkably, the revelation seemed to quiet the dark-haired man down. He seemed to be thinking over the matter and did not even notice that Sephiroth took the last two corners a bit roughly.

The clinic that treated the Shinra staff was an unusually bright place. There were artificial sunflowers, most in need of a good washing, on every available surface and the coffee tables in the waiting lounge were a repository of at least three years of back issues for Midgar's more popular magazines. Zack gave his name and number to the receptionist calmly then let Sephiroth wheel him into a corner near one of the plastic-coated couches. He busied himself with looking around.

Sephiroth picked up a yellowed issue of Homemaker's Journal and began to read. Zack was wide-eyed at the General's choice of material, but a warning glare over the pages kept him from saying anything. He resumed looking around. The room was mostly empty except for a few nurses hovering around. Every now and then one of them would look over in his direction and smother a giggle. Zack could not tell if they were looking at him or the General, but it was nice all the same.

The nurses were pretty cute, he decided. They were just the way he liked his nurses, young, fresh-faced, and with all the right curves. He had always found something special about nurse uniforms, though he could never figure out what. It might have been the way the starched white cloth folded over the hips, or maybe it was how the skirt's straight hem ended just above the knees. It could have been the cute little hats. A pretty blonde nurse caught him staring at hers and threw him a smile. Zack smiled back. Yes, it was definitely the hat.

Sephiroth caught the action even though he seemed absorbed in his magazine. "Aren't you seeing someone?" he asked caustically.

Zack almost blushed, though he did feel sheepish. "I'm dating, not dead," he offered weakly. Sephiroth huffed and went back to a very interesting recipe for pumpkin pie. After a few minutes, one of the nurses came over with another in tow. The younger one had a pin marked 'Trainee' over her nametag.

"Come with us, gentlemen. We need to fill out a preliminary report before you can see the doctor," the older dark-haired nurse said. She saw the confusion on Zack's face. "You don't have a file here. We'll treat you, but we do have procedure."

Zack sighed. "Okay then." He looked up and grinned the best he could with his pain. "Lead the way." He tried to rise from the chair and fell back down, gasping. Beside him, Sephiroth exhaled loudly.

The General put the magazine down and stood to resume his duty. He turned to go once he had wheeled Zack into the preliminary exam room, but Zack stopped him. "You might as well stay," Zack said. "You caused the problem." Sephiroth huffed and took a seat close to the door. The trainee smirked. Outside, a bell rung.

"There's somebody else to tackle," the older nurse said as she headed out. "Kira can handle this part for you." She looked at the younger woman. "Make sure you get all the data now." She shut the door with a soft click. Zack smiled up at Kira.

"Do what you got to do, gorgeous!"

Kira's smirk grew wider, though she threw a nervous glance Sephiroth's way. The General folded his arms across his chest and looked away. Everything about his pose screamed 'I have better things to do with my time'. Kira looked back at Zack, gave him a smile and then got to work.

The preliminary file turned out to be a long list of questions about the nature of his problem and his medical history. After about five minutes of answering questions about his father's blood pressure and whether his great-grandparents had ever had eczema, Zack had almost forgotten about the pain. Even if the questions seemed pointless, things did go better when the company was good, but he could not figure out why Kira almost seemed skeptical when he told her that he had fallen in a sparring match, or that his pain really was in his lower back and not too much lower.

Kira reached for an odd looking device that turned out to be a digital thermometer. "Under the tongue, now," she said, smiling, and Zack obliged. Blood pressure came after that. Kira took the all the readings carefully.

"Okay, next on the list," she took a glance. "When was your last bowel movement?" Zack gave a mental groan. Why did medical people always want to know that?

"What does that really have to do with anything?" Zack never dared to question real nurses, but Kira was just a trainee and not too intimidating. "I only need painkillers."

"That's for the doctor to decide," she said, and in that moment Zack had a glimpse of the tough, no-nonsense nurse she would become. It was a little scary. "Now when was that last bowel movement?" she asked again.

Zack sighed. "First thing this morning." He hated that question.

Kira wrote it down and took a look at the next thing on the list. "What was the first day of your last menstrual cycle?"

Zack was speechless for a moment. His mouth moved but his voice would not cooperate. It caught up after a while. "What?"

Kira looked up at him and sighed. "It's on the list. I have to put something down."

"Do you really have to?"

Kira nodded. "I didn't invent the procedure. I just follow it." Her expression grew a bit distraught. "If I don't do it right, I'll flunk out and never be a real nurse."

Zack would have felt sorry for her if the whole thing had not been so ridiculously embarrassing. "Look, I think it's pretty obvious that I've never had a menstrual cycle in my entire life."

"He might soon, though," Sephiroth broke his silence. "He's been quite snippy all morning. Could be PMS." Zack turned and glared at the man. Though Sephiroth did not so much as twitch, Zack was sure the man was getting a few laughs out of the whole thing.

Kira began to root around in a drawer. "Here." She placed a plastic cup in front of Zack. "You're going to have to take a pregnancy test. Just fill this up. Bathroom's right across the hall."

Zack stared at the cup, disbelieving. "What the hell is this?"

"It's just procedure," Kira said.

"Fill the cup, Zachary," Sephiroth snapped. "I don't have all day." Zack glared at the man again.

He refused any assistance getting to the bathroom. He was damned if he was going to take up anymore of his concerned General's time. He leaned carefully against the wall near the urinal and worked the lid off the cup.

"Pregnancy test," he muttered. "What is wrong with these people? Same thing that's wrong with the whole company, that's what. No wonder nothing ever gets done in time around here." The ache in his back was getting worse from standing, but he just could not seem to turn the tap on under pressure. "Dammit!"

The door swung open and two more people entered. Zack turned his head to face the tiles. There were rules that governed the way men interacted in public bathrooms. More specifically, they did not. Even with his eyes turned away, Zack caught a flash of bright red in his peripheral vision. He tried to keep his mind on the task at hand, but it was even more difficult with other people in the room. Especially since the redhead seemed to be having trouble.

"I can't shee da cup." The voice sounded familiar, though slurred.

"Hold still."

Zack heard a zipper being pulled down and hazarded a glance to the side. He saw a pair of familiar blue suits. He knew the Turks well enough, given his high rank and tendency to hit the bars hard every now and then, which appeared to be what Reno had been doing recently. Rude continued to hold Reno up. The redhead was clearly too drunk to do it on his own.

"Don't go till I tell you to," Rude told Reno.

Zack tried not to stare as Rude dipped a hand into the other Turk's pants. "Now, Rude?" Reno asked, looking back. Rude adjusted the aim.

"Now."

"Oh gods!" Zack was shocked so hard he completely forgot the rules about men in public restrooms. "Do you have to do that?" Rude said nothing, but kept on helping Reno to fill his cup. "Dude," Zack was horrified. "You're touching his tool!"

"I do it for a friend," Rude said simply.

"I can't watch this." Zack grabbed his own still-empty cup and limped into a stall. He waited until he heard a zipper go up again and the shuffle of feet, followed by a door closing shut. He shook his head and tried to solve his original problem.

He eventually finished the job and set the cup on the counter Kira had told him to. The wheelchair was gone from the examination room, as was the General, so he hobbled out to the waiting lounge again. He breathed carefully through clenched teeth as he moved. It was getting easier with practice but there was no reason that he should have to put up with the pain.

Some simple work with materia might have done the job, if it had been immediate, but he did not have a Cure materia of his own just yet. He had heard the things were only good for immediate concerns. Since he had not hurt this badly yesterday, he was not sure if it would work. Maybe he could ask the doctor, if he ever got to see one. He approached the couch where Sephiroth sat reading a Good Homemaking magazine. Zack sat down very carefully and said nothing about it. The General had some strange taste in reading material, but he also had a bad temper, devious amounts of patience and a six foot sword.

Across the room, Rude sat with Reno's head in his lap. The redhead was clutching his temple and whimpering slightly. Zack would have pitied the man more if he had not been so disturbed by the events in the bathroom.

Kira walked in before his thoughts went down scarier paths. She had a bunch of folders in her hand and she pulled one out as she approached him. "Here's your file, Sir. Your preliminary exam indicates nothing out of the ordinary beyond what you came in with, so you may proceed down that hall to the doctor's office."

"Thanks, gorgeous!" Zack took the file and began the laborious work of shuffle-hopping down the hall. Behind him, Kira turned to give Reno his file.

"Kin I go shee da doc now?" Reno drawled.

"Um," Zack heard the worry in Kira's voice. "Sir, according to your test results… you're pregnant." Zack spun around so quick it hurt. The entire lounge was silent. Rude took his sunglasses off and for once there was actual expression on his face - utter shock. Even the General lowered his magazine and stared.

"Congratulations," Sephiroth said, breaking the silence, then went back to reading.

Reno gazed up at Rude through beer goggles. "You're gonna be a daddy," he said, grinning. Rude glanced down.

"No, I'm not, Reno." He looked up at Kira. "There has to be some mistake."

Kira nodded. "I know, sir, but I did the test twice. I don't understand it either but I can't let him proceed until it's cleared up."

Zack turned away and resumed hobbling towards the door. He wondered if he had actually hit his head instead of his back when he fell. Nothing was making sense this morning. Maybe he was really unconscious and this was all just a dream.

Behind him, he heard Reno howl. "Don't call our baby a mishtake!"

Time: 4 hrs, 21 mins.

Music: 'Mass Destruction' by Faithless

Notes: Gift chapter for Akira Majere, based on my own exasperation with procedure at the Student Health Center. Last time I went in it was for a sprained ankle.