anubisvincent

About singing Christmas trees and other catastrophes

Title: About singing Christmas trees and other catastrophes
Author: AnubisVincent
German-Beta: Lidsi<3
English-Translation: superkalifragi
English-Beta: chephren[Unknown site tag]
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Romance/ Humor
Rating: Slash 12
Pairing: Sephiroth x Reno
Characters: Sephiroth, Reno, Tseng, Lazard, Zack, Cloud, Angeal, Genesis
Space of time: Crisis Core

Disclaimer: I don´t own any of the characters and I do not make any money from this.

AN: I´d like to thank everyone who believes in me, who supports me and inspire my writing. My friends, I thank you.

About the story: This is a little mini-story I wrote for christmas. A gift, so to speak, and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did when I wrote it.

Warnings: What else can I say? My evil humour, gift wrap, singing christmas trees, Reno and Genesis running around… I think that speaks for itself. And I´ll try my hands on a “lemon” *shudder*, but only later and it will be an extra-update.

At last:
I ´d like to thank superkalifragi for the fantastic translation and chephren for the excellent beta-reading.

Chapter 1

Misfortune seldom comes single

So it was this time again. Again a year had passed. I stood in Lazard´s office and had to endure a rant about the annual crisis, but I simply let him talk. My attention was rather occupied by the flashy thing on his desk, blinking and, to make things even worse, warbling a song whenever there was only the slightest tremor. I´d rather have despaired over this awful object, but well, it fortunately wasn´t sitting at my desk.

“SOLDIERS days are numbered.”

I lifted a brow at that, since these words managed indeed to pull me out if my thoughts. “I beg your pardon? I think this is absolutely out of question,” I remarked and graced Lazard with a dark look, because this was going too far for ME now. And not just because of the blinking something. It obviously had its effect though, because he stopped to dramatically wave his arms in front of me.

“Just cut to the chase, Lazard, I really don´t have all day to listen to this nonsense and my patience is wearing thin already.”

“Whether you like it or not that Cissney is pms-ing and won´t let you into her bed, it´s YOUR problem and not the one of SOLDIER, if I may speak my mind.” I furrowed my brows. “I for one, think that you affair with the turk is pure concealment. Your private business isn´t mine, however, but you should conceal it better.”

Nervously Lazard pulled a hand through his hair as I intently stared him in the eye. He probably thought I wouldn´t notice the lecherous looks with which he graced my behind. Go figure!

White gloves! White pants! My mental health was really at stake here! And promptly the situation had to be audibly accompanied by the thing! “You know, THIS is what I´d call a catastrophe! Trash crisis! I´d rather ponder this,” and pointed to the little green evil. The colonel looked at me, confused. “They´ve been ordered for every desk by the crisis management. Even for yours, Sephiroth. Because of the atmosphere…” My look must have spoken volumes, for he immediately shut up. That was enough! I killed the damn tree with a morose look, while Lazard tried to hastily take it out of the danger zone.

“I´ll take care of this mood crisis raging in the rows of my people myself. I´m their general and responsible for them, after all.” And with that I left the colonel standing in his office. I certainly was in a mood, but probably not the expected or wished for one. It was rather homicidal, to say the least. And this didn´t change at all when I came to my office, only to find my own personal, green evil innocently sitting on the table and waiting for me.

I quickly noticed that this wouldn´t be an easy task, that I didn´t even know what all this christmas was actually about and why everyone got so sentimental. Well, Genesis was being strange on other occasions as well, but around this special time it became really extreme. He barely left Angeal´s side too. Even this one behaved strangely. It was probably just a matter of time until I had to save them again from their gift wrappings. Somehow they managed to get themselves entangled into their gift wraps, helplessly rolling on the floor, and at one time they even had managed to get a bow in their hair. And every year it was on me to save them from certain “cuddle death” that would have occurred, had they been discovered like this by their fan club.

After a few minutes of pacing the room I decided to pay Angeal a visit. Maybe there was a way to avoid the upcoming calamity, and since I was there anyway I could as well question him about this festivity. This seemed like a good plan, since he probably knew more about it than anyone else. And my plan worked out. I managed to get him to leave his gift baskets full of glasses with Banora-apple compote alone and instead we sat down so he would tell me how they celebrated christmas at his home. I didn´t miss that he seemed to long for being at home and, like in the good old times, eat the most delicious pie together with Genesis.

“You will! I´ll let you off-duty, so you can go back to Banora.” I stood and was just about to leave, when he caught my arm. “But…” he wanted to protest.

“That´s an order!” I layed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it lightly to signal that I was serious about it. There was such intense gratefulness in his eyes that my breath stopped for a moment. Confused, I left him.

It was a pleasant feeling that seeped through my body. A feeling, as if my innermost was growing. Something inside me was moving, something I hadn´t known before. At least not to this extend. If this was how Angeal felt about it then maybe there were others that felt the same and longed to go home. Slowly it dawned on me that I was standing around in just the same apathetic manner as everyone else. Back in my office I sat down in front of my computer and had a look at the roster, which led me to immediately call Lazard.

“Who made the roster?…Why?… Because it is a disaster!… Frankly speaking, I couldn´t care less, if it was made by you, I will change it. Make sure that your secretary gets here, so I can dictate it to her… What? I have a secretary as well?… No, I haven´t seen her yet… I will take care of it… Have a nice day. ” I cut the line and then dialed the number to my outer-office, curious if the invisible girl would answer.

“Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees??” was the reply from the receiver. “Excuse me for disturbing you, but I really need your help here. The roster has to be changed for the holidays.”

“You got something to do there, young man! The coffee´s done in 10 minutes and then we´ll get started!” and with that the line was dead.

Exactly ten minutes later an old lady rushed towards my desk, a tray with coffee in hands.

“The last time you´ve eaten was 36 hours, 23 minutes and 25 seconds ago. It´s about time now. Generally your eating behaviour is rather neglected, which really doesn´t fit with your otherwise so glorious reputation.”

She had just finished when I found a three course meal in front of me and an impatient looking secretary who´d only be satisfied when I started eating.

“Ah, don´t look at me like that. Your friends are worried about you, and if you want to know who to kill next ask Angeal.” She turned the monitor around and reached for the keyboard and then I wasn´t able to follow her anymore, since her programming was far too routinized.

To my surprise the roster was done just in time with me finishing my meal. Just as I was about to enjoy my coffee everything inside me contracted. “This stuff is waking the dead!” She just smiled “Original turk-coffee. It has to be like this.” I only gave her a questioning look.

“I was a turk once, until I had an industrial accident. And since then I exclusively work in the office, ” she explained. After I finished the coffee, I held the door open for her as she went out, balancing her tray. I took my seat again and looked out of the window. My mind was still occupied with the question of how I could at least make the stay of those who couldn´t go home a bit more pleasant. It seemed that this was the core of the problem. I´d have to know what was going on in their heads and how could I find out best? By mixing in with the people. They probably wouldn´t tell me themselves. Usually people seemed to spontaneously lose their ability to speak when they were in my presence, so I had no other choice but to camouflage.

I reached for the phone. “I´ll be out at 5 pm. If there are any matters for today that need to be attend to please tell me so now.” I heard Mrs. Singer flicking through her date book. “Sir, you have another appointment with Lazard, it concerns the annual balance. I don´t think he´ll postpone this meeting.” I cut the line and was already rushing out of my office and past her. “Just leave this to me. This balance is summed up pretty quickly: Casualties! He won´t want to hear about that and therefore be happy to be rid of me. Otherwise I´ll send his singing tree to kingdom come.” She just stared at me in confusion.

Lazard seemed to be able to read my mind, because as soon as I stepped into his office he mechanically grabbed his tree and protectively held it in his arms. At the same time though, Tseng bolted into an upright postion from his chair. Intendly, I eyed them and spoke up. “My apologies, the singing tree must have drowned my knocking.” I enjoyed the scene with a sardonic smirk. Both of them had to fix their appearance, the colonel his glasses and the turk his suit, as he glared daggers at the tree and after that tried to find out of what nature the tree´s and my relationship was and why it had to be protected from my person.

The scandalized tree-owner spoke up then, though. “Sephiroth, I didn´t await your visit until later.” “Well, I certainly won´t bother you long. The balance wasn´t good. There are casualties!” I informed him and motioned for Tseng to sit down, since he had paled remarkably, for whatever reason.

“Those losses are minimal compared to the years before.” I just hissed at him derisively, “They are casualties nonetheless, either way if they are on our side or those of the rebels. Every single one of them has family, kids, friends and parents and they all grieve about the fact that they´ve been robbed of their lifes. They aren´t numbers you can put into a balance. They are made of flesh and blood. These losses can´t be atoned, justified or repayed by money or words. They are there. War doesn´t know a winner, because everyone is a loser and this year I had to visit families and tell them that their sons won´t come home anymore as well. As long as I have to deliver these messages one can only call this a bad balance, because for some of these families my appearing at their door is like the world going down, when I have to tell them that they have lost their precious fathers, brothers and sons. You can´t cover this up with sugary words! That´s all I have to say.”

The two of them gulped. Tseng cast his eyes downwards and abashedly remained silent. “If you´d excuse me now, please. Everything´s said on my side.” I turned to leave, since there was no objection from the colonel anymore. The turk however stood and offered his hand to me, which was a rather unusual gesture. I answered it and took his hand. We looked into each others eyes for confirmation and then I left the room. An offer of friendship from a turk wasn´t something you got every day, I was pretty sure about that. Lost in thought I stood in front of my secretary´s desk, who expectantly looked back at me. “There aren´t any other appointments?” She denied. “I want you to make one last addition to the roster then; I wish for you to take time off as well.” And with that I vanished in my office, ignoring her protest.

There wasn´t much time left till the cantine opened (Es gibt kein feststehendes englisches Wort für ‘Essensausgabe’). As far as I knew this was the best time to mix in with the people, here at the big Shinra building. It was a strange feeling to not wear the heavy gear I usually wore, not to speak of the shoes. They irritated me, since I was used to my boots. I repeatedly glanced at the mirror to see if I wore it correctly. I paced the room to practice my walking. The difference was clearly visable. In the black wollen pants and the grey turtleneck pullover I seemed slightly meager, too thin for a soldier. Perfekt! This didn´t apply to my hair though, which probably was one of my most prominent trademarks. Over the years I had developed a special technique though. I managed to fold my hair in a way that it appeared rather short if I pulled it back tightly and hid one part underneath the turtleneck. The black scarf I put around my neck helped to strengten the illusion. Taming my hair always costed me the most time, but now I still had to do something about the flashy colour. But even for this problem I had a solution and let it vanish beneath my black spencercap. Now to get to the final touch. A blazer and slightly tinted sunglasses hid the rest of the person that was hated and idolized at the same time. Out of the mirror a very young man looked back at me, who didn´t seem older than nineteen years at most, even though he was twenty-two. It never ceased to astound me whenever I saw it. I grabbed my cloak and my IDs. The way I looked now there was a chance that I would get into trouble if I didn´t pay attention.

When I stepped into my outer-office I found it empty, but I heard Mrs. Singer from the coffe kitchen. I had to wait for her to come back so I could sign out and therefore I laid my coat over the desk. I shoved my hands into my pockets and started to saunter through the room, having a look. It looked different, somehow. There were paintings on the wall and it wasn´t as suffocating as my office. The woman apparently knew her job. I had the audacity to inspect her desk a little closer. It seemed that something had changed here as well. There was a plate of cookies I immediately inspected as well. Just when I tasted one of the cookies Mrs. Singer came back und looked me in the eye with evident horror. “Boy! Are you out of your mind?!”

I took a look around because I wasn´t sure that I was meant, but she did indeed. Her eyes were serious as she looked at me, unfazedly chewing my christmas sweets, sizing her up and down and curiously waiting what she´d do now. Obviously she didn´t recognize me, which was a good indication that my disguise worked. “To lay in wait for the Genral like THAT is very dangerous!” There clearly was concern swinging in her voice. “Hmm,” I said, thoughfully tabbing my finger against my chin. “Is that so?” Then I lowered my head so I could look her in the eye from over the rims of my glasses. Her mouth opened but she was tongue-tied.

“Mrs. Singer, I just wanted to give notice of my departure and ask you to hold the fort here till I am back. Please tell whoever wants to see me that I am busy right now. Do not tell them that I am away though. ” I couldn´t help the amused smile after those words and the sight of the utterly surprised lady. She gathered herself togeth and answered “Sir, I hope you have your ID with you if you have a date and want to go to the movies.” Now it was her turn to smile smugly.

I grabbed my coat and was about to leave when Tseng approached me, hindering me from walking away. He suspiciously sized me up and down and then even lifted an eyebrow to intensify the effect. “May I ask what you are doing here? Business hours are over for civilian population. If you don´t have permission that allows your stay in front of General Crescent´s office I will escort you outside now.” His eyes were piercing me, or even worse.

“My apologies, I must have mistaken time” I replied and got a derisive “Obviously” in return. He stepped aside so I could walk past him but at the same time he blocked any other escape route. “After you.” I went into the direction he had motioned at and he followed right behind. I could feel his sharp gaze in my neck and that he observed every of my movements. “I don´t have all day,” he grumbled and pushed me to go faster.