Miasma

Chapter 22

Angeal was very bored.

This was making light of things in a rather extreme way, but he could safely sequester his emotions around 'bored' and call it a day in a way that didn't make him feel uncomfortable. It was rather hard to tell whether or not it was night or day...considering his general locale, but when he was tired he went to bed and told himself it was night and that was it. When he woke up he felt as refreshed as he possibly could and there was food so it was 'morning.' It was a minimalistic way of looking at things but if he thought about it on a complex level he was going to chew his way through the floor. No, better that he remain as he was...in his rather uncomfortably small cell with no windows and a very hard cot and make as little of a fuss about it as possible. There wasn't a day in his life when he'd ever thought he would end up a prisoner, but that day had come and gone and gone and gone and now he'd adjusted as well as he possibly could. It was mundane...it was inactive...and it was terribly dull but he was alive.

That was pretty much all he was; alive.

He'd been over the scenario regarding his capture a thousand times in his head, and it didn't do him any good. Angeal was fairly sure that his apartment had been bugged, and he was sincerely disappointed in himself for not thinking about it while Genesis was there. There was no other way anyone could have known; he'd told no one, spoken to no one prior to going down to the sewers. Packing his bags was a slow process...but he had time, or so he told himself. Angeal had known the minute he agreed to the scheme that there was no way he could return to HQ. Surveillance would see him leaving, they would know-or at least suspect-what he'd done...and he could hold against interrogation, but the importance of the subject of the interrogation would cause Administration to approve extreme means of extracting information. He had confidence in his ability to remain quiet when he was of sound mind, bleeding, beaten and broken or not. He did not have the confidence in his ability to remain quiet if they brought in Hojo.

Angeal was not ignorant of what Hojo was capable of, and Sephiroth was his prize; Hojo would find a way to incapacitate him in ways they even the strongest of men would not be able to withstand. He could load him with amphetamines, drug him and loosen his tongue. Angeal was of sound mind, but he would not be of sound mind if the company resorted to medical methods of extraction. He could handle himself to all degrees of pain and suffering, but mind-altering substances were a great possibility, he'd seen them used before, and he would not take that risk. He figured, at the very least, that he could help his friends. Getting away wouldn't be a horrible thing, and he was fairly sure-at the time-that they would need him. There was the very blatant issue of Genesis' partial-infidelity, the fact that Sephiroth would be far more sensitive than he usually was. He could hunt, trap, and fish; his father had taught him early on; it wasn't like he was going to be useless. Angeal had experience with living rough; he was used to surviving on very little, and the idea of life in the wild was not a frightening thing to him. So when he packed his bags full of rations, survival essentials and supplies, it was with honest and good intent.

Intent, of course, didn't get him very far.

He went to Genesis' apartment and grabbed some of the redhead's things; clothes and gear, a copy of Loveless and a picture of the three of them. He stopped by Outfitting and asked for more supplies on a vague mission premise. In retrospect, that might have been his downfall as well, but he'd wanted to be able to provide...because he knew what they were facing, and he truly wanted to be helpful. By the time he'd made it down to the ground floor, he was actually looking forward to it. It was exciting a little bit; the degree of rebellion. He'd hidden his resentments away when Sephiroth was apprehended because Genesis needed him, and he'd wanted to reform Shinra...truly wanted to. Angeal had worked very hard to sway the men, and to some degree it was working. There was discontent with their General's sudden plunge into carnage, and his equally sudden disappearance. If people weren't suspicious, they were angry, and HQ was providing no solid answers. So he started small; talked to the cadets about what he'd learned about Jenova in vague, middling snippets...let the information pass on naturally...sat back from afar while the men debated between themselves. People started to ask questions, people started to disappear and he started to feel guilty. This was around the time that Genesis shipped out to Junon.