They call her the Red Comet for her battle prowess but Char isn't so sure the name is ever as suitable as it is when she is in the presence of those who are stronger and better. She makes for a bad Newtype, she knows this, too fettered by masks to ever be comfortable removing the shackles of her heart. So it's no surprise when @serapime lingers above him with her face framed by the soft weight of her curls, staring down upon him with half-lidded eyes that send a cataclysmic Newtype spark in his heart, the kind that shoots down into his fingers and forces him out of his body. It reminds him of Lalah, a little--but if Lalah were the sun then Sephiroth is an exploding supernova about to turn into a black hole. If Char isn't careful, he'll fall into the event horizon. The Red Comet will be absorbed.
Is that really so bad? the selfish part of Char's mind asks, quiet and meek, as she stares up at Sephiroth with her hands balled on top of her thighs. He knows Sephiroth can hear the thought or feel it or... however it works. Again, Char is not a very good Newtype. All he knows for sure is that there is no hiding or running. He'll fall; that's fine. Char leans forward to press his forehead to Sephiroth's knee because she's too tall for his head to meet any other part of her. The meeting of their skin is enough. Another flash. For a moment she is much taller, she looks down on herself, she sees the crown of blond where it is gently pressed to her skull by the aluminum frame of her mask. Then she is herself again with her forehead against the sloped dome of a kneecap.
"I want you strong again," Sephiroth instructs him, her every word carefully deliberated upon and picked with much grace.
Char's first instinct is to be petty: he'd rather not, he's tired, he wants to just succumb. But she knows as well as Sephiroth that some of the fun is being hard-to-get. The masks that she's constructed over the years are only bits of darkness that can be blasted away by the Newtypes who either do not know how to be any other way or those who have been engineered to destroy on the battlefield--they cannot be eroded by time. It's too late for him to be fixed by such normal human methods, not after everything he's seen.
The scar on his forehead where Amuro stabbed him aches. When Char was within Amuro's mind he could feel Lalah's presence underneath Amuro's eyelids, the groping reach of her extending outwards, how even buried within Amuro's consciousness she would still go on reaching for Char. The all-encompassing nature of her-within-Amuro; his Newtype connection with Amuro had exposed him to that. Then he had gone back to himself and been utterly alone. Char was made jealous.
Now he does not have to be jealous. His head tilts up to look at her again, gaze still obfuscated by the physical mask, although it might as well not even exist. Sephiroth's reach extends over his selfish heart and holds it in her hand. Does she even have to try? Ultimately Char cannot find it in himself to be catty and play the games he's used to playing with her. She's too strong. "What will you have me do?" The Red Comet never even ends up crashing into the ground, she simply burns up in the atmosphere.
