Glass Walls, Final Fantasy VII (Sephiroth/Yazoo)
Title: Glass Walls Author: skeren Rating: G Warnings: Yazoo thinking? Word count: 1314 Prompt: Claiming/possessing - "Gotcha!" Note: This story came out far far more serious than I honestly expected it to.
The voice had always been there, lurking at the back of his mind, a whispering constancy that was, he thought, very unlike what Kadaj always claimed mother had been. Mother had been demanding, driving, an obsession that he thought would drive the smallest of them mad.
He had seen no reason to interfere with that process, for madness made his brother happy, as fighting made Loz happy, and he had had no cause to deprive them of happiness, even if ultimately what made them happy wasn’t good for them. He had had no desire for them to take his, after all, the confidence and the murmurs in his mind, the sanity where Kadaj only got madness. It was selfish, and he was not selfish, but this one thing he did for himself.
They had been three from one. Loz as one part, a child in thought, as they all were, but a simple one, content with the physical realm. Kadaj as emotion, charisma, demand. He was spoiled, and it was his task to be so. He, in turn, was the mature one, the one with rationality and distance from the entire matter. He would hold his counsel unless asked to help... and neither of his brothers tended to ask him any of his opinions on what they did.
So Kadaj was the leader. Because Kadaj was the leader, he had known that when the whispers resolved, it would not be in him, the most logical of them, but in that driven madness that was his smaller brother.
He had not been wrong. Sadly, and the tainted playfulness of mother had destroyed them all. Their blond brother, the one Kadaj hated so for retaining his own identity, had been returned to his loved ones, but they had had nothing left for them there. As always, he and Loz had followed his brother, into death, into the lifestream, where finally his smaller brother had found some peace.
He had his mother figure, and Loz had someone to laugh with, though the man was odd.
Still, it was... disheartening. The whispers, on death, had ceased. They had been there even through the fight, even as madness and their eldest brother had taken Kadaj... but now they were not, and he found himself to have drifted even further to simply observe his siblings. They were happy, at last, and it was no longer destroying them, but he was no longer content. Dying had taken the one thing that he had had apart from them, and while he loved them, it was not the same.
He was alone.
They did not notice when he slipped away from them, but then, he had taken care that they had not. They had done nothing wrong, not really, and he did not want to upset them with his own melancholy.
Instead he simply walked, wandered amid voices, the dead, and none of them were right. None of them were the solid stone that was his eldest brother, the one he had depended on as Kadaj had craved a mother’s acceptance. Loz had needed only them.
Turning his thoughts from the other two, he focused on his surroundings. Aeris, now mother to Kadaj by their mutual admission, was not mother for him, and thus would simply remain as Aeris, had cautioned them to always be aware of where they were in this place. To be lost was to be consumed, and to be alone was to become part of the many.
He believed her, of course, she knew the perils of this place far better than he ever had or could... but it did not seem so very important. He wanted to find the voice. It could not have been destroyed. The man was far too determined to carry on to have been destroyed, so he simply must not have had the ability to reach out to them in this haze of the many.
It was less disheartening than the idea that he had simply cast the three of them away once they had died, deeming them useless in their failure to allow him to resume a life too many times interrupted.
He did not share such thoughts with the others. He knew they would worry and would not understand. It did not keep them from haunting him, and thus, this. He would find his way back to the others once he had some sort of peace again, something to settle him into the new life that death had provided for them.
He did not know how long he wandered, but a touch on his shoulder was not unexpected. It had not been as long as he needed, but it had been longer than he believed it would be before one of the others came searching.
“You should not be here alone.” The murmur was soft, but was not one of the four he had left behind. It was, were he honest with himself, the voice he had least expected, his thought of having been abandoned suddenly seeming much sharper in the face of the one that was supposed to have done so. “If you have nothing to tie you together, you will scatter in this place.”
He twisted so that his eyes met the likewise feline green of the one touching him, and it was the child in him, mature or not, that caused him to react as he did. He hugged the man. Tightly and without permission he clung, almost surprised when the other made no move to push him away. “I could not hear you.”
“I know.” Light fingers moved over his hair, lightly threading into the strands to grip, and he didn’t argue the action. He had never truly spoken to the man, never honestly touched him, he had just been the voice of stability and reason. “Gainsborough is fiercely protective and lets nothing in to the three of you when you are near. Especially not myself.”
“She deliberately...?”
“No.” He had many opinions of the woman, but before, he could not really say that they were bad ones. Some jealousy, at the worst, but he had not thought that she would keep their brother from them. It was a relief that he did not need to think badly of her. “She simply rejects any possible taint from diluting you.”
“You are not a taint! You’re our brother.”
“I am something that used Kadaj for my own means. I could have destroyed his very being when I did that, had I so chosen.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, I did nothing of the kind.” He peered up the slight distance as they both fell quiet, taking in the features of the man. They were so similar... but the differences were glaringly obvious. Kadaj was closer than he, but... “Why are you here alone Yazoo?”
“I...”
“Did you miss me that much?”
He did not hesitate, not actually being expected to explain, he realized, so he simply nodded. “You were not there anymore.”
“They have been searching for you.”
“I expected them to.”
Another silence drew out before Sephiroth nodded, the hand that had not been touching him wrapping around his waist. “Do you intend to go back?”
“I want to stay.” The tone was softer, and his eyes never left the intense ones focused on his, trying to convey that he meant that without it infusing his tone.
His brother understood. He could tell he did, and the kiss was almost gentle, even though the hand in his hair was tightening in a gesture that could be labled nothing but possessive. “Then you stay.”
When he was kissed again, he kissed back, focusing on the stability and presence of his missing brother. If he was to stay, he would leave the others to their new family. Sephiroth needed him more.