elanor_pam (elanor_pam) wrote in no_true_pair, @ 2008-06-12 11:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! 2008 twelve characters challenge, author: elanor_pam, crossover: ff7/violinist of hameln, pairing: flute/zack |
"Help of a stranger" [Final Fantasy VII/Violinist of Hameln, Zack/Flute]
Title: Help of a stranger
Author: elanor_pam
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII/ Violinist of Hameln
Pairing/Characters: Zack/Flute
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Prompt Answered: Zack needs help that only Flute can provide.
Author's Notes: Flute is like an author-sanctioned deus-ex-machina, and that's what makes her great. Also, cameo by Hamel and his logic.
When you’re lying on a pool of your own blood, your brain comes up with the darnest things, thought Zack. The blur of pink and brown that had blocked the sky (much like Cloud’s face had done only moments before) had looked a lot like a girl – not any girl he had ever seen before, though maybe Ae… no, no, definitely unknown – but why hallucinate a girl?
The question remained unanswered as all the colors faded back into a pure, snow white canvas, and the pain seemed to wash away like a stain melting into warm water. Slowly, long-forgotten scenes of his childhood played in his mind; he could see his mother giving him a bath when he was a baby, the fall from the roof he had barely survived at four, and his parents as they watched over his feverish self in many summer nights.
He relived his first meeting with Aeris, Cloud, Angeal – hell, even with that doofus Counsel; he noticed, almost as if for the first time, how beautifully the spill of Aeris’ hair shone in half-light, or how Cloud’s same shy smile could change meanings with a crinkling of the corner of his eyes, a drop of eyelids…
The scene changed to that fateful day, when Sephiroth went completely nuts on a village full of innocent civilians. He saw Cloud run into the reactor screaming, walk out to check on him and Tifa, and almost screamed into the memory when Sephiroth staggered into view, a severed head in hand. And when Cloud ran after him again, once again only the cruel taunting and the screams of pain reached his ears.
“So this is your burden,” said an unknown voice. “And your kindness…”
Who are you?
“No one, really,” answered the voice. “I passed by, and saw you needed help. This is what I do best. No, this is all I can do… I’m sorry. But we saw your friend, and he’s alive. He’ll be happy to see you again.”
Zack’s confusion was swallowed by a warm, comfortable blanket of oblivion; outside his head, however, the girl in a pink hat swayed, leaning back on the legs of her black-clad companion.
“Waste of your – our time,” grumbled him, a tall blond man with a bulky instrument on his back; he glared at Zack as if the young man had kicked his privates in high school.
“I couldn’t just leave him to rot!” protested the girl, her voice stronger than her pale face would lead one to expect.
“Hell yeah, you could!” he gritted his teeth, waving his long arms almost comically. “But noooo, you had to go and waste precious moments of your lifetime on some criminal left to rot on the road. Glad now? I bet you are. And now I’ll have to carry you. With these stick-thin arms!” he shook his scrawny arms for effect. “They’ll break under your weight!”
And he easily lifted the girl on his arms – contradicting his previous words –, walking off while grumbling about how they’d never find their way back home.