Adult-FanFiction.org : Final Fantasy

All of Us Monsters	By : ub3rschnitzel Category: Final Fantasy VII > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 870 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
Disclaimer: I don't own SquareEnix or any of their Squaresoft
characters. I don't own Advent Children, or else I would be rich. I
don't own Cloud, Fenrir (his bike), Vincent, or any of Cloud's many many many
swords. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children I have seen through the
generosity of others, and not because I begged them to.. well, maybe a little.
It was hard to get a hold of.
Author's Notes: Tons of spoilers. For those of you who
have seen the movie, you might understand where this could be coming from.
I've recieved lots of good words for this on the Livejournal Community acfiction.
Chapter 5
My limbs were wracked with pain. No matter how much I wanted to scream, I was
helpless and mute, as though someone had shown my lips shut or cut out my vocal
chords. My anguish was only answered by more anguish, layer upon layer and tide
upon tide of sensation. I felt as though my body wanted to remove me from it and
cast my spirit away; throw me out like an unwanted tenant from an unwilling
host.

Between the darkness and the pain, I heard voices. One of them spoke in a
gutteral tongue I could only understand too well. It was Chaos, whispering in my
ear how good the kill is, how grand the murder, how sweet the blood and the
flesh can be. I ignored it, for none of these things held any interest to me
now.

And I heard the hissing, nightmarish voice of an old madman. "Do you like
what I've done to you, Mr. Valentine? You're now much more than a mere Turk...!"
A cackle. The clear note of a razor on metal. Then the puncture of a needle into
my flesh, and this time I screamed.

Now and then I heard snatches and bits of voice from a realm that seemed
unreachable. I strived to find it, but never made it... my mind clawed like
fingers at my dark cell, striving to find a crack, a weakness. I wanted to reach
those voices, to remember air and breathing and the blessed rest that came
without agony.

Vincent... Vincent, wake up...

I was swept back again, deeper into my prison. I shut my eyes against the gentle
cries to come home. No... no longer. I wanted to sleep. Surely nothing more
could be done for me; leave me here, I told the voices. Go away. Find the
sunrise, and leave me in the darkness.

I slept. Then slowly, my awareness extended to beyond my mind. I felt a soft
fabric beneath my fingertips. I felt a breeze on my face, against my eyelashes.
The wind begged my eyes to open, but I was afraid of what I might see.

The additional pain that throbbed in my chest cavity also stirred in me some
semblance of wakeful attentiveness. Breathing was an absolute challenge, each
ragged intake a searing fire that swallowed my lungs in a wash of torture. But
it was better than before. While I pondered what 'before' was, I sensed a
presence near me until there was a soft woman's voice at my ear.

"You'll be okay," the woman said. "You're just weak, that's all. You're still
taking a long time to heal. Just be still."

My brow furrowed, and I opened my mouth slightly, but my throat was dry, aching,
my lips cracked and sore. I sighed, which came out more like a wheeze.

"I'm going to get you something to drink now." The woman rose and left me to
ponder why her voice was so familiar to me.

The longing desire to return to sleep did not last. I was in too much pain, too
thirsty. Then as my thoughts gathered and became cohesive, I remembered the
taste of wind. I opened my eyes suddenly and stretched out my claw for something
to get her attention. The woman returned. She was dissolved in a halo of light
pouring from between the white, floral curtains behind her. She reached out,
tipping my head forward and bringing a glass toward my lips. I held onto her,
struggling to sit up but my chest gave a wretched pang.

I drank the ice cold water with a pained grimace. Then I forced my eyes to focus
upon the face. Deep, chocolate-red brown eyes peered down at me brimming with
kindness and worry. "T...Tifa..."

"It's okay," she said gently. "I just wanted you to drink something." She gently
pressed the edge of the glass to my lips again, and I took a longer, deeper
drink this time and it soothed my throat.

I rasped, "Cloud."

Tifa's look became pensive. "You should sleep still. I don't want you to get
sick again."

I looked at her coldly. "I want to see Cloud Strife. Now." My impotent look did
not rattle her greatly, but she stood up, setting the glass on the end table
beside her.

"Rest here," she told me, before turning on her heel and stepping to the
half-opened door.

I waited for what felt like an eternity. My eyes slid shut silently as I forced
myself to find a comfortable pattern of respiration. Lungs strained and wheezed,
while my ribs seemed reluctant to make room for air. Thoughts, unbidden, poured
from every sad corner of my mind and told me that Cloud wasn't here and that I
was alone and he would never come back to me. He would never look at me again,
not the monster that he had seen me become before but surely he had found
repulsive - a monster to run away from, not love.

She returned a minute later alone, and upon seeing her face, my heart gave a
constricting lurch. "He'll be up in a moment." Her pain confused me. I was
elated. But then why would she look so unhappy?

She sat on the chair beside the bed upon which I had been lying, her eyes locked
onto the spot of floor between her boots. I listened to the distant ticking of a
clock; the silence stretched on other than that. Indistinctly I heard the creak
of wood and the sound of footsteps. I strained my neck to see the door as Cloud
Strife seemingly materialized from the waist up out of the dim corridor. His
hair glowed in the sunlight. He looked healthy and calm, save the quiet storm in
his peircing sky blues.

He seemed to say, 'I love you' without speaking, and Tifa neither looked up nor
acknowledged his presence at all.

"Are you alright?" His eyes flashed softly as he came over to the side of the
bed. I couldn't speak anymore, so I tilted my head up at him, and twitched the
metal claw into the blankets.

"Tifa, could you leave us alone for a few minutes?" Cloud looked over at his
childhood friend. She blinked out of her reverie and nodded silently, her lips
pursed as she stood up. She briefly touched Cloud's bare arm as she passed, and
stepped into the quiet darkness outside of the room. The door slid shut with a
click.

I took in the sight of him. Most of his unnecessary traveling clothes were
missing, leaving him with merely the thick blue sweater unzipped down to his
throat, his pants and boots, and the flowing, leathery coat with the sleeve
covering his Geostigmatic arm. He didn't want her to know. She could not know he
was dying, falling apart in a puddle of black blood.

I looked up into his face. He looked mildly uncomfortable, and his lips were
tight as if holding back some great flood of words and poetry he could not keep
inside. Then, finding the glass of water, he reached for it and sat beside me.
He quickly pulled me up with his arm around my shoulders. My protest cracked
helplessly, but his gentle embrace caused only minimal pain. He brought the cup
to my lips, and I drank, drank and drank again until it was completely gone, and
my body hummed with its liquid caress.

"Better?" He set the cup aside without releasing me. His arm felt warm and good
on my bare skin. I was hardly dressed at all. My pants were unbuttoned but still
zipped, still thickly caked with blood. I could see the darkened stains of it in
the black fabric.

I was still in pain. But I nodded dizzily and turned my face toward his cheek,
exhaustion spilling out from every edifice of my flesh. My arm throbbed when I
tried to move it. I breathed as deeply as I dared to remember Cloud's scent. He
smelled like pines and the wind. His lips were parted, eyes gleaming. I wanted
to ask him... I had a question...
Did he still love me?

I gripped his wrist with my metal claws. "Don't leave," I whispered softly. That
was all I said until the dark waters of exhaustion closed over my head once
more.

* * * * *

Several hours - perhaps an entire day - later, I woke up again. I was not alone.
Cloud had not promised me a thing, but he was sleeping quietly beside me with
his arm tucked beneath his blonde, spiked head. My body ached, but I found that
with care and silent willpower, I could sit up on my own. I sat like that with my hands in my lap
like a meditative monk before I forced unresponsive nerves into motion.
I slipped my legs from under the sheets and reached blindly in the evening
twilight to find the chair. I gripped the back of it tightly; the wood creaked
under the awesome strength. I leaned on it for a few long seconds, taking
several calming breaths. How irritating my own clothes had become! Heavy,
clumsy things, I cursed silently, I must get them off.

Giving Cloud a final, anxious glance, I tip-toed my way past the bed and into the
adjacent, well-cleaned bathroom.

There were towels and there, my cloak and gun and clothes sitting on the white
wicker magazine rack. Despite my protesting bones, I worked the zipper on my
pants, dropped them to the floor and kicked them into the corner of the
bathroom. I left the door half-open to let out the heat lest the shower make me
light-headed and faint.

I patiently waited for the water to heat up, leaning against the white tiled
wall with my hand extended under the pounding cold. I began to shiver until the
heat came, and I adjusted it to my liking before stepping under the hard,
massaging deluge.

My vision blurred and then sharpened. I tipped my head back, neck stiffening as the
water gave weight to my black hair. My aching extremities went numb, then pleasurable,
a blanket of relief flooding through my limbs. I sagged against the tiles again,
head drooping and the water dripped from my nose and parted lips.

Fifteen minutes and I did not move. I was almost half-asleep.

"You were out of it for two weeks," I heard softly from beyond my glass realm of
heat and water.

I lifted my head, saw the warped image of Cloud through the glass. He was
standing next to the basket, looking into the mirror with polite respect for my
modesty. Two weeks was a remarkable
amount of time. Two weeks felt like centuries in Hell to me. What had he
been doing during all that time?

The bright shock of blonde hair moved slightly. I felt his gaze through the
glass; I was not ashamed. I turned my face into the wash of water and said
nothing for awhile, pushing from the wall and reaching at last for the shampoo.

"Did I say anything?" I asked quietly, rubbing the soapy scented substance into
my hair as best as I could. There was only an annoying ache in my crushed arm.

Cloud shifted uncomfortably. "You cried a lot. You struggled like you were
fighting something." Another pause. "I thought you died."

My hands grew still. I thought about my dreams. It would have been better if
I died. I shut my eyes, and slipped my head under the rush of water to rinse
my hair. I reached for the conditioner. I wondered how many times death gripped
me by the throat and kissed my lips before stealing my breath; someday it would
finally claim me. It seemed that day in the grotto was not such a day.

A ghost-like chill pressed between my shoulder blades, alerted me to his
presence. I tensed, half-surprised to find Cloud was standing behind me,
completely dry out of the hot crash of water. His touch found its way into my
hair, and with both our hands, rubbed the conditioner into the thick tangled
black locks. My heart juttered in my ribcage the entire time, fingers brushing
over each other more than once. I was stifling desire as much as stifling
the still searing memory that never quite went away, the ghostly recollection of
claiming him, taking him as mine, making him moan, beg...
I was in no shape
to entertain a small adventure in the shower, yet he did not indicate at all
that he was insinuating such a thing. When all of the conditioner was gone, he
stepped out of the shower and left me quakingly alone.

I let the conditioner rest, before I
slowly, carefully rinsed it out, pulling the majority of it over my shoulder. Cloud had watched me, and I had felt his eyes as
much as his hands on my hair, roving my body. It was ambiguous, this
feeling... wanting and disliking it, all in the same breath.

I finished washing. When I shut off the water, feeling the chill seep into the
open spaces between the heated steam, I listened as Cloud brushed his teeth. He
spat into the sink, and swished water and mouthwash, and spat again. It was
bizarre to hear him complete such a... human task, but I realized he probably
wanted to get it over with before he started the rest of the evening.

I opened the shower door and stepped onto the drying mat, dripping and
shivering. His mannerisms changed subtly, straightening from the sink and
turning away from the long mirror to watch me. His eyes grew hard and hungry,
his arms calm at his sides.

I felt the briefest murmurings of lust in my loins. I wanted to get dressed in
peace, but the warrior was standing between me and my clothes. His eyes flickered
down, side to side as he took me in, and he spent a full three seconds upon some
point between my legs before he flickered up to my eyes again. Why does
he have to look at me that way? I thought despairingly, forcing my
expression to remain blank, if not irresolutely annoyed.

He reached behind him, shut and locked the bathroom door.

"Come here," he said quietly as he calmly offered his hand.
- 4
- 5
- 6
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

All of Us Monsters