Lamentations
folder
Final Fantasy VII › Yaoi - Male/Male
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
10
Views:
743
Reviews:
21
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Final Fantasy VII › Yaoi - Male/Male
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
10
Views:
743
Reviews:
21
Recommended:
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.
Honest Secret
*GAH! Another late posting… (damn those holidays…) well, I’m making up for that by pumping out a really loooooooong chapter, so take ur bathroom break, grab some fonions and the mountain dew and go boldly where only a few have dared to go! (not really… this is actually a pretty popular pairing…-_-;*
*PS: recommended listening: Stabbing Westward, Chimaira and NIN*
Lamentations
Chapter Eight
Honest Secret
Once again, my internal clock roused me at 7:30 on the nose, but it wasn’t as if I had a way of telling when I woke up. Somehow, Chaos had landed me on the very top of the Highwind (a favorite of it’s perches if I’m not mistaken…), settled just outside of Bone Village. I was muddy and not surprisingly covered with dry blood. It was almost scary how used to it I was becoming.
At this hour, it was a fairly simple task to slip unnoticed into a shower stall, then back to my quarters without encountering a soul. Most of AVALANCHE and the crew were either asleep or getting supplies in the excavation site.
I dressed and deemed myself in well enough control to be among allies and innocents, though my gut was still quivering from the trauma Chaos brought upon my body. Cloud had said Thursday. Tomorrow. Best not neglect my responsibilities to my weapons.
By the time most of the ship was up and about I had all I needed spread out before me in the conference room. It was an automated task to take each gun apart, inspect, upkeep and clean. It was almost meditative, for my mind was blissfully blank in the task.
There was a jangling, like that of a cat with a bell on its collar. Lucrecia’s black cat named Sabbath? No, you idiot. I looked up and saw Nanaki sitting in the doorway. I tensed. He saw my jump from the deck last night. I was positive. Nothing was said. I think he sensed my unease. He merely nodded and padded away—a complete understanding achieved without a word. Smart beast.
The next interruption came a good 45 minutes later, when I was just finishing up Death Penalty. I knew the footsteps by heart now, just as I had memorized Cloud’s. The slight clack of untied laces and the way the heel hit dramatically harder than the toe gave it away. Cid.
I nodded civilly towards him. If he wanted to drag this out, here was not the place. I was hoping he would act his age, but I suppose I was wrong.
“Hey,” he said, leaning on the table with both hands like he usually did when outlining a plan of action with his crew. “Can we talk here?”
My ears didn’t pick up anyone outside, so I shrugged. More abuse. God knows I deserved it a thousand times over… “Alright.”
“We’re both adults here,” Cid laid out firmly. So he was going to act his age. “What exactly is going on?”
Point blank. He did no fancy small talk, and with one question, he had me cornered. Maybe he wasn’t so much of an ass-talker as I suspected. “I didn’t indicate that anything would continue,” I reminded him, loading a clip into my preferred weapon. “To either of you.”
Cid had a hard time digesting that one. As if to say, “I give up,” he threw his hands up. “That’s fine,” he lied. “If that’s the way you wanted it after that shit you know… fine.”
He was getting irate. Was it truly that earth-shattering to him? He had put nothing on the line, where I was the one who had taken the risk. And yet when I retreated, he was the one who was upset. “Interesting…” I mused. Perhaps he had more at stake than even he realized. But it couldn’t have been more than that tinkering curiosity. An affection was there, though clearly no understanding had been reached. He couldn’t be in that deep…
Cid stuffed his hands in his pockets and stalked off, frustrated. It must have been a real slap in the face for him to find out I had been “seeing” someone. But surely he understood the phrase “no strings attached…”
Just tear his limbs off and shove them right up his tight little ass hole…!
“Quiet…” I ordered softly, returning to the monotony of my gun work.
Smear pieces of him all over Cloud’s quarters! Use his head as a trophy! Wear his blood!
“Cid, you gotta minute?”
Confrontation. I heard Cid and Cloud outside in the hall, though they were the least of my worries at the moment. Apparently I was not in as much control as I’d like to be, given the red haze that settled over my vision.
“You talk to Vincent too?”
“Yeah. I did.”
“Really?”
It was time to get the hell out of here. If this kept happening, I could not stay here. I suppose it would be a better idea to let Chaos hunt in the Crater—destruction for the greater good. My head started to fog…
Abandoning my weapons (a difficult thing for me to do in such haste), I made my way for the nearest exit. Cloud and Cid were bathing in pure tension between each other. Cloud had a hand on the hilt of one of his swords, his sharp Mako eyes squinted and his lips parted for some insult. Cid had his arms crossed, his fingers unconsciously twitching for the Materia on his belt. His scruffy chin was thrust out with a sneer on the lips that had induced such sinful pleasure upon me just nights before…
I purposely pushed by between them. “Oh please…” Now was not the time for such petty squabbles. I was annoyed with them, yes, but I was a little more concerned with the familiar pangs of transformation.
There’s a reason they hate you so much…
Yuffie stumbled around the corner, blocking my exit. She was making a beeline for the bathroom. I ducked in and locked the door. “HEY!” I heard her protest. “Who the hell…?!”
It’s the same reason Lucrecia hated you…
My knees buckled as a blistering agony shocked my system. I grabbed the sink to keep myself up. There had to be a way out…
“Come oooooooooon! Who’s in there?!” Yuffie was whining, pounding on the door. “Hurry it uuuuuup!!”
I clutched my chest. My breath was being seized and my skin was starting to change.
“There’s another bathroom that way. And don’t you dare blow your chunks on my goddamn floor! Hey…! HEY! Goddammit…” A soft knock. “Uh… Vince?”
“Go away,” I managed. A window. Anything at this point. I choked and vomited, losing my vision. I got the feeling Hojo made this degrading with intent. Blood and pain and hate… I stumbled towards the window, ripped it open with the metal appendage that was now my left arm and threw myself out into the whipping wind. Airborne again… When did we…?
Chaos seized the opportunity. Wouldn’t you like to kill them both? You could do horrible things to them as they died. You could watch them squirm… just like you did for Hojo!
Riding a hot black wind upon my wings of oblivion…
Wouldn’t you love to make him bleed? To tear at his flesh and just let it gush all over you? Tasty morsels like them deserve a slow, hideous end… It’s a pity that she’s dead. She must have been a slutty little fuck, wasn’t she?
I didn’t mean that Lucrecia; I didn’t mean to call you a whore. And yet barely your spirit remains to tell you so… you were in so much agony over your son you gave to Jenova, that anything I said that didn’t involve him slid off of you like the very Lifestream ridden water that supported you…
You would not accept my apology. And you had every right to reject me…
She was such a tight cunt, wasn’t she? A hot, wet, whorey cunt?
I made love to her!
You degrade her! You fucked her ass you were so selfish, even when she told you she hated it!
These aren’t my memories!
You could take up with Cid what you left off with her..
No, not Cid.
You really like him! I’ll rip both your hearts out!
Leave him out of this. I blew my chance. He despises me; it’s enough.
No… no, far from it!
From a murky fog I could see a blurry figure. I was second to Chaos, but I could smell out each little capillary and see the vital heat sources in its body… Prey…
It was making sounds I couldn’t understand. Adrenaline meant fear… fear tasted delicious…
Eager for a sample of terror, I dove in, sinking in teeth and claws through soft skin…
There was a sting to the face—something of mere annoyance normally, but a voice rolled the clouds over my senses back, and a new personality butted Chaos completely out of the picture.
Darkness may rule you, but it won’t hold me down!
Rockets and stars and clouds and engines… the smell of gasoline and the sound of a vintage car… delectable sensations like these bombarded me, digging me out from the depths of darkness. But it was not I that found these things so undeniably pleasant…
“Cid!! Your uncle’s home!”
The house was blurry, but the faces were not, so clearly etched into Cid’s child memory. Every gray hair in his uncle’s mustache; the way his hands were calloused and dirty from some garage and the way his coat smelled of old cars and nicotine when he lifted Cid up and twirled him around and around and around…
These were Cid’s memories. What on earth was he doing here?
How old was I?? Five?? I heard him scoff at the faces.
The woman was large and had a permanent smile etched onto her prominent cheeks. Butterscotch… she always had butterscotch candies in her pockets, which she shared liberally. She looked nothing like the blond boy peeling the flight goggles off of an older, dark haired, dark eyed man.
They weren’t your parents?
No… my aunt and uncle raised me. Not sure where my real folks ended up, but I never really gave a rat’s ass. They let me have a little too much sugar and didn’t discipline me much… but hey, it all worked out…
The most glorious contraption a child could lay eyes on loomed into view—bare with just the frame, but it’s interior was pregnant with parts and possibility.
“It’s going to be the Tiny Bronco!”
“So be it!”
Hours upon hours of precarious and all consuming work poured into the plane, and it rose from the humble frame to a great being of flight. They boy grew into a teenager, then into that awkward phase between teenager and man.
Of course there was a girl. She weaved in and out of blueprints and engine parts, casting her soft femaleness over the masculinly charged garage. Sitting on a half finished wing; laughing as paint cans toppled onto Cid; then hovering over him in concern. His curses slid off of her slim shoulders and she only smiled with a startling beauty from a creature so simple…
Lucrecia… I thought. Very much like her—so much in fact that I almost mistook her for the siren that haunted my nightmares.
Yeah, I guess she does kinda look like her… Cid agreed.
Love so young… Shera. That was her name. Bright and capable, but resigned. It was love, I could feel the fresh ache as if it were mine again. How old were you?
Mm… mebbe 16…
An absence in his heart—one that had gone numb over a few years… Where’s your uncle?
He died in that war in Wutai… I barely remember it…
“That thing’ll never fly!”
“God, why do you bother, Highwind?”
“Tiny Bronco? Are ya compensating for somethin’ there, Cid?”
Shera, even you doubted me. Goddammit, I’ll show you and the whole fucking town!
A kiss to the girl he loved, then strap in, buckle down, switch and fiddle with buttons and knobs and flight goggles down and ready. Take off day.
The engine roared in protest and the frame rattled in strain, but the Tiny Bronco barreled out into the sunny field. A prayer sent to gods he wasn’t too sure he believed in perhaps bestowed the Bronco with just enough boost it needed to lift… up… up… UP! As if by pure will of hope, Cid made the thing fly.
It was as if I were one with his ecstasy of the moment. He ripped off the goggles that once his beloved uncle donned and threw his fists in the air in worship of the sky. Yes! YES!
The darkness simply melted away, and for one blessed moment, I could smile unburdened, without the ache of fakeness, maybe even laugh a little…
Literally exalted for what he had done, Cid lost himself in the brunette beauty—kissing every inch of her, preening the heat between them and in a young fury ridding barriers as quickly as possible… Shera gasped at Cid’s arousal at the moment, and in the haze of success and delirium he drove into her right there in the grass…
The memory fuzzed into a more abstract and repressed image. Uh… I was a little … overwhelmed at the time… Cid stammered in his embarrassment for lapsing into something as personal as sex.
No, no, I don’t blame you… I assured with an empty longing for the simplicity he had but did not cherish. I envy you…
You don’t need to. Forgive the corniness, but dreams come true, dammit! I’ll prove it to you! He seemed lost in thought… Fuck, what do I have to do to show him…
Rufus. Scarlet. Tseng. Cid held onto these faces with startling clarity. His lack of attention to detail otherwise bothered my curious eyes, trying to catch all the surroundings and every little part of the scene as they were trained so vigorously to do. But Cid paid little mind to such things, and the joy that ShinRa had so liberally distributed, then ripped away was a bitter blow.
However brief it was, the happiness was intense. The money ShinRa gave for the plans to the Bronco alone was massive; for the Highwind mind-boggling. On top of the world, Cid began his biggest and most impressive endeavor ever: to touch the stars.
Shera grew farther and farther away from the jumble of plans bubbling in Cid’s overactive mind, though her loyalty clung to me, and stung it was so deep and unrequited. Cid’s brain filled with numbers and plans and tools and money. Selfish… Yeah… I know…
Didn’t that fall through?
You said it yourself. Circumstance fucked me over, mostly ‘cause of ShinRa. I could have scoffed at his using my dodgy words against me. Everything he held dear was poured into this rocket—even Shera risked death—which ultimately destroyed the launch. Yes. I already knew this. Again, Cid’s honesty won through. It may be selfish and cruel, but looking out for oneself was the most truth anyone could give themselves. It had given him a frustrating, imperfect happiness. And that was all that mattered. But you were there, Vince. You watched me get into space… you helped me. I’m complete because of you…
He was mistaken, I knew he was. I had nothing to do with the rocket. Had Cloud not mentioned the fact that Hojo might be involved, and had I not followed a foolish—but now fulfilled—hope of ridiculous revenge, I’d still be in that coffin, atoning for every heavy sin upon my heart.
That was mostly Cloud…
Fuck Cloud. It’s just you an’ me now.
He was bitterly jealous of Cloud. And now I realized why he had become so upset—the guy really liked me. Hate was nowhere near the picture, as I had so feared. Now that I knew what it was, I clung to him, digging my fingers—of both hands in this world of memory—into a steady chest, rasping in affectionate laughter at my foolishness. I didn’t have a word for it anymore, but now that I had it, I refused to let go, so starved for whatever it was from years of cold, cold scorn…
Spinning stars and a lift in my chest from lack of gravity startled me. The rocket, cannoning through space and spiraling into something deeply realized by Cid. Something wonderfully elating…
I never saw it the way you did…
No?
I was sort of queasy at the time… I admitted. You’re right though, it was … breathtaking.
Falling… falling through space, burning in the descent back to earth… a blur and jumble of clutching something to break the fall, metal hulls, broken seatbelts, Huge Materia and a desperate wish to live, if only to snuff out another life in the same way that he had snuffed out mine…
Do you believe me now? Cid whispered in my ear, showing a strange tenderness that was very uncharacteristic of the sarcastic and rough veneer he portrayed.
What?
About being human. You can’t smother something like that.
I… couldn’t be human after everything I had subjected upon others and been subjected to. I wanted to though… good god, I wanted to be human enough to just peel Cid away from AVALANCHE and Sephiroth and Meteor…and just be a simple man, as I was a forgotten time ago. To be condemned for having homosexual tendencies, not for being a monster. To allow myself to be weak around another human being, the Turks and their rules be damned…
You need to come back from the Chaos. It’s not so much that I’m gonna die.. it’s just that I don’t want it to be a waste… you know?
Cid no… I couldn’t have!
Yeah…
That can’t be!
Chaos giggled manically as it receded away, leaving time to kick back in. The force of the blow it had inflicted upon Cid sent us skidding on the hull after a painful thud! I was still clutching Cid’s chest desperately, but something was horribly wrong.
I pushed up and my mind reeled with how much blood we were covered in. It was everywhere! Over my chest and in my tangled here… in my mouth…And Cid bore the brunt of Chaos’ horrible rage, blood pouring out of claw induced gashes on his arms and neck with a wound gored right into his chest…
I covered my bloody mouth with bloody fingers of my one hand. Cid swallowed blood, tried to say something, but ungracefully puked what he had swallowed instead, falling unconscious.
“Don’t die you bastard! You… you can’t die!” I commanded as I gripped his shoulders in a frightened haze.
What have I done?
End Chapter Eight
******************************************************
for some reason, this chapter reminds me of Nueromancer with the whole shared senses thing… ah well, I had fun with it, I hope you had fun reading it… oh yes, Sabbath is my cat, sorry about that i kno its a little weird...
*PS: recommended listening: Stabbing Westward, Chimaira and NIN*
Lamentations
Chapter Eight
Honest Secret
Once again, my internal clock roused me at 7:30 on the nose, but it wasn’t as if I had a way of telling when I woke up. Somehow, Chaos had landed me on the very top of the Highwind (a favorite of it’s perches if I’m not mistaken…), settled just outside of Bone Village. I was muddy and not surprisingly covered with dry blood. It was almost scary how used to it I was becoming.
At this hour, it was a fairly simple task to slip unnoticed into a shower stall, then back to my quarters without encountering a soul. Most of AVALANCHE and the crew were either asleep or getting supplies in the excavation site.
I dressed and deemed myself in well enough control to be among allies and innocents, though my gut was still quivering from the trauma Chaos brought upon my body. Cloud had said Thursday. Tomorrow. Best not neglect my responsibilities to my weapons.
By the time most of the ship was up and about I had all I needed spread out before me in the conference room. It was an automated task to take each gun apart, inspect, upkeep and clean. It was almost meditative, for my mind was blissfully blank in the task.
There was a jangling, like that of a cat with a bell on its collar. Lucrecia’s black cat named Sabbath? No, you idiot. I looked up and saw Nanaki sitting in the doorway. I tensed. He saw my jump from the deck last night. I was positive. Nothing was said. I think he sensed my unease. He merely nodded and padded away—a complete understanding achieved without a word. Smart beast.
The next interruption came a good 45 minutes later, when I was just finishing up Death Penalty. I knew the footsteps by heart now, just as I had memorized Cloud’s. The slight clack of untied laces and the way the heel hit dramatically harder than the toe gave it away. Cid.
I nodded civilly towards him. If he wanted to drag this out, here was not the place. I was hoping he would act his age, but I suppose I was wrong.
“Hey,” he said, leaning on the table with both hands like he usually did when outlining a plan of action with his crew. “Can we talk here?”
My ears didn’t pick up anyone outside, so I shrugged. More abuse. God knows I deserved it a thousand times over… “Alright.”
“We’re both adults here,” Cid laid out firmly. So he was going to act his age. “What exactly is going on?”
Point blank. He did no fancy small talk, and with one question, he had me cornered. Maybe he wasn’t so much of an ass-talker as I suspected. “I didn’t indicate that anything would continue,” I reminded him, loading a clip into my preferred weapon. “To either of you.”
Cid had a hard time digesting that one. As if to say, “I give up,” he threw his hands up. “That’s fine,” he lied. “If that’s the way you wanted it after that shit you know… fine.”
He was getting irate. Was it truly that earth-shattering to him? He had put nothing on the line, where I was the one who had taken the risk. And yet when I retreated, he was the one who was upset. “Interesting…” I mused. Perhaps he had more at stake than even he realized. But it couldn’t have been more than that tinkering curiosity. An affection was there, though clearly no understanding had been reached. He couldn’t be in that deep…
Cid stuffed his hands in his pockets and stalked off, frustrated. It must have been a real slap in the face for him to find out I had been “seeing” someone. But surely he understood the phrase “no strings attached…”
Just tear his limbs off and shove them right up his tight little ass hole…!
“Quiet…” I ordered softly, returning to the monotony of my gun work.
Smear pieces of him all over Cloud’s quarters! Use his head as a trophy! Wear his blood!
“Cid, you gotta minute?”
Confrontation. I heard Cid and Cloud outside in the hall, though they were the least of my worries at the moment. Apparently I was not in as much control as I’d like to be, given the red haze that settled over my vision.
“You talk to Vincent too?”
“Yeah. I did.”
“Really?”
It was time to get the hell out of here. If this kept happening, I could not stay here. I suppose it would be a better idea to let Chaos hunt in the Crater—destruction for the greater good. My head started to fog…
Abandoning my weapons (a difficult thing for me to do in such haste), I made my way for the nearest exit. Cloud and Cid were bathing in pure tension between each other. Cloud had a hand on the hilt of one of his swords, his sharp Mako eyes squinted and his lips parted for some insult. Cid had his arms crossed, his fingers unconsciously twitching for the Materia on his belt. His scruffy chin was thrust out with a sneer on the lips that had induced such sinful pleasure upon me just nights before…
I purposely pushed by between them. “Oh please…” Now was not the time for such petty squabbles. I was annoyed with them, yes, but I was a little more concerned with the familiar pangs of transformation.
There’s a reason they hate you so much…
Yuffie stumbled around the corner, blocking my exit. She was making a beeline for the bathroom. I ducked in and locked the door. “HEY!” I heard her protest. “Who the hell…?!”
It’s the same reason Lucrecia hated you…
My knees buckled as a blistering agony shocked my system. I grabbed the sink to keep myself up. There had to be a way out…
“Come oooooooooon! Who’s in there?!” Yuffie was whining, pounding on the door. “Hurry it uuuuuup!!”
I clutched my chest. My breath was being seized and my skin was starting to change.
“There’s another bathroom that way. And don’t you dare blow your chunks on my goddamn floor! Hey…! HEY! Goddammit…” A soft knock. “Uh… Vince?”
“Go away,” I managed. A window. Anything at this point. I choked and vomited, losing my vision. I got the feeling Hojo made this degrading with intent. Blood and pain and hate… I stumbled towards the window, ripped it open with the metal appendage that was now my left arm and threw myself out into the whipping wind. Airborne again… When did we…?
Chaos seized the opportunity. Wouldn’t you like to kill them both? You could do horrible things to them as they died. You could watch them squirm… just like you did for Hojo!
Riding a hot black wind upon my wings of oblivion…
Wouldn’t you love to make him bleed? To tear at his flesh and just let it gush all over you? Tasty morsels like them deserve a slow, hideous end… It’s a pity that she’s dead. She must have been a slutty little fuck, wasn’t she?
I didn’t mean that Lucrecia; I didn’t mean to call you a whore. And yet barely your spirit remains to tell you so… you were in so much agony over your son you gave to Jenova, that anything I said that didn’t involve him slid off of you like the very Lifestream ridden water that supported you…
You would not accept my apology. And you had every right to reject me…
She was such a tight cunt, wasn’t she? A hot, wet, whorey cunt?
I made love to her!
You degrade her! You fucked her ass you were so selfish, even when she told you she hated it!
These aren’t my memories!
You could take up with Cid what you left off with her..
No, not Cid.
You really like him! I’ll rip both your hearts out!
Leave him out of this. I blew my chance. He despises me; it’s enough.
No… no, far from it!
From a murky fog I could see a blurry figure. I was second to Chaos, but I could smell out each little capillary and see the vital heat sources in its body… Prey…
It was making sounds I couldn’t understand. Adrenaline meant fear… fear tasted delicious…
Eager for a sample of terror, I dove in, sinking in teeth and claws through soft skin…
There was a sting to the face—something of mere annoyance normally, but a voice rolled the clouds over my senses back, and a new personality butted Chaos completely out of the picture.
Darkness may rule you, but it won’t hold me down!
Rockets and stars and clouds and engines… the smell of gasoline and the sound of a vintage car… delectable sensations like these bombarded me, digging me out from the depths of darkness. But it was not I that found these things so undeniably pleasant…
“Cid!! Your uncle’s home!”
The house was blurry, but the faces were not, so clearly etched into Cid’s child memory. Every gray hair in his uncle’s mustache; the way his hands were calloused and dirty from some garage and the way his coat smelled of old cars and nicotine when he lifted Cid up and twirled him around and around and around…
These were Cid’s memories. What on earth was he doing here?
How old was I?? Five?? I heard him scoff at the faces.
The woman was large and had a permanent smile etched onto her prominent cheeks. Butterscotch… she always had butterscotch candies in her pockets, which she shared liberally. She looked nothing like the blond boy peeling the flight goggles off of an older, dark haired, dark eyed man.
They weren’t your parents?
No… my aunt and uncle raised me. Not sure where my real folks ended up, but I never really gave a rat’s ass. They let me have a little too much sugar and didn’t discipline me much… but hey, it all worked out…
The most glorious contraption a child could lay eyes on loomed into view—bare with just the frame, but it’s interior was pregnant with parts and possibility.
“It’s going to be the Tiny Bronco!”
“So be it!”
Hours upon hours of precarious and all consuming work poured into the plane, and it rose from the humble frame to a great being of flight. They boy grew into a teenager, then into that awkward phase between teenager and man.
Of course there was a girl. She weaved in and out of blueprints and engine parts, casting her soft femaleness over the masculinly charged garage. Sitting on a half finished wing; laughing as paint cans toppled onto Cid; then hovering over him in concern. His curses slid off of her slim shoulders and she only smiled with a startling beauty from a creature so simple…
Lucrecia… I thought. Very much like her—so much in fact that I almost mistook her for the siren that haunted my nightmares.
Yeah, I guess she does kinda look like her… Cid agreed.
Love so young… Shera. That was her name. Bright and capable, but resigned. It was love, I could feel the fresh ache as if it were mine again. How old were you?
Mm… mebbe 16…
An absence in his heart—one that had gone numb over a few years… Where’s your uncle?
He died in that war in Wutai… I barely remember it…
“That thing’ll never fly!”
“God, why do you bother, Highwind?”
“Tiny Bronco? Are ya compensating for somethin’ there, Cid?”
Shera, even you doubted me. Goddammit, I’ll show you and the whole fucking town!
A kiss to the girl he loved, then strap in, buckle down, switch and fiddle with buttons and knobs and flight goggles down and ready. Take off day.
The engine roared in protest and the frame rattled in strain, but the Tiny Bronco barreled out into the sunny field. A prayer sent to gods he wasn’t too sure he believed in perhaps bestowed the Bronco with just enough boost it needed to lift… up… up… UP! As if by pure will of hope, Cid made the thing fly.
It was as if I were one with his ecstasy of the moment. He ripped off the goggles that once his beloved uncle donned and threw his fists in the air in worship of the sky. Yes! YES!
The darkness simply melted away, and for one blessed moment, I could smile unburdened, without the ache of fakeness, maybe even laugh a little…
Literally exalted for what he had done, Cid lost himself in the brunette beauty—kissing every inch of her, preening the heat between them and in a young fury ridding barriers as quickly as possible… Shera gasped at Cid’s arousal at the moment, and in the haze of success and delirium he drove into her right there in the grass…
The memory fuzzed into a more abstract and repressed image. Uh… I was a little … overwhelmed at the time… Cid stammered in his embarrassment for lapsing into something as personal as sex.
No, no, I don’t blame you… I assured with an empty longing for the simplicity he had but did not cherish. I envy you…
You don’t need to. Forgive the corniness, but dreams come true, dammit! I’ll prove it to you! He seemed lost in thought… Fuck, what do I have to do to show him…
Rufus. Scarlet. Tseng. Cid held onto these faces with startling clarity. His lack of attention to detail otherwise bothered my curious eyes, trying to catch all the surroundings and every little part of the scene as they were trained so vigorously to do. But Cid paid little mind to such things, and the joy that ShinRa had so liberally distributed, then ripped away was a bitter blow.
However brief it was, the happiness was intense. The money ShinRa gave for the plans to the Bronco alone was massive; for the Highwind mind-boggling. On top of the world, Cid began his biggest and most impressive endeavor ever: to touch the stars.
Shera grew farther and farther away from the jumble of plans bubbling in Cid’s overactive mind, though her loyalty clung to me, and stung it was so deep and unrequited. Cid’s brain filled with numbers and plans and tools and money. Selfish… Yeah… I know…
Didn’t that fall through?
You said it yourself. Circumstance fucked me over, mostly ‘cause of ShinRa. I could have scoffed at his using my dodgy words against me. Everything he held dear was poured into this rocket—even Shera risked death—which ultimately destroyed the launch. Yes. I already knew this. Again, Cid’s honesty won through. It may be selfish and cruel, but looking out for oneself was the most truth anyone could give themselves. It had given him a frustrating, imperfect happiness. And that was all that mattered. But you were there, Vince. You watched me get into space… you helped me. I’m complete because of you…
He was mistaken, I knew he was. I had nothing to do with the rocket. Had Cloud not mentioned the fact that Hojo might be involved, and had I not followed a foolish—but now fulfilled—hope of ridiculous revenge, I’d still be in that coffin, atoning for every heavy sin upon my heart.
That was mostly Cloud…
Fuck Cloud. It’s just you an’ me now.
He was bitterly jealous of Cloud. And now I realized why he had become so upset—the guy really liked me. Hate was nowhere near the picture, as I had so feared. Now that I knew what it was, I clung to him, digging my fingers—of both hands in this world of memory—into a steady chest, rasping in affectionate laughter at my foolishness. I didn’t have a word for it anymore, but now that I had it, I refused to let go, so starved for whatever it was from years of cold, cold scorn…
Spinning stars and a lift in my chest from lack of gravity startled me. The rocket, cannoning through space and spiraling into something deeply realized by Cid. Something wonderfully elating…
I never saw it the way you did…
No?
I was sort of queasy at the time… I admitted. You’re right though, it was … breathtaking.
Falling… falling through space, burning in the descent back to earth… a blur and jumble of clutching something to break the fall, metal hulls, broken seatbelts, Huge Materia and a desperate wish to live, if only to snuff out another life in the same way that he had snuffed out mine…
Do you believe me now? Cid whispered in my ear, showing a strange tenderness that was very uncharacteristic of the sarcastic and rough veneer he portrayed.
What?
About being human. You can’t smother something like that.
I… couldn’t be human after everything I had subjected upon others and been subjected to. I wanted to though… good god, I wanted to be human enough to just peel Cid away from AVALANCHE and Sephiroth and Meteor…and just be a simple man, as I was a forgotten time ago. To be condemned for having homosexual tendencies, not for being a monster. To allow myself to be weak around another human being, the Turks and their rules be damned…
You need to come back from the Chaos. It’s not so much that I’m gonna die.. it’s just that I don’t want it to be a waste… you know?
Cid no… I couldn’t have!
Yeah…
That can’t be!
Chaos giggled manically as it receded away, leaving time to kick back in. The force of the blow it had inflicted upon Cid sent us skidding on the hull after a painful thud! I was still clutching Cid’s chest desperately, but something was horribly wrong.
I pushed up and my mind reeled with how much blood we were covered in. It was everywhere! Over my chest and in my tangled here… in my mouth…And Cid bore the brunt of Chaos’ horrible rage, blood pouring out of claw induced gashes on his arms and neck with a wound gored right into his chest…
I covered my bloody mouth with bloody fingers of my one hand. Cid swallowed blood, tried to say something, but ungracefully puked what he had swallowed instead, falling unconscious.
“Don’t die you bastard! You… you can’t die!” I commanded as I gripped his shoulders in a frightened haze.
What have I done?
End Chapter Eight
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for some reason, this chapter reminds me of Nueromancer with the whole shared senses thing… ah well, I had fun with it, I hope you had fun reading it… oh yes, Sabbath is my cat, sorry about that i kno its a little weird...