This little fic is for Aeriths-Rain. I hope you like it!!!
Warnings: There's the tiniest itty bitty lil' M/M kiss kind of--but he didn't mean anything by it I swear!!! Some violence and death.
Kadaj screamed as his head was jerked back almost hard enough to snap his neck.
By now, he was next to lifeless. It had been forever.
He didn't know when the battle had started, it seemed as though it had always been. But he could see that it would end soon. Any moment now.
His body exhausted and now too weak to resist, Kadaj found himself being dragged by his hair across a rough cement floor. He clutched at the arm which was pulling him, trying to relieve some of the burning pain which seared his scalp. Precious metal strands were breaking in the gloved hand, ripping out at their roots.
At last, Kadaj was dropped in the center of what looked to him, like a boundless amphitheatre. The ceiling of it was indefinable, lost in black. The walls were made of crawling shadows.
All this darkness swarmed around him and it was soft, warm, familiar.
He was thrown into an unnatural pool of light. Harsh, cold, unforgiving. Light.
Completely exposed.
Blood streaked the cement which Kadaj had been dragged across, the warm liquid seeping through his now shredded black leather. The victor stood just outside of the torturing light, half illuminated. His knee length sliver hair was still smooth and untangled. He hadn't even exerted himself, while the remnant was sweating, heaving, and even dying.
Sephiroth stood within the remnant's reach, Masamune loose in his grasp, unconcerned. He stooped to look closely at the mutilated warrior. His eyes were as hard as the steel which sliced though the remnant's flesh. As merciless.
Kadaj's hand twitched. Souba lay at his side useless, his own blood running down the length of the double blade and draining the strength from his body.
"What will be done with you?" Sephiroth toyed with the dying remnant, the child.
Crimson stained white bloodless skin in a shocking clash that was undeniably beautiful. Wide turquoise eyes narrowed in pain and in hate. They had an extra glow that became stronger as life diminished.
"What will become of a bad son?"
Sephiroth leaned in closer and even smiled. He tilted the remnants head back with mock gentleness, exposing his neck and placing a kiss on the pale skin there.
Kadaj shook. Hate and desperation inflamed his veins in place of the blood which had once been there. It gave him strength for one last wish.
He clutched Souba, scraping the blades against the cement as he lifted it, aching to end the battle. The battle in which he had no hope.
Kadaj slashed at the victor with a hiss.
Nothing. He saw only a flourish of sliver and felt Souba wrenched from his hand, he heard it clang back to the floor.
He had no hope.
Lifting his chin again, the shimmering angel held Masamune's polished edge to the vulnerable neck. The blade already ornamented with spilt treasure.
"Mother…" The bleeding child moaned.
At this the angel scoffed. "You're unfit to be her son."
Kadaj's eyes clenched shut, his hands curling into fists. He was shaking with a sensation more painful than anything his destroyed frame could sense. He bent his head toward not caring about the gash that seized through his neck.
Unfit.
He was crying.
That surprised him because he never cried… But he wasn't strong without Mother. He didn't want to die.
Without Her.
"Mother!"
Unfit.
He could feel the razor edged sword being drawn slowly across his throat. He opened his mouth to scream again, soundlessly.
His vocal cords had been severed. Grasping his throat, there was only hot blood where his voice should have been.
"I'm afraid you won't be with us…for Reunion."
Unfit.
"Mother!"
Kadaj jolted up in bed. He wrapped his hands around his throat and found it vibrating as his scream filling the night.
He wasn't injured and his clothes were in tact. His body was whole. It had only been a dream.
Unfit.
Kadaj shuddered. His skin glistened with a film of sweat which leached the warmth from his cold body. Night air brushed away any possible heat.
He leaned against the headboard with his knees drawn up to his chest, focusing on his breathing and on Mother's encompassing presence.
He asked for her trust. He pleaded for her belief.
But Mother never gave comfort.
She filled him with a drive. An urgent drive.
To serve her. To worship her. She never gave comfort.
She was perfect. But unable to support even the remnant of a soul.
Kadaj submitted to her icy glory. Her emotionless deity. Her sons shouldn't have needed assurance.
He was…unfit.
His forehead rested on his knees. Ghost like threads fell around his young face and obscured any sight of the colorless world, replacing it with…gray.
Kadaj closed tearless eyes and rocked slowly back and forth, hoping to lose some of his thoughts in the rhythm, to shut in silence, which was something like peace.
There was a single tap on his door. No other sound.
Cat eyes snapped open.
Not alone.
The door slowly opened on faultless hinges and as it did so Kadaj's eyes caught the sight of silver and shimmering. His head jerked up.
Silver and shimmering in all of his dreams…
He recognized the middle remnant and his heartbeat began to slow again. Yazoo walked though the room and sat down on the bed, still noiseless.
"Kadaj…" The first sound to be heard was soft enough to sooth silence itself, each low note casting a lingering vibration into the air. It spoke his name.
"…I heard you calling Mother. What's wrong?"
Kadaj hesitated for a moment. "I didn't mean to disturb you and Loz." He avoided.
The long haired man smirked. "You didn't. Loz could sleep through anything…and you didn't disturb me either, I was already awake, thinking."
Yazoo cocked his head to one side wondering why his brother hid. He searched for the boy's face but was met by a water-like wall. He reached out and tucked the younger remnant's hair behind one ear.
Kadaj frowned at the intrusion but didn't stop him. Anyone else would have been dead already, or writhing in pain, but Yazoo was permitted.
Light was let onto the teen's features. Yazoo looked over his brother's face and then settled on the entrancing turquoise orbs. In one respect they were exactly as they should have been. They were still innocent.
No one else seemed to notice, and that was for the best, but Yazoo found it mystifying, enthralling at times, how young and uncovered those eyes were.
Even when Kadaj was killing, literally dancing in the pool of blood he had drawn, when he was mocking his prey, rejoicing, destroying, when he was evil.
Still pure.
His motives were implicit, devoted, honest. Innocent.
A smile graced Yazoo's lips as he thought of his little brother. Kadaj's laugh was just the same. He loved hearing it and seeing the strange, small grin which went with it. He couldn't think of anything more lovely.
It always meant that something was going well for the remnants and that his treasured sibling was pleased. He had often seen Kadaj laugh at someone who was on the edge of death, someone who was standing between them and Mother. A piece of trash which must be discarded, but which first groveled and wailed. The young warrior's eyes would smile a bit and he would breathlessly slice into the abomination which Mother hated.
It was a happy, childish laugh. He was thinking of how much Mother would be pleased and how much closer they must be to Reunion.
Kadaj was overflowing filial and selfish joy. Sometimes his brothers were even awarded a sunshine-like little grin.
Yes. There was still that simplistic innocence in those lovely eyes but…
Yazoo let out a worried sigh. They weren't derisive, they weren't mocking, they weren't filled with that ever present raging hatred.
Such a comfortable hatred. It was gone.
Here there was fear. Pure and animal fear.
Yazoo's frown deepened and he chanced a question. "What was your dream little brother? Will you tell me?"
Kadaj met his brother's gaze then winced and turned away, looking out the window and at the starlight which filtered through it.
That was disturbing. Kadaj was the youngest but he was the leader, the most skill fighter, the favorite, and he never looked away. Yazoo's eyes drifted down to the youngest remnants hands, which were clenched on top of his knees. Crimson drops streaked the white skin where his nails had bitten into the flesh.
Yazoo gave a little cry of displeasure. The normally cold man's face was softened by concern as he took his younger brother's hands and began licking off the stains. He had tasted blood before out of curiosity, but human blood had been bitter and metallic, not sweet like this. It was vaguely pleasant.
"What are you doing?" Kadaj asked, distrusting his sarcastic brother.
Yazoo looked up into a pair of shining eyes. "Cleaning your wounds."
Kadaj didn't question farther but looked back out the window where the moon was dropping to shine on his face, perhaps jealous if the remnant's pallor.
Yazoo had captured every last delicious drop and left his brother's hands stainless. The tiny nail marks where already beginning to heal. He returned Kadaj's hands his knees and the boy just let him, distant and as limp as a paper doll.
Yazoo sighed. How could the most important thing in the world be so fragile?
"Have you been worrying about Reunion again?" Yazoo questioned, his tone a little too close to the one he used on Loz.
"I don't worry!" Kadaj's neck snapped around. His voice was beginning to tremble with pent irritation and rage. The tone Mother's enemies had often heard.
Tormenting, tantalizing, Reunion.
Sometimes he had seen Kadaj shaking with anticipation at the thought of completing Mother's wishes. An overload of energy would surge though his seemingly delicate body, wracking him. And he would go almost completely mad. As a desperate caged animal close to breaking free but held back by just one too many threads. A starving chained pet, inhaling the scents of a banquet, while being keep out of it. He went crazy.
It was because of his little brother that Yazoo knew sorrow. He felt some of the same torments but never as vividly, because he was not Mother's favorite.
Yazoo looked at his brother apologetically. That tone had just slipped in somehow unintentionally. He was thoughtful but not concerning realm of feelings.
He smiled at the idea that Kadaj looked ready to kill him in rage. And his little brother could have if he had wanted to. But for some reason that didn't worry him, maybe because his life wasn't worth anything by itself.
"Mother promised it would happen, we just have to wait. We'll wait." Yazoo tried to reassure but he knew that it wasn't his talent. He saw Kadaj look away again and watched his lips move slightly, willing his brother to speak.
"Mother…is angry with me." Kadaj looked down childishly ashamed and blushed at the admission.
Yazoo frowned, his clinical mind inexplicably irritated. "Why? What would she find wrong with such a good son?"
The teens eyes widened for a second then squinted in pain. "I don't always listen well enough. Sometimes I'm distracted and can't hear her voice…she hates that." Kadaj's voice rose in pitch under strain. "I-I don't love her Chosen One. I don't even want him to be reborn. I…I hate him...sometimes…" The teens teeth gnashed together and his muscles pulled against each other, rigid.
Yazoo seized his brother's hands again to keep them from being cut into even farther and let the boy's thin fingers sink into him instead. When the worst clenching had subsided Yazoo was pleased with his work. His hands were completely numb and bloodless but there were no more marks on Kadaj. No more marks.
He looked deeper. Yazoo's heart gave a little jump and that strangling sorrow resurfaced.
Kadaj was relaxing out of exhaustion. His eyes fluttering open, tired. His head bowed and his shallow breathing shaking. He tried to speak against the tension gripping his throat.
What Sephiroth had spoken, "I'm…I'm…"
Yazoo watched in awe, as though this was a new wonder to him, when it was really very old and set deep in his mind.
Formed in pain, Kadaj's face had taken on the darkest beauty imaginable. Nothing could eradicate that perfection and frighteningly, sorrow was even more graced by him then happiness. He was beautiful in pain.
A halo of moonlight gleefully played above his bowed head, gathering brightness from pliant metal strands and glowing skin. Yazoo reached out, compelled to touch the object before him to see if it would melt in his grasp.
For a second it did. The hair he felt ran over his skin a smooth as water and the skin brushed against his without a hint of friction. Desperate eyes looked up at him in response to the touch, still afraid and crying unshed tears. There was nothing ugly in that possessed soul, nothing which wasn't…
"Perfect."
Kadaj ground his teeth again in irritation and shook his head, throwing shafts of moonlight dancing just above his shoulders. "I'm un-…"
"I said perfect." Yazoo interrupted. "I'm your older brother and I'm also very wise. You have to believe what I say."
Kadaj was less insistent with his denials and just looked at his brother; his features still perfecting the shapes of sadness. "I don't think I'll be at Reunion…"
Yazoo raised his eyebrows. "Then I suppose I won't be either." He said simply. On impulse he crawled across the bed and leaning his back against the headboard, pulled the dejected youth to him. "You look tired."
Kadaj stiffened, realizing what was being implied. He wasn't used to anyone seeing him sleep, not even his brothers.
But Yazoo had already placed him onto his chest and had gently wrapped a warm comforting arm around his shoulders. He had to admit, he wanted warmth. Yazoo ran a finger down the side of his face. And it was soothing.
"Now you won't have any bad dreams, will you?"
Kadaj made a slight 'humming' sound and closed his eyes, his thin, strong muscles slowly relaxing.
As the youth's mind finally released him into sleep the taunting expressions of pain slipped away. There was nothing at all left but Kadaj's spirit, and his unworn face was so young that it looked like to could only belong to the yet unborn.
Yazoo marveled that he was able to hold in his arms the loveliest thing in existence. And the lovely creature trusted him. He was, at rest.
If there was a Reunion to desire, if there was completeness for the half-made, if there was a delightful wholeness, this must be it.
Yazoo whispered into the flawless night and his breath stirred the wisps of silver which hung in his lovely child's eyes.
"Sleep. Just sleep."
………………………………………….
Plz review and tell me how you like! That's what keeps me a happy little fangirl!