Chalk Butterflies

By: Strange and Intoxicating -rsa-

Author Notes: This is what I get for looking into the Genesis Awards 'Being for the Benefit of Title Choosing' thread... again. And thus, this story is born. There is yaoi and incest, so if that is not your thing, please turn back now.

Disclaimer: I, Strange and Intoxicating -rsa-, do not own, think I own, or will ever own Final Fantasy VII or its Compilations. I write this because there seems to be a serious and terrible shortage of Weiss/Nero stories on this site. I will populate unpopular pairings!

Chalk Butterflies

Their relationship was one that could only be seen as fleeting and fragile. Brothers, born of a mother who died by the darkness Nero permeated, an anger spawned from the beginning; the first harsh realization to Weiss that life was easy to snatch away with a strong fist or aura of evil.

He hated Nero, in the beginning. Such a small, little thing destroying the only good thing to ever happen to Weiss in his short life. The labs were cold and they reeked of birthing beds, turned to coffins for both mother and child. Experiments died in each room, no child ever coming out right. He had been terrified in the beginning that neither his mother nor the child within her would survive. Weiss didn't want that; she had warm hands and the prickling of needles didn't hurt so much while she was around.

But he took her from him, fading into the darkness as the wet, red and black lump poured from her womanly parts. Weiss wasn't supposed to see. The doctors had ushered him out, away as she let out her last scream. The black, feather-like touch of the darkness reached out to him, beckoning him forward to the small child still bloody, left on the bed. He was surrounded by the wisps of death and the small cries were hushed by the cooing of the inky swirls, covering him like a blanket.

Weiss didn't touch him for the first thirteen years of Nero's life, though it was clear that Nero wanted the hand of affection when all he had known was the astringent smell of mako and the pinching of needles and the punches, kicks, vile touches of the death row inmates from Midgar. The scientists liked that Nero would be violated—it would only take so long for him to snap, allowing his powers to burst forth like tainted death, potent but too late to protect any innocence.

At first, Weiss believed that it was fitting. He, the brother who snatched the life away from his own mother, deserved nothing but the harsh touch of a man in him. The cries had been loud and screeching and so very satisfying. Now, however, there wasn't any more fun in listening to the screaming that came through his cell at night or the wild pants of the men before they would scream as they faded into the darkness with their orgasms riding like waves of the ocean he longed to see.

But it was his brother; Nero longed for Weiss, begging him through the vents that connected their cells to hold him, cherish him. There would be clawing from the other side as his fingers would fight for the small opening that he couldn't climb through.

The first time Weiss escaped from the labs he had grabbed Nero by the hair, pulling him out of the room. That wasn't the touch that the ebony-haired boy had wanted, and whimpered with pain. But, Weiss whispered harshly as he kicked a scientist in the kneecap, fighting forward to reach the elevator that loomed before them like a beacon of light and happiness, Nero had no reason to expect him to be nice.

They hadn't made it, but after Nero's pointed stares, the darkness of his heart licking the scientist's face, they were granted permission to stay together.

The hate that once was with Weiss faded, disappeared with the beating of Nero's heart against his ear. Nothing sexual—just listening to the thumping, feeling the whisper of soft hair against his being. The evil wrapped around the both of them now and the silver-haired teenager knew that there would never be a moment where it posed a danger.

"My dear Weiss," Nero would whisper, "I will never leave your side, my darling brother." He had meant it. That was the only time where they kissed, lips soft against one another. It was before the others locked them down into the pits of DeepGround, muzzling Nero with a specially created mask which locked both his powers and his lips. Such soft, delicate things, much like his puckered entrance and weeping cock; Weiss missed them when his lips would meet the skin between the straps and Nero's throat.

Nero was his—only his to touch, to caress, to love. Wrong? No; a brother's love could not be wrong, no matter how such feelings were acted out. There was no way that the pleasure they both took was an evil. Weiss knew of evil, had it tuck him to sleep with Nero's head in the crook of his arm. Love was not that, of all things.

But their relationship was fragile. It reminded him of the butterfly Nero had tried to hold in his hands the first time that he ever left the compound to collect their other brother—one not by biology, but by fate. His eyes had been so large and Weiss could almost see the smile underneath the muzzle he was forced to wear. Never had his eyes been so bright, so filled with life.

"Look, my dear Weiss," Nero said, opening his hands to Weiss' face. "I have a gift for you." But the butterfly was dead. Its wings were bent at an odd angle and the feelers snapped off. The body was cut in half and Nero had choked back a sob, hiding his hands behind his back.

"It is nothing, my beloved brother," Nero mumbled, allowing the butterfly to fall to the ground. Something left his eyes. "I am sorry."

Weiss knew that there was not much time left together then, at that moment when the butterfly's destroyed wings hit the ground. He took his younger brother into his arms then, kissing the place where Nero's lips were, running his fingers through the dark hair. There was a phantom sensation in the silver-haired man's mouth and it reminded him of a kiss, the only one of its kind. Their only kiss.

They laid down in the grass, Weiss' fingers slowing working the clothing off the both of them. There was nothing more beautiful than the body below him; Nero's frame, while wiry and lean, so thin and pale, was nothing but a work of art. His hands were exquisite, too.

He kissed the palms and the fingers, each tip touched with a feather-light press of his lips. The ebony-haired man would moan and the world was right.

"You are my chalk butterfly. One day, when you die, the sky will weep for you, but it will never be able to wipe your message away."

"What message, my Weiss?"

"The one who ends a butterfly's life will forever remember. And while their lives are fleeting, here in this world and gone within a moment, it will linger in the memory of another until their own life is snatched away."

Weiss knew from the beginning that it would be his hand which would break the wings of his brother, his beloved. And, like he had vowed, he did not forget.

He could not forget.

When the darkness took him, Weiss opened his arms and waited for the one pair of lips which had ever touched his.

"My beloved brother," Nero whispered, "you have come."

The beating of wings against his cheek in the blindness of the darkness told him that there was nothing to fear.

So he didn't.

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