Title: Shell-shocked

Fandom: FFVII CC

Pairing(s): Angeal x Zack (friendship)

Rating: PG

Warning: none

Word count: 590

Summary: Angeal comes home from a bad mission

He was tired. Bone deep weary, exhausted in body and soul. Smeared from top to bottom with mud and leaves and… other things he didn't really want to think about. At the end, all he wanted was to go home, close the door behind himself and try to forget. Try to forget the faces and screams, the frenzy of battle, the sickening sounds of blades meeting flesh, shearing through it effortlessly.

They'd thrown themselves onto the SOLDIER swords – men, women, even children. Fanatics in their fight against ShinRa, choosing to die rather than find a peaceful solution. He'd tried so hard not to kill, shouting at them again and again to surrender. He remembered one woman, three babies in her arms, throwing herself towards the waiting ShinRa troops and being torn apart into bloody bits by their continuous gunfire. Another cut her children's throats right in front of the SOLDIERs, before she impaled herself on their blades. They kept coming until the fields were drenched with blood and every with every step that Angeal took something squelched and slid beneath his boots. Until the only living beings in that village were ShinRa troups and SOLDIERs.

He looked down at his scratched, blood and mud covered hands. They were trembling like leaves in a storm. He never trembled. He clenched them into fists, trying to steady them, and bits of mud dropped off onto the floor. They fell on his Buster Sword, lying at his feet, the beloved weapon as soiled and defiled as its owner. There'd been no honor in today's slaughter.

He sat and stared, seeing only the blood, the death, the massacre of innocents before him. The remembered smell of blood and churned earth and released bowels overpowered everything, making him gag. And still he didn't move from his place on the sofa.

Angeal didn't even register the soft opening and closing of the door, the quiet steps coming towards him. He did not see Zack kneel in front of him, did not feel the young man divest him of his soiled armor, putting it gently aside to be cleaned later. For once, Zack was silent as he led the unresisting First into the bathroom, undressed him and pushed him into the shower stall, turning the water on as hot as they could stand. When he joined Angeal, the older man was standing as he had left him, his eyes open and unseeing, being pelted by the hot spray. He did not react as Zack's strong hands lathered the grime off his body and washed the blood from his matted hair with a deft, sure touch.

When Angeal finally broke down, sagging against the younger man, body wracked with heart-breaking sobs, Zack held his trembling mentor until he calmed.

Zack was still silent as he guided his teacher, now dried off and dressed in soft cotton pajamas, towards the bedroom, settling him tenderly underneath the thick covers, then spooning up close behind him. He only held Angeal tight as the older man moaned and shuddered, still seeing the horrors before his closed eyes. He held Angeal until he finally dropped off into what Zack hoped would be a healing sleep. As the younger man turned out the light, he hoped that there was someone there doing the same for all those other SOLDIERS who had returned from that horror of a mission today.