Wax Rainbows

By: Strange and Intoxicating -rsa-

Rating: T for shounen-ai and angst.

Author Notes: So, this is another one of those 'Being for the benefit of title choosing' thanks to the people of the Genesis Awards. The name is from 'Pen Against Sword', this time. And as per usual, this has a healthy dose of shounen-ai. Yay!

Disclaimer: I, Strange and Intoxicating -rsa-, do not own, think I own, or will ever own Final Fantasy VII or its Compilations. I write the because it's fun and I needed to get it out of my system. If I didn't, well... let's just say that I'd be driven insane.

Wax Rainbows

Angeal never knew for certain what love was. He had had his fair share of sexual encounters, all pointed and beautiful in their own twisted and perverse ways, but there was never the warm tingling in his stomach, or the marrow in his bones heating up. Nothing tasted sweet—always salty and bitter, lemons. Lemon's burned his nostrils, made his eyes water and always left a horrid aftertaste that made the SOLDIER cringe. There was nothing delicate or purposeful about lust, the movement of bodies together.

He didn't want love. There was no problem with it, for others, but for Angeal love was something that bound people to another being. Genesis Rhapsodos had once even named love a burden; it was something one could even hold over the head of a God. Gods weren't meant to love, the man repeated, clutching 'Loveless' close. There was always a bitterness to him, when he repeated those words. Gods weren't meant to love. Neither he, nor Genesis or Sephiroth could love, according to those words, a mantra the man repeated often.

Genesis and Sephiroth didn't want love either, it seemed. Both were content with their bodies needing the warmth of another, but it was always with one another. Angeal couldn't be bothered; even with the auburn-haired man's mouth producing words of disbelief and disgust at the human needs, and his dear silver-haired friend looked on mutely. Even if they wouldn't admit it to one another, Angeal knew that his two friends loved each other, more than they cared to admit. It was a sign of weakness, after all. He never spent the night, or even the briefest of moments, locked in passion with either.

There was a Turk that he spent his nights with. He was an older, more experienced man, who Angeal still refused to allow to dominate him. The Wutaian man liked Angeal, he would even dare say that, if the young Ancient hadn't been around with her green eyes and braided brown hair, he could have loved. Maybe. Angeal had seen Tseng with her, sneaking around the slums just to see her. She didn't know that the Turk loved her as anything more than a sister.

Some nights he spent in the company of a woman, long-limbed and beautiful. Her hair was golden like the sun, a Honey-Bee girl who had grown into her body before it in itself could catch up. There was no emotion with that one. She came at the end of the month, when she needed the work. The black-haired, serious SOLDIER knew that bills needed to be paid, food needed to be bought, and the blond wasn't getting any help from her ex-husband. How one could already have an ex-husband at the age of nineteen was difficult to swallow, but Angeal could do it, for a price.

Others fled by without names and faces, their bodies used and then gone. But there had been one that Angeal had taken an interest in. He never got to touch him, though. He was gone before he could.

And so Angeal watched. Watched Zack Fair drag Cloud Strife around from place to place, seeing the world in a new light. Every morning, Angeal would search around, seeing the grounds, attempt to find if another was tracking the two. Sometimes there would be, and Angeal would make the rain pour down from the sky in torrents. He was a God, able to control things he shouldn't have.

Watching all day and all night, the SOLDIER saw Zack run his fingers over the blonde's tufts of hair, whispering against his cheek. There was something growing between the two, at least on Zackary's side. Cloud couldn't even open his big blue eyes, most of the time. They just stayed closed, or when they were open they faded out, too quickly to even grab at a trace. Nothing seemed to be going in his mind.

Angeal saw him on one of his first days as a grunt. He had been walking along with Genesis, the other man to submerged in 'Loveless' to even notice where they were heading, and the auburn-haired man had knocked into the boy. His hair, Angeal had noticed on first inspection, was gravity-defying, and he had the most beautiful blue eyes that the SOLDIER had ever seen. They seemed to glow, even though it was impossible for him to have been exposed to mako. He already had the SOLDIER eyes branded into his head.

There were no flaws, other than the fact that the poor thing nearly keeled over and died at Genesis' feet, repeating his apologies over and over—even when it hadn't been his fault. There was a thin sheen of sweat on the boy's brow, only accentuated by his skin tone. Angeal never had seen someone look like that; he wanted to, if he ever got the chance, to take the boy on, even with his schedule as full as it was.

The grunt apologized one more time before leaving, and Angeal knew then that if the boy didn't taste as sweet, like cherries or peaches, Angeal couldn't ever be sure what love was.

And now, so long after that time, there he was. The dark-haired SOLDIER wished he had human limbs again, so that he could lean down and pluck the sweetest fruit, dark with lust.

Angeal watched Zack grown more and more fond of Cloud as the weeks turned into months, the blooms of the flowers falling and the snow coming down like flakes of heaven. Angeal would watch then on the motorcycle, Zack fighting to keep the blonde from falling off, though he could see the secret touches to the boy's lips, to his ears, the subtle caress of his cheek.

In many ways, Angeal thought that he had failed Zack, the one day that he couldn't protect him. What kind of human being, what kind of God would allow him to lay down his life? What could possibly have explained his inability to protect the puppy? There was no way he could. Rather than fight against the dead, Angeal had decided to forgo the world and to go down himself, to take Zack with him. He wanted to be a hero so very much, wanted to be loved by Cloud, wanted to live. There was no way he could, not anymore, and the SOLDIER wondered whether Zack had ever tasted anything besides the bitterness.

They watched now, together. Zack felt the dread for the living, never moving from beside Angeal for more than a moment at a time. They would both stare down from their very own hole in the sky and watched. Watched the humans, watched Cloud and his friends. Zack cried for them, and sometimes Angeal would hold him, allowed a shoulder to lean on when the blonde down there would scream himself into sleep, wanting to know where the world was, now. Where love was, now. He didn't even understand himself.

Angeal didn't understand either.

Others joined. Angeal saw the pretty brunette girl, the beautiful Ancient. He had witnessed her death, and her sudden appearance in the afterlife. That one time he peeked in on Tseng, and saw the man, a sturdy and powerful Turk who had never bend down for anything or anyone, crying in a small bed, bandages wrapped tight against his wounds. He knew that Aeris was gone, like he could feel her presence disappear from the Planet. For one stinging moment, Angeal wondered if anyone had cried, felt his own presence leave the Planet, returning to the lifestream.

Zack wouldn't speak to her, and just nudged himself closer to Angeal. She would sometimes stop and look down into the hole, their private hole, to see the others. Angeal noticed that they were all watching the same thing. The man never thought to say anything, either.

When Sephiroth joined them, Angeal had been surprised. It rained that day, little drops of water that were celebrating a death and a life.

Three years later Angeal still watched from his hole, but things has changed. The world below was without the Shinra he had grown so accustomed to. There were no wars, and peace prevailed over Edge.

Edge. How strange it was, watching the people build over their old lives. The Shinra building was still a place of ghosts, but only one couple lived anywhere near.

The redhead thought that it was strange, living in the small church in the slums that Angeal had watched Tseng, and then Zack, go into. There was a small room in the back, where they had taken refuge from the rest of the world. Their bed made creaking sounds when they made love in it, and more then once Angeal had watched with open mouth as Reno, the Turk, made love with Cloud near the flowers.

Cloud had once told Reno, curled up together as they slept in the thin membrane sheet under the hole in the sky, why they couldn't ever have sex in the flowers, below the hole that lead to the sky. He said, head tucked underneath the redhead's chin, their legs wrapped together, that he could feel something looking down at him, watching over him. It wasn't a scary thing, but made him feel secure, knowing that there was someone watching over him, protecting him from whatever came his way. Though he didn't know who it was, or if there was anyone anyway, Cloud knew that whoever it was loved him.

The next morning, a light drizzle began, wetting the two sleeping lightly. Zack had told Angeal to send an outpour over Reno's head, but Angeal slapped his hand away. It was enough to do what he needed to.

Under the hole in the church's roof, Cloud looked up and nudged Reno.

"Look, it's a rainbow," Cloud seemed surprised, and Angeal smiled.

"Yeah, babe," Reno said, yawning.

"I've never seen one before. They're beautiful."

Angeal watched, and smiled.

This, this was love. It had to be—the world looked different. Sweeter, almost. Angeal ran a finger over the place where the two were laying, and he pushed a bit of blonde hair from his tired eyes.

"They are."

I don't have a flipping clue where this came from. Trust me, I know that this pairing makes little sense, but I needed to get it out of my system.

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