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He must get up.
He has to move.
He can’t miss this chance. Not when he doesn’t know if he might get another.
He tries to stand, despite the blood that coats the metal floor robbing him of any grip.
The fact that it’s not only his causes a feral smile to curl the edges of his lips and brings new strength to his failing limbs.
It’s short lived.
His foot slips, and his knees slam down hard on the unyielding steal of the floor.
There’s a soft voice in the back of his head telling him to stop, a lulling darkness that isn’t the safety of unconsciousness, beckoning him to let go. Promising that everything will be alright, be as it should be if he only surrenders.
“Just give in, my Tempest,” the silken words fall like cold rain, dampening his resolve. “You’ve done enough.”
It would be so easy; all he has to do is fall, the darkness will be there to catch him, to take everything away. It won’t hurt anymore.
Gritting his teeth so hard he swears he hears them crack, he leaps.
The attack is desperate, but propelled by the frustration, hate, anger, despair, and all the other emotions that Cloud will never admit to feeling, it is strong.
He doesn’t hear the sound of tearing.
Doesn’t even realise that his turbulent emotions have laid waste to the control that keeps his hateful wings hidden.
Not until cold fingers bury themselves in golden feathers in search of purchase.
The instinctive flinch, born from the feeling of the physical manifestation of his soul being grasped by the man he hates the most, bows his back, slackens his grip, and tears a rabid cry from his lungs that has thus far been kept silent by sheer force of will alone.
Through squinted eyes he sees that hateful face, the smug satisfaction carved into those inhuman eyes as they watch him struggle.
“I said enough Cloud.” The words are coated in the slow acting venom of that caring tone from his formative years.
Combined with the exhaustion, blood loss, and the persistent whisper of the shadows pressing down on his psyche, he goes limp, allowing Sephiroth to release his iron grip on Cloud’s wings and instead shift him so he lays cradled in his arms. Like a child held, safe and protected in their parents’ arms.
It’s moments like these that he hates the most, fears the most.
Ever since that night in Wutai, when he had allowed himself to slip, where he had surrendered and finally been given a moment of reprieve, the bliss that had enveloped him when he gave in…
The aftermath of a bloody field painted black by moonlight, and the endless red he had been unable to wash off his own hands.
It made him fight harder to hold on to his faltering grip that kept him from falling into the beckoning darkness that promised him everything.
Now, the very foundation that crumbling grip, he still stubbornly refuses to release, is breaking away.
Eroded and broken down by the soft words and gentle touches that are a reflection of those that filled a short childhood unburdened by the memories of a past life. A gentle hand that strokes through his hair, the warm embrace that drives away the seeping cold brought on by blood loss.
“I hate you.” The words are spat with all the spite he can muster, they sound like a weak plea even to his own ears.
“Rest my Tempest,” Sephiroth whispers as he draws Cloud in closer.
“I hate you,” the repeated phrase has more bite to it now, like a trapped animal lashing out one last time before it makes the final choice to gnaw its own limb off.
“Shh…I know,” consoles the demon that holds him like he’s something precious.
A whispered command from the darkness that is pressing down on his mind has him instinctively retracting his wings, Cloud cannot help the sigh of relief he breathes against Sephiroth’s shoulder, even as the act of giving into his enemies most benign of commands makes him want to scream.
He barely hears the whoosh of the training room door opening, but he certainly feels the sudden temperature drop as Sephiroth carries him out.
The corridors lay abandoned before them, unsurprising. It’s three in the morning, even SOLDIER doesn’t start the day until four at the earliest.
the rhythmic march of Sephiroth’s tread echoes off the steal and glass walls of the SOLDIER floor, giving Cloud some idea of where they are even with his eyes closed…when had that happened. If he were coherent enough to count the sound of Sephiroth’s steps, he would know exactly where they are now, but each time he tries a tendril of darkness curls around the thought and folds it under the current of exhaustive haze that presses down from all sides.
Sephiroth stops, and it is the sharp ‘ding’ of the elevator that tells him why. Cloud cannot help but be relieved, though he tries to bury the emotion so that Sephiroth will not sense it.
Unsuccessfully.
“Yes, my Storm,” Sephiroth sighs indulgently, “I am taking you to see Genesis.”
“I can take myself.” It won’t be the first time he’s dragged his broken body to Genesis’ apartment before the crack of dawn. Cloud tries to prove his point by pushing away from Sephiroth, but he can barely raise his arm, let alone walk.
The soft chuckle and the gentle hand that smooths down his spikes is his only reward; he loathes the part of himself that wants to lean into the touch.
The scent of filtered air tinged with the tang of sweat as the doors to the elevator open is their only warning.
Sharp moves propel sharper blades from the shadows of the vent above the elevator.
Cloud doesn’t have time to process what happens next, even the half hysterical thought about how he couldn’t believe the Turks still hadn’t gotten around to strengthening the security on the vents after his last crawl through them, gets cut off as his soul is swept from his body and back into the great flow of the planet.
The banging on his door is loud enough to wake the dead.
At least that’s what Genesis thinks as he bolt’s out of bed and glares in the direction that the noise is coming from.
He briefly looks away to check the time displayed on the clock perched on the table next to his bed.
Three-twenty-seven am…
He snatches Rapier and a fully mastered fire materia and plans to use them both on the idiot standing on the other side of his apartment door.
It is, in his opinion, a very rational reaction to being woken at this time of the morning for anything less than an enemy attack, or the discovery of Act V of Loveless.
The Firaga is already fully charged and ready to be unleashed full force when he throws open his door, only for the spell to peter out into a thin plume of smoke and choked sparks as a small bundle with familiar blond spikes is thrust into his arms.
“Fix him,” the order is the only explanation Sephiroth gives as he sweeps into the room and takes a seat in Genesis’ favourite reading chair, his unnatural cat slit gaze never leaving the prone figure draped like a broken doll in Genesis’ arms.
“What? Can the great General not undo the dama—” the acerbic retort dies on a stuttering breath as Genesis adjusts Cloud in his arms so he can check his pulse.
There isn’t one.
Genesis places his open palm over Cloud’s mouth, not covering it, but paused, hovering there, waiting for a sign, the smallest breath.
Nothing.
Desperately, he meets Cloud’s gaze.
He’s seen his eyes grow blank and distant and dead before.
Not like this, never like this.
The revive comes to hand in trembling fingers, and the spell is cast with all the MP he can squeeze into it. The glow doesn’t even take, slipping off pale skin like water the magic drains away without affecting anything. Afterall, what can materia do when the person is already dead.
Red.
That’s all Genesis can see.
The red that dyes blond spikes, the red that paints pale skin, the red on his own hand as he places his palm across the deep wound on his throat that stole this precious child from him.
Rising like a tide of flames the red burns his very soul, overtaking all sense as he looks at the empty gaze of the dead boy cradled in his arms. His body battered, bruised, broken, bleeding in a way that Genesis has seen before, has healed before, but not this time.
“I told you to fix him, not revive him.” The cold words wash over him like a frigid wind summoned from the bowls of the Northern Crater, banking the flames enough for Genesis to rip his attention away from the pale face of the darling boy cradled to his heart.
“Fix him?” the question hitches, caught on the tail end of the hysteric laugh he forces back down his throat. “I cannot fix this, no mortal can fix this, it’s the one thing that can never be fixed!”
Sephiroth, as ever, is unmoved and Genesis would like nothing more than to rip his throat out for it, a feeling he is not unused to, but not one he has ever felt this intensely.
“I had hoped he would be somewhat mended before I did this, but if you insist.” Sephiroth stands and advances.
Genesis has never been one to back down from a challenge, even burdened with the cold body of the dear boy clutched to his chest he intends to fight.
Intent and action are sadly two different things.
Before he can summon a spell strong enough to stall Sephiroth, Cloud is wrenched from his arms and he is forced back, laid out against the steel wall of his own apartment by a force unseen but definitely felt.
The blow leaves him dazed but snarling and the red rises once more, summoning a sharp ring in his ears so loud he almost misses Sephiroth’s next words.
“Wake up, Cloud.”
Dull, blank, distant, dead eyes blink as dilated pupils narrow into slits.
A deep breath, like one taken by a drowning man finally breaching the water’s surface.
Cloud tries to say something, but the only thing that escapes his lips is a trail of blood that swells from his throat as the deep laceration there begins to bleed freely again.
Faced with this what else can Genesis do?
The cure materia glows brightly in his hand, sealing the wound with a flash of green light. Only the wound on his throat is healed, all the rest remain, that alone speaks of the depth of the injury.
No, the fact that moments ago Cloud had been nothing more than a soulless corpse laying limp in his arms tells him all he needs to know.
Questions he never looked at too closely before blaze to life at the back of his mind, but all of them are silenced when he looks again at Cloud’s face.
He has only ever seen the boy cry once, just once, and at that time he had realised just how much he had come to care for the boy, come to love him. That feeling is only reaffirmed now as the film of tears rises to blur the unnatural mako glow in Cloud’s fully slit eyes.
He moves to take the boy, to sweep him into what little protection his arms can offer.
Sephiroth allows it, though he hovers, like a Nibel Dragon coiled around its horde, possessive and controlling in a way that makes Genesis want to bundle Cloud up and just run.
He knows it wouldn’t work, Cloud himself wouldn’t allow it to work.
Cloud isn’t fully aware yet, but he isn’t as lost to the chaos of his grief as he was when Genesis last saw him like this.
He blinks once, twice, and as the first tear falls he forces himself to ask, “how?”
“You know how Cloud,” Sephiroth whispers as he wipes away the fallen tear.
For a second time, Genesis watches as Cloud breaks. It’s quieter this time but the anguish seems deeper because of it.