50/100:Memory. Angeal/Genesis
ahh, finally I've hit the halfway mark... actually, I did back in February, I'm just lazy.
Disclaimer - Characters are not mine, but you knew that already.
Memory
To Death Do Us Part
The whole house shook with the violent knocking that was threatening to break the old wood door down. Groggily, Angeal raised his head from where it rested on his arms on the table. His mother turned from the cooker and patiently walked over to the door. An awakening like this only came once a month – when rent was due… but, Gillian took a glance at the small calendar on the wall, this was a week too soon.
"Where is he?" The tall man they expected all but launched himself straight into the house but settled to glare at the woman before him. His jaw was tense and sharply angled; dark blue eyes flaming with seething. Gillian was taking too long in taking a reply, he found and snapped again. "The boy, where is he?"
Angeal noted the lack of either the name or the vocative 'my son'. It made him frown, both in resentment of the man and confusion.
"He hasn't been here… what's happened?" Gillian asked quietly.
"He stormed out yesterday morning… he's still not here." Genesis' father then uttered something that Angeal chose not to hear and from the concerned expression on his mother's face, so did she.
With a his of frustration, Rhapsodos stomped off elsewhere, perhaps back to his house to do… whatever they did during the days. Whatever it was, it never involved parenting their son. In fact, the only thing they did to Genesis that vaguely resembled parenting was pushing things upon him, piano lessons, after school private lessons at home on decorum and dance, like Gillian sat and stared at Angeal until he had eaten every green put on his plate. However, all these extra pressures put upon the redhead had given him additional charm and eloquence, and Angeal found that completely enchanting.
His mother was just about to shut the door when he forgot his early morning stupor and zoomed out of the door. Perhaps she should've worried, letting her only child just wander out into the wilderness searching for his friend when said friend had vanished, but she knew exactly where he was heading.
Unlike Genesis' parents, she took an active interest in the boy's lives and she knew things about them that even they didn't know… and she would protect them from that information for as long as she could. And that wouldn't be long, she knew, not when Hollander was threatening that soon he would come on his last visit to Banora.
Yes, Hollander would come and go, never to return, but he would take the boys with him, all the way to Midgar.
With a quiet sigh, she watched Angeal's receding back until he disappeared from sight then closed the door and returned to cooking.
Angeal couldn't tell if the path had been recently trodden as he walked along it, down a corridor of apple trees, heading towards the one place he knew where Genesis would be. It was the one place he could escape from this microcosm controlled by his father. Far beneath the village was where Genesis felt he belonged – he always hid there.
Angeal had navigated himself around the mako caverns enough times to not get lost. The trail of heeled footprints led him up and down ledges until he came to the mouth of an internal cave. He entered the threshold slowly, though without hesitation and was silent until he saw his friend crammed in the far corner, just a shape in the darkness, curled into a self-protective ball.
"Gen?" Angeal whispered, coming closer and dropping to his knees besides the redhead. It took a while for Genesis to respond; he wondered if he had fallen asleep down here after so long in silence. Then suddenly, Genesis arms were around his neck, pulling him closer. "Gen, wha- what's happened?" He enveloped the older boy into a deeper embrace, hugging him tightly before attempting to let him go. Genesis didn't cooperated. He gripped tighter.
"They know… they found out," With that, he wept.
-
Angeal remembered the helplessness that surrounded him in that moment. He was only able to offer a comfort that could do nothing to remedy the circumstances. Kisses and promises were nothing in the wind of Genesis' parents…
His arms tightened around the sleeping body he held, still moist and exhausted.
Genesis skin glowed in the dying flames of the candles that surround them, all around the bed, on the window ledges, shelves and dressers. Tonight was the anniversary of that morning, the first and only morning Angeal had seen Genesis' tears. It was something he never wanted to forget and see again. How the azure glazed green with the exposure to mako, stared straight at him without seeing him, haunted the dark haired SOLDIER to that day.
He turned his head, glancing down with a smile as Genesis stirred, snuggling closer to the personal pillow he made out of Angeal's chest and hooking his right leg comfortably over his lovers.
Angeal wondered if Genesis still remembered that day, or whether he forced himself to forget. Maybe it was lost between recollections of the excitement that followed, when Hollander had arrived soon after and introduced them to their futures formally.
Smiling, he ran his hand along Genesis' tousled red hair. He loved this man; he always would. Nothing could separate them, not their parents, nor Fate nor Death. That was the promise Angeal made that morning all those years ago, deep in the caverns under their childhood home of Banora. It was a promise he had reaffirmed every year since then. And tonight, he sealed it with a kiss, for tomorrow, Genesis would be leaving for the war in Wutai and somehow, deep down inside him, Angeal could sense something would go wrong.
