Title: Animals
Author: x-YaoiWolf-x
Rated: T –to be safe–
Warning: … Crack! That about sums it up… fluffy, adorable, ridiculous, random crack. Polyamorous Yaoi relations – ASGZC –
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII. Nor do I own any Chocobos, though I would love one… if anyone is ever successful in genetically splicing a chocobo or two, I would be all over that. I would breed and race them! –gratuitous wishful thinking–
AN: Because I wasn't really satisfied with the previous story written for the challenge and I've been wanting to write this for a while. Seriously. The ideas have been in mind since… even before I wrote that one chapter of Rule of Seven… Again, the ten words from the prompt are bolded! Enjoy!
~x~x~x~
On the Subject of Pets:
Chocobo
-x-x-x-
Sephiroth had never meant to keep a pet of any kind. The thought had never crossed his mind that he might even want a pet, and he was sure there was probably some horrid traumatic reason behind that fact. There was no way there could not be when one was raised by a madman claiming to be a father but who only ever held the title of scientist and tormentor. Regardless, he could not remember any such event, undoubtedly because it was traumatic.
Yet here he sat upon the back of the most majestic black chocobo the world over. She was not only his pet, but his friend and partner in both battle and adventure. Chocobo matured in a short amount of time, but this particular bird had been with him practically since it had hatched from an egg and that had been some years ago. The poor girl had become lost and injured in an area where chocobo were not usually found.
-x-x-x-
The General of the ShinRa army swept his blade in a swift horizontal motion, felling a couple mid-level monsters that had attempted to take advantage of his distraction with the one high-level creature he had just dispatched. He watched for a moment as the bodies of all three beasts began to dissolve and stooped to pocket the items left behind.
With this, his mission was cleared. He could return to HQ and relax with a cup of tea and one or more of his lovers on the cream-colored sofa in their shared apartment. Perhaps they could watch a movie. Perhaps they could do something more…
That thought brought a satisfied smile to sculpted lips and he stood from his crouch, patting the grime and dust form his lap, and began to make his way back in the direction of Midgar. He had forgone transport for this mission seeing as it was only miles from the city. He could see the plate and its towering buildings in the distance from where he currently stood. He did not mind the journey. It would act as a cool down for short but quick-paced workout. Perchance he would alternate. Some distance in a sprint, some at a jog, then walking for a time before repeating the sequence.
Sephiroth nodded. That sounded like the perfect cool down. With this final thought, he began with a walk at a semi-fast pace. However, before he could really begin to get into a rhythm, something caught his attention.
Normally, he never would have stopped. If it had not been for a distinct simpering sound, something like a high-pitched warble of pain that he for some reason just could not ignore. He was not sure what it could be, but it did not sound like something that was potentially dangerous. Even if it were, he was more than capable of defending himself regardless of whatever it could be. He didn't think that was the case, though.
Instead of continuing on his way, for whatever reason, Sephiroth turned. The sound had stopped, but he continued in the direction it had come from. It wasn't a minute before the sound began again and as he neared it seemed to grow louder. Finally, he reached a particular grouping of boulders of varying sizes and there it was; the source of the noise.
Hidden in the clustering of rocks, huddled and obviously frightened sat a small black-feathered animal, about the size of a bowling ball if that bowling ball were puffed up and swimming in soft plumage. From within the mass of black, two yellow eyes peeked up at the Silver General.
Sephiroth found himself regarding the small animal -a chocobo he realized after a moment- with something akin to familiarity and a certain fondness that sprung from a sense of déjà vu. It took a moment to pinpoint the feeling and he recognized it suddenly as the sensation he'd felt when he had met Cloud Strife, his youngest lover, for the first time; and quite a few times even after that.
This creature had the same vulnerable air about it that the young cadet had had back then, the same wary but determined and fiery gleam in its cornered yellow eyes. He could see that the little thing was warring with its instinct to fight or flee. The animal unfurled itself some and stood more steadily as though it had decided it would fight and was now watching him to determine what its next move would be.
Sephiroth allowed his head to tilt at the most minute angle in curious contemplation of the creature before him. To his silent amusement the little animal also tilted its head, dropping its head sideways until it was almost entirely horizontal. A huff that wasn't quite a laugh escaped him and sent the poor thing back into its protective huddle.
"I will not hurt you, little one," Sephiroth finally spoke, trying to keep his voice calming and low. The bird only looked at him. "It is alright. Look," the silver-haired man raised both empty hands to show the little creature that he was not a threat; Masamune long disappeared to wherever the sword usually went off to.
Still, the baby black chocobo only stared.
Sephiroth huffed. He could not believe he was actually attempting to act with any semblance of diplomacy toward a bird. It was a bird for Gaia's sake! It could not understand him much less respond to the situation with any diplomatic sense. Even still, he attempted to placate the youngling's ruffled feathers.
Never say Sephiroth was not a man of persistence and considerable patience.
Whatever eventually convinced the bird, he never did quite figure out, but after some more effort the little one did warm up to him; once again unfurling from its defensive ball and standing properly, observing the strange, tall predator with innocent wonder now that it had decided he was not a danger.
When Sephiroth went to pet the creature's downy head, however, it jumped back and attempted to nip at the offending hand that came toward it. The general huffed. This young chocobo was worse than Cloud had been when the blonde had first begun to warm up to the rest of them.
"Fine," Sephiroth hummed, standing and turning away. "I will leave you to fend for yourself."
He dropped a nod at the little animal and went on his way, deciding that he would begin with a slower paced walk than he'd first meant to and gradually increase the speed at every mile. It wasn't long into his walk that he noticed his tag-along. An amused smirk came upon his face and he consciously made the effort not to turn and look at the adorably naïve beast that trailed behind him. Instead, he concentrated on keeping his gate regular and only watching its progress from the periphery of his line of sight.
They progressed across the barren wasteland which surrounded most of Midgar in this manner for a decent length of time before something odd was brought to his attention. He hadn't observed it before but as he walked along at his normal pace, the silver-haired SOLDIER noticed that the baby bird was falling further and further behind. Now, as he waited for the young beast to catch up, he realized that it stumbled with every other step-step-hop that it took, tripping over nothing as it traversed the relative flatness of the wastes.
Was it simply too young to walk properly? Sephiroth assessed the youngling's gate as he watched it make progress toward him, but ruled out that possibility after a moment of observation. It did not stumble so much from a lack of balance. It was more like a limp. Every time it took a step with its left foot it would hop immediately after and consequently stumble when it could not catch its footing after the odd step it had taken. An injury, then?
Sephiroth frowned. He would watch another minute to test this new theory.
Step step-hop, step step-hop… The young chocobo reached him after a moment and Sephiroth could make out the obvious way the bird favored its right leg. It took him only a minute to make his decision and he scooped the bird into the crook of his right arm, the poor thing letting out a high-pitched warble of surprise at the swift action.
Once the bird settled itself into some form of a comfortable position, the General set off at a jog toward Midgar.
-x-x-x-
"I am home," Sephiroth announced after he'd swiped his card and entered the living quarters he shared with his four lovers. Less than a second passed before a familiar exuberant greeting was called from somewhere within. A moment later, the hyper young newly-promoted First came bounding toward him, ready, as always, to pounce on him with a welcoming hug. This time, however, the General help up his hand to stop the pup from jumping at him.
Zack tilted his head in question but checked his momentum nonetheless. "What's up, Seph?"
Sephiroth did not answer, instead shifting his arm until a head of unruly feathers peaked from the confines of his leather-clad shelter. An inquisitive sound left the youngling's beak.
"I- is that a chocobo chick?" Zack exclaimed. "Why do you have a chickobo, Seph? Where'd you get it? Where did it come from?"
Another high-pitched sound emitted from the chick and Zack laughed. It had sounded somewhat indignant.
"I found it," Sephiroth answered. "It is injured and I found it unwise to leave it defenseless in the wastes."
"Wait, it was in the wastes? Do chocobo usually hang around in the wastelands?" When Sephiroth shook his head, Zack nodded. He hummed. "I didn't think so. So… what are you gonna do with it?"
"I thought I might keep it."
"Keep… it? Seriously? Like, for real?"
"Yes. For real."
"Huh," Zack shrugged. "Neat. I'm all for it."
Sephiroth nodded. "It will need some food. It also seems to be too young to stay in the ShinRa stables alone…"
"It can stay with us until it gets bigger, don't you think, Seph?" Zack cut in. "There's plenty of room. It can stay in the spare office."
"I agree. That would be the logical solution," Sephiroth concluded. "Zackary."
"Hm?" Zack looked up from where he'd been staring at the chocobo, recognizing the commanding tone at once.
"You will go and acquire food for the bird. I trust you know what it needs an where to procure it."
"Uh… yeah, sure. I think I know where to get some stuff," Zack shrugged.
"Good."
Zack knew a dismissal when he heard it an nodded in departure, allowing himself only a moment longer to reach over and pet the curious little bird on its crown. "See ya, cutie!" he winked at the bird and was gone.
Sephiroth huffed at the man's antics. He managed to make it into the living room before the sound of the sliding door opening gave him pause. He turned to the entrance and was met with two smiling faces and brilliant pairs of blue eyes.
"Seph!" Cloud beamed, happy as always to see him. Beside the blonde, Genesis also sent a pleased smile. Sephiroth had no chance to greet the two properly as a cheerful high-pitched warble came from the animal still rested in his arms.
"Sephiroth!" Genesis cried out in shock. "Is that!?"
"A chocobo!" Cloud grinned, coming over to have a better look at the bird whose black feathers had camouflaged it against the general's leather coat. As soon as the young Third-class came close, the bird let out another happy wark, leaning forward to be closer to the other. Cloud giggled, reaching over and petting the bird's soft mess of feathers. It tried to nuzzle his face and Cloud laughed again, letting it.
"It seems to recognize one of its kind," Genesis chuckled, earning and eye-roll from the blonde and a secretive smile that only Gen could see from Sephiroth. "Alright, enough. Let me see it, too."
Cloud snorted but moved himself to one side so that Genesis could also bend and play with the chocobo. Sephiroth rolled his eyes and huffed as he allowed his eldest and youngest loves to fawn over the bundle in his arms. The two of them were gushing like love-struck school girls over the bird. Only after another handful of minutes did the two allow him to walk away and only because he' d told them that he wanted to put it down. His right arm was beginning to cramp and fall asleep.
They moved over to the coffee table and the three of them sat on the carpet around it while allowing the chickobo to sit atop it. For a while it just sat, not bothering to stand or move about, but after some moments it got up the nerve to stand. When it did, it nearly tilted to one side due to its not having used its bad leg since it had followed Sephiroth some hours earlier.
"Oh," Cloud reached over to steady it, letting it lean on his hand until it balanced itself. "You ok?"
"It seems to have injured its foot. I was actually going to ask Angeal to look at it. He has some knowledge on the subject of chocobo, after all," Sephiroth explained. Beside him, Genesis nodded.
"Yes, he's knows some things," the redhead confirmed. "But how did it get injured?"
"I am unsure. It was like that when I found it."
"You found it?"
"In the wastes outside the city."
"Ah," Genesis nodded. "And you decided to bring it home?"
"I could not just leave it to fend for itself."
"Stop interrogating Seph, Gen," Cloud huffed. He turned to their silver-haired lover. "So, we're keeping it?"
"Yes," Sephiroth nodded. "It will stay in the spare office until it is big enough to stay in the stables on its own."
There was a click as the auto-lock on the door was released and Angeal came into the room a moment later.
"Angeal! Welcome home," Cloud waved, followed by a nod from Sephiroth. Genesis stood and went over to drape around the man. Angeal received the peck on the cheek from the redhead, but his attention was on the black-feathered creature on their coffee table. He raised one brow in silent inquiry.
"Seph brought home a stray chocobo. It's hurt," was Genesis' quick explanation.
"I… see."
"Would you take a look it, Angeal?" Sephiroth requested. "Somehow it injure its leg."
Angeal agreed and came over to check the little bird over. The first thing he discovered upon looking at its leg was that it was female. He told them so and Sephiroth nodded, thanking him for that information and losing himself momentarily in thoughts of a proper name for the bird. Meanwhile, Angeal proceeded to address the little one's injury.
"I can't be sure since I'm not an animal doctor, but it doesn't look too bad. It should be healing up properly as long as she doesn't do anything to further hurt herself," the honorable second general reported after managing to get a good enough look at the poor chickobo's now-bandaged leg. "She should be fine in a month, give or take."
"Thank you, Angeal," Sephiroth smiled appreciatively at his elder lover.
"No problem. Glad to help. So? Did you think of a name for her?"
"I have."
"And?" the other two, who had been playing with the chick, urged.
"Her name is Sin."
There was a silence as the others let that sink in, not sure if they should protest the name or not. It was Seph's bird, however, so they had no real say and let it go.
"It's a girl?" a voice suddenly came from behind them and as one they turned to see the missing member of their fivesome standing in the doorway with two large brown bags in each arm. Sephiroth absently nodded at the man's question. "Heh, that's cool. It's about time we had a girl around here."
Genesis rolled his eyes at that statement, standing an walking over to greet their porcupine-haired love, bestowing a kiss to the man's cheek the same as he'd done for Angeal. Angeal stood next and went to help with the bags. The rest stood as well, Cloud taking the opportunity to scoop Sin into his arms and carry her along.
Zack dropped his bags on the table and began pulling things from within; gysahl greens, various plant seeds, chocobo grass… the selection of food items for the newly arrived animal seemed endless as the spiky-haired First continued to produce items from the brown paper bags before him. The resulting array spread across the dining room table was a veritable smorgasbord, a true buffet just waiting to be devoured by the excited baby chocobo now fidgeting in Cloud's arms.
They all laughed at the sight of the bird leaning as far forward as she could toward the dining table. Cloud allowed her to drop lightly to the table and Angeal opened a package of greens for her, handing some to the rest of them so they could all get a turn at feeding her. The rest of the items went back into the bags. They would put them away somewhere the little bird couldn't reach. Somehow it seemed that Sin would be a mischievous pet rather than a well-mannered one.
-x-x-x-
In the present, Sephiroth allowed himself a brief chuckle as he remembered the antics the young chick had gotten up to as they'd raise her in their apartment. It had taken them ages to get her down from the cabinets once when they'd been out all at the same time and come home to find her, for whatever reason, huddled on the highest cabinet-top dozing away with not a care.
Sin looked behind her at her owner who was shaking with a silent laugh and warked in question. Sephiroth pet her neck.
"I was just thinking," he explained to the bird.
Another memory came to him then and he shook his head in fond exasperation as he thought back on it. Sin had had a very bad habit of getting lost. It was probably the reason she'd been in the wastes in the first place so long ago.
-x-x-x-
Sephiroth and the others all had a rare day off that day. Instead of a date, as was usually the case when they had time all together like this, they'd chosen to wander the plate and take Sin out on a much needed walk. The poor bird had been going stir crazy being cooped up in their apartment for so long.
It had been close to three months since Sephiroth had brought her home. Her leg had healed weeks ago and she'd grown several inches. She was still small, however, and could easily perch on any of their heads with little effort. At the moment, she sat atop Cloud's feather-like spikes, happily preening gold locks with her beak. It was to no one's surprise that the blonde was her favorite human, after Sephiroth, of course.
Cloud pulled her from his head after a while and laughed at her as he placed her on the ground to let her run around on her own for a while. It was amusing to watch the young bird explore the world around her as she hopped alongside them, observing the city and occasionally being nearly squashed by pedestrians on their hurried course to wherever they needed to go.
Sephiroth chuckled as he bent forward to scoop up the small animal and place her on his pauldron-less shoulder so that she could take in the sights of her new urban home without having to worry about being stepped on at every turn. She could walk about all she wanted when they reached the park.
It was a while before they reached said park, seeing as they'd opted for the less crowded almost abandoned park of the slums. One train ride and much gawking from slummers later, they sat around the sparse playground and watched as the little black chocobo explored. They'd only looked away for a millisecond but when they searched for her she was no longer in the park.
Immediately they separated and set off to find her.
Anything could have happened to her down here in the slums. She might have been attacked by a mako-rabid dog or wandered into an alley and been mauled by a vicious stray cat. Some of the local children could have lured her to their homes and asked their parents to let them keep her, consequently be told no after which she would be abandoned in some park and left to fend for herself. Or worse! Some ravenous beggar could have spotted and captured her and was now roasting her over a fire to be eaten!
Genesis wailed as his mind continued to supply wild horrors. Cloud, who ran alongside him, was also worried but rolled his eyes at Genesis' usual dramatic flair.
"Oh!" a female voice exclaimed somewhere ahead. They couldn't see anyone and were about to ignore it when the woman continued. "Hello, birdie. Aren't you sweet? You don't belong here. Are you lost?"
Both Genesis and Cloud jerked to a stop at the words they heard. Could it be? Cloud pulled out his phs to send a message to the others and it was only minutes before the rest of them were there. Genesis had gone ahead to try and pinpoint the location of the voice they'd heard. They caught up to him just as he was approaching an old building that looked like a crumbling church.
"Is it here?" Angeal asked as they neared the large double doors.
"It seems that way," came Gen's reply as he pushed the door open.
"Oh!" that voice exclaimed in the same way as it had earlier. "Hello."
They all looked inside to see who hadspoken. A girl stood from where she'd been crouching and began to walk forward, all pretty long chestnut curls and light fluttery blue-and-white sundress. She wasn't wearing any shoes, but they could all tell it was because she had been walking about in the field of flowers behind her rather than a lack of owning shoes.
"Flowers in Midgar?" Angeal was the first to speak.
"Hm?" the girl tilted her head then seemed to realize and turned to look at the flowers. "Yes, I grow them."
"You do?" Zack spoke next.
"Mmhm," the girl affirmed. She looked at all five of them with polite curiosity and Genesis picked up on what was wrong.
"Forgive us," the redhead smiled. "We were simply surprised to find such beauty her in the slums. What is your name?"
"Aerith," she answered. "And you are?"
"Genesis," he answered then gestured to the rest of them who greeted her in turn. "That is Angeal, Zack, Sephiroth, and Cloud."
"Hello."
"We came to find our lost chocobo," Cloud jumped in. "Have you seen her?"
"Actually, I have," Aerith smiled and turned to face her flowers. The others also looked up toward the patch of growing plants.
"Sin!"
Aerith jumped at the collective shout but watched fondly as all five of them rushed forward to meet the startled chickobo.
That was the last time they took Sin to the slums, or outside at all really. Instead they had let her exercise to her hearts content in the VR room, after some tweaking of the system by the surprisingly tech-savvy Zack Fair to allow it to be compatible with a chocobo. That had been interesting.
Once in a while, one or a couple of them would take the bird down to visit Aerith, only letting Sin out of their arms once they were in the church. It was also a nice perk that they had a place to retreat when they wanted to distress. Aerith's church was a soothing place.
Angeal particularly loved to visit, always glad to help the girl take care of the flowers there. Even Genesis enjoyed the place, loving to simply sit and contemplate Loveless or get up at the front of the building and enact a scene. Cloud and Zack always went down to take care of monsters that might have wandered to close to their sanctuary. Sephiroth spent many a nap there, among the flowers.
They had Sin to thank for discovering that place.
-x-x-x-
Sephiroth smiled and pet his bird's neck again. Now that he thought back upon the events that had followed his decision to take the injured chick home, he could only give a fond smile at the recollection. Sin had been a truly pleasant little gift in his life.
THE END
AN: Hope you liked! I know I did. There's more where this came from, though who knows when I'll write it. But if you've read Rule of Seven or any of my Shuffles, you know that Sin is not their only pet! Also! If you think this writing challenge is something that might be fun to do, go for it! The link is at the bottom of my other story "In Sickness and In Health".
Random Fact: The title came from the Maroon 5 song Animals~ Which i love!
Anyway, thanks for reading! R'n'R, please! Much Love!