Angels Live Below My Floor

AU, yaoi. Darkfic with mentions of child abuse, substance abuse and underaged sex. YazooxKadajxLoz, eventually.

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He never believed until he saw them with his own eyes

They were really the sweetest guys ever. If he ever needed a place to crash, he knew he could always depend on them to open their door to him. He'd known them since he was ten, when his family moved into the apartment above theirs. At that time, due to many disruptions in his schooling, his mother had insisted on getting him a tutor. As a result, every afternoon at 3.30, he was sent downstairs to their apartment, where Yazoo waited for him.

The first time he'd seen the man, he was struck by how long his hair was and how close their hair colours were. It gave him a shock and made him think of his father. But when the tired teen had smiled at him and offered him some cookies, he just knew that Yazoo was nothing like his father. Yazoo was an angel.

He had been very behind in his work, having moved six times in the previous two years. It was somewhere during this series of moves that his mother had fallen ill. She grew sicker and sicker until his father quit his job to look after her. They'd ended up in this old apartment because it was all they could afford, with his mother's medical bills and the lack of income.

Back then, Yazoo was just applying to college and desperately needed every single available cent. Still, when he saw the condition Kadaj was in, he stopped taking on new tutees and slowly terminated his existing contracts to help the little boy, even though it meant a severe drop in income. Like he said, angel.

Soon, Kadaj was back on track with his work. He still popped downstairs to hang out with his tutor and his tutor's brother every once in awhile. There was no one at home to talk to and nothing to do. His mother was too ill to entertain him and his father only had eyes for his stricken wife.

The two of them didn't mind. If Yazoo wasn't around, Loz would entertain the kid. Loz was Yazoo's younger brother and he made the most fantastic cookies. He was also a great listener, much to Kadaj's delight, and the boy could rant on and on about all sorts of things to him and not get scolded. It was the best year in his entire life, knowing there were people he could count on.

Then his mother died.

He had been expecting it; the illness was chronic and fatal. While he had been very close to her, they'd drifted apart during her illness. During the final stages of the disease, he could barely bring himself to look at her. It broke his heart to see his beloved mother reduced to this creature lying unmoving in her bed.

She had called him the night before she passed on. He was unwilling to step into her room, unwilling to look at her withered form. But he did. And she took his hands and pressed her lips to them, even as he cringed in horror.

"I'm sorry," she told him. "I haven't been able to take care of you properly, as a mother should."

He said nothing then, even as she cried silently in the night.

She was dead by the morning. But he was already expecting that. It took him two days before he finally cried for her, bawling his eyes out in Loz's arms.

What he hadn't expected was the change in his father. While Sephiroth had never been a particularly caring father, after his wife's passing, he turned into a true nightmare. First, it had been verbal abuse and insinuations that Kadaj had been the one to kill his beloved Jenova. Then, it progressed onto physical abuse. Even in his madness, Sephiroth was careful. There were never lasting marks and most of the abuse took the form of criminal neglect.

He'd reacted by spending more and more time downstairs. Eventually, even Yazoo grew suspicious, wondering why his work never improved in spite of all the tutoring. He couldn't bear to let Yazoo think he was a bad tutor, so he spent more time out instead.

At that time, he figured that it would all blow over quickly.

It didn't.

In the two years following his mother's death, his grades slipped steadily downhill and he got involved in things he would rather not remember. His two angels downstairs suspected something was going on, but never found out. Until one day, when Loz found him desperately inhaling from a bag of glue.

He didn't realise it until they picked him up, but he was relieved to be found. He never wanted to fall so far. His father didn't even give a damn that he'd been sent into rehab, but Yazoo and Loz always found time to visit him and comfort him. They were such angels and every waking moment, he wondered if he was worthy of them.

It gave him the strength of kick the habit. Once more, his schoolwork was in shambles, and once more, it was back to tuition with Yazoo. Even though the man had become quite busy with college, he always found the time to sit down with Kadaj to explain new concepts or clarify old ones. It made moving back to his father's almost bearable.

Almost. They'd found out about the abuse of course, and tried their best to shield him, but neither of them could be around all the time. And, of course, he didn't want them to worry too much. Yazoo had school and Loz had work. Both were tired enough.

It didn't work. One night, while in the midst of explaining algebra, Yazoo spotted the cuts on his arms. He could hardly stand to see the betrayed expression on his beloved tutor's face. For the very first time, Yazoo actually yelled at him. He'd yelled back, being the stubborn fourteen-year-old he was.

"Why do you even give a fuck about junk like me? It's not like you're getting paid anymore!"

It was the first time they kissed, and, like all of Yazoo's kisses, it was harsh and passionate. The man drew back and looked at him with eyes that spoke of fear and love, of longing and loathing. "Are you answered?" Yazoo had asked, as demanding as he always was.

He didn't bother with a verbal reply. In truth, he hadn't trusted himself to speak coherently, because his train of thought had been effectively derailed and there was only one sentence bouncing around in his mind: "He loves me. He loves me, he loves me, HE LOVES ME."

Afterwards, they both felt a little bit guilty. Yazoo because he had done it with a minor; Kadaj because he'd let Yazoo believe that he had never done it before. Having found this little bit of happiness, he just couldn't risk jeapardising it. Tuition thereafter became a lot more… interesting.

They never told Loz, of course. It would have made things far too awkward.

And, for awhile, he felt that he could be happy again, safe within the wings of his angel.

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Not really my style, as far as fanfiction goes, but the idea stuck. Should I continue?

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