Author points out: It's AU, ladies n gentlemen. Partially, anyway. Actually the only big difference is that Cloud doesn't go to Midgar to join the military at first. And Genesis is gay. That hasn't actually been proven. Enjoy...? Or not. Preferably do. Then review so I'll write more. What the hell is beta...? You're not all talking about the fish, are you? Is it important? Someone tell me. Whoever does gets a favor or something. I don't own FFVII. Nobody ever sues but I'll say it anyway, because if it does happen to me I'm too broke to get sued. p.s: I know nobody ever likes random characters that the author invents. I personally hate them. There are some, however, so I am sorry if you dont like them and you can ask me to remove 'em. They could die. Or immigrate. Or catch STDs. I TRIED to make them liveable :P I'm not a compulsive smoker btw, but I do find them funny.
"This isn't the art school I told you about, mom," Cloud mumbled as he stared at the glossy cerulean pamflet in his hand. He felt the urge to crumple it in his hands, to destroy it, because it wasn't what he wanted...at all.
"I know honey, but it's a free school..." said his mother nervously.
He huffed and threw the balled up pamflet across the room angrily, delighting in the way it rolled down the stairs and hit the wall at the bottom where it lay, dead. Not that it was alive to begin with. Whatever.
"I don't care if it's free," he hollered loud enough for his mother to hear him from his room. He didn't feel like looking at her as he talked, in case he felt too bad for yelling at her and took it all back or didn't follow through. He could, however, smell the bacon from the kitchen and his mouth watered shamelessly.
"I do," she snapped.
"I want to be an artist!"
"Well, I wanted to be an olympic swimmer. Am I an olympic swimmer? No. I'm making bacon alone in a two-story house and I work as a waitress at a low-rate restaurant."
He hated when his mother made a guilt swipe to get her way. It wasn't really his fault that she wasn't an olympic swimmer; she'd broken her shoulder many years ago and wasn't able to get any farther in the sport. She married his father, her competitive swimming coach, had a child, and moved to the backwater town of Nibelheim when he left her for another woman with three kids. Since she'd given up on school to consecrate most of her time to swimming, she had no diploma to show to any employers and the only place that wanted her was the only restaurant in town, a tiny thing that served spectacularily crappy food.
"I still wanna be an artist!"
"Breakfast is ready," he heard her sigh in frustration.
He put on some pants and went downstairs, purposefully stomping on the pamflet with his foot as he passed it at the bottom of the stairs, and sat down at the table. There was a plate filled with steaming bacon and scrambled eggs, but the gloomy atmosphere in the kitchen knotted his stomach and he pushed the plate sideways after a few bites. His mother was avoiding his eye as she picked precariously at her food with a fork. She was wearing a flashy yellow apron over a spotted green dress - downright embarassing. He prayed she didn't go out looking like that.
"I'm not going, mom. You can't make me," he challenged ruefully.
"You are going, Cloud. Midgar is a nice big city - you'll like it."
"Midgar is polluted and filled with pedophiles and crazy sociopaths. You really want to expose your only child to that?" he whined indignantly. Maybe he was exagerating, but there was no way in hell he was going to that cheap school in Midgar.
"There isn't any place safer than Midgar. The military is stationned there so you'll be perfectly safe. You might even meet a high-up SOLDIER there and get married," she sauntered in sudden excitement.
He glowered at her as he drank his orange juice. So he was gay! She didn't have to broadcast it all over the place like it was the most wonderful thing to hit Nibelheim since electricity. Which, by the way, wasn't even that long ago. He'd lost nearly all of his friends (and he hadn't that many to begin with) because, Nibelheim being such a redneck kind of place, being homophobic was practically genetic. Right, being pelted by rocks was loads of fun. His mother was from Midgar, a much more open place (one good thing about the damn city), so she found it perfectly alright.
"I - even if I did it wouldn't change anything!"
"It's such a pity I won't be able to have any grandchildren. Can homosexual couples adopt?"
"What? Why are you planning this now? Stop!"
"Don't be embarassedm honey, there's nothing wrong with being-"
Before she could finish her sentence he was out of the kitchen faster than an omish confronted with pre-marital sex. He climbed up the stairs and shut himself in his room, locking the door with an angry swipe. He lay down on his bed, glued the pillow to his face and groaned loudly, his fingers curling into the soft material. He could hear the rain hitting his window wetly, sliding down the glass and landing in a puddle on the windowsill. Did it ever stop raining in Nibelheim? He hoped it was dry in Midgar, at least. There, he'd found two potential good things about the big city...
He fell asleep deep in thought, the pillow still squished against his face. The rain let up some time during the night because when he woke up, albeit heavily cloudy, there was no rain in the air. He put on a dark sweatshirt and some jeans and jumped out of his bedroom window like a cat. His bare feet landed in the mud with a dull splashing sound, wetting the edge of his jeans too. He stomped around the house and headed directly to Tifa's house, which was only a couple houses away, and knocked on the back door. It was Tifa who answered, because her mother worked until late in the afternoon at the local inn.
"Cloud? For fuck's sake, put some shoes on, you're going to ruin the floors..."
He wiped his feet quickly on the edge of the door, to Tifa's exhasperation, and let himself in, bending under her extended arm. She bit her lip when she saw the mismatched muddy footprints he left on the floor but followed him up to her room anyway. When they were both seated on the bed, she patted his knee and asked why he was making complete mess of her house.
"Mom is sending me to this low-class school all the way in Midgar! It's not even an art school, it's just...free. That's it's speciality. Being free," he snorted apprehensively.
"The Mideel Creative Arts Academy is pretty damn expensive, Cloud," she pointed out, wrigling her toes around in her damp socks.
"So? I've never had anything expensive or asked her for anything. This is the one thing I really want, more than anything, and she just ships me off somewhere else entirely! I'm going to run away and live in the reactor with the wolves and the monsters."
"You can't live in the reactor, the mako fumes will burn your lungs. Besides...why don't you just go and see? It can't be all that bad, can it? It's Midgar! The big city. I bet I could open up a bar there and it can house some kind of terrorist organization--"
"This is not the time, Tifa," he cut her off apbruptly, "What am I going to do...?"
"You don't really have a choice."
The train stopped in a place that seemed totally swallowed in darkness. The sky had disapeared maybe four hours ago when they entered the massive, behemoth-ish city by train and he already missed the sunlight - although there wasn't much in Nibelheim. When he exited the train, luggage in hand, he coughed repeatedly as the thick, smog filled air entered his weak lungs and nearly choked him. For the first time in his life, he wished he had some decently functionning lungs like the other children on the train who hoped around excitedly like rabbits. Cloud eyed a blue-haired teen who was smoking near a lampost, grumbling to himself, apparently devoid of any luggage. Since he was apparently the only one around who wasn't running around or chatting animatedly, he dragged his stuff over to the boy and cleared his throat. It was only when a pair of brown eyes did he remember that he sucked at social interactions. He froze with his mouth half open like a fish.
"Can I help you?" the boy hissed, dropping the cigarette on the floor and stomping on it with his shoe. The white smoke whirled in the air in front of Cloud and he sneezed sharply. "Listen, if you can't even breathe in the slums, you're not going to last here very long."
"I can breathe just fine!" he wheezed pathetically. The boy huffed and lit another cigarette before walking away rudely. Cloud spat at him, but unfortauntely the blue-haired boy was looking away and didn't notice.
Midgar sucked already.
"Get 'n the car, little dude," a tall black man yelled at him when he failed to notice that he was the only one still standing on the platform. There were several cars lined up in the street, all filled with what Cloud could only suppose were his fellow classmates. He climbed into the same car as the blue-haired boy and twin girls, shoving his luggage next to him, and closed the car door once the black man had climbed into the front seat.
They arrived at a building that could only be described as a shabby, sad building. The walls, once made of bright red bricks, were now crumbling, mouldy and dirt-brown. The roof was anything but solid and several holes protruded from the severely broken tiles, home to nests of pidgeons and other small birds. The windows were dirty enough to pass as ciment blocks and some were even completely...not there. Just a big, gaping hole in the wall. At least there was no way it could rain since the sky had been replaced by a massive mechanical plate.
They were all ushered out of the car before said cars sped off down the road as though a monster was chasing them. They were left standing in the front yard, which had no grass thanks to the lack of sunlight, and no one had the heart to speak up anymore. That is, until a tall woman wearing a pencil skirt and a fitted jacket exited the building, clutching something that Cloud thought had disapeared like eleven hundred years ago...a ruler. And it was probably not there to measure things. She slapped it in her hand and everyone took a cautious step back.
"Why hello, children," she purred. Cloud felt the hairs on his whole body stand up like a cat's might. "Follow me inside, now."
They followed, albeit very slowly and quietly, desperate not to make any faux pas and piss her off. She eyed them with a feral smirk plastered on her face, swinging her hips as she went up the stairs to the second floor.
"I can smell your fear..." someone whispered next to his ear. And he just couldn't help himself - he screamed. He screamed in a high-pitched voice that ressembled a shriek or the cry of a bird whose tail had just been stepped on. The entire procession stopped in the middle of the hallway, and Cloud was just fast enough to see the blue-haired boy moving away from him before the woman was upon him like a tsunami.
"Do we have a problem, Johnny?" she slurred, waving the ruler in the air. A large perimeter devoid of any students formed itself around her automatically.
"That's not my name," he pointed out, confused.
"What was that, Johnny?" She had raised the volume of her voice. He simply shook his head. "Since you're so eager for attention, why don't we demonstrate the punishment policy for your classmates? Yes? How nice of you to volunteer."
He hadn't actually said a word.
And that was how he spent his first night at his new school in the slums of Midgar, his wrists tied in his back, kneeling on a large pile of glass shards as his knees and lower legs bled out for hours. It wasn't downright painful to begin with, but at some point the burning became so acute and horrible that he banged his head on the nearby chair. He hadn't understood the woman at first when she's said "I graciously provided you with this large, hard object too. Say thank you.". He was so mad at blue-haired boy that during his head-bashing session he thought of ways to have his revenge.
The next morning, a little bald man came to relieve him of his punishment and give him a bit of water. The translucide liquid smelled like rotten eggs and there were little black things swimming around in it. He gagged.
"Drink it, boy. That's as good as it gets."
Why had his mother sent him here? He remembered the pamflet, the smiling children on the cover. And the picture. How long ago had it been taken? Fifty years? She wouldn't do this on purpose, he knew, but as the bald man wrapped already soiled bandages around his bleeding knees and legs, he couldn't help but feel angry. He'd probably get infected and die, and then she'd be sorry.
He'd been allowed to skip first period to put his things in his room, which he found out he shared with another boy. Another boy who had astronomical amounts of cigarette packs lying on his bed and nightstand. Feeling rather sick, Cloud sat down on the bed and took deep breaths - only to choke on the putrid air and cough several times. Not that living with a compulsive smoker would help things. He prayed that there were smokers other than the blue-haired boy in school, or he might have to take a frighteningly high jump off the roof one day soon.
He unpacked his things - clothes, underwear, framed pictures, favorite books, portable gaming system, a parting gift from Tifa - and lay down on the bed to enjoy the next twenty minutes of freedom. He then thought of a phone, and that a phone calls people, and 'people' included his mother, and his mother could get him out of this hell. She had to. He was her only son, he was her everything! Wasn't he?
As it turned out, his roomate had a phone, a little blue thing that made somber noises when one pressed on the keys. On the first try, he forgot to punch in the area code and the extension, but on the third try he managed to get her answering machine. His heart sank when he heard the mechanical sound of his mother's voice asking him to leave a message after the beep.
"Mom? Mom! Pick up...please pick up. Mom...pick up. Please? It's horrible here! They--"
Beep. Message time over. He howled in frustration and threw the phone at the wall where it shattered and lay in fragments on the filthy floor. Yeah, brilliant. No more phone and his roomate would probably strangle him in his sleep. The school was comparable to prison in the sense that there were only two ways out: you did your time or you came out in a body bag. The latter was much shorter.
"Even the teachers here are stupid--"
By the time Cloud recognized the voice, it was a century too late. The blue-haired boy was leaning on the doorway, an even taller redhead trailing behind him and eyeing the blonde curiously. Cloud sat up in his bed and glared back defiantly, blue eyes sparkling with anger. The brown eyes trailed down his body and landed on the bandages on his legs, stained with his own crimson blood, then to the destroyed cell phone.
"Skeeter," he nudged his friend, "go on without me."
Cloud did his best to stay calm as the obviously taller, stronger and more dangerous boy stalked towards him like a feline, eyes never leaving his roomate. He stood erect near his bed, doing his best snarly-face, but all it did was make the boy crack an amused smile.
"Did you have fun last night?" he sighed after a while. He didn't sound as...aggressive as one might have expected. The boy leaned over to grab a cigarette off the nightstand and stuck it in his mouth before igniting it with the lighter he kept in his pocket.
"Why'd you get me in trouble? Go fuck yourself!" Cloud spat with a sudden outburst of courage he didn't know he had. He then proceeded to wince and cover his face with his arms to protect himself against the upcoming blow. When it didn't come, he blinked and peeked through the long appendages that were his arms.
"Am I that scary looking? You're such a wimp," he sneered as he blew a cloud of smoke in the air...away from Cloud? "Better get ready for class, Johnny."
"It's Cloud," he sneered.
"Johnny suits you better. Hey, you're buying me a new cell phone."
He was picking up the pieces, turning it in his hands before dropping them on his nightstand. Cloud noticed that he was wearing a uniform, clean and pressed, and that there was an identical one draped on top of his bed. He picked it up and cringed; navy blue jacket and tie, black pants and a white collared shirt. How could a crappy school dress up its students...preppy? He undressed down to just his underwear and put the uniform on, fumbling stupidly with the tie before tying it unfashionnably because he couldn't do it right. Only then did he notice that the blue-haired boy was waiting in the room, a new cigarette hanging from his lips, sighing boredly.
"Could you not stare at me while I'm getting dressed?"
"Shut up. Do you even know where you're supposed to go?" Cloud shook his head. "There. Think of it as an apology for getting you whipped, or whatever. You're still buying me a new cell phone. If you're going to address me for some reason, call me Blue. Don't look at me like that, it's not my goddamn real name."
But somehow Cloud never did buy him a new cell phone, and Blue never did beat up Cloud, because circumstances would have it that they became friends. Blue had loads more friends, so maybe it didn't mean much to him, but he was Cloud's only friend. A lot like it was back in Nibelheim. At least it didn't rain and the only gays who got beaten up were the...fag-tastic ones. Not subtle, shy little Cloud. No one noticed Cloud from Nibelheim, really, unless there was a chicken on his head or his backpack caught on fire.
"Why are we doing this again?"
"It's a recruitment campaign. We visit the schools and...flaunt, or something. Make kids want to come blow things up in the military. Don't talk about the bad things, Sephiroth."
"What am I to talk about, then?"
"Funny. You're funny," Zack snorted. "Don't make jokes."
"I'll make jokes if I want."
"But you're not funny."
"You just said I was."
"Gentlemen, please?" Tseng ordered from the front of the car. The Turks always rode in the front seat because they were too stuck up to ride in the back like regular people.
The car stopped in a dark street quite near the train station, skidding to a halt harshly enough to propel Zack off his seat and into the seat in front of him. He swore at the driver and so started a ridiculous argument that the Turk Commander and the General prefered to avoid by stepping out of the car. They eyed the run-down building sceptically, and Sephiroth wondered if he could catch anything lethal in this place. It certainly didn't look sanitary. He was sure he saw a colony of cockroaches crossing the sidewalk freely, as big as baby rats.
"This is...a school?" Tseng echoed the General's thoughts.
"The schools in the slums aren't well funded," he explained uneasily. He felt bad for anyone forced to attend this establishment. He'd never been to school like other children but...at least the labs had a concierge.
"We goin' in?" Zack perked as he exited the car. The driver had apparently lost the argument.
"After you, SOLDIER," Tseng mocked in a somewhat sacrastic tone.
General Sephiroth, Tseng of the Turks, Zackary Fair, Elena of the Turks and seven Shinra grunts slowly entered the gloomy complexe and waited patiently in the lobby for some kind of service. Not even slum residents dared to make such a large group of Shinra personel wait unless they had some kind of personal death wish on their heads. The receptionnist's desk was empty behind the bullet-proof glass and a little sign was glued to said glass: GONE TO PEE. BRB. Sephiroth sneered.
"Charming."
"I never claimed it to be high class, General," Tseng chuckled softly. Elena was glued to his side, eyeing the SOLDIERs defiantly, her head held high as if to announce to the world that she was better for being a Turk. Not even the General could scare her.
Sephiroth didn't normally do things like this. He usually went on missions all over the continent, and some times on another one, or calmly completed paperwork until it was time to go to bed. Sometimes Genesis came over and tried to trick him into having sex, even knowing that it wouldn't happen. Other times it was Angeal who simply sat on his couch and drank beer, offering silent companionship. If it was Zack who knocked, the door usually stayed closed and the Puppy would talk to the door for half an hour before heading home. This time, something different had taken place, and he wasn't entirely sure what. It might have been some insistent desire within him to do a bit of good, a little something that was optional but that he did anyway. It could have been that Genesis was going to come over that day with his favorite 'boy-toy' to try and lure Sephiroth into a threesome as afternoon activity. Possibly the grand annual budget meeting that was scheduled to transpire on that day that convinced him to go down to the slums and enourage children to devote their lives to Shinra.
A tall woman wearing a fitted jacket and a navy blue pencil skirt entered the room, clutching a ruler and waving it boredly. She went into the receptionnist's office to grab some papers when she spotted the visitors; she hurried out of the office, smiling seductively at the men and glaring openly at the women, and hid the papers behind her back.
"Welcome, gentlemen! How can I help you?" she purred, eyeing Zack like a hungry predator. The First class smiled awkwardly back at her, inwardly cringing.
"I'm sure we called ahead to announce our visit," Tseng cut in quickly.
"Did you? Well, let's not keep you waiting...what can I do for you?"
"Could you gather the children in the auditorium?" Tseng ordered once more. He seemed to have everything under control, so Sephiroth let his shoulders relax and looked around the place. The floors were old and damp despite the lack of rain, the wallpaper hung in tatters off the walls in an ugly flower pattern and the railing on the stairs lacked poles here and there. It was a miracle no one had shut the place down. He was brought back to reality when he heard the woman laugh hysterically as if Tseng had just asked her if her skin was blue.
"Auditorium? I'm afraid there is no such place. However, I'll call them out to the back yard. That should be of sufficient size, wouldn't you say?" she turned her attention to the General, batting her long eyelashes at him.
"I can't. I haven't seen it."
She blinked, frowned, then turned to leave with a curt goodbye.
"I think you made her mad," Zack snorted.
"What did I do?" His question, however, went unanswered.
They heard a great clamour from upstairs, a lot like a herd of elephants travelling. There was no whisper of teenage voices wringing through the halls, no sound of people pushing one another rudely to get ahead. An orderly herd of elephants. A small bald man came to get them and they took a small hallway to enter the back yard, filled with teenagers smoking or enjoying the view of their shoes. When the Shinra personel entered the back yard, whatever sounds were coming from the children ceased, and three hundred sets of eyes fixed themselves upon them. Zack scratched the nape of his neck, Elena fiddled with her gun and the grunts made a half circle around the higher-ups. Only the General and the Commander remained impassive.
Zack being the most outgoing of them all, he spoke for all of them so that the others only served as decorative backgrounds. He was quite good at making friends, so nearly every spectator listened to him and there were no tomatoes flying in his direction. He laid out everything that was good about Shinra, and was so thorough about it that even Sephiroth forgot he was already General and considered joining the military. Elena gaped in wonder at him and leaned towards Sephiroth discretely.
"He's good, isn't he? I wouldn't be surprised if the entire school joined up, teachers and all."
He agreed with a small nod. Zack was demonstrating some rather impressive sword moves, feeding off the 'ohhhhhh's and 'aaahhhhhh's of the crowd. His agility, speed and strength were enough to impress anyone with eyes and the children were simply hypnotized, cigarettes and shoes forgotten. When Zack finally ended his speech and show, he grabbed Sephiroth's wrist and wrenched him forward.
"If you get really good at it and join SOLDIER, you'll get to work for this guy. If you think what I can do is cool, wait 'till you see what he can do."
Sephiroth couldn't see what good saying that would do, but it worked. All eyes turned to him; green eyes, blue eyes, brown eyes. Some happy, some admiring, scared, impressed, curious, anxious, shy. He wondered if any of these children would ever become a First, a trusted companion of his and a war mate. He couldn't smile at them but he did nod solemnly, like he would greet a respected co-worker or executive.
"We hope to see all of you soon!" Zack cheered after a quick farewell speech. Sephiroth was about to turn away when something orange caught his eye; then the screaming started and the children scooted away from one particular boy who, incidentaly enough, was on fire. No - his backpack was on fire. He was spinning around in a circle, unsure what was going on, blue eyes wide and terrified. One boy was standing near him screaming "DON'T MOVE, JOHNNY. STOP SPINNING FOR FUCK'S SAKE". But the little blonde couldn't see the fire, only feel the heat on his back, and Sephiroth could smell the fear reeking off him. The blue-haired boy reached out, pulling at the blonde's shirt, hair and limbs, trying to keep him still.
Before he knew what was happening, Sephiroth had jumped over the crowd and landed mere centimeters from the boy and his ignited backpack. He easily stopped the spinning with his arm, forced the boy to face him and easily yanked the flaming thing off the shaking shoulders just before it was able to catch onto the boy's hair or shirt. The things was ripped clean off and when it landed on the floor, the blue-haired boy put the fire out with his foot, dropping his cigarette in the process. The boy was still shaking like a leaf, sweating collecting on his small brow, and whether it was from the fire or the fact that he was being held at arm-length by the General of the army was a mystery. Sephiroth loosened his grip on the lean shoulders and took a moment to admire those pure blue eyes, quivering from fright. Were they always so emotionnal?
"Shit Strife, watch out. What kind of moron sets fire to his own backpack? You really want to attract attention that badly?" someone yelled from the crowd. Sephiroth arched an eyebrow.
"Shut up Saik. It was my fault," he muttered the last part for Cloud to hear, "That guy was pretty good. Wish I could do that...forgot the cigarette. Didn't know it could start a fire."
Sephiroth wanted to tell the boy to use his pronouns, but was interrupted when the woman and three other teachers burst through the crowds and began yelling at the little blonde who didn't seem to fully comprehend what the hell was happening to him.
"Strife, get down to the basement now. You know where the glass is, right? You've been there enough. Make it twelve hours too. How could you embarass me like this?" she seethed, flipping her long hair over her shoulder before smiling appologetically at Sephiroth. "Please excuse him, General. I'm not sure his wires are plugged in where they should be. We'll take care of him."
And with that she ripped the boy out of the silver-haired General's hands, grabbing him by the hair. His head was yanked backwards in an almost painful angle and he made a guttural sound that sounded a lot like "help". The compulsive smoker made a move to explain himself but he was shushed and ignored promptly.
"Why don't you listen to what actually happened?" he rumbled as calmly as possible. The woman froze half in whacking her prisonner with that infernal ruler and pivoted to face the General.
"He'll just lie, I assure you. He loves attracting attention. He's queer, General, he probably wanted you to notice him; but be assured, I can control him."
Sephiroth's eyebrow twitched menacingly, because if there was anything that annoyed him beyong understanding it was discriminatory people. He was even more annoyed because his own sexual orientation went both ways - although no one in their right mind would scold him about it. So he, in turn, tore the boy (who was a bit lost in the equation) away from her before she could take him away to do whatever.
"Let's all forget what just happened and leave him be. There's no harm done, so there's no reason to punish him."
With that, General Sephiroth turned around and rejoined his companions who hadn't been able to follow the conversation due to how far they were from the scene. They eyed him curiously but never asked what had happened......except for Zack, because he was Zack, and Zack does things that really only Zack can do.
"You like him don't you?"
"I don't know him, Zackary."
"But you think he's cute. Did you get lost in his big blue eyes? Did you fall in loooooove?"
"Be quiet, I have a headache."
"Sephiroth and school boy sittin' in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes mariage, then--"
"Stop acting like a four year old now and I'll pay for dinner at any restaurant you want with that slum girlfriend of yours."
"Really?"
"Shut up."
But, somehow Sephiroth just couldn't stop thinking about the little blonde with those expressive, bright blue eyes. He was sure that he'd be punished anyhow, and wondered how painful it would be. It was his fault, as well. Maybe if he hadn't stepped in it wouldn't have been as bad. He felt something like guilt swell in his chest and made a face that, consequently, caused Elena to start laughing and pointing. How he hated the Turks.
Reminder to review :D If it's crap tell me and I won;t continue xD