Hi, this is my first story on , though I've been a reader for years now. I'm so excited about the remake of FFVII and am currently obsessed with the characters all over again (not that I was ever not obsessed)

This story was inspired by an original fiction I'm writing on another site. I hope you enjoy.

Warnings: dark and adult themes, vampirism, non-consensual situations, captivity, violence.

Disclaimer: I do not own FFVII or any of its characters, they belong to the amazing people at Square Enix.

Chapter 1 – Scrape

Immediately upon pushing open the heavy bolted door of the restricted lower grounds of Shinra Research Facility Seven, Zack was met with the frantic, brunette form of the Class A Biotechnologist, Lucrecia Crescent, at the threshold.

He could see straight away that the woman was in a fluster, her white coat slung haphazardly over her shoulders as if she'd put it on in transit and her face pink with bits of her long hair clinging to her forehead.

"Zack," she greeted him, lowly and intently.

She was relieved he was there. This side of things wasn't her area of expertise and she wanted to hand responsibility – and the consequences – over to him as soon as possible. He didn't blame her for that, and he didn't stop to exchange words with her as he strode straight on down the white-washed corridor ahead of them. Lucrecia followed, her heels clinking manically against the highly-glossed lino.

"How on Gaia did this happen?" He demanded, looking sidelong at her over his shoulder. She shook her head, a shorter piece of hair falling into her face which she scraped back mindlessly.

"The guards spotted him on the upper plate, hanging around the entertainment sector. They figured he was a young one, perfect for our needs. He doesn't seem..." she sighed distractedly, cutting herself off before going on, "they caught him easily using guerrilla tactics, thundara'd and bagged him and brought him here. You know how they are. Hojo gave orders last Monday for a living specimen to be brought in for the more advanced stages of our project, but they needed to be careful, to watch for one that was isolated and wouldn't be difficult to contain. They were supposed to watch and wait and then attempt the capture only with clearance. We expect them to be careful. None of us had any idea that..."

"This all happened last night?" Zack interrupted, looking over at her as they turned another corner.

"They brought him in around three in the morning. He was out for most of the day."

"And when he woke up you had contact with him?" He continued his questioning as they paused briefly for Lucrecia to clear access through one of the numerous sets of secured doors they would have to pass through to get to the labs. The air was becoming thicker and more flat with antiseptic the further they weaved into the network of empty hallways and locked rooms. The lights grew harsher on their skin; exposing pores and lines and other imperfections in vivid definition.

"Yes, I was supposed to observe its– his sedation and long-term containment so we could start work with him," she answered, no inflection in her voice to indicate she found anything wrong with this part of her story, no guilt, of course, "but he started talking when he woke up. The guards told us to ignore him and unsurprisingly tried using force to quieten him. But something about his words, what he was saying, gave me pause. Gast was of the same mind."

"Eh, the creature told you himself?" Zack repeated sceptically, giving her a questioning look, "and you believed him, just like that?"

Lucrecia turned her face forward, "not just like that, Zack. As with any other question we are presented with, we ran tests. And the results have given what I consider strong proof to verify the creature's claims. I'm positive we have a potentially serious situation here."

He didn't bother to ask any more. He'd known Lucrecia for over four years and knew enough to know that she was not the type of woman that needed to be second-guessed. He stayed silent for the remaining ten minutes it took them to reach a more heavily secured area within the main laboratory sector, which Lucrecia had to access using iris and card identification. After that she led him through a series of smaller halls and finally into a set of observation rooms.

They viewing room they stepped into had white tiled walls and floors, brighter than the corridors, and was empty except for one simple thin-legged table with a laptop currently open on top of it. On the far wall a wide viewing window looked into a smaller, dark-lit room. That room could be accessed by a door on the left.

Two men were already standing at the window, their backs to them as they stared through what was most likely one-way glass. They didn't turn greet them when they came in, and as he looked through the glass himself, Zack understood why.

The light inside the small room was weak, only a bare low-energy bulb, he guessed, but apparently nothing stronger was needed to illuminate, like a performer under stage lights, the vivid spectre of the figure standing under it. A mass of blond hair was the first thing that caught Zack's eye, bright and clear from across the room, disorderly and chaotic but… eye-catching. For one moment Zack was transported back years before, to a quiet theatre room where the actors talked about goddesses and gifts…

A gift from the goddess, that was what they said, something exceptional with a history behind the beauty that drew him in. Barely any of the creature's features were visible, his body tilted away from the glass, but what glimpses Zack did get of the pale flesh and slender limbs were apparently enough to enrapture his attention for several minutes, until Lucrecia strode forward and broke the silence.

Her gaze first went to him for only a second, long enough to communicate a silent message that made him stiffen uncomfortably, before she acknowledged the other men who finally turned to face her.

"Zack, this is Professor Gast Faremis, Class A Researcher in the Science Department, and you know Commander Heidegger," she said. The two men nodded. One was a tall, thin man wearing, like Lucrecia, a lab coat with the Shinra company logo stitched onto the breast. He was lanky and civilised-looking, resembling a scholar or University professor more than a scientist with his widow's peak and drooping moustache. His age was probably somewhere between late fifties and early sixties, though it was often difficult to tell with Shinra employees. The mounting pressures of the job aged them quickly; Zack would himself be a young old man.

The other man in the room was the head of the company's 'Public Safety' division. Large and – to some – imposing, he was dressed in his typical green suit with gold trimmings along the lapels, with numerous accolades pinned to the right breast. Zack thought that his beard was ridiculously long by now, reaching half-way down his chest, like some bastardised version of a wizard or something. Lucrecia was correct in saying they knew each other, and it was because of this familiarity that they only exchanged a quick look of acknowledgment before sliding their attention back to the scientists in the room.

"Thank you for making it here so quickly," Gast uttered, extending a long arm across the table separating them. Zack took it and rattled back his title as way of greeting.

"Zack Fair, 1st Class SOLDIER and Head of the company defence sector."

Gast raised a brow, looking him over.

"You're young for the title," he commented. Zack offered a lopsided grin and shrugged.

"Yeah but I'm awesome," he sighed, snickering when Lucrecia rolled her eyes.

"Zack–"

"Okay, okay. So you have proof of the Sire?" He moved on, getting straight to the point, not interested in going over the details Lucrecia had already more or less clarified and he'd been able to fill in on his own. Gast rubbed a hand over the back of his head and nodded wearily.

"The half-winged allowed me to take some of his blood to verify his claims. I ran works immediately and found that the sample is indeed very unusual. It's unlike any I've ever tested in this lab before, in fact. In terms of our proof," he seemed to dislike the word, or held the opinion that it was a foolish thing to have to explain. He then bent down and tapped some keys on the laptop before swishing it around to face them, "as you can see here, the protein and cell characteristics suggest residues of a very great age, older than the bone-deposits pulled from some of our rarer specimens in VP. They would suggest, possibly, an age greater than a millennium," he paused there, for effect Zack supposed. It was a scientifically exciting statement after all.

Zack ran his eyes over the details on the screen, flicking over the scientific data that he only understood enough to get the gist of the significance of the cell-like graphics accompanying the text. Once he was done he stood up straight again and shifted his hands on his hips. He was still dressed in his training clothes, tracksuit pants and an old t-shirt, having had no time after Lucrecia's call to stop at his quarters to change.

The call had been urgent and brief. The company's guards had acquired what they believed to be a perfect specimen for Hojo's new project, signifying a new stage in their exploration of a race that had long been a threat to the order of the Planet; the half-winged. This young one, weak and easily controlled, had seemed to be exactly the type they needed for the initiative.

And then they'd made a discovery that threatened the entire existence of the company. That the young one may in fact be a fledgling of one of the most powerful half-wingds thought to be in existence, a creature that had the ability to destroy the company and everyone belonging to it in a single night.

So here he stood now, less than a half hour after receiving the call, in the frigid underground labs where the bright lighting exposed the patches of sweat drying along his neck and under his arms, and the pills clinging to his chest.

He looked up when Heidegger thundered into the conversation.

"Just because the thing has old blood in it doesn't mean it's his creature. That's if he exists at all, I'll remind you that we haven't one bit of intel on that leader to date! This one might just have an old Sire, long dead, and knows that there's enough of that blood left in it to back up a story to get itself out of here," the man insisted in his typical hoarse rage, spittle spattering out from his lips after every sentence. He was becoming a fat man, the way service men do after receiving cushier promotions from active duty, and Zack could imagine the rolls of skin beneath all that dark hair.

Not interesting in looking at it, he idly turned his head to viewing window again. He stilled.

The face behind the glass was no longer turned away and hidden. It was staring right at them now, raised enough for the light to fall on it and illuminate, like porcelain, the pale, immortal skin.

Around his face the jagged blond strands were almost blinding where the light touched them, full and thick like new-born chocobo feathers. And within them two eyes peered out. Eyes that were the brightest blue Zack had ever seen, brighter than the sky in Gongaga during the summertime, than the sea in Sol... They were almost false-looking, twin pools of materia blue set into a face that was flawless and clear as he supposed he expected, but at the same time, and only noticed this after all of the other details set in, oddly shaded and darkened with shadows.

Yes, under those bright eyes, around the lips, along the arches of the cheekbones, Zack could see the darkened skin that spoke of tiredness, a human kind, which lent something... suffering to what he was looking at. A mix of something so very human in something that was doubtlessly not. Was it just from the day spent in the labs?

"Zack."

Blinking, he looked down at Lucrecia's hand on his arm. When their eyes met she held them again, just for a second, before directing him to the other men.

They had apparently become caught up in an argument while he'd been… distracted. Gast was stoically looking at the ceiling with his arms crossed and the sleeves of his coat pulled back over his wrists. His eyes were flickering back and forth with what were likely the numerous counter-arguments his mind was forming against what Heidegger was saying.

"And it's too young for the age it claims," the man was growling, slashing a hand at the screen but not looking at it, "my men took it down easily and there wasn't a scratch on one them for it. A powerful one wouldn't have gotten caught by that team, only four men, we wouldn't be able to hold him here! I'm telling you the thing is lying and should be put into confinement now!"

It, it's, thing. Zack felt like catching the man by his too-tight collar and slamming him against the wall.

He took a breath, and then looked at Lucrecia, noting for a second how dark her hair was, beautiful and gleaming, but… dull somehow. "He has a point," he said to her, shaking his thoughts off.

Gast answered, directing them to the laptop again and pointing out different areas of the screen as he spoke, "as I've said, the blood sample is strange. There seems to be two different types of cells of very different natures prominent within the section. The first is, as I've mentioned, a very old and dominant type, most likely belonging to the Sire as the half-winged claims. The second is a cell that I swear to Gaia, characteristically, is much the same as a human's. It seems as if it has not yet mutated as the half-winged blood should." He pulled up a comparison of what Zack assumed was a fully mutated half-winged cell.

"Could that not just be a victim's blood?"

Gast shook his head. "Victim's blood is immediately absorbed by the mutated cells of the half-winged, that's how the body is fed, they don't move freely within the bloodstream any more than pieces of our food would," the man took a step forward and wrapped his knuckles on the table beside the computer, "interestingly, to one of the samples I added a drop of human blood and the human-like cells did consume it the same as any Immortal's would, see here."

Zack watched on as the images on the screen came to life and played out what looked to him like a bloody game of Pacman, the exterior globs swarming around and then consuming a drop placed in their centre.

"…so they are immortal, it's just as if they haven't changed yet," the old man narrated over the end.

"So then the thing is lying and we're the fools for playing into it!" Heidegger held up his hands, exasperation written across his features. There was an angry, impatient energy about him, and Zack knew why. He didn't want it suggested that his guards had made a mistake, had put the company at risk. He would have to answer to the President after all, and he was not in the business of forgiveness.

There was more to it than all that though. Zack, as already stated, knew this man. Knew how his biology worked. He knew that the thought of letting the creature on the other side of that glass go free would wound his ego more than any penalties from the company could. Mercy was a foreign thing to Heidegger.

"That still doesn't eliminate the existence of the older cells, they are clearly from an ancient half-winged who very well might be Se-," Gast stopped himself, his eyes fluttering upwards before closing as he seemed to sigh at himself, "the Sirewe believe it is," he went on, "the cells work strangely, symbiotically I would say. I would need more time to study it but it seems as if they are, yes, working in unison."

"So study the–"

"Look," Lucrecia interrupted finally. She walked towards the table and placed a hand on it, then pinned her eyes on each of them in turn, "the blood-work is proof enough. We can't stand here debating it any longer." She held up a hand at Heidegger when he was about to do just that. He begrudgingly kept silent, but his breath was loud through his nostrils thereafter.

"This is a huge problem," the woman went on, addressing Zack primarily, "we can't take the risk of upsetting one of their leaders, especially one this powerful. And he claims that this will upset him very, very much. That none of us will live to see the sunrise if the Sire finds out of the company's treatment of him," she shook her head, "of course we were sceptical to believe him at first but the bloodwork supports the theory and now I'd rather not take the risk. Zack, tell me you agree?"

Zack took a step towards them, "yeah, I agree," he drawled, holding up his hands, "Shinra has always been aware that interfering with the half-winged population is a dangerous game exactly for the risk of something like this happening. I've already told the president and the guards," he paused there and let his eyes slide over to the member of just that party standing in the room, "not to go ahead with the moogle-brained snatch and contain missions they've been planning. Using jungle tactics against this type of creature, as if they're any other monster that we can contain, is a ridiculously stupid notion and one that my mentor would never have authorised." He stopped there, feeling the temperature of his blood begin to rise in his veins as anger and Mako boiled within him. Anger, and the pressure of light at the corner of his vision, piercing into him like a phoenix summon.

"They are a people, different to us but the same as well," he went on, crossing his arms in front of himself, "and, well unless you work for Shinra, people don't often go missing without loved ones noticing."

A drawn out moment of silence followed the end of his words. He could feel the impact on the others in the room; Stephani's quiet vindication, Gast's weary agreement, and Heidegger…

"Well how do we know it's not too late then?" The man asked scathingly, clearly interested in remaining antagonistic even if he was bending slightly to their side, "if the thing is as important to the leader as you say he claims, is he not already aware of his disappearance and on his way to take it back?"

"He says there's a window," Lucrecia answered quickly, nodding her head at the glass partition, "he said that the other mightn't know yet."

"And why would it say that?" The man was fast to counter, "and why would we believe it either way?"

Lucrecia shrugged and looked at Zack again, "he seems… interested in working on this with us. He was the one who told us in the first place, and he's been eager to leave here before the situation escalates..."

"Because he wants out!"

"Look," Zack cut in, holding a hand up and closing his eyes to stop the headache their bickering was causing, "I'm going in to talk to him. We're only wasting time here debating, I need to talk to him and get a handle on things for myself."

"Hojo will have your head, woman. He's been told we have a specimen and is flying back tomorrow to begin procedures," Heidegger pointed out.

Lucrecia looked at him, her eyes going cold at the mention of her boss's name. Zack understood; if Heidegger was without mercy then Hojo was utterly without anything close to a soul. He was not the man you wanted to get on the bad side of, and Zack found himself worried about Lucrecia's well-being.

"I'll deal with Hojo," she said lowly, finality in her tone. She walked around the side of the table and reached a hand into her coat pocket, taking out her access card. Zack followed her to the door and as she lifted her hand to the swiping slot, she spoke softly to him, "I don't think he's dangerous but we've kept him restrained anyway, in case… Ideally he would be sedated and locked down but… we felt that mightn't be smart. Do you think you'll be okay without a weapon?"

"I'm not without," he said to her curtly and the weight of metal against his ankle became prominent for a moment. He nodded at the slot, "I'll be alright, open it."

There was only a wall between them; a single layer of bricks and plaster and treated glass, but the difference in atmosphere between the two rooms was startling.

Shut into the second one as the door buzzed closed behind him, the dim lighting forced Zack into blindness for seconds before his eyes adjusted away from the florescent paleness the rest of the building had been, and to the dimness of the small room with its dull grey walls and metallic bolted-down table in the centre. The air was quiet in there, isolated, and for a moment Zack was brought back in time, years before, when his mentor shut him into training rooms with the same locking doors, not giving any indication that he'd open them again.

He was snapped back to the present by the sound of chain links dragging against the floor. He looked to the source of the noise and felt himself become overwhelmed again at the sight of what had to be the most… vivid creature he'd ever laid eyes on. It was a good thing he'd had a glimpse through the glass already, he thought, because otherwise he very easily might have lost his mind at the proximity of a beauty that had gained a new dimension in their closeness. Now there were different shades in the bright hair gathered in dishevelled shards, scaffolding to the delicate, fine structuring of bones that belonged to a boy that had to be only in his late teens. And the eyes…

Holy Gaia.

He lowered his own from them and noted again the shadows underneath. He could see them more clearly now, under the eyes and around the creature's facial bones. He also took note of a clotted cut on the side of the bottom lip and dried blood on the inner-curve of the left eye; neither of which seemed close to healing yet. The imperfections were at odds with the otherwise unmarred beauty. Gold and blood and shadows; an angel cast into the night.

The half-winged was dressed in what Zack assumed were his own clothes, a long-sleeved grey t-shirt that was loose around his arms and neck, dark denim jeans and combat-type boots. They'd put him in heavy duty shackles and the thick silver shone sharply around his sleeves in three different loops up along his forearm to his elbows, the weight of them forcing the creature to bow slightly forward with his hands gathered in front of himself.

Zack wondered if the bindings would be any deterrent at all if the creature really decided to come at him.

"You call us 'half-winged'?" A voice broke the silence, low and young and hoarse. The creature kept his eyes lowered as he spoke, his pale lashes scraping against his cheekbones.

Zack shrugged and shook himself out of his daze, inwardly reprimanding himself for his continuous lack of focus, and making an effort to remember who he was and what he was dealing with. He took a step forward.

"Yeah… Pretty original right?" He gave a small laugh, resting his foot in front of himself, "I guess they started using it because of the legends and it just stuck since."

The boy nodded and shifted a bit so he was turned further away from the mirror and more to him, "I suppose it's better than other names you could have used," he murmured, his voice a rasp in the still room.

"Like what?"

The looked upwards in contemplation, smiling softly, "cursed, vampire, demon… monster…"

Zack sucked in some air between his teeth, "those are some options I guess," he held out a hand, "is there a term you use yourselves?" He figured that the creature might be more open with him if he didn't feel so blatantly prejudiced against. Labels were a powerful thing after all.

The other just shrugged subtly, making his chains jingle again. Still looking down. "We just use each other's names mostly. I don't know… we don't need to define ourselves very often."

"Alright," Zack ignored the dozens of questions that came to him, warring inside his mind as an unexpected curiosity took over him, making him want to question this creature about the secrets of his world. After all, it was no common thing to come face to face with a creature that, even to the company, was more an idea than anything. One in a million, those were the odds of meeting one face to face unless it was seconds before your death. One in a million.

"Well then," he said, clearing his throat, "I'm Zack Fair. If you give me your name, I'll call you that and nothing else," he offered.

The half-winged at last looked up, his bright eyes shining vividly as he proceeded to slowly look him over, not bothering to hide that he was doing it like most people might. "I'm Cloud," he said at length, setting his eyes on his face.

Zack felt his breath catch in his throat but forced himself to ignore it. Then he took in what the creature had just said.

"Wait, Cloud?" He repeated, tilting his head.

The other nodded. "Yes."

"Like…" Jack raised his finger towards the ceiling and squinted at him. The creature nodded again, his expression falling somewhat flat. Zack sensed he was prickling the half-winged with his questions, so quickly nodded his head.

"So Cloud," he said again, nodding and nodding, "uh, is it just Cloud?"

The half-winged smiled softly and looked to the side, "I don't think there's a need for anymore, after all this time.

"But your apparent Sire thinks differently, right? Sephiroth Jenova," Zack pointed out.

A silence swept into the room on the heels of the name. Like Shiva casting ice-spells and freezing them all in place.

He watched Cloud's bowed lips twitched subtly, "yes," the half-winged said, the word dragging prettily from those lips, "his would be a name not as easily dropped as mine."

Again Zack had questions, wanting to take this opportunity that might never come again, to find out more about these elusive, pale creatures who seemed to both share the Planet with them, and also exist in a completely different realm of the night, dealing in all things sensual and mysterious. How could anyone who knew about them not wonder about them, how they lived? Even someone as disillusioned as he was.

"I want to ask you a few questions," he said eventually, because he had a job to do and he couldn't keep getting distracted, "let's sit down." He held a hand out to the table.

The creature, Cloud, looked down at the table and then walked slowly over to it, almost completely soundless as he pulled one of the chairs out and took a seat. He rested his bound arms on the table top; his long fingers tangled together, and looked up at him expectantly. Zack sat down across from him, feeling the weight of three sets of eyes on the back of his neck. He inclined his head.

"So you're saying that you are a fledgling of the half-winged we know as Sephiroth Jenova, son of the Calamity? That this immortal exists and is alive today?"

Cloud smiled amicably and nodded. Zack sat back and considered him, trying to find something sly or deceitful in the calm, almost emotionless façade the boy was displaying. He couldn't, but that didn't mean it wasn't there, only that the creature might be well-practiced in swaying human minds.

"That's pretty bad luck for us then, right? To have chosen you as a target," he said slowly, watching the creature closely for a reaction.

Cloud only shrugged his shoulders and glanced up at the mirror, "in my experience, people often choose their actions and put the outcome down to luck after the repercussions."

Zack had to agree with that assessment in relation to the current situation.

"So tell me, how can it be that a fledgling of Sephiroth could come to be captured like this?" He asked next, his tone growing more sceptical now even though he wasn't fully sure why. Something about that name, the way they were expected to crawl below it, the way the boy admitted to his ownership under it…

Cloud looked down at his hands again and shifted his wrists, very delicately, within the restraints. "He was not near. I was alone at the time. If I wasn't, there would be nothing left to bury of the men that came after me nor the company that hired them." The words were not spoken any differently to what he had said already. He didn't appear to be saying them as a threat for his release, or a show of his power within the half-winged race. They were spoken as if they were the simplest facts, and it was a chilling thing to witness.

"And you don't share this power?" Zack asked, crossing his arms, "you couldn't fight them off on your own?"

Cloud's eyes flickered; maybe the first reactive response Zack had managed to get out of him since he came into the room.

"They caught me at a fortuitous moment, I was not in a position to fight them off," the half-winged explained curtly.

Zack looked at the dark circles under the creature's eyes again. Yes, he looked tired, weak, but the SOLDIER sensed that attempting to delve any further along that line of enquiry would get him nowhere, so he moved on.

"Does Sephiroth have many fledglings?"

The other gave another subtle twitch of his lips and shook his head, ruffling the longer strands of hair around his face. "I can't answer that. I'm not here to help you in whatever it is you're trying to achieve here, so I don't advise attempting to use me for information."

Zack sat forward and patted his hand on the table between them. "No, I'm just trying to understand how you're saying your Sire will destroy us all if he finds out you're here, when he might not even know you're missing yet? He is so protective, but he left you alone?"

"It's complicated," the half-winged said calmly, lifting his head again and pinning Zack with his glistening eyes. Zack had seen two different photographs of half-winged before and their features seemed similarly beautiful with the dark magic behind them, but they were not this vivid, this unearthly. Cloud had to have been an exceptional human before he was ever changed.

It made sense that something, someone, like that could have captured the attention of one of the most legendary immortal leaders on the Planet.

"He didn't leave me alone, but I was alone," Cloud continued to explain, though his words weren't straight-forward and he seemed to be balancing what he wanted to say against what he didn't.

Zack held up his hand, trying to understand. "So he didn't know where you were? You left on your own?"

"I do, sometimes," the other agreed, and he smiled more obviously then, even though it was still really just an upward, almost cynical, tilt of his lips. Nice lips, a deep indent beneath the lower that made it long and straighter than the bowed top…

"I'm getting good at it," he went on, his tone almost defiant, "or I think I am. I wondered if he was only playing at letting me go further, still had spies watching… but now I suppose I know he wasn't."

Zack frowned, taking in the words. Cloud sounded like some sort of teenager sneaking out of the house at night without his parents knowing.

"Why do you want be good at that?" He asked at last, lowering his hand, "wouldn't it be safer to stay close?"

Cloud tapped his fingers on the table top, his nails clinking on the metal very sharply, "yes." Then he straightened up and glanced at the mirror before bringing his eyes back to him, the smile morphing into a more serious expression. "Zack, you need to let me go before he does find out," he said, stretching his hands forward, "your people made a mistake attacking me, I told them. If he finds out I won't be able to stop what happens. You need to let me leave and we don't have time for the men in the next room to argue about it anymore."

Zack wasn't surprised by the last comment; he knew half-winged senses were most-likely keen enough to penetrate even a proofed wall. There was a bigger question at hand, and it was why the half-winged was even warning them about this threat at all, why he didn't just wait for his Sire to find him and destroy them all as he said he could?

"Why do you care what he does to us?" He said at last, narrowing his eyes, "why not just let him come?"

"You don't need to know that," Cloud shifted forward in his seat, "if you choose not to believe me like your angry friend out there, I can't change your mind. I won't explain myself."

"You understand this is difficult for us," Zack found himself hissing in exasperation, "that we can't be sure you're not lying, or that you won't go out and tell your Sire everything you've seen here the minute we release you. I'm sure you've caught on to something of our purpose here, right, wouldn't loyalty hold you to repeating it?"

Cloud's stared back at him, his features seeming to darken for a moment before straightening out again. For almost a full minute he didn't say anything, and then, "no, it doesn't hold me." He stretched his arms out further along the table, sliding them along like a snake as he lowered his head and looked up at Zack through his lashes, "you think any of this matters to me?" He shook his head and looked towards the mirror again, "of course I know what you're trying to do here, what your purpose in detaining me was. But I can assure you, thousands of years of scientific intervention will need to pass before your company would be considered even a theoretical threat to my maker."

He turned back to Zack

"You have no idea what you're dealing with."

Zack could feel the reactions from the people in the other room, the scientists' murmured acknowledgement, Heidegger's snort of outrage. He himself just sat there staring at the half-winged.

"You have us at a disadvantage then, I guess, whatever we decide," he said at length, "if we keep you, your Sire will come and we're a thousand years away from a defence against him, so we're toast. If we let you go we risk you leading him back here to us. Either way we're pretty much chopped chocobo feed. Which is funny, because your hair looks almost exactly like a chocobo. So maybe you'll feed on us?"

Cloud had given him a soft, patient smile and was about to respond, when the door to the room opened and Lucrecia came in, causing them both to look over.

"If he does figure it out, is there any chance of explaining to him that it was a mistake?" The woman asked, clicking over to the table, "that the company means him no personal insult?"

Cloud stared up at her, the way one does when studying an object in great detail. His mouth pursed into a line and he slowly raised his bound hands to rub at the cut on his lip, his knuckles coming back smudged with blood.

"No."

Zack smiled grimly.

"We're going to let you go Cloud," Lucrecia said after only a short silence, "Zack will take you to wherever you think would be best, far away from here, and if it's too late and your Sire has discovered us… He will speak on behalf of this company."

Zack stared over at her but she studiously ignored his gaze and waited for the half-winged to reply, her body tense and awkward. He turned his head to just in time to see those lips move, a deep bow on the top, blood on the bottom.

"Alright."

But it wasn't, was it? Any of it.

In the end it was more than two hours before he and the half-winged were on the road, breaking the distance to the upper-plate in one of the company's armoured vehicles.

As predicted, Heidegger had protested against the plan the second Zack stepped back into the viewing room. The man's arguments weren't senseless; he didn't think that they should trust the creature, and thought there was no way they could be sure he wouldn't return with more of his kind. In the end, after a tense call with Scarlett, they'd arranged that Zack would take the armoured vehicle and that the half-winged would be blindfolded for the drive. He'd been unconscious on the way there so it was reasonable to assume that he didn't know where the compound was located already, unless of course there were ways his kind could know these things.

For whatever good it would do though, Zack thought he was glad for the blindfold; he wasn't sure he would have been able to keep calm throughout the journey with that intense gaze drilling into his side.

At the same time, he thought he might hate it. The half-winged sat beside him now with the thick black material covering most of his face except for his lips and chin and making his hair flatten in around his neck, the blond contrasting sharply against the material. He was still and silent, his wrists shackled on his lap, as the lights from outside ran over him in waves, coming again and again like a moving ocean of green patterns against his features. His hair and skin absorbed all of it artfully, lighting up in green and red and blue, like a rock star in a music video.

They had miles ahead of them, and with the absence of peering eyes looking in and documenting their every word, Zack felt no need to refrain from indulging some of his curiosity while he had the chance.

"You told them you were over a century old?" He spoke up, hearing his voice coarse and low against the hum of the engine.

The half-winged didn't move, his blind gaze set on the windscreen as he answered, "Yes. I was born one-hundred and fifty-two years ago."

Zack tried to relate that length of time to the young-looking thing sitting beside him. He couldn't, that was the thing with the half-winged; they really were ageless, frozen in the moment they were changed like fine dolls. Cloud would never be anything but the beautiful youth he'd been over a century ago, even if his soul had turned monstrous.

If… He had to wonder about that too. If Cloud was a monster, why was he saving them?

Unless he's not. Maybe this really was a trap. At least that would make sense.

"That's really something," he said at length.

"I haven't lived for all that time though," the half-winged went on, surprising Zack. "Only quarter of it, really."

"What do you mean?"

Cloud tilted his chin down and stretched his fingers out on his lap, extending the long digits until the skin pulled tight over the bones. "Are you curious about us, Zack Fair?"

A shiver went through Zack's body, making his grip tight against the steering wheel. He forced himself to answer. "I am."

"Because it's your job?"

He shrugged, "not just that."

Those lips twitched upwards in the shadow of the blindfold. "You don't have to guard your words with me. If you have questions, I'll answer them. Remember, I don't fear any threat from you."

Zack snorted and waited until he'd eased the car into the right lane before responding.

"We both have reasons for not being straightforward with each other," he said, "my employers wouldn't be happy to hear me sharing details of our company with what is potentially the greatest threat to it. And I assume your Sire wouldn't like you revealing his secrets to us in turn, even if we're nothing to him as you keep pointing out."

"But where are they in this car? Here, now?" Cloud countered, turning his palms upwards as much as he could, "I've been alive a long time, but really I'm only living from second to second. The past and future are nothing, I've learned, the present is the only thing that's real. We might as well be the same age now; it wouldn't make a difference otherwise."

"Okay…"

"So they, my maker and your company, don't really exist now, do they? They're just memories and ideas."

Zack liked the words, so much that he was too surprised to answer for a long few seconds. Just us. No company, no Sephiroth, Son of the Calamity.

He was again grateful for the blindfold, grateful to have the time to lick his lips and get himself under control before he spoke again.

"Alright then, how did you come to be Sephiroth's fledgling. Did you know him when you were alive?"

The half-winged's body language hinted that he'd been expecting the question as he leaned back in his seat and tilted his head.

"That's a long story," he murmured.

"It's a long drive."

Cloud turned to him, and Zack had to wonder how blind he really was behind the material. Because he sure as hell felt like he could be seen at that moment.

"Tell me," he urged again.

The lips parted, white teeth but no visible fangs, shadow on the chin as the face moved away to stare at the half-moon through the passenger window.

"I was sixteen…"

So I hope you enjoyed the first chapter and if you did, please leave a review, constructive criticism is welcomed. Reviews are the only thing that will motivate me to write more, just saying ;)