Disclaimer: I don't own them, they own me.
Warning: angst, blood, violance, character death, dark imagery, potentially disturbing content, though nothing too explicit
A/N: Well, this is quite different from my usual writings, but I still hope you'll like it. Many thanks to karadin for the beta reading and icelady for putting up with my insanity throughout the rewritings and re-editings of this fic. Also, there is a part inspired by a discussion with the lovely Cookiecat. (I think you'll know it when you see it, dear! ;) Thank you so much for everything.) Genesis' POV.
Feedback: Yes please. I've never put so much work into one piece before, so I would love to hear opinions. I'm prepared to get hot and cold, so don't hold back.
It is the most terrifying thing he has ever experienced in his life, and considering who he is and just what he is, that is like saying that the most experienced field surgeon of the Wutai war has just seen the worst case of his life.
It grips at him with frosty vines of pure, unadultered horror, bringing back memories of that one time in the mako caves his feet slipped on the treacherous shimmering surface and he landed in a pool of bone chilling dark water.
He was only a boy but he can still remember feeling the cold engulfing him and then not feeling anything but slight disbelieving surprise before terror and the water swallowed him whole as he sank and sank and sank. Unable to move a muscle, unable to even think he should, the surface was slowly getting further and further as the oxygen in his lungs burned away and the faint light of the crystals faded.
And even though there are no crystals or caves or pools here, just the old rundown military facility thickly surrounded by bright green, sprawling vegetation, dirt on the floors and cracks on the walls, the feeling as he looks at the unconscious figure before him is the same feeling of drowning with one's eyes open.
The facility is filled with men, Seconds and Thirds who followed him to exile, who left their honor and dreams behind and endured the twenty day march in the green hell of Southern Wutai just because he asked them to. Who still trust him with their life despite everything, who still jump at his every command and who volunteer for whatever project Hollander's sick mind comes up with.
Just like the one he's currently looking at did. He... it lays on a light bamboo bed, between white sheets that enhance the cool tone to his pale skin and his bright, copper locks spread out on the pillow in a gorgeous mass, grotesquely artistic. The thin sheet thrown over the unresponsive man cannot hide the fact he is naked underneath, and somehow this makes Genesis feel bare and exposed too.
It is one of the firsts. And, like it tends to be the case with firsts
oh, he should be one to know
the flaws are there, all too evident, all too mocking, an ironic grin in the face of his hopes. Three fingers that will never move by the command of their owner's brain, scars on the arms, an undeveloped wing, and a hip joint protruding at an odd angle
he will never walk nor even fly
make Genesis' red gloved hands ball into fists, eyes closing for a moment before he finds the fragile strength in his own stubborness to look back at the bed where it lies.
Monster.
---
He knows he is dreaming, he must be dreaming, but everything feels so real, so hurtfully, viscerally real he wants to open his eyes and claw his skin until being awake sinks in through the blood underneath his nails. Like this, all he manages is to clamp a hand over his mouth, try to hold down the sickness in his stomach before time closes in
drip drip drip
and all nerve endings are scraped raw. Because Genesis knows what is coming and he shakes and shivers and waits
don't move
until that last moment and it is there, in that one blunt moment of his fingers twitching and his breath dying in a laboured gasp as he bolts into a run that isn't much less terrifying than the option of staying still but he just can't can't can't...
---
He keeps his eyes locked on the white of the sheet and something in his subconscious moves sluggishly, some shadow of feeling that somethig is amiss, that the white is too pure, the air is too thin, that the linen is so freshly washed and starched that it seems like it would crack if he touched it.
Sheets weren't like that in the Wutai war.
Genesis' mind fights to connect the memory with the present, and the seconds are ticking away softly with the shrill sounds of mechanical beeps from the machines around the bed, standing guard like they are
counting the heartbeats left until death
guiding spirits from some ancient Wutaian legend he had read as a child. The book is vivid in his memories, red cover with the gold imprint of a marvelous dragon, even though he had forgotten the tales in a neverending chain of bloodshed and endless destruction of a land he used to admire.
There are books in the corner of the room, charred covers, burnt pages, some torn and sticking out and one of the books open. On the paper there are pictures, DNA sequences, hastily scribbled side notes now framed in black, graphs and charts that brand him a monster, but still nowhere near as much as the man in front of him does, a burning, breathing testimony to his damnation.
His fingers alight on the pale cheeks of the SOLDIER, expecting something cold and lifeless, something like plastic, and they pull back startled as he feels warmth and soft skin and the firmness of bones underneath. Everything before him is so familiar, he knows it all
his face, not his face
the long lashes resting against arrogant cheekbones, the delicate nose, the lines leading to the lush mouth and the outline of the defiant jaw. He sees this every day when he is staring into the mirror until the steam from the shower fogs it all, covers up what he knows already because he can feel it
cell by cell
the way his body is devouring itself, knows that there is another strand more of silver hair then the day before, another touch more grey to his skin. He can feel it eat at him, this insidious decay, every day, every second, moving closer inside, closer to the heart, and he knows, one day, it'll reach it...
---
The corridors. Dark, narrow, endless, no doors, no intersections. Nowhere to go, just forward, forward, forward, even though he knows all too well where it is leading, even though he knows it like one knows
his very own personal inquisitorial prison
his own heartbeat, he knows the exact moment when the shards will cut skin... He prays he could stop just one time, but it's not happening, it's never happening, and he runs runs runs headfirst into their glittering trap, walls that aren't walls and jagged glass
mirror shards
protruding from them, too narrow, too narrow. Sharp like scalpels , they cut through skin and flesh with a fluid ease that blooms crimson lines across ashen planes, warmth running down in rivulets, surreal poetry in motion. Cut, slice, dissect, it is nothing new, but hurts anew every time, whispers training and hisses war in his distorted memories.
yesterday? tomorrow?
If only he could stop... It's always the same, what waits at the end, more terror, more pain, more wake me up, but it's like a compulsion, an obsession, a blood imprinted necessity, and his movements never falter as he throws himself against the sharp pieces, because until he moves, until he moves...
---
He needs them. This is the bitter and inconvenient truth that has no way around it, and he may be able to administer the damage of a whole platoon singlehandedly, facts are things not even he can argue with.
Or at least, he is past the point of trying.
It is something he thinks about when the rush of the day is over, when the scorching spray of water numbs his skin but his thoughts shake off the strict restrains he forces upon them
frail like dead leaves in the wind
and he thinks and thinks again and again and again, dances on the thin thread of sanity in his mind fastened over a pit of razors as fat drops of water gather at the tip of damp black feathers
drip drip drip
and slowly fall to the tiles, white and pristine and everything he is not.
Why would anyone want to be like him?
Without them, he is nothing but a stray dog starving to death on the streets as his strength fails him, dying in the back of a dead end street when the sleuths finally pick up his scent and corner him. Not that it makes it any easier... But he must not think about that, must not think about
how cold, how jaded, how alone
the betrayal they are suffering at his hands, the end of the path and the guilt in every footstep, because it makes no sense, because it is weakness and he is not weak, never weak.
He must not think about what could be behind those eyes that used to be brown but now glow with mako in the color of the cloudless sky. He must not think about if the palm knows the weight of his sword or if the mouth knows the taste of kisses he has kissed. He must not think about if the mind remembers Banora or if the blood remembers rapture coursing through it.
He must not think about that what he is seeing is just what he really is.
But these are the thoughts he thinks under the water that burns his skin, and these are the thoughts he thinks as he looks at the man in front of him.
---
There again. The corridor ends and there is finally space, a round room that promises the sweet freedom to stop the mad rush, the ceasure of glass sliding through flesh, though not of the pain. But he would gladly take the burn of wounds any day if only he could close his eyes, if only he could not see...
Mirrors. Dozens of mirrors all around from floor to ceiling, dozens of hard silver surfaces in the darkness and just as many identical faces staring back, lifeless, accusing.
If only they wouldn't look back...
Dozens and dozens of them, reflecting in each other, bigger, smaller, facing him, turning away, closer, further, stretching into infinity and spat back from the darkest recesses as he moves, red and black and red and everywhere, it makes his head swim and no matter where he looks they are there, he is there
his face, not his face
red and black and red like blood and night and blood and it spins and spins and spins until he collapses in a cooling, sticky pool of his own blood, black screams echoing back from deaf walls.
---
He twists it one last time, unbalanced, graceless, too much force, too much anger, and the flesh is so soft, it yields, yields, yields and so do the bones, strong but nowhere near as strong as he is. The sheets soak in red now, it feels familiar, relieving, he knows this, this white-eating red disease
this is how you die
the gore and grime and the metallic scent of dead life. Sometimes, it feels this is the only thing he knows.
The clone doesn't move, still in death like it was still in life, but the eyes, unseeing, cursed-blue in the sea of crimson and white, are staring at him
cut it out
and he watches as the light fades from them, as they turn into frozen lakes illuminated by dusk, smoothed over by the cold caress of death. Whatever was behind them, it is not there now, and he pulls the scalpel out of himself, hand shaking, high carbon steel slippery. He lets it slide from his grip, clatter on the floor.
It is done.
Crimson hair falls into his eyes and he pushes it back, sheer habit, leaves an unnoticed trail of smeared red on his cheek, and he soundlessly laughs and laughs and laughs as his tears fall on the bloodied corpse with its face now unrecognizeable under the ghastly carnival mask of red.