AN - Holiday request fic for Daimeryan Rei. This is my first time writing this pairing so be kind and don't flame me too much over it. This is Yaoi. So, don't like, don't read.
Disclaimer: I only own my copy of FF7 and FFAC. Damn...
Sometimes you wondered about death. What happened before death, in the moment of death, just before something happened and you literally vanished into nothing. He had never lost time with such nonsense. Death was death, life was life, thousands of moments rolling from one to another with no interval in between. What happened in the past, what would happen in the future was meaningless. Present was more his thing. A giant game where beings were pushed away like they were nothing. Chess was probably the only game he cared enough to try out.
"What would you do if this game ruled the life outside?" Sephiroth's gloved hand touched a small pawn without hesitation, pushing it forward with the abandon born of experience. It was his game, his playground…the only thing he failed to own was his opponent.
Blue eyes are locked with his in a silent battle – almost as if he wished to kill him with his eyes, how amusing – but no movement is made in the direction of the board. What a horrible chess player, ignoring his tropped several times before settling down, the man's eyes searching for his jailor's mocking ones. Did he expect an answer? A pat in the back? A soothing gesture?
I don't give, I take.
The bishop was moved - an intelligent gesture, Sephiroth had to agree – a tower thrown aside carelessly by its owner. He didn't matter that much anyway. A casualty could be accepted if the main players were held in the game.
The tower broke as it fell into the ground, its red hue slowly staining the perfect white marble.
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The figure stood tall, spear in hand, blood flowing down the wooden shaft, the silver blade, the gloved hands of its owner. His face contorted in a disgusted frown, a single flash of pity fading into nothing.
"He will get you." Blood, so much blood. Blood on the floor, on the walls of the buildings, on the blade agonizing in the ground. Blood on the man dying at his feet. And smiling. Not quite a grin, not quite a smile. "He will slice you, cut you, torture you…you will beg." Coughing, a scratching sound testimony of the seriousness of the injuries. "You will die." Laughter. Mocking, disgusting in its certainty.
"He will get you." One last sentence, one last breath.
Loz had died.
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"What would you do if your actions dictated the fate of a universe?" Sephiroth's hands moved fluidly, gently, hovering over the chessboard in cautious moves. He knew what he was doing, knew the consequences, the causes and none of it mattered. The universe was concentrated in the stone slab where life and death battled and he was…
"You are no God. We are no Gods." His hand stilled, another smile killed before it could be formed. What did he know about Gods? About religions, truths and lies? A child, nothing more than that.
"No." A pawn was moved before the General settled back in his comfortable chair, trained eyes hovering just like his fingers had done. "You aren't." And he smiled once again, like a parent watching over a child still too ignorant about the ways of the world.
That attitude seemed to anger Cloud, rage whispering just bellow the surface of his eyes. Control destroyed replaced by fear and anguish, horror for that was still to come. It was…discovery. Was that what being human entitled? Weakness – couldn't he understand how feeling made him weak, made him fail? – trust, courage…
His own personal journey of discovery. A play performed in front of his eyes, captivating for the one that had distanced himself from those bellow him a long time before. He had been there, Sephiroth knew, when he had found out about his origin, his future. The general had seen the younger man and yet, he had failed to see just how fascinating he was. Had Cloud always been the fearful soul in front of him, charging forward even when no hope subsisted?
Had he been that blind then? So many years wasted, after all.
"It's your turn." Sephiroth gave no outward sign he had allowed his mind to wander, a small part of his mind marvelling with his newly discovered daydreaming. Yes, that day was proving to be satisfactory.
The same couldn't be said about the game. His opponent failed to think in the future, made his moves thoughtfully but without thinking of the consequences. He would never be a player. But Sephiroth could play this game for them both. It was his task, after all.
Kings don't play, they are played.
The queen was held his gloved hand, neck breaking underneath his pressure. Cloud palled as the red tinge of blood slid down gloved hands. "What would you do if your actions ruled someone's life?" Silence was no answer but answer enough for him. The blond man understood now.
Sephiroth smiled.
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"He failed you." Tifa couldn't breathe. Air refused to reach her lungs, to feed her blood and allow her to concentrate. She couldn't focus, couldn't do nothing else but claw his hand uselessly. But his voice, his voice drilled through her mind, printed himself in her thoughts, resonating like a church's bell again and again. Each word was like a knife plunged into her heart.
And he knew.
"Do you understand that?" How couldn't she? His breath tickled her ear as he drew her closer, his lips touching her cheek in a parody of a caress. "You will die and it's his fault." A velvet whisper. If death had a voice, Tifa knew it would have to be something similar.
His lips shifted, stealing the sigh in relief she released into himself. "Fear not." The hand around her ashen neck tightened slowly and Tifa knew. She was going to die. "He won't join you." A crack broke the silence, broke a life and ended a story.
The queen had fallen.
"Why?" What, why, how, when? He kept asking. He would always ask, request, demand whether he was ready for the answers, or not, failed to appreciate the mystery. Much to learn, knowledge he would gain in time.
A God didn't justify himself. There was no why besides the whim that made the Earth go round. Humans, filthy vermin, dirt underneath his feet – all synonyms in his opinion – shouldn't and couldn't understand Gods.
So Sephiroth remained silent, the smile Cloud already hated playing on lips.
"Play the game Cloud." It was the first time the silver haired man had called him by his name, lowered himself – or maybe raised his visitor – to his level. "Or will you surrender?" Surrender carried a whole different taste to him. Others would think of it as dishonour, those with an ounce of intelligence would recognize it as survival. The game was lost, the players scattered through the icy earth, slowly cooling down as the night fell in the exterior.
He could almost taste the victory. One way or another, he could feel it falling on his hands. It was Fate, destiny, threads woven before he had chosen to begin that game. He had won.
He was bleeding. Destiny played a trick, turned the thread he had been counting on upside down as Cloud threw the table to the ground. Something had hit his face, pulled him against the chair he had been sitting on.
"You are so confident in your part." Cloud was standing, his own chair lying next to the fireplace, blood – was that his blood? It was red, usual, common. Human. – pooling as it fell from the pike used as against him. "So confident you can read me, understand me, control me." In his eyes, Sephiroth found himself. If you took everything from a human, what was left?
"You killed them all. In these sick games of yours…" Sephiroth finally laughed. Laughed freely, loudly, chuckles sounding through empty hallways and closed rooms. Laughed like a free child, one without a care in the world. Or a madman. He really didn't understand.
And Sephiroth had no more patience to play that game.
One chess piece was grasped in his hand, strongly as if to make sure it wouldn't escape. Too quickly for Cloud to notice his movement. In barely a moment, he had stood up, victorious, fingers tightening around the small figure's neck. The blonde man choked as invisible fingers circled his neck, stealing his breath away as his improvised weapon began slipping through his frail hold.
"This is your mistake." Sephiroth came closer in a deliberate slow movement, reaching out to take the pike from his hand. It was warm, he noticed, the way his skin could warm the leather covered fingers with such easiness. He was fire parading as ice and yet, failed to notice. "You read everything through your human vision, view everything like the blind scum that should crawl before you." The chess piece wasn't as warm as he was, despite the burning of magic whispering beneath his skin.
"They are pawns Cloud. Mere pawns, ready to be thrown away once they have bypassed their usefulness." It was the second time Sephiroth called him by his first name, Cloud noticed. The second time he had been acknowledged as worthy of individuality. The shock was enough to delay his reaction to the cold hand weaving through his blonde strands. Fingers closed, pulled his head backwards with no mercy.
"Open your eyes." Sephiroth's order broke through his pain swiftly, forcing the eyes he had shut open without so much as a thought to disobey. He was so much taller than him. Pale, perfect, porcelain white skin and green eyes with the trace of Jenova's ancestry. A demon disguised as an angel. "No piece matters except for the King"
His face came closer. He seemed to be searching for something. Maybe flaws, maybe traces of his human nature, Cloud couldn't know. He was too close. "The King rules the battleground, decides who come forward and who stays back." His lips touched his skin, almost gently, a deep contrast against the piercing pain against his scalp. Horror warred with the pleased feeling welling somewhere inside him. "The King stands when no one else exists, he fights for something none gives a second thought to." Burning cold slid down as blue lips touched his face, recognizing his traces by touch, his skin by taste.
"But you see…the battleground is God's playground." And he drowned. Lips took over his fiercely, with a painful certainty of their acceptance, pain battling with pleasure as he was thrown against an unidentified surface, bare hands touching and pulling, scratching until blood slipped away. And there was blood in his lips, tears and a taste that was bitter and sweet, like every winter he had lived through his life.
They don't matter Cloud.
They do. They are everything.
His skin was on fire, every inch being woken to life with barely a touch. There were strands of silver hair mixing with his, cold skin sucking his warmth away without pity, so much cold as he was pulled against a hard figure, hard chest, hard affection, no feelings.
Paws die, humans die. That is God's will.
We aren't Gods.
He couldn't understand when he had stopped struggling or if he had even done so in the first place. Cloud could only remember air reaching his lungs as the cruel pressure vanished and oxygen was fed to him. And he swallowed it greedily, his only touch of reality in the mist of magic and cold, burning hands reaching out for him.
Only my King matters. That is God's will.
I am no King.
You are mine.
Suddenly, he knew nothing. He remembered nothing. He was part of something, part of one being, ache and joy mixed so closely until they were one, fire and ice mingled together against harsh stone. Cloud didn't remember contesting.
You are mine.
What about them?
They don't matter, they never did.
What about me?
You are mine. The King of my playground.
You are no God.
I will prove you wrong.
A piece of chess rolled away from the jumble of bodies, intact, his bright red hue burning away the carpet it had touched. A God had no need for such tools. His whim was word, his wish was law. And the Kings served the Gods.
Let us play another game…
AN - Reviews are love XD