The Dance
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: No idea where this came from. It creeps me out a bit. Hope its understandable.
Men strive to feel strongly. It's the root of addictions and vices of all kinds. Other times it can produce acts of selflessness and feats of courage which span the ages as legends.
The pursuit of torrential emotions is one none are exempt from, the only variation being the trigger. Some triggers are benign, a new love, an anniversary, an award, some form of appreciation. Many came from a darker road, adrenalin highs, drugs, alcoholism, addictions of all kind – to sex, to drugs, to self-mutilation, to murder and rape.
The emotion which became overwhelming is different for each act; some pure and noble others tangled and twisted in ways none truly understood, mired in power trips and cruelty. Many lay in combinations of emotions impossible to unravel but the common factor was strength.
Thus the trap for many is laid.
One victim was Cloud Strife. Time had been when many things could cause the addicting rush, but life had gradually destroyed his mind and with it went his emotions. Cotton covered them now, a vague numbness all the more terrible for its lack of anything.
The strongest trigger had been altered, its power more acute and alluring. Anything – even pain – was better than nothing.
No member of AVALANCHE, no thrill left on Gaea could bring him any truly strong feelings.
Only Sephiroth could inspire the inferno in Cloud.
It was a torrent stronger than love or hate alone; the line so blurred and warped no one knew exactly what it was, endings and beginnings obscured. The presence of such conflicting extremes provoked by a single person at once made it perfectly clear the emotion was unbalanced and unhealthy in the extreme.
His friends were disturbed but could never pinpoint why, the discomfort only there and undefined.
Cloud only knew he finally felt again. The rest no longer mattered.
So he followed, prolonging the fights, draining more of his addiction. Even the splintering of his mind would not be enough to break the strength of it.
Nor was Cloud the only one.
For this perverse tango was a two way street, the connection flowing equally from both ends. Perhaps Sephiroth's death triggered it. None knew.
But he too displayed the same extreme and single trigger. Only his was labeled "Cloud Strife."
The dance between the two was inevitable, both uncaring what the outcome really was, perhaps planning on it never ending. Any obstacles to this danse macabre were forcefully removed by either participant, both too caught up to even consider stopping.
Neither able to see any viable end, the hatred too great to allow the other's existence. The "love" too strong to allow an end, even death remaining only an intermission to change the tempo of the dance. The return to nothingness eternally unthinkable for either party.
For anything was better than nothing at all.
On that at least, both agreed.
The End