29/100: Heaven Sephiroth/Genesis.
... I really must be thinking up more stories with less to do with Seph/Gen...
So, my proof reading skillz are about as good as a blind goldfish. Everyone knows that by now. Apart from that, it's an angsty drabble...
Disclaimer - Square Enix owns all.
Heaven
On The Other Side
After all they fought for; after all they went through, they had now found themselves on opposite sides of a wall that could never be breeched.
Death was not a concept Genesis had entertained much before. As a trained SOLDIER, it wasn't an option. He was so insanely enhanced only another SOLDIER could lay a hit on him.
But now, death meant something much deeper, he did not fear it but he was not impatient for its arrival. He could not die, not take the coward's route out of life, because he had promised his Goddess that he would protect this forsaken land.
That, and he believed that the Sephiroth he once knew and loved unconditionally was dead and all that was left was a recurring nightmare that tainted the lifestream. If he was even in there.
Genesis continued living, continued to wallow in lamentations and regret regardless of his brother's protests. They said now was his time to shine, to become the hero he always aspired to be. But Genesis knew that not only the world had a hero, a small blonde kid who he had originally deemed as nothing but useless, but that dream was long gone. He knew it was a childish fantasy that could never be lived out. He would always be in someone else's shadow or a dark smudge of the past that people would rather do away with.
Though death was far out of his reach, Genesis could not deny that he longed for it. Maybe he could start doing reckless things, get himself into unnecessary battles all in the name of seeing Angeal and Sephiroth again.
Genesis often reflected on the irony of the fate of the three friends. He was the first, the failure, the out of control one, and yet he was the last. Angeal, the responsible, trustworthy and honour-bound SOLDIER had departed first, followed by the rather harrowing fall from grace that Sephiroth encountered soon after.
The scarlet SOLDIER was unsure what effected him more: the death of Angeal because he couldn't take what he was and he didn't want to become some monster his best friend, or the fact that his lover had been stripped of his wings and left to come crashing down to earth. He knew however, he wanted nothing more of this planet than to see them again. To laugh and play around with Angeal like they had as children and to be held and loved in Sephiroth's arms… That was his happiness. His sanctuary. His heaven.
An icy smirk cracked across his face as he stared out at the battered wasteland he once called 'home' as he came to realise just how childish he was at heart, no matter how much he would protest that war and sorrow had aged him.
Angeal, his best friend, was dead. Sephiroth, his lover, despised him now.
Of course Sephiroth hated him now. After what he had done and said in Neibelheim, Genesis couldn't even stand to look at himself. Never in his wildest dreams had he ever thought he would be so disgusted at anything.
After all they fought for; after all they went through, they had stuck together through thick and thin and were now reaping the rewards of such undying loyalty. Angeal and Zack were both here, blissful even in death because they were reunited for all eternity.
It broke Sephiroth in two to see them as deeply in love here as they had been back in life; then to look down and see his own lover, still alive, all but abandoning him.
He wanted to reach down, to go back only for a few moments just so he could tell Genesis that the Sephiroth he became, once Jenova had weaselled her way into the cracks of his foundations, was a nightmare of the planet, and not the man he had died as. He knew – he hoped – that if the redhead knew that the Sephiroth that is, is the same as the Sephiroth that was, he wouldn't be as lethargic and he'd have something to live for.
Although he wanted nothing more than to have Genesis here, held tightly in his arms, smiling because everything was perfect and peaceful like the worlds he had read of in his favourite books, Sephiroth could not be so selfish as to wish death upon the only one he ever loved. All he needed until the time was right was Genesis to live his life to the full.
But every day it got harder and harder for Sephiroth to watch Genesis because he could see how much the man was silently falling apart. So he had his brothers and new companions there and they were constantly helping each other out, but none, not even Weiss and Nero, could ever understand what Genesis was going through.
After all, he was blaming himself for everything that happened. The death of Angeal and Zack, the near annihilation of the planet on three accounts and Sephiroth's descent into madness, and he need not be.
If Genesis only knew that Angeal and Zack were now happier in this life than they had ever been in the former, would he have felt more secure?
If Genesis could realise that regardless of the past, the planet had always saved and healed itself, would he have been more comfortable?
And if Genesis could ever know that no matter what he had said and done in Nibelheim, Sephiroth had forgiven him and that he still harboured all the love and affection he was never able to show in the previous life, would he smile just once more, fully aware that somewhere, out in the darkness, Sephiroth was watching and waiting, endlessly.