Explanation: This one-shot thingy is the result of being visited by some sort of plot cat one day. It would not stop to circle my feet unless I had scribbled down two pages. Like that, the rough version sat on my desktop for ages. I had no intention to finish it, as I thought that the feelings and mechanisms I'm playing with here are prominent enough in my other stories already, and I did not want to be repetitive.
Still, one day that sneaky plot cat returned. And I suddenly thought of a special person out there who deserved a little Easter present…
So I finished it. I used to think it was nothing special, until I received unexpectedly good reviews... People actually called it my best one-shot so far.
Setting: Place – Wutai; time - not really defined. During the Wutai War, somewhere in the middle between my current story "Fragile Bonds" and the events of 'Crisis Core'.
Dedication: First and foremost, this was an Easter present for Silver-Winged-Dragon. Still, I would like to add a massive THANK YOU to Amarissia for being such a kind, lovely and incredibly encouraging 'test reader'.
Disclaimer: "I don't own them, they own me."
To make it a bit more precise (and much more boring): characters and background are not mine, they belong to Square Enix; I just took the liberty to play around with them. My writing is purely fan-made; I get no material profit out of it whatsoever (sad but true).
Warning: Traces of angst and male/male romance. Traces. Does that count as a warning?
"What is love but the strangest of feelings?"
(Opening line of "Wire to Wire" by Razorlight)
---
Love surely is the strangest feeling the human mind is capable of. Not only that it is completely irrational, it also comes in more shapes and varieties than any other emotion.
Love can make you feel incredibly blessed, as if you were the happiest person on the whole planet, or it can cut right through your heart and hurt worse than death itself.
And finally, love leads to making promises.
There is a reason why bonds of every kind, be it marriage or business contracts, start with an exchange of promises, for they are the very material friendships and relations are built of.
You usually strike others as the type who – as the saying goes – 'never makes any promise and keeps that'. But that is not true. The truth is that no one knows you as I do, partly because you don't want them to, and partly because they don't bother to look closer. I can't deny that you are sometimes moody, demanding and difficult to handle, but behind all those walls you erected around yourself, behind that arrogant and haughty image you created, there is a kind and caring person with an almost childish innocence and a deep appreciation for the simple beauties of life; someone who is blessed not only with the most amazing looks but also with an outranging artistic talent, a brilliant mind and the most beautiful soul. The one person I truly love. My precious.
Over the years, I made many promises. I vowed we would be friends forever and that I would protect you. Sometimes I'm not really sure if I managed to keep my word at all.
You never promised me a lot in return, yet everything you said came from the bottom of your heart, and whenever you did, I always knew you really meant to keep it.
---
It was one of those ordinary days.
Don't get me wrong, any given day on Wutai at that time was a day in the war zone, and far from what 'normal' people would have considered ordinary. Still everybody who spent a few years in service of the Shinra Army was used to divide days into hard, harder, hell in the truest sense of the word – and ordinary.
You were out in the field that day, true, but it was supposed to be a standard recon mission to gather information about a certain area, which might become a possible battleground in the near future. No registered enemy movements for days, so the security level was low. "Almost boringly low", you had said with a mischievous smile before you left.
And as usual, I tried not to worry about you. You were out there doing your job, and if someone could legitimately claim that you were damned good at it, it was me of all people, for I had seen your talent during all those years, hundreds of joined missions and countless training sessions. And in the very beginning, still in the infantry, we had learned pretty fast that we could not afford to worry constantly as soon as we lost sight of each other. It was a special kind of trust that had developed between us, the knowledge that we would both do what we were supposed to do, in the best way we could to try and return unharmed. Despite that knowledge and despite that trust, though, I sometimes caught myself feeling slightly uneasy.
I knew you felt the same, for unlike me, you voiced your feelings.
"Luck is something so fragile," you told me one night, "Just as human life. No matter how many times I see you leave to face some unknown danger, knowing that I won't be at your side, I feel like watching someone carrying a glass ball. A minor thoughtlessness, a little stumble out of the blue… I know it's a nuisance, but I can't help those thoughts."
Normally I would have raised the question of trust in return, concluding that if you trusted me, you would not have to worry about those things. This time, however, I gave in to my irrational side and admitted: "Sometimes I feel like that, too. I'm worried that I might not be able to keep that promise I gave you. You know, I vowed to protect you, always, forever. I don't even know if I managed to do so in the past, but the possibility that there might be a point in the future where I just won't be there is somehow… frightening."
To any outsider, that must have sounded very selfish: me worrying about not being able to keep my word. You, however, understood that I had lowered myself to the point to admit that I was just as scared as you by the thought of losing the most precious person I had in this life.
"Well, you know what they say: Weeds grow tall," I swallowed hard, before I reached out to touch your cheek, "While flowers wither much easier…"
I never even got close to your level of poetic speech. To be honest, I rarely tried.
You looked at me with those incredibly bright eyes of yours, and with a passionate intensity you returned: "Don't be scared for my life. Things are very simple: If you want to protect me, make sure that you stay out of harm's way; for if I lose you, my life would not be worth living anymore."
So once again, I tried to be just as calm and together as usual. A perfectly simple mission, nothing to worry about, right?
To say that I had a presentiment would have been too much. But when I walked into the room and saw those looks on their faces, I knew it immediately. All the other signs were not really necessary, the whispered conversations that suddenly stopped, those downcast eyes that did not want to face mine. I could feel the air growing denser, heavier as soon as I entered, and that was enough.
"What happened?" I had addressed the person standing right next to me, but a blonde SOLDIER first class, Alexander Griffin, your next-door-room-neighbour back in Midgar, was the one to answer: "That mission… Rumour has it something went wrong. Apparently the reports the Intelligence Corps sent were incorrect."
"Those guys on the mission… They were not equipped for a fully-fledged battle. Sounds like a complete disaster," another person, wearing the uniform of an infantry sergeant, added right afterwards.
Griffin looked at me as if he wanted to apologize personally for the situation, before he said in a firm voice: "Don't worry. If someone can handle this, it's Genesis. He has a sixth sense for danger; I have seen that in enough simulations."
"Only this time, it's not a simulation, Alex," I replied slowly. "That's what worries me quite a bit."
Painfully slowly, I gathered some bits of information. There were no confirmed reports yet, but obviously the area had not been as clear as it had seemed. An ambush, perfect and flawlessly executed, I had to give our enemies that much. And there was just no way on the planet you could have foreseen that.
Without even thinking twice, I made my way to the executive director's office. Rumours were spreading like wildfire, but what I needed now was solid information, and this was the only place to get it.
Walking down the hallway, I already heard the voices. It sounded like a massive argument, and some of the participants were familiar. To get past the guards, I had to pull rank for the first time in an eternity, and my unusually harsh tone must have made it clear to them that I was not in the mood for discussions.
When I finally entered the office, only a few heads turned to register my appearance. The majority of eyes rested either on the executive director, sitting behind his massive desk, head in his hands, frowning, or on the two people standing right in front of said desk, looking ready to draw their swords at any given minute.
The man on the right was Major David DeVillo, head of the Military Intelligence Corps. The man on the left was half his age, but equal in experience and only weeks away from his promotion to General and commander in charge of the whole Shinra Army. Everybody knew his name, from the rookie in the infantry up to the military elite, which seemed to be present in the room at this very moment. I even knew him as a friend. Sephiroth.
"If you are not satisfied with the work my men do," DeVillo was shouting, "then just send some Turks next time. We'll see how this is going to turn out."
"It can only get better compared to what your people call work," Sephiroth returned in a lower, yet equally annoyed tone. "Were they even there to get some first hand impression? Or was starring at some satellite pictures in the safety of their base all they ever did?"
In order to avoid drawing any further attention to my presence, I decided to stay in the background and watch how things would turn out. To give my mind something different to do than panicking about your possible fate, I scanned the row of people, trying to match names, faces and rankings. My first impression had been right. The whole emergency task force was present, each and every high ranking officer or head of department. Despite the fact that my rank made me equal to those men, I felt lost; and the uneasy feeling that had been following me ever since I spoke to Alex Griffin slowly started to turn into some kind of nausea.
When I felt someone's glance resting heavily on me, I realized that I had lowered my gaze for a minute as if to gather up strength. Looking up again, I met the eyes of Major Stevenson. The Major was a middle aged, well-trained man, connecting officer to the Shinra Science Department and chief materia instructor. In addition, he was one of the few instructors who were quite fond of you, which meant that he treated you a bit less impatient and grumpy than others and occasionally called you his 'favourite student' or, more frequently, 'one of the few people with at least a spark of talent'. Befitting his character, he did not show me a supportive smile or anything close to that, he just denoted a nod in my direction.
I decided to pull myself together and to focus on the ongoing conversation again, which was still led almost exclusively by Sephiroth and DeVillo, just returning an impatient: "I still don't know what all the fuss is about. We are talking about a small unit here, not more than twenty-odd men, most of them only infantry, not even high ranks, so what is the big deal?"
Sephiroth's eyes were glowing coldly. "The big deal is that the loss of those twenty-odd men will still be a disaster, because it spells out the fact that we can't even trust our own reports. This was supposed to be a safe mission. Do you know what it means to the moral of the troops in general if we loose a whole unit on a mission like that?"
Needless to say that my heart almost stopped beating when I heard the last comment. Before I could even try and sort out the mess my thoughts had created on my mind, Major Stevenson's calm voice interrupted the shouting that had followed the final sentence: "Gentlemen, please! Why don't we listen to someone who has actually been there before we decide who bears the blame?"
In the next second, all the voices died down at once as if Stevenson had just cast a high level ice spell on running water. And with an almost simultaneous movement, all heads turned from the Major to the door, or more precisely, to the person standing in the frame.
When you walked into the room, it was like seeing you move in slow motion. You stepped up to the executive director's desk, stood at attention and waited for the orders. When they asked you to speak, you voiced your report, short, down to the point, not a syllable too much.
I have to admit I did not listen to a single word you said. Instead I focused on your every movement, every tiny gesture, calculating, analyzing. I should have been relieved to see you back alive, obviously without a scratch. Still, I wasn't. My heart kept beating completely out of its usual rhythm, and I needed to find out why.
You were so quiet that day. So pale. And somehow it seemed that standing there was a huge effort you were forcing yourself to make. Why was that?
I needed to find out, so when you turned to leave the room, I hurried after you. Reaching the hall, you took a few careful steps, to make sure you were no longer in the field of vision of our superiors, before you stopped, leaning over slightly as if you needed to catch you breath.
"Gen, what's wrong?" I inquired immediately.
You looked at me for the first time, obviously wanting to return that everything was fine. But you never came to voice those reassuring words. Suddenly, something in your glance broke. I threw myself forward in the split of a second, only to feel your body resting heavily against mine right in the next moment. Trying to get a firmer stand and a better hold of you, I carefully moved up my hand, only to find it covered in blood.
When I was a child, our teacher told us during a history lesson that in times of the Ancients, superior officers used to dress in red before they entered a battle. Wearing that brilliant colour was not only a display of bravery, meant to show that they were unafraid of the enemy, but also a tactical measure: if a commander was wounded, the moral of the rest of the troops would deteriorate rapidly; so the red clothes were also worn to disguise any injuries. I never knew that the black uniform we used to wear as SOLDIERs first class was able to serve the same purpose.
Surprisingly enough, my mind was still working flawlessly. I managed to call for help, not hysterically, but instead in the ordinary commanding tone I was allowed to use due to my rank. Right in the next minute, Major Stevenson himself came out of the office and hurried over to my side. I swear I had never seen that composed and calm man move so fast before.
While he did not waste another second to check what was wrong with you, my mind was still trying to process the whole situation.
Later I was able to piece together the actual events with some help of the few survivors (for you would not give me any details apart from what the official report said), but it was only a confirmation of the initial thoughts I had.
You have been called a lot of things by subordinate troops, none of them very positive. The reputation you had could be summed up with a few words: haughty, arrogant, impatient. Most lower ranks immediately rolled their eyes or muttered complaints when they learned that they ended up under your command.
It was true indeed, you treated subordinates in a rather cold and harsh way most of the time, but the reason for that was entirely different from what anybody would have guessed. The reason was that you could identify with them so well, that you were desperately trying not to get too attached to those men, because that would seriously hamper your judgement and your ability to perform your task as an officer in command. You hid it very well, but your heart was always bleeding for them.
Confronted with the assault that day, the rules were clear. You were a superior officer, and even more, you were a member of the special unit, an advanced materia user, and therefore an irreplaceable weapon Shinra needed badly in that war. Their task was to protect your life, at any cost, but you would not have it. When things got heated, there was just one place you wanted to be, and this place was never the background, but always the front row.
It is commonly known that Mako energy reacts with the adrenalin of the body, causing the eyes to light up in a strange bright green light for a second, like sparking electricity. This phenomenon had been labelled "Mako glare" by the scientists. It's quite a frightening sight, and in the case of your opponents, very often the last thing they would see in their lives.
I know what happens to you in such a situation, I have seen it many times before. It's like you changed into a different person, a being for which fighting and killing is as natural and as effortless as breathing. Try to catch a falling star, to cease a raging storm or to stop a running river – chances are that all these tasks are child's play compared to standing against you in a moment like this.
Still, you could not take on all of them on your own. They were too many. You tried, anyway.
Damned, why did you have to play the hero?
Suddenly, the hallway was crowded with people, but I did not even realize that. Stevenson was giving some orders in his usual grumpy tone, starting with "For the love of the Goddess, I can't carry out a proper materia treatment when the patient is lying on the floor and half of the Shinra Army is standing in the way…"
I was still looking down at you, like hypnotized. Carefully, I reached out to remove a strand of hair that had somehow gotten into your face.
The Major's harsh voice finally broke that spell. "Pretty fine mess you've made of that. What were you thinking, Rhapsodos? That casting a low level emergency spell and continue to fight would work out? Never did before, never will…"
Even I knew that an emergency healing spell could be used to close a wound, but only temporally and only for the purpose of transporting an injured person. That fact that you had known that and still took your chances told me the situation must have been pretty bad.
"Is there anything else I can do?" I asked, surprised that my voice sounded as firm and steady as usual.
Stevenson flashed me a cryptic glance. "As far as I remember, Hewley, you have both the wrong blood type and the wrong materia level. So the answer is: 'Nothing, apart from moral support maybe'."
He turned his head and looked at you again. "Just to tell you one thing straight away: I don't intend to lose my most promising apprentice due to his infamous pride, so don't you dare to try and hold up. Your energy level is low enough as it is, and you can't afford to let it drop even more. Any attempt to help my spell would knock you out cold, or worse; so don't even think about it."
As mentioned before, I wasn't exactly a materia expert, but I knew what the expression 'hold up' in connection with a healing spell meant: if the patient had a certain level of materia knowledge himself, he could try and help the treatment. That he declared you unable to do so was speaking volumes about your current state, and about the fact that even he was getting worried by now.
I watched him reaching out for your wrist, frowning, but continuing in the same no-nonsense tone: "And while we are at it: From now on, you are also officially forbidden to do anything unless I tell you to. If you pass out while I'm still talking to you, I'll take that as refusal to obey orders. And that is something I hate even more than untalented materia users."
The last thing I registered for a while was that tiny smile playing on your lips when you replied with a low but steady: "Understood, Sir."
What happened right afterwards is little more than a blur in my memories. I just remember looking into your eyes all the way over to the infirmary. Your eyes were surprisingly calm, with a depth that reminded me of the clear blue lakes back home in Banora. I would have given anything to hold your hand in that moment, but I could not get close enough to you, and I didn't even know if you would have appreciated. So all I could do was keeping eye contact.
The next thing I recall was the concerned expression on Stevenson's face when he had finally removed the top part of your uniform and got a clear view of the injury. I had seen countless wounds before and surely worse than that, still I did not dare to look. The feeling of nausea had increased to an almost painful level, and for the first time in my entire army career, I felt close to passing out.
Stevenson looked down at you, and stated in a teacher-like tone: "Well, favourite student, this time you got on the wrong side of materia treatment…"
You returned a forced smile. "Guess so…" It was a mere whisper, scarcely audible at all.
"You are familiar with the procedure, so that saves me a lot of tiring talk." He briefly inspected the wound again and frowned once more. "That looks like I'm going to be very sorry that I have no chance to put you on any anaesthetics, because they would take time to become affective, and something tells me that we don't have this time."
I swallowed hard when you came up with another brave smile and a powerless: "Don't bother…"
Your ability to speak seemed to deteriorate rapidly, and the strength drained from your body at the same speed the blood did. Ignoring that fact, you forced yourself to add a simple "But…," which caused the Major to stop his preparations for a moment and to lean down in order to listen.
I wasn't standing that far away, but I couldn't hear a single sound. Looking at my best friend in such a sorry state made me feel like a knife was driven through my heart, and the fact that you had to struggle so hard to voice a few words felt like the knife was twisted in addition. Despite that, I am sure that you would have kept your voice low anyway, for you did not want me to get any of it.
Why did you even bother, precious? Don't you know that even if I can't read your mind, I can still read your lips perfectly?
So I could basically hear those words in my head, as if you had spoken them in a normal tone: Tell him to leave.
Stevenson looked down at you quizzically, but not because he had not understood. As he knew about the bond between us as well as everybody else (the surface of course, not what was beneath it), what you said was unexpected.
In the next second, you did something so typical of you that the pain in my chest increased even more. You hate nothing more than impolite, blunt requests; and despite knowing everybody would have understood that it already took an almost inhuman strength to utter those preceding words at all, you added another one, which both the Major and me more guessed than actually heard: Please.
I immediately turned my head to disguise that I had witnessed the conversation, well aware that you would have hated to know that I somehow managed to get what I wasn't supposed to. Your pride was the last thing you would ever give up, and in this moment, I felt that doing damage to such a core feature of your character would have been unforgivable. The eyes of the older man rested on me for a second, and I turned back to meet his gaze just seconds before I heard him say in a harsh tone: "Hewley! Out!"
Even though I had somehow expected that and was used to the commanding tone, my mind basically trembled and started to look for words to refuse, to question at least. But all I came up with was a clearer copy of the single word you had voiced just minutes ago: "But…"
"I'm not discussing this point with you right now. That's an order, SOLDIER."
Ignoring those clear words, I was frozen to the ground, thunderstruck. I suddenly understood that my 'but' had not been addressed to the Major at all. Instead I had made a desperate appeal to you. I knew it, and you knew it, too.
With a movement that must have been incredibly difficult and painful to make, you turned your head to look at me. In your eyes, I could read three things at once:
First, a hint of panic that reminded my of a little child having lost track in a dark forest and starting to doubt his ability to find the way back home. It struck me as a déjà-vu, for I had seen that look on your face before, years ago when we were still in the infantry. Back than, you had voiced the expression that look carried: "I don't want to die like that."
Yet at the same time, there was a second, contradicting expression, one of calmness and acceptance that hurt me even more, though I could not really tell why.
The third element, however, was the most prominent and the most cryptic one at the same time. Your eyes carried a dark, knowing expression that reminded me of something you once told me, something I had put down to your imaginative mind, to your special way to see the world in images and metaphors.
"Do you know the expression 'beauty from pain'? Believe me, something like that exists. When pain gets really unbearable, it clouds my mind and my vision, but only for a moment. Right after that, it is as if fog is melted away by sunlight. I am able to see so much clearer then, as if the world got somehow deeper and much more intense…"
Right now, that was the only word suiting the emotion this silent exchange of glances created in me: intense. Or even more, sublime.
Time was like frozen, until you broke this state to repeat a single, voiceless word, this time aimed solely at me: Please.
I could feel my heart breaking and I had to fight the tears, because I did not want you to see me weak and crying, for this would break your heart in return. There were so many words on my mind, so many things I wanted to say. But I just could not. I managed a weak nod and turned towards the door. I was no longer in control of my body, my legs moved without me even noticing, and my hand reached out to open the door as if it did not belong to me at all. In the last second, I could not fight the urge to look back for one final time.
Our eyes locked once again. You gave me a smile, almost invisible, but so calm it almost seemed celestial. That was more than I could bear. I did not feel my heart anymore, the pain had become too strong; but in the next moment it started to beat frantically as I saw your lips forming words again. For a tiny second, I had the eerie premonition that I knew those words already, and that they would kill me.
"Do you know that some people actually spend their whole life to evaluate what their last words should be?"
"Knowing how obsessed you are with words, are you trying to tell me that you thought about that before, too?" I returned in a slightly teasing tone.
"Of course I did. But it didn't take me very long, for it was easy. If I was about to die, there is just one thing I would like to say. You know that death is not the end of things, don't you? So my last three words would be a statement of eternal truth, a conclusion of this life and a promise for the next, or whatever it is that comes after this one…"
I smiled at that pathetic statement. "Sounds amazing. And what would those words be?"
You looked at me as if it was the most obvious thing on this planet: "I love you."
So right now, in this moment, I felt like dying. I expected those words to be the ones you promised me, sealing your fate, making it clear that I had inevitably lost you. Still I forced myself to keep looking at you, reading every single syllable from your lips, hearing it in my head as if you were speaking in your normal voice that had grown so dear to me. Terribly slow, but inevitably, like the blood dripping to the floor those words dripped from your lips. The first was 'I'… And I silently started to pray for strength I knew I would not have.
It took me an eternity to realize that already the second word was not what I had expected. I was confused, and only after several minutes I was able to figure out what you really wanted to tell me. It was a promise indeed, but of another kind. Those weren't the words I had dreaded to hear.
With that angelic smile still playing on your lips, you simply told me: I won't say it yet.