57/100: Insanity. Angeal/Genesis
I can truthfully say there is no Hojo/Hollander in this one.

Disclaimer - Characters are not mine. Shame really D':

Insanity

What Had To Be Done

Angeal/Genesis

Beautiful, sunny, picturesque Banora. Green fields ran to the horizon, cut into organised segments by brown wooden fences where the land was not used for orchards. Arbours of Banora White stretched on for what had seemed like miles as a child, but it was plain to see they ran for thirty yards at most.

Nonetheless, they still offered the same shade, the same smell and the prize of their fruit, if one was tall enough to reach.

Never eat windfall apples, Gillian had warned years upon years ago. Genesis had only disobeyed her once, which had led to his lifelong disgust and hatred of bugs. One had only to find half a worm in their apple to feel the same.

Genesis glanced around, scanning the lush wasteland with eyes smouldering with the coldest fire. The wind tore through him from his height on the top ledge of the cliffs that overhung the industrial side of the small village. His hair flew wildly, obscuring his vision until he raised an arm to pull it back. Such a simple act had him wincing as muscles protested, falling limp for a moment afterwards to recover from the routine motion.

Angeal, though he had said nothing, was with his mother, perhaps ranting on about pride and dreams and lack thereof. He had changed. Genesis didn't know him anymore. Time had moved on; their relationship had evolved and twisted and broken down until Genesis couldn't understand why Angeal had joined him. The dark haired soldier had yet to actually voice his decision and had often wavered on the sidelines, commenting and reprimanding Genesis' motives and actions, but they strove towards the same goal. Angeal wanted Genesis healed.

He wanted him healed so he would stop this game of destruction and hurting those close to them. But for Genesis, the degradation had put things into a sharp perspective. He wasn't immortal, and if he was ever to fulfil his dream, he had to break away from the grasps of ShinRa and escape the looming shadow of Sephiroth.

Coming back to Banora – the place where the adventure of his life had begun – Genesis had hoped to have a new beginning, where Angeal would make his choice and they would go together and find the cure and liberate the planet from ShinRa's unrelenting, ever-thirsty need to take and take until there was nothing remaining. Instead, his hope for this renaissance was lost between the memories. The bad and the good mingled to remind him of nothing but the loss of his happiness, health and possible future.

Genesis jammed his eyes shut and released the breath he didn't recall holding. Yes, things would never be the same now. Angeal, in a moment of self-righteous idiocy, had pushed him down and broken him. Genesis had turned to Angeal – only Angeal – in his desperation and that was how he reacted? Things would change. Genesis Rhapsodos always got his way.

It was time to start from the very beginning.

-

The house was almost exactly as he remembered it: still reeking of his mother's sickly sweet perfume and furniture polish. The wallpaper had changed, spreading the only colour along the walls from the dark browns of expensive fashioned wood. Lights hung from the walls and ceilings in almost every room. Their shrill humming laid the base for sounds of the house, dominated by the gentle song of a well-tuned piano. A recording of a piece that had been engraved deeply in his mind.

Closing his eyes as he stalked down the hallway, he could see his fingers playing over the ivory keys of his parent's piano, perhaps still up in the study, and Angeal at his side, listening and loving him.

The pair were spaced out around the living room, his father by the window, a newspaper obscuring his face and upper body; his mother sat at the mahogany table. For a moment they raised their eyes – dark, unlike his crystal blue, then returned to their trivialities. As a child, this was a standard that the couple were always sure to keep. Genesis would back out of the doorway, where he stood now, and go up to his room; sneak out of his window and go to see Angeal. As a man…

Silently, he entered the room. The thick carpet was soft under his boots, different from the metal of the ShinRa building, like the grass of the fields around the village where the animals grazed. Yes, these two lived like animals, with their decadence and fanciful belongings in some misguided sense of self-importance.

Still, neither of them acknowledged him: no word of welcome for a son they hadn't seen in years. It wasn't that they didn't recognise him - who else possessed the colours, confidence and conceit that he had wrapped himself snugly in as a teenager? No, what they did was intentional, as it always had been.

Genesis was different.

Genesis was wrong.

People hate what they fear and pretend that it doesn't exist.

With a smile as blatantly artificial as his mother's beauty, Genesis bent over to snatch the newspaper out of his father's hands. There was a yell of indignation, a curse and a glare shot straight through Genesis.

"Now that I have your attention," he said coolly, voice sharp and bitter but still as smooth and languid as he was known for. He rolled the newspaper into a tight tube and absentmindedly toyed with it as he flung himself back into the stiff, brocaded black armchair in the corner of the room, as opposite to his parents as possible. The red leather of his coat cascaded off the seat, a vivid contrast to the onyx that surrounded and enclosed him and soon to be the only colour, when his hair and skin faded to ash.

"Why did you come here?"

Genesis nestled deep into the chair, pleased with their discomfort. It was satisfying to know that after all the years he still need only enter a room to see them squirm, and now it wasn't only because of their disgust and loathing. He could taste their fear. Well-deserved as it was, he had done nothing to merit that pleasure. Yet.

"Information," that sweet smile returned. Eyes curved narrowly and his hands ghosted over the raised velveteen floral pattern of the chair. Through the leather of his gloves, it was nothing more than a softer texture and probably would have been so with bare fingers. More than the pain, fatigue and exhaustion, the loss of the most precious sense of touch was what drove him to search to cure himself of the degradation. That, and the threat of death like he'd never had as a SOLDIER. There was nothing heroic in rotting like a carcass in the sun.

"Why don't you tell me everything?"

"Like what?" his mother asked. The sound of her voice far from the calm, gentle tones that were often related to a woman with such a position. She couldn't have been a greater contrast to the only other maternal woman Genesis had ever known.

Genesis sighed, dropping the newspaper to the floor. His father's dark eyes followed it, if only to escape the predatory mako-blue gaze he had fallen prey to. "Why not from the beginning? Why you lied to me all these years; why you never told me that you-"

"She told us we were to say nothing. You were to know nothing."

"Well, wasn't that considerate?" Genesis mused, entertained by their reactions. How their little hearts beat like bird's wings, vulnerable and fearful. Unlike before, during the wars and turbulent relationships he found himself tied up in, he was the cat: the one in control. Cool, calculated; an efficient killer. "I take it 'she' is Gillian, the scientist?" His reply was two curt nods.

A wave of bitterness flowed through him, settling deep into his stomach. Another one he had trusted had betrayed him. Or was it that Gillian knew what Genesis would suffer, mentally, when the mists of his birth were cleared and his suspicions were confirmed? His parents were not his parents; his brothers were not his true brothers…. and he had been created and cast away. A failure.

"She said we were to raise you, and then you would leave and never come back."

"Am I a disappointment then?"

His mother laughed loudly, a harsh cackle that ricocheted around the room and rang painfully, echoing in Genesis' mind. "Oh no, you've turned out exactly as she warned – a monster."

And there it was.

The excuse.

The start of his new beginning. And their end.

The spark was lit to Genesis' short fuse. Much shorter than ever before. Usually there was a moment in which if he fought to reclaim his mind and quell the fire in his mind; he would simply snap a bitter remark and walk away, but in this state… There would be no going back.

The metres between where he had been sprawled out comfortably to where his mother was were breached in the blink of an eye. There was a crash he barely heard as the table was overturned, glasses and a bowl of orange potpourri tumbling to the ground. Then the woman was choking; making awfully interesting sounds as she gasped for breath that never made it into her system.

Genesis had the strength to simply break her neck, even with just his fingers, but to do so would not give him as much pleasure. And he was enjoying this. The way her eyes were desperate, frantically glancing around the room in hope of finding something, but against a SOLDIER? Genesis was certain that she knew that there was nothing.

Even her husband – now that Genesis had completely disassociated himself with these two – was nothing more than a fly, buzzing obscenities, threats, promises of death (such a fate would be a dream to Genesis the way the degradation afflicted him) and trying to fend him off. With a backhanded swipe of his left arm, the man was sent back to the corner of the room he came from.

For the first time in months, Genesis was having fun. In fact, he doubted if he had ever felt this way before, knowing that all those times as a child with Angeal and the latter years in SOLDIER with Sephiroth were wholly a waste of time. They didn't even bear thinking about.

And even when the woman had stopped struggling; a silent, limp rag doll held up by a single hand, the feeling of dominance was like never before. Not even when standing alone on a battlefield, slain, dead and dying warriors strewn like children's toys at his feet had he felt elation like this.

Those enemies were strangers, they had done nothing to him; they meant nothing. These were people who had lied to him, ignored him, insulted him and abused him. This was revenge in its purest form. And it tasted so sweet upon his sharp tongue.

He glanced nonchalantly at the breathless body, its eyes like frosted glass; face contorted and reddened under layer upon layer of make-up. The racket behind him remained devoid of words as the SOLDIER turned, dropping the lifeless woman back to the sofa with a loud, ungraceful thud. Limbs tumbled over each other and she fell still half off the sofa, eyes still staring straight ahead in abhorrent terror.

The male stood, fists at eye level and teeth bared, spiting venomous remarks at Genesis. Even though in his mental state, the words did not register, the tone was crystal clear, like the shrill screaming of a siren in his ears. It was the same tone, pitch and stress as when the man, years ago, was yelling at Genesis for his uncouth behaviour, spending time in the intimate company of a farmer's boy from the village.

Mayor Rhapsodos had always hated Angeal. Every glance was a glare; every word an insult.

Angeal had always been there to protect Genesis' honour as a child… and although he was making a poor show of it now – when Genesis really needed it – Genesis would at least return the gesture.

For the first time fear flooded into those dark eyes and all the aggression left the man completely. He could've tried to escape, but deep down even he had to admit his time had come. Judgment had finally caught up in the form of a flurry of scarlet malice.

-

Maybe blood would've painted a far nicer memory in his mind. If only it were clean enough to spill. Genesis did not want to taint his blade so. No, not the one sword that he could pour his soul into when it came to fighting in the name of his Goddess and his entire life. He left them were they fell, disgustingly beautiful bruises around their necks. Dead.

Outside the sun was shining – the only thing it ever did in Banora – and for once it was idyllic. Angeal stood under the largest apple tree in the entire village district, arms crossed and expression stern. Genesis sauntered out of the house, trotting down the wooden steps with undeniable glee and self-accomplishment. His eyes were bright, smiling and glowing from the increased mako treatments he'd been receiving lately, awoken by the surge in adrenaline.

Dark blue eyes flicked up to see him; the younger SOLDIER's face twisted at the sight. And he stiffened as Genesis approached closer still until they were pressed together without a breath of air between them. Genesis' skin was hot to the touch, his breathing fast and he was evidently aroused and hungrily consuming what was exposed of his neck by the standard First Class black sweater.

Doing so meant one thing: Genesis was so incredibly proud of one thing he had consummated that he thought he could get away with anything. From climbing the highest cliff to slaying a whole platoon of soldiers single-handedly, Angeal had found himself prey to Genesis' self-ignited lusts. But now he pushed the titillated redhead back to his own height and held him at the safety of an arm's length.

"What have you done, Genesis?" Angeal demanded, voice strong, unwavering. All the things Genesis had looked up to him for as a child.

"What I should've done years ago," the SOLDIER replied, grinning wolfishly. He tried to find his way back to the raven haired man's body and feel it impossibly close to his own, but the grasp to his shoulders did not falter, even when Genesis exercised his renowned litheness and hooked one of his legs around Angeal's waist and attempted to pull him closer.

Angeal's eyes darted to the house and he let go of Genesis immediately and didn't look to see if the man had regained his balance from the awkward position and remained upright. If he had fallen, Angeal doubted he would've stopped to pick him up again. He'd been doing so all his life, and if Genesis had done what he suspected, he'd rather just leave the redhead – a cruel insult to the man he once knew and loved – to rot in the dirt.

Watching as the SOLDIER disappeared into the house that always was a daunting reminder of his poor childhood and maltreatment at the hands of the landlord and lady, Genesis' lips cracked into a smirk and he turned onto the path that led down the hill and to the old apple factory – where his little empire of Banora White juice had begun – and where he had chosen to place his first stronghold and base for his army of clones and stolen machinery.

Genesis strolled off, hands clasped behind his back and head held high, thoroughly contented. Everything was as he wished it to be: Angeal would clean up after his deeds… burying his parents in a make-shift grave at the base of their apple tree… there would be more bodies to join them soon enough. Many more.

The world, especially Angeal, was so easy to manipulate. He always was and always would be. This new world was fun.