BROTHERS
By: Albedosreqium / Soyna
Setting: Crisis Coreish but more AU than anything. …
Rating, Characters, Genre and Warnings:
Mature because of gore. Death of a character. Sephiroth and Yazoo. A 'What if' fic. Hurt/Comfort and Horror. DARK! Really, starts off cute and then goes to hell from there.
Disclaimer: All related Final Fantasy names and characters are copyrighted by the almighty Square Enix©. I do not profit from this endeavour.
Summary and Additional Information
An Art Trade with BMIK/Superkalifrag. She wanted a story with Sephiroth and/or Yazoo and this is what became of it. Er… most likely not what she was expecting, but as you all know, I am no good at following even my own instructions.
Sephiroth always wanted a family and once he finds one, he is not going to let go.
Sephiroth hated going down to the lab and dealing with Hojo. It was a monthly trip that was necessary for him and he dreaded going into his designated lab. Twenty-seven-A. He hated that room and he hated the people that were in there and the mandated tests that he was forced to endure.
And today, of all days, the elevator was not running. He was grumpy, sore and pissed off and now he had to take the stairs back up. He threw opened the door with a loud bang as he entered the stairwell. "Who scheduled maintenance at this time of day, anyway," he muttered to himself.
He stomped up three flights of stairs before he heard something and started to tread more quietly. It was a small sound. Most people would have missed it. He heard the sound again; it was a low whimper that was up ahead. He tilted his head and strained his ears.
The frightened whimper returned. He followed the sound to the next flight of stairs and he could see a small figure hiding in the shadows in a small service alcove. He half expected a monster to be hiding there. It wasn't uncommon for monsters to escape the labs and be found in various corners of the building, so it wouldn't be the first time.
He drew his sword and prepared to skewer the escaped monster. He would have to deal with it sooner or later if it came from one of Hojo or Hollander's experiments. They were always competing on who would be creating the next monster.
He froze in place as this was not what he was expecting to see at all.
He was not prepared to see a child.
His breathing quickened at the appearance of the creature –- no child - that was huddled in the shadows. It startled him and made him angry.
The boy was a small wisp of a child with long legs and wearing nothing but a simple hospital type gown. One of the child arms were tightly wrapped around his legs and the other one placed over his mouth as if he were trying to stifle a terrified scream. The large green slitted eyes told him all that he needed to know about where the boy was from. His silver hair hung loosely around his face as if he were trying to hide behind it.
The General stared down at the scared boy and watched the green eyes follow him. The boy was terrified.
It was a familiar situation that he did not want to remember.
Of course, Hojo had found him instead of someone else, as he had been cowering in a broom closet trying to get away from some test that he knew that was going to hurt. Anyone finding him would have been better than Hojo. He could understand the boys fear.
"What are you doing here?"
The boy moved his hand from his mouth and he could see a similar bone structure in the face. There was no mistaking it. He tried to still the anger so that he wouldn't scare the child. It wasn't the boy's fault that he was an experiment of a mad doctor. The child had no control over how he was brought up, much like himself.
The boy only shrugged and chewed his lip in response to the question.
He looked all of eight years old.
"What's your name?" Sephiroth asked, lowering his tone to a level where he hoped he wouldn't be as intimidating. The boy hugged his legs tighter and looked around him, as if he was trying to escape. Sephiroth knew instinctively what he was looking for. He grew up with the fear of talking because the cameras always saw and heard everything that he did and if he did something wrong; it usually was a painful correction.
"There is no need to be afraid here. I'm Sephiroth," he said trying to coax an answer from the boy.
The boy swallowed visibly before speaking in a small and shaky voice. "Sephiroth?"
Sephiroth controlled his anger but couldn't hide his frown. "Are you just repeating my name or is that your name too?"
He wouldn't put it past Hojo to name his further experiments after him. He wondered if there was a number on the boy's hand like his own, but he couldn't see it at the moment.
"Ya-Yazoo," the boy finally whispered and then buried his face in his knees as if he were waiting to be punished for talking.
"Yazoo," Sephiroth tried to sound soothing as he examined the boy. "Why are you hiding here?"
Yazoo swallowed hard and let out a whimper. A tear trickled out of his green eye and down his dust covered cheek. "I- I was looking for my-my brothers," the boy sniffled and scrubbed at his cheek as if he were ashamed to be crying.
"Brothers?"
More like him. More like this boy? The bastard had made more after he was told that his human experimentations would cease. He knew Hojo had something to do with this. He was certain of it and he was going to have to put a stop to this madness.
"I-I think he t-took them away."
Sephiroth looked down at the boy and let his anger show. This small child was obviously another illegal experiment and from the immediate appearance it had everything to do with him. The boy let out a whimper and buried his face in his knees to wipe the tears off his face before looking back up at him.
"How many brothers do you have?" Sephiroth asked.
The boy shrugged and started to rock back and forth. His green-slitted eyes were focusing on nothing around him.
He unclenched his fists that he didn't realize he was holding and rolled his shoulders, trying to shake off the anger that was starting to consume him. He knew that reacting on pure emotion often lead to catastrophe. He was seeing so much of himself in this boy rocking on the floor.
He remembered being lost and alone. He remembered being scared and having no one to help him with the fear. He remembered running away only to be dragged back into the sterile room that was his home.
The boy suddenly focused on him, as if he was startled from a dream. "I don't want to go away!" he yelled and slapped a hand over his mouth as his cry echoed in the stairwell.
Tears started to fall from the child's eyes and he could hear him trying to control the cries that were threatening to bubble forth. Little Yazoo started to rock himself back and forth as he was trying to wash away the anguish.
Exactly like how he used to deal with the pain and the fear before he learned to block out those emotions. Sephiroth had learned that emotions did not control his actions any longer; he followed logic.
Yazoo whimpered and looked up at him. His small frame shaking as he hid his face behind his veil of hair. Logic dictated that he take the boy back to where he came from and leave him there.
Logic no longer applied. He knew his past memories and all those strong emotions came bubbling forth at the simple whimper from the smaller version of himself.
He took a couple of small steps forward and knelt in front of the frightened boy. The boy shrank into himself and let out a sob. Yazoo seemed as if he was trying to push himself into the wall; to escape.
He reached out a hand towards the boy and in the softest voice he could manage, "I will be your brother."
He waited for Yazoo to respond to him.
This is what he had wished for when he was scared and alone. A brother that would come and take him away from everything. A brother that understood what he was going through and that could make things better.
He never had that but dreamed of it often.
He could give that to Yazoo.
Yazoo looked through his hair at him. His green eyes growing bigger as he looked up at him. the boy was sizing him up and calculating. The boy was not stupid but he was wary as anyone that was raised in the labs should be.
He could read that expression; Yazoo thought it was too good to be true.
"If you want me as one," Sephiroth added and held out his other hand as in an invitation for an embrace.
That invitation changed everything. Suddenly the warm small body was pressed against him and shaking arms snaked around his torso. A pained sob escaped the boy's throat as he pressed his face against his chest. Sephiroth wrapped his arms around the figure and moved so that he was sitting cross legged on the stair well landing. He adjusted his little brother so that he was fully seated in his lap and let the boy cry.
He pushed the silver hair back from his face and he was able to see himself in the boy. He saw similar eyes; his hair felt he same, his skin tone was the same. The boy was part of him and he wasn't going to let that go.
They had made clones of others.
He had always wondered if they had ever made clones of him and now he had the answer.
No, he would not call him a clone. He would call him brother.
He waited for Yazoo's tears to lessen as he stroked the young man's hair and back to calm him. He waited patiently as his tears slowed and his shaking stopped.
He smiled softly as he looked down into eyes that were similar to his own. "Which lab are you from?"
Yazoo tensed all over again. "I don't w-want to go back!" the boy whined and wiggled in his arms as if he were trying to escape.
Sephiroth held him firm, understanding his fear. "I need to know where so I can stop them from taking you back," Sephiroth whispered and soothed the tension in the small figure. "I won't allow it. I promise, brother."
Yazoo swallowed and sniffled, "Really?"
"Yes, really."
Yazoo stared at him intensely for a moment. He could see the boy wondering if he could trust him. If his past was anything like his own, Yazoo would have been lied to and trust was not something that he could allow without getting hurt.
Sephiroth would show him that things could be different.
Yazoo reached up and touched his face. He allowed the touch as the smaller fingers ran over his nose and jaw before they fell into his lap again and in a small voice, the boy whispered, "Twenty-seven B."
hr
It was a spectacle to behold; Sephiroth charging back into the labs with his sword drawn and fury written across his face. The oddest part of it was the small wisp of a boy that sat on his hip wearing nothing but a thin hospital gown and his arms wrapped tightly around Sephiroth's neck.
Hojo had started to say something. A few words about how glad he was to see that he had found his missing specimen.
There was no indication that Sephiroth was going to kill Hojo until the sword thrust through the doctor's chest and Hojo stopped talking. Hojo looked comically confused as he looked down at the thin piece of steel that had skewered him.
The sneer on Sephiroth's face was terrifying and the large, nearly joyful, smile on the other boy's face was just as disturbing. "No more," Sephiroth had said as he pulled his blade out expertly and before Hojo's body could slide to the floor, he took a quick slice and the doctor's head was separated from his body.
Sephiroth then went and picked up the head by the hair, still smiling as he did so. "See," Sephiroth whispered as he held the head to the boy in his arms. "I told you that you won't have to go back, little brother."
The boy grabbed the bloody head by the hair, and with as big of a smile the boy looked at Sephiroth with a look that could only be described as joy. "Thank you, brother."