A/N: Hello, hello... thank you for the reviews, I'm so glad someone's liking this. XD Expect updating to occur around once a week, most likely on weekends...


On Your Mother's Name

Two:

"So! You finally came to this place."

Yazoo watched, speechless, slightly fearful that the boy would fall from so high up in the tree. But then, at closer inspection, he was holding on tightly and his face seemed confident; his face seemed familiar. His body was bound in tight leather that covered him from head to toe except for a small triangle of flesh at his neck; his pulse was beating calmly. Yazoo had never seen anyone other than himself with such silver hair, such piercing green eyes and he was sure for a moment he was looking into a mirror, some distant mirror. Or was it just a dream?

The boy watched him for a second before standing on the branch and said, loud and clear like the morning, "Don't take too long, brother. We've been waiting." And then like some nimble animal, he jumped down from bough to bough until he was on the ground, the grass and leaves flying up around him and he ran off into the woods.

Yazoo blinked, unbelieving of what he'd just seen. He replayed the boy over in his mind and though it had been such a quick encounter, he saw it, frame by frame. The smile on his face; the wind blowing his hair; his grace as he jumped down from the tree – grace that could only be obtained through not being afraid of falling, breaking something, he jumped as if he had fallen a thousand times.

And yet…

There was some fear in his eyes. Maybe fear or resentment.

That hair, those eyes…

Brother, he said.

"Yazoo! Yazoo, what are you doing?"

He turned away from the trees, peeked over his left shoulder and was unsurprised to find his aunt standing on the porch in her slippers, yelling after him. He exhaled slowly.

"You'll catch a cold," she insisted.

Yazoo doubted that; it was starting to warm up even now but he didn't argue and walked for the house, only looking back toward the trees once. He thought he heard something rustling there but saw nothing and kept going. When he reached the porch, the red paint chipping and falling, Carolina watched him worriedly.

"Are you all right? You seem very pale," she said as she shut the screen door behind him.

I'm always pale, he thought but only sat down again and looked up at her. "I'm all right," he said and thought of not mentioning the boy in the tree but if she knew, maybe she also knew who he was. Boys like that, eyes like that, eyes like his, could not be kept secret for long. "Hey," he murmured, watching her as she reseated herself.

"Hmm?"

"When I was out there, I saw someone. A boy."

"A boy?"

Yazoo didn't like it when people repeated what he said. He carried on. "Yes. He was in one of the pine trees, way up high and he… said something to me. Then disappeared. I mean, he jumped down. All the way and ran off."

Carolina blinked at him and then looked to Stanley for help. Stanley seemed very interested in his glass of orange juice however, and provided nothing. The aunt turned back to look at the screen door and the backyard beyond that. "I don't see anyone."

"I said he ran away."

"What sort of things did he say to you?"

"Not much," Yazoo said but already he was hearing it in his head. Hearing that boy call him brother.

Carolina didn't say it but Yazoo could see it appear in her countenance; maybe Yazoo wasn't right in the head, she might be thinking. She reached across the table and placed a gentle hand on his forehead. "Are you sure you're okay? Maybe you should lie down. Maybe your bad dreams are still haunting you."

Yazoo wasn't at all tired but he didn't think he couldn't stand Carolina's sad attempt at mothering for a moment longer. He nodded, muttered something about her being right, and excused himself from the breakfast table. The light from the open door onto the patio petered out on him as he walked down the hallway and back to his new bedroom. He shut the door behind him and was cold. He stood looking out of the window and was cold.

-

Yazoo spent most of the day in bed. He tried to sleep but sleep eluded him; he figured he was too riled up to sleep. His mind was racing and like a movie projector, that boy was moving across the walls of his mind. He was jumping off a tree again and again and finally, sometime close to five in the evening, Yazoo sat up in the bed, eyes alert and distressed.

He was crazy, that was all.

Some crazed boy who had escaped from the carnival or asylum - or perhaps a mixture of the two - was quite confused in calling him brother.

He had never had any siblings. No real ones, anyway. But he remembered about a year ago, when he had just moved in with his Uncle Gavin, he had a young son. The son, Haven, was told to treat Yazoo with respect, like the older brother he never had, but Yazoo was only regarded with resentment and maybe a little jealousy, if only because Yazoo was treated like a god for having brought such wealth upon the disjointed family.

He couldn't say that he enjoyed making Haven feel like an outcast but he did remember the distinct feeling of a smile creep across his face as Haven watched him from afar. Always, always frowning or crying, silently, so his father wouldn't call him a bitch or a pussy as he often did. Once, Yazoo held out a piece of candy to the slightly younger boy and Haven stared at it for a long moment. He shook his head, hesitated, and finally went away and Yazoo never realized that Haven feared it to be poison.

Toward the end, Haven even feared the food his own father sat down in front of him, thinking it laced with arsenic or rat poison. He died of malnutrition and some days after that, Gavin hung himself up in the bathroom archway for Yazoo to see, for everyone to see, because he never meant to poison anyone. Yazoo never meant to poison anyone either but he stayed alive.

His only experience with having a brother was an unhappy one and Yazoo never sought any relatives with young children again. He turned his head toward his bedroom door in the darkening room and sighed. His stomach growled fiercely.

The thought of what Carolina had prepared earlier was still nauseating but he realized he had skipped a good three or four meals already and couldn't miss dinner. He rolled out of bed with a little difficultly and felt woozy on his bare feet. Maybe he was acting so strangely because of the exhausting trip he had just taken.

He read a long time ago that when traveling, your soul traveled at the pace of a camel and it took a while to catch up with you. The way that cab driver had been speeding he was sure his soul was still just getting out of Midgar and maybe that's why he felt so lost.

He opened his bedroom door and the subtle sound of music hit him. It was scratchy and static-snared as if coming through an old radio and Yazoo stepped into the hallway, following the sound. It assaulted his ears savagely and made him cringe as he neared Carolina and Stanley's bedroom. The door was open and Yazoo could see a bed at the side of the room and a desk upon which sat a record player.

The record was spinning quickly, scratching against the needle and as Yazoo stepped into the doorway, he saw Stanley sitting beside the desk in an old chair, creaking under his thin frame. It was as close to breaking as Stanley was.

"Oh, Yazoo," he greeted, his face wrinkled in a smile. He sat in a red set of pajamas; there were stains from breakfast littering his chest and darker, more set-in stains from other meals. Yazoo wondered when those pajamas were washed, if ever. He had been in them that same morning but didn't seem embarrassed at all about his state. "Are you feeling any better? We missed you at lunch."

"I guess I was still tired from my trip," he said, looking at the record go round and round.

Stanley nodded and made a small attempt at shrugging. "I remember traveling all over the country and I'd be tired too. Now, though... I don't travel so much."

Yazoo made a small noise, unsure of how to respond to that.

"Did the music wake you up?"

"No, not really."

"That's good..." he looked back at the record player and his blue eyes seemed to glaze over as he fell silent, lost in the world of static. Yazoo seemed lost in it too, for it reminded him of the humming he had heard when he was on the road and he saw the tower just over the trees and the humming from his dream, something deep in the back of his head. Stanley said, "Maybe you should get out and see the area, Yazoo. It must be boring stuck inside the house with old folks."

Yazoo regarded him strangely and Stanley only continued to look at the music box, his gaze sliding toward the window. He looked out into the front yard, the shadows across the grass that came from the overhanging willow branches, and his brow wrinkled.

"I'm all right," Yazoo said. "Just a little hungry."

"You didn't eat at breakfast."

"Mm."

The old man grinned slightly and raised a white eyebrow to Yazoo. He reached over to the record player and took the needle from the record, placing the room in silence. "I know how it is," he said while shifting in the plush red chair to his left. There was a drawer just below the television and he pulled it open, revealing a bowl of brightly colored candies. "It took me a while to get used to Carolina's cooking too." He reached in and pulled out a bright gold-wrapped treat, holding it out to Yazoo.

Yazoo looked at it for a second, watching it shake slightly in the old man's quaking grasp and reached out to it, took it gently from the ashen palm.

He wondered if it was poison.

So beautifully wrapped, so perfect in its package. Maybe the long road of travel would end here, maybe he would die on the spot from the poisoned candy, just as Haven thought he would. The end of the relatives and strange beds and strange breakfast tables.

Yazoo devoured it quickly and greedily.

-

"The Palace of Jenova," Carolina said as she sat back in the kitchen chair. It squeaked beneath her and Yazoo watched the legs out of the corner of his eye, waiting for the disaster. It never happened. "Oh, it was such a pretty place. I went there in high school for a field trip once and remember the high ceilings and the beautiful stained glass windows. It was really amazing."

"I heard it's all gone to pot since, though," Stanley said as he struggled with cutting his meat.

Carolina nodded. "Right, it's a shame that the schools don't go there anymore. It's falling apart, sure, but it's such a sight... What made you ask, Yazoo?"

He lifted his head and found that his plate was clean. It hadn't been particularly good but since he hadn't fallen down dead from poisoned candy, he had to eat something substantial. He said calmly, looking out onto the dark porch, "When I was coming here, I saw it. Well, part of it. The cab driver told me it was the Palace of Jenova and I haven't been able to keep it off my mind since..."

"It's not far from here; maybe we could go together someday," Carolina said and smiled warmly at Yazoo.

Stanley nodded in agreement.

Things like this were the hardest for Yazoo. He was still quite convinced that Carolina and Stanley only accepted him for the money that he came with but in their eyes, he saw some glimmer of wanting to be a family. And that, of course, they could never have. When Yazoo looked at Stanley hunched over his plate, chewing carefully and attentively, or Carolina lounging in her robe and rubbing Stanley's back, he felt sorry for them. Because he was here, their happiness, whatever sliver they had found in each other, would soon end.

Their world would end and there was nothing Yazoo could do to stop it.

-

A week went by before the uniform came.

It was a regal blue shirt with a white blazer and white pants. There was a dark blue tie and a crest on the left lapel that had a CRHS insignia. Charm Ridge High School, it said. The first thing Yazoo thought when he saw it laid out on his bed was, Is this where that boy goes to school?

But he hadn't had on this uniform and Yazoo's second feelings were a little bit of disgust and despair.

The other families hadn't pushed the subject of school for Yazoo. He was already quite smart and didn't see the real need of education with his money to take care of him. His other relatives understood his explanation just fine and maybe that was because they honestly didn't give a damn. Yazoo spent his days wandering the new houses that had been purchased with some of the money and playing board games by himself.

"Oh, don't give such a face," Carolina cooed and snickered as Yazoo held up the jacket. "Going to new schools is fun!"

"Mm."

"What was your old school like?"

Yazoo peered over the jacket with narrowed eyes. "I didn't have one," he said coldly.

"Oh, I see..."

No, she didn't.

"I don't much like this idea," Yazoo said, setting it back down. "I've never really gotten along with other children."

"Why not?" Carolina tilted her head, the curls of her hair falling in her face. She seemed honestly confused. "You're such a nice young man, of course they'll like you."

To that Yazoo didn't respond. Every reply he could think of would make him seem odd: I don't like the way other children smell; I don't like hearing too many voices at once; I will simply cave in if I have to be asked why my hair is so long.

Carolina held up the jacket as if their previous conversation were over. She scrutinized it a bit. "It could use some ironing..."

-

On Monday the weather was finally starting to get cool and Yazoo was not in a good mood. The house had been entirely too cold for him to get any sleep the night before and he tossed and turned and heard static and something moaning in the back of his head. Maybe he was too scared to sleep and dream but he blamed it on the AC and on his relatives who were too old to know when it seemed to snow in the house.

He was sitting in the passenger's seat of Carolina's old Cutlass that was a rusty blue. The seats were brown and torn and the rearview mirror was beginning to rust as well which Yazoo didn't think was very safe. Carolina bustled into the driver's seat, situating herself so that her large stomach wouldn't hinder her driving too much. Yazoo didn't think that was very safe either.

She was wearing makeup: blush and lipstick and eyeshadow. It all seemed very odd since she was only dropping Yazoo off at the school and coming right back home but Carolina had said this was a big day.

The engine started.

"You look really handsome," she said, pulling out of the driveway.

"Mm."

The car was barely going twenty miles an hour and that only added to Yazoo's dour state of mind. He opened the window but his hair didn't stir or fly up around his shoulders like when he was on the highway and the cab seemed to be going a hundred miles an hour. He felt stationary and ugly and was sitting next to an ugly woman and going to some ugly prison.

The ride was quiet and solemn and Carolina could feel Yazoo seething beside her but kept up a one-sided conversation. When they arrived, there were teenagers everywhere, crawling over the campus like vermin. The building was widespread over a field and flags were raised high, flying in the breeze. Beyond the soccer field and track, there were woods and, beyond that, Yazoo's eyes brightened to see, yes, the tower, that which was the Palace of Jenova.

"When I thought I'd never see it again," he murmured to himself.

"What's that you said?" Carolina asked hopefully, thinking he was cheering at seeing how nice the school was.

Yazoo only shook his head. "Nothing," he said and gathered his backpack from between his feet on the floor.

"Have a good time, Yazoo."

He opened the door and slammed it shut behind him. He walked off over the grass and sidewalk, following the others towards the front of the building and the two glass doors there.

Everyone who surrounded him was in the exact same uniform with the exception of the girls' short blue skirts. They walked with purpose and with friends and their voices were shrill and loud in the echoing hallway. Yazoo felt lost and encompassed in too many moving things throughout the day; it was a hassle just to change classrooms and the looks he was receiving. The girl who sat in front of him in his math class kept looking over her shoulder at him, as if she didn't really know what to make of this strange thing sitting in the class - was he human?

The cab driver had been right, most of the boys did have buzz cuts. Yazoo was sure that when they looked at him, the only thing that kept them from thinking he was a girl was his lack of skirt. They watched his hair as if they would like to stroke it, like petting some animal. Yazoo tried not to make eye contact and between classes he would steal away into the restroom for some semblance of quiet.

It was torture. There was a boy in the stall next to him and Yazoo could hear him piss and moan and it was unbearable.

In a fit of some strange rage at being put here like some insolent child, he lashed out at the wall between the two stalls, banged on it harshly before leaving his own and the other boy let out a startled, horrified yelp.

It was time for fifth period but Yazoo found the back exit in the building, walked past the other students, and went for the fields just to the side of the school. He was walking briskly, not quite running, and yet wanting to get far away from that place.

His breath was shallow when he reached the top of a small hill just between the softball and baseball fields and he looked up at the bright, blue sky, his cheeks pinked. He let out a breath and closed his eyes briefly before opening them on the ground. He clenched his fists at his side, sweating into his blazer.

"Brother!"

Yazoo's head jerked up.

"Brother, I feel your pain," he said, standing at the mouth of the clearing. It was the boy from more than a week ago, bound in his leather outfit, his chin raised to Yazoo, showing his face proudly almost like some gold medal.

"It's you," Yazoo breathed and took a step toward him. "How did you know I was here?"

He only smirked, and said, "With each step you take towards us, I feel your emotions all the more. We all feel you, Yazoo. Why don't you come home?"

"You know my name..." Yazoo hesitated. He didn't understand what he was talking about or why he pursued Yazoo like this. But even as they stood there, staring each other down from fifty feet apart, Yazoo began to hear that murmuring in the back of his head again and felt dizzy. He raised his eyes slightly and saw the tower outstanding over the forest.

The boy took a step back and said, loudly, "Race you!" and took off running into the forest.

Yazoo was running before he even realized it and didn't really know why, only knew he couldn't lose him, not again.

-

To be continued.

-

A/N: Thanks for reading! There'll be a lot more SHM next chap but you know I have to set stuff up, right? Thoughts and comments are really appreciated.

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