Win
to Lose
Part Seven: Cradle
Summary:
Sephiroth gets angry.
Author's Note: For more information on
Zack and Sephiroth at the ages of 14 and 19, respectively, check out
Never Lost by Phoenix Dayze, posted here under that name. It's
hilarious, I promise. We also have some co-authored fics
posted on under her name, if you like my stuff and want more to read.
Cloud winced as he was slammed against the wall, sliding down to the base and hanging his head low. Too soon. Sephiroth wasn't supposed to be awake yet. He must have miscalculated somehow! Closing his eyes, Cloud sighed. It didn't matter; he'd known that this was a distinct possibility from the beginning, and it was a chance he'd been all too willing to take. Now…he was lying on the ground with the Masamune drawing a thin line of blood along his throat, and it seemed like death might be a definite possibility. The game was over.
Sephiroth had ended it, and the General was perfectly justified in claiming retribution for Cloud's impudence. He'd known Zack since the age of nineteen, when Zack had been just a scrawny fourteen year-old recruit. They had been friends for a long time, and they had a lot of history together. And Sephiroth had claimed Zack. Not outright, and Zack certainly didn't know he'd been claimed, but Cloud had seen it. And he'd known. Zackary Donovan belonged to General Sephiroth.
But Cloud had danced in anyway and taken Zack from Sephiroth. He'd conspired to keep the General distracted by sabotage; he'd drugged him, and he'd had him physically harmed. He had even gone so far as to display his power over the great Zackary Donovan in the General's own apartment. In the General's bed. Or at least that's what everything would have looked like to Sephiroth.
Cloud looked up and followed the long blade of the sword until he met the General's poisonously angry eyes. He would deserve all the torture Sephiroth could possibly inflict upon him. I was so close…just a few more minutes and everything would have ended like I'd planned… But that didn't matter now. He'd been caught, and caught fairly. He'd won, in a way. The aim had been to get an admission, to force truth into the open air and break down the barriers that separated the three of them. And he'd gotten his admissions. But he was losing Zack and the General both, and probably his chance of making SOLDIER as well, if not his life. Cloud licked his lips. "Disappointed, General Sephiroth?"
Sephiroth snarled. "Yes. I thought you showed promise, Strife. But now it seems that your ambitions outstrip your abilities, after all."
"Yes, sir." Cloud swallowed, feeling the sting as the blade dug a bit deeper into his flesh. "At least…I might have made some slight miscalculations."
"Slight…"
But there was an interruption, a stirring from the bed behind Sephiroth as Zack twisted around to look at them, his arms still held suspended above his head. "Seph…"
"Don't worry, Zackary." Sephiroth cut him off, not even taking his eyes off of Cloud for the moment he would have needed to glance behind him at Zack. "I'm taking care of it." He stared down at Cloud, his green eyes cold and hard. "I understand wanting power. I know plenty of grasping men who crave it. And I can see the rush a recruit might get from exerting control over a superior officer. I can even see why you would choose to do what you did—why here, why these circumstances—the ultimate the thrill and the ultimate insult all at once. The only thing I don't understand, Strife, is how you managed it. Zackary is an immensely powerful man. He is strong, intelligent, talented, and not easily threatened. So just what is it you have, Cloud? What gives a cadet enough power to assault and control a First Class SOLDIER?"
"Seph, no! That wasn't—" But Zack's protest was silenced as Sephiroth moved back just a step and clamped a leather-clad hand over his mouth, too angry, too hurt by Cloud's seeming betrayal to register Zack's interruptions as anything more than soft-hearted objections to the physical harm of a boy as young and small as Cloud.
Cloud's mouth opened, but no sound came out as he realized just what it was Sephiroth thought had been happening. He thought…rape? But I couldn't…would never… Oh, shit… And he babbled out the only coherent scrap of thought that he could hold onto. "But…I love him…"
And Sephiroth jerked as if he'd been struck a physical blow. His eyes burned—everything burned—and he pulled back, readying himself for a killing strike. "You love him, and that didn't stop you from trying to take what was only his to give?" He pulled back his lip in a disgusted grimace. "You love him. Well, Cloud, let me say that I, too, love Zackary, as I love you. And even as you did not allow love to stand in the way of your desire, I will not allow love to prevent me from carrying out my duty to protect the men in my charge." And, locking his aim on Cloud's exposed, vulnerable throat, he began to move.
-------------------
Zack strained to snap the steel cord constricting his wrists as he'd been struggling to do since Sephiroth had first entered the room. He thrashed his head in a vain attempt to break the General's grip on his jaw. He knew Sephiroth, and Seph could be…territorial. Overprotective. Zack knew what it must have looked like—not to mention sounded like—to the General, from where he'd been standing, and, if Zack was certain of anything in the this world, it was that Sephiroth cared for him. Deeply. He was the only thing the General had, the first person who'd ever bothered to become his friend.
And, by the look of it, Seph had been on edge lately, apparently as twisted up and conflicted inside as Zack himself had been. In love with Zack—Zack was a bit too preoccupied to really absorb that for the moment—and in love with Cloud, unable to reconcile one with the other, unable to approach either of them, Sephiroth must have been in agony. And now this…to come home and find the objects of his affection naked in his bed, to see one of his loves apparently tormenting the other…Zack shook his head and strained harder against the steel cord. It was no wonder Seph had reacted as he had.
At that moment, Sephiroth lunged for Cloud's throat, and Zack forgot how to breathe. He had to move, had to break free of Spike's damnable bonds before it was too late. With a scream borne of fear and denial and a surge of strength borne of desperation, Zack shattered the cord. His mind briefly registered the ripping of skin and the loud snap of breaking bone as he threw himself to his feet, but he ignored the pain and flung his benumbed arms around the General's shoulders, forcing his left hand to close around Sephiroth's on the hilt of the katana and pulling back hard, keeping the blade from reaching its mark. "It wasn't rape, Seph. I'm fine. Cloud didn't do anything."
Sephiroth looked back over his shoulder at Zack. "But you said…"
Zack nodded. "I did. And I meant it, Seph. I am in love with you. But I also love him, just like you. I…I'm not quite sure what was going on when you came in, but it wasn't what you think it was." Zack almost growled in frustration at the feral, almost unthinking rage that still simmered behind his General's eyes. "Come on, Seph. Come back to me. You don't want to hurt him. You're in love with the little bastard too, remember? Why don't we find another way to pay him back for his little games?"
Sephiroth took a deep breath and nearly choked as awareness flooded his senses. Games. They were just games…the innocent love games of a fifteen year-old boy. No rape, no betrayal, no intention to harm or control. Just games. And he'd almost… Slowly, deliberately, Sephiroth allowed his sword to fade away. He didn't need it now, not here.
Shrugging Zack's arms off his shoulders, he moved to kneel before Cloud, reaching out to cup the boy's face gently in his hands. He stared into Cloud's liquid blue eyes, wondering how he could ever even begin to atone for what he'd almost done. "Cloud…"
But Cloud just shook his head and launched himself forward into the General's arms. He buried his face in Sephiroth's neck for a moment, reveling in the sheer relief of finally getting to touch the man. His heart was still pounding, but even now the fear was bleeding away. He wasn't going to die. The General wasn't going to kill him, and Sephiroth had said… Cloud looked up sharply. Then, as Sephiroth's arms folded themselves uncertainly around his bare shoulders, he pressed a kiss just beneath the man's ear. He grinned. "I love you too."
Zack snorted as he dropped down to sit beside them on the floor. "Yeah, yeah. What a touching little reconciliation you two have going on here. But uh…Seph…I don't suppose you can do something about my hands?"
Sephiroth and Cloud both blinked and swiveled their heads around to look at him. They winced in unison. Zack's wrists were cut and bleeding, the blood seeping from the deep lacerations caused by the shredding metal mesh to flow in lines down his forearms, and it was smeared in red streaks across his palms. His right wrist was broken, dark and swollen where Zack held it, cradled carefully in his lap.
Zack shrugged. "No big deal, really. But, damn, Spike. You must have spent a lot of time looking for rope a SOLDIER couldn't break through. That shit was tough."
Cloud blushed and bit his lips. "I'm—"
But Zack shook his head, in lieu of waving him off. "No apologies, Spike. All's well, right? Or it will be if you'll go grab Seph's Restore materia for me."
Cloud looked up at Sephiroth from his position almost—but not quite—in the General's lap.
Sephiroth nodded. "It's in a safe in my closet. The combination is 17-22-15."
Zack snorted again as Cloud shot off toward the closet. "If you'd shared that little tidbit of information with me, this whole mess might have gotten straightened out a lot sooner. Without all the bloodshed even."
Sephiroth glared at him. "Zackary…"
"No, don't worry about it. I think it's cute, Seph, using our ages as a locker combination? It's so…middle school of you."
"Are you trying to tempt me into breaking your other wrist for you?"
"I don't know," Zack grinned. "That depends on whether you'd still love a man with two useless arms."
Luckily, Cloud returned then, saving Sephiroth from having to respond as he sat down, leaning close to Zack's side and holding the green materia out to Sephiroth.
Sephiroth took the small, glowing globe and focused his attention. Closing his eyes and wrapping his fingers carefully around the broken wrist Zack held out to him, he cast the strongest healing spell he knew, concentrating most of the energy on that particular limb and allowing the rest to trickle away into Zack's body, where it would close the scratches on Zack's other wrist. Finally, when he felt the bones set and begin to knit, he leaned back and opened his eyes, releasing Zack's arm almost reluctantly.
Zack flexed his wrist experimentally. "Huh. Still a bit sore, and I don't think I'll be handling a sword for a few days, but I'm not gonna need a cast or anything, thank Shiva." He grinned again. "Thanks, Seph."
Sephiroth shrugged and then straightened his shoulders determinedly. "It was better than listening to you whine."
Zack shifted. Sephiroth was starting to get that distant tone he got when he was unhappy. Likely, he was thinking he was dangerous, inhuman, and undeserving of Zack, Cloud, and the chocobos quartered in the stables. And, that being the case, he would shortly become cold and aloof, kicking Zack and Cloud out of his apartment and simultaneously consoling and tormenting himself with the thought that they would undoubtedly take comfort in one another. Zack slid a sidelong glance over to Cloud, who met his eyes and nodded slightly.
They pounced.
