Summary: A sequel to Silent Sacrifice S/G ending. Sephiroth and Genesis travel to distant places, meet their fates and fight for their humanity.
Disclaimer: I own nothing or no one. Why would I need to, anyways?
Pairings: Sephiroth/Genesis
A/N: warning: violence, etc. And there'll be a brief POV switch to OOC character. ^_^
Chapter XIV.
Fear hath a hundred eyes.
(Part II).
Silver flew asunder in crimson tinged ebony darkness, scattered by a strong chilly gust of wind, which got up out of nowhere. Emerald stars flashed on pale refined face, albeit all too soon fading to dark empty voids. Sephiroth's face was sad, his smile knowing when he turned around and looked over his shoulder as though unable to tear his gaze off Genesis, who stood just two or three yards away from him.
Motionless.
Silver flew asunder, spilled as streamlets of limpid water over his lover's slender unclothed frame. The lurid reflection of immense fires hung in the sky, crimson shades fluttering on alabaster skin, shapeless and insipid. His eyes slowly closed, head hung, stoic face concealed behind the shimmering silvery veil. Genesis stood, looking at his angel.
Silently.
A hideous deep cut disfigured his perfectly straight muscular back, thin red rivulets meandering along his flawlessly shaped hipline; a bleeding statue was what he saw. Genesis opened his mouth, trying to speak, yet darkness swallowed his words, his throat contracting.
Unavailingly.
He couldn't see Sephiroth's face as two huge carmine wings soared upwards from his mutilated back, unfolding like satin weave, spraying his face with drops of blood. Its taste was sickening sweet on his lips. Sephiroth rose, leaving Genesis standing in darkness.
Alone.
Genesis' awakening was slow and tantalizing; it felt as if he got bogged down in a morass, trying to free himself, yet it didn't wish to let go. Every muscle in his body was stiff after sleeping on barren ground, and as he tried to stretch, pain shot through his body.
He was so cold.
Azure eyes slowly opened, surveying the scene in front of him from dirty flap of his red leather battle attire to the thick green crones and low dismal clouds. Mud and moist were everywhere, on his palms, on his face, in his hair. Suddenly Genesis wished for a warm bath or Sephiroth's embrace.
He could get neither.
So cold…
It has been a long time since Genesis looked inside himself and saw an empty void. He tortured people, he watched them turn into mindless husks with his face and body, their personality and essence being erased, he broke their willpower to make them send false reports, he enjoyed relentless pleasure his actions stirred, since monsters had nothing else to revel in. They had neither dreams nor honor.
Yet after his rebirth Genesis realized something; he actually had them, dreams. He dreamt of finding a remedy, of getting Angeal to join him, of loving Sephiroth. He incessantly dreamt of rising. Only means he chose to attain those goals were pushing him further and further down the path of self-destruction.
Such cold ruthless, but for all that trivial, irony…
Seeing these dreams didn't help either. All these grotesque twisted dreams, as if his mind was laughing at him, playing macabre games. Dying Goddess, bleeding Sephiroth, burning Banora, his mother, choking with blood… Blood, rivers and oceans of blood…
Was it because one couldn't commit a crime and live unpunished?
Sephiroth was nowhere to be seen; there was every likelihood he went to get some wood for the fire, yet that emptiness was more than frustrating.
What if his angel turned away from him? What if… pride never let those questions linger for too long, but now the thought firmly nestled in his mind.
What if he was not enough, from that very beginning he was denied?
The redhead clenched his teeth, trying to dismiss those thoughts with irritation, when suddenly felt his eyes upon him. Genesis' head jerked; he looked up, seeing his lover's slender frame standing out against a dark background of wet tree trunks as white pillar of light in murky moonless night.
Sephiroth froze, looking at him with the scrutiny of sadness.
Suddenly Genesis wanted to flee…
… Slowly as if each leg weighed thousands of ounces Sephiroth approached the dead fire and sat down. Each movement of his hands was deliberately precise as though he was trying to put off the inevitable moment he would have to speak. Long fingers reached for the weak fire materia, letting thin almost invisible tongues of flames encircle damp logs; they hissed, stubbornly fighting for their very life. Finally blazing flames rose, merrily light-heartedly crackling underneath his palm as he reached out for its warmth.
Sephiroth heard his lover shift and move closer, stretching his hand for the fire; their fingers inadvertently met, and Genesis flinched as if he touched the red-hot ember, moved away at once. Sephiroth finally looked at him, and saw the auburn head drooped on his breast, azure eyes concealed from his gaze.
Where was all his audacity? Where was… rhapsody?
Silence was unbearable.
"Aren't you going to say something, Genesis?" He finally asked, unwilling to bear it any longer. "I'll take no nays."
He heard a long sigh.
"What is there to say?" The redhead answered in that smooth ironic voice. "If you expect me to justify my actions, I won't."
Sephiroth shook his head.
"I don't blame you," he tried to put as much conviction into his words as he could and added, quieter. "I just wish to know, why…"
"Always looking for the reason… for guilt… What if there is none of it in me? Have you ever thought this way?"
Too much passion. Too much drama. Genesis was good with words; he was not. Sephiroth was ab inito at disadvantage.
He threw more wood into the fire, emerald eyes absently sweeping the glade, and returning to an unremarkable spot on the ground between his feet.
"Don't you care at all?"
His question hung in the chill air. Sephiroth could guess the answer.
Genesis gingerly stirred, and out of the tail of his eye Sephiroth could see his lover's hurt face and hollow azure eyes, usually of such radiant sky-blue color.
"Not much." Mockery in his voice seemed hollow as well. "What are you going to do about it?"
The silver-haired ex-general sighed.
"Nothing. There is nothing I can do."
"Nothing," Genesis echoed back his own words, only with a snort.
It felt as blind straying in utter darkness. What hadn't he said, hadn't shown?
And again just like in Modeoheim he could only ask.
"What do you want of me? To say I am fine with current state of things," his voice grew colder, "with the trail of blood that we leave behind? No, I am not. And I am not fine with what had happened yesterday either."
"What do I expect?" His lover chuckled, bitter irony ringing in every word. "I expect your eyes to open, and yet you remain as blind as always."
Their gazes met, for the first time since that incident. Genesis wanted to tell him something, yet he could not hear it. Waves of darkness foamed, thrashing against the impenetrable bastions in his cerulean eyes, and he could not see what hid behind them.
He did not understand. Genesis was silent.
Sephiroth's head hung, he rested his forehead against his bended knee, streamlets of silver flooding his frame.
Blind as always… Why? Why did everyone expect him to know all the right answers? Yes, he tried to make as little mistakes as possible, he tried to become as perfect as one could; he was the most powerful SOLDIER, after all, and that title carried responsibilities. Yet perfection wasn't fit to exist in this world, and he could be at fault just like everyone else.
To err was human.
Bitter were those words as he remembered the second half of the saying.
To forgive divine.
His flow of thoughts was interrupted by the sound of unfolding wing. Sephiroth lifted his head to see Genesis gracefully rising through the thick tree crones; soon his lover was a dot on cloudy sky.
He failed. Again.
And it hurt not because he was offended, but because Genesis needed his help, and he could not give him any.
Will Genesis come back? Probably.
Will he chase after his lover, asking to come back? No.
Genesis had to understand that without respect there would be no relationships between them...
…His pride gave in before midnight. The redhead simply rose into thin air, easily finding his way to where he has seen his lover for the last time.
Genesis could not take it any more. He somehow felt that if the void devoured him this time, there would be no coming back. He was not ready to give up on himself even if it meant yielding a point. Just a bit, he assured himself.
Sephiroth sat by the fire, his back perfectly straight, and it seemed nothing changed. It seemed he has spent all those hours staring at the dancing flames, thinking of something. It seemed Sephiroth just waited for Genesis to return, yet the redhead knew his lover better. And sure enough he noticed a map sprawled on his lap, as he was studying it in faint reddish glow of flames.
Genesis detached himself from the darkness, and silently approached his lover.
"Sephiroth," he began, words suddenly stuck in his throat. His pride gave in, yet not fully. Genesis wanted to apologize, but couldn't force anything out of his lips. He has never said sorry for jumping in Modeoheim, since he felt no regret; this was a worthless case compared to his previous deeds.
He saw it, the way his angel's shoulders flinched just a bit, yet enough for him to understand a lot more than his dispassionate voice ever reflected.
"Genesis."
Silver head turned; emerald eyes stared at him with… with expectation. He knew he had to say something.
"I… I am…" Goddess, it was so hard. Genesis dropped his eyes, looking at his boots. Yet that last word never passed his lips. Instead he just blurted out the obvious. "I came."
Suddenly Genesis wanted to kiss him, to close the void of madness in himself, but it was hardly more possible than after he pawned his word.
And all he had to do was say 'I am sorry'.
"I can see that." Sephiroth wasn't going to make it easier, was he?
Genesis slid into a seat near his lover, tilted his head so that he would see pale refined profile and the ruby in his earring flashed like a crimson spark.
The redhead opened his mouth to speak.
"Don't," Sephiroth suddenly interrupted him, putting the map aside. "Don't apologize. If you were not sorry, you would not have come back."
Genesis cursed and thanked his lover's perfect logic.
Yet it was not enough. He wanted to know if any of his lover's feeling survived after he had killed that dark blond boy. No, he didn't want to know; he needed to know.
Sephiroth rose and Genesis followed, approaching him.
"I didn't kill him because of the words he said," he began quietly. Sephiroth looked at him, emerald eyes calm, understanding. "I just couldn't stop. It was too much, all we've been through, and now… this." Genesis turned around, but then decided he had to look into his lover's eyes.
"I don't wish it to stand between us. I… did not mean it to… happen like this."
Sephiroth thought for a moment, and replied with a barely audible sigh.
"It won't."
Such a short, almost nonchalant reply. Genesis felt former flames awakening.
"Stop hiding from me. Stop pretending you feel nothing," he hissed with fury. "Because I want to see them. I want to see you still…"
He stammered, taking that last step that still separated them.
Genesis didn't even notice when his fingers clutched the collar of his lover's gray leather coat. They were so close now; the redhead could feel Sephiroth's faint breath. If he could bridge that last gap, that last inch between them, their lips would join in a slow infatuating kiss, just mere thought of it sending shivers down his spine.
Yet something separated them as a thin crystalline wall.
Genesis lowered his gaze and took a step back, calming down.
"My feelings didn't change, Genesis," Sephiroth's deep voice rang quietly. "If you so wish to know."
Genesis smirked, but it faded fast. Suddenly he felt tired.
"Was it that hard to say?"
Their eyes met. Emerald depths were dark as a deep trench, even as amusement slowly crept onto his lover's face.
"I will see no point in our relationship only if you betray me. I thought you knew that."
Genesis shook his head.
"Always the reason…" he tried to joke, yet his lover's voice and face was serious.
"Yes, always the reason, Genesis." He leaned against the trunk, folding his arms. "My old… childhood habit."
Genesis reached out for him, and their fingers slowly weaved; finally the redhead was in his lover's embrace as they sank to the ground, his body buried in his angel's warm arms.
His head rested against Sephiroth's bare chest, and jet-black wing folded around them.
Yet Genesis was so cold inside.
Child's face as a waxen mask was forever imprinted into his inner darkness.
…He was stepping on singed ground, field, clothed in ashen garments, sliding away into approaching darkness. He heard light whisper of his long strides in the sound of rustling dust. Lifeless arched trunks surrounded him, burned apples still somehow hanging on the scorched branches. He approached one, taking the fruit into his palm, and it crumbled to dust in his fingers.
Genesis wanted it to stay.
It didn't.
Eternal wasteland.
Genesis looked up, watching the eclipse, as black clouds slowly covered the star of the day. He knew he wasn't supposed to watch it, yet couldn't take his eyes off the burning ring high in the sky.
Finally he cast his gaze down, noticing a momentary flash of silver. Sephiroth stood by one of those black crooked apple trees, its dead frame a faint reminder of his carefree cheerful childhood. Something was wrong with his lover again; this time he was wingless yet that deep cut on his back didn't disappear.
This time he was smiling, a cold inhuman sneer reminded him the one he saw at Nebelheim carnage.
Genesis didn't want to anear him, albeit all his efforts futile as his legs carried him towards his beloved. Sephiroth took two short abrupt steps towards him and hot bloodied lips impressed into his own, sticky carmine liquid tickling his neck, getting on his tongue, filling his throat, mingling with the kiss.
Genesis wanted to wriggle out of his lover's strong arms, free himself, get some air, and instead he was breathing blood. He began fighting, hanging by a hair, yet Sephiroth's arms, always so gentle, crushed his ribs until the world burst in white-hot flames, his lover's mouth swallowing his shriek, his lover's arms holding his broken body, his lover's kiss turning hungrier, more wanton, bizarrely passionate.
Heat. Lips. Blood.
He was choking.
The redhead woke up in predawn darkness with a gasp. Nightmares again; he was used to seeing them, especially when he was slowly fading away. They were nothing, just other games this world played with him.
His mouth was dry, and he needed to get some water. A small streamlet purled nearby, singing its carefree song. Gently freeing himself from Sephiroth's arms, the redhead strolled to the brook, full-flowing after the rain, kneeled and cupped his hands. Water helped, washing away the unpleasant sensation the dream stirred and the cold sweat.
He was seeing them all the time now. Blood… rivers and oceans of blood…
Pay, Genesis, pay for every choice you've made, as none promised that the price would be small…
… For two days they flew to find another place to stay at. For two days they slept on bare ground and ate whatever the forest could provide them with. For two days they were so tired that by sunset neither of them had a desire to speak; they would fall asleep immediately after the frugal meal or without it, in each others arms or just side by side, covering themselves with wings as blankets.
For two days they were running away, hoping it would be enough.
And on the third day they found it.
Or it found them.
The war.
The village burnt slowly, lazily, fire raising thin pillars of black smoke, which hung in windless air. It seemed it was not the first time this settlement was destroyed. The houses were built from thick logs that bore clear signs of previous struggles, charred, and chopped here and there.
Sephiroth landed in the outskirts, folded his wing. Genesis was on the opposite side; they agreed to meet in the center.
Sephiroth decided to join the battle because then he had a chance to do something right.
A dead body lay by the dusty road, and another one by the burnt tree. His eyes didn't even linger on them; General Sephiroth knew how the war looked like. Unsheathing the Massamune he walked through the huge hole in the fence. There he's seen more bodies, with stab wounds, headless, maimed. Carefully stepping over them not to get blood on his leather boots Sephiroth took a narrow crooked street that seemed to lead to the center of the village.
The sun hung high above the horizon, dispassionately watching the massacre below.
The air smelled of death and burned flesh.
By one of the houses that was still intact he's seen a first wounded person. It appeared to be an old man in brown clothes; he was clutching a deep cut in his side, withering and moaning from pain. Sephiroth stopped by his side, shot a brief glance, then and there understanding that nothing would help him. A short sword lay by his side.
The old man gave him a pleading look, desperately made a reach for his leather coat, forcing hoarse words out of his mouth.
"They came from the east. We were not ready..."
Sephiroth nodded, showing he heard him.
Then the old man asked for the favor any dying warrior could ask another. Sephiroth fulfilled his last wish, ending his life quickly and mercifully. Few droplets of blood streamed down the thin long blade of his faithful sword.
…The battle was most severe in the center of the village. There Sephiroth saw more bodies clad in dark and light odd looking battle garments; among them few civilians caught his eyes. A house to his right was aflame; he could feel the heat and smell the charred wood.
As the ex-general stood, intently observing the scene thatched roof came down with a deafening crack, raising myriads of sparks. Flames leaped up suddenly and fell again. His right hand rose, shielding his eyes from the short bright flare.
And there – on the central square – he's seen first invaders, and first victims.
War could turn a person into an animal, wipe out any notion of honor, dignity or duty from his head. Those would turn into marauders, who looted the dead, didn't scruple to use any means, raped women or children and betrayed the comrades. Sephiroth encountered one of those in that village; that pillager made a fatal mistake, deciding to stay when every other person in his detachment left or was driven out.
He cornered a young dark-haired girl to a wooden wall; the victim didn't even put up much of a resistance, perhaps, she was beaten first. Engrossed in repletion of his want, the unlucky looter didn't hear light steps of the silver-haired ex-general as he approached the sight, Massamune in his left hand. Sephiroth froze for just a brief moment, bitterly smirking to himself. People rarely learned; victors abased the vanquished, not realizing that one day they could swap places, and lose. Thus the cycle of war was doomed to become endless.
Even being the greatest of Shin-Ra generals he never debased himself by humiliation.
Massamune hissed, ripping through the air, slipping between accumulated moments, faster than lightning, deadlier than reaper's blade.
The unaccomplished violator perished quickly, still with his pants down, never given a chance to comprehend where the death came from. The young girl shrieked as blood splashed over her face and the body collapsed on the ground at her feet. Sephiroth gestured for her to get up and flee; she nodded with hectic haste, haphazardly picked up her clothed and ran away in the direction where he came from.
The ex-general continued to skirt the square, stepping over the dead and occasionally checking the wounded for any signs of life, until he ran into Genesis. His scarlet rapier was covered in blood, azure eyes dark. It seemed his lover has seen more battle than him.
"I finished off the rest of the invaders." He said darkly, brushing the auburn lock off his forehead. "They didn't put up much of a resistance anyways."
Sephiroth nodded, lifting his chin. Thick clouds were sliding off to somewhere, obedient unthinking clouds. Gray pillars of smoke still marred the peaceful picture, but if it rained the fires would be put out very quickly.
Sheathing the Massamune, the ex-general replied.
"At least we did something right."
…They stayed at the village. It appeared that the girl Sephiroth saved from humiliation was the daughter of the village chieftain. They earned his gratitude; he gave them a house, since there were too many empty ones after some of the inhabitants fled into the forest and supplied with food and clothes.
Sephiroth thought they could get at least some rest.
He was wrong.
Genesis gently closed the wooden door and ran a hand through wet auburn hair with pleasure. At least they now had a house to stay at, a decent meal, and he could finally take a bath and change into something more comfortable than the battle attire.
He felt tired and broken.
Sephiroth sat on the bed, slightly wet silver covering his back; it faintly glistened on the gray linen of his shirt.
The redhead gingerly approached his lover, climbed behind him, reached out for the strings of his shirt and slowly undid them. Thin cloth slid, exposing his bare shoulder.
Tantalizing aroma of his lover's skin filled his nostrils as he leaned over, brushing it with his lips, clinging to satin warmth, its taste a siren's call on his tongue. Sephiroth's pale neck arched back, resting on his shoulder, wet tresses touching his bare chest. Genesis hands wrapped around his waist, and in them his lover's body opened up as a flower.
Lips found lips, pain joined with heat, monstrosity mingled with angelic beauty, and more than skin touching skin it was a bleeding soul touching another.
Such delicate chaste touch.
Thin curves parted, letting Genesis drink his bitterness, and share his own. Long fingers brushed against pale smooth skin, tracing circles on his chest, undressing him completely, lips clinging onto each other hungrier.
Genesis turned his lover's body, and they joined.
Genesis loved him gingerly, his usual temperamental desire curbed, caged in a fragile simplicity of this broken moment.
Genesis loved him tenderly, kissed him gently, stroke him softly.
Genesis loved him slowly, buried in his tight embrace, his lover's thighs rising and falling in bewitching rhythmic dance.
And Genesis uttered a faint scream when their strained bodies shuddered, woven in tantalizing craving for release.
For freedom.
Suddenly Genesis wanted to fly.
Jet-black wing unfolded from his back as the redhead gently lowered his gasping lover onto white sheets, as if afraid to break him, curling in his arms.
Sephiroth lay, watching him silently. His emerald eyes shone as cryptic distant stars. His silken silver hair smelled of freedom.
Freedom…
Such sweet, laughable delusion…
…She desired him, badly. His eyes were inimitable in their beauty, his face as that of a sculptured god, and his hair as scattered diamonds of first water.
She desired her silver-haired savior until she saw what he really was.
She remembered how she stood glued to the window, to the picture of flushed bodies moving in slow rhythm, to the pale skin glistening with sweat, to the perfect back arching in hands of the other, to the jet-black wing sprawled on the bed sheets.
She saw something forbidden, something unnatural.
This should have never happened.
She felt desire. She felt disgust. She felt overwhelming fright.
She ruthlessly bit her knuckles, barely suppressing a desire to scream from genuine terror.
"Father, father, help me? They have… they have wings!"
She couldn't recall how her rigid legs carried her back towards her house…