The following chapter is rated EA for Extreme Angst. It is also not Choir-approved, because Cloud was forbidden to read it, Zack is still throwing up, and Sephiroth shot himself.

You: "Badly?"

No, extremely well. Zack had to Life2 him. But in all seriousness, this one was very hard to write, and it will be hard to read. You will want to have tissues on hand, and something plushy to squeeze, and a scientist to decapitate. When you're ready, proceed to the first paragraph. I hope no one's just eaten.

THE MADNESS OF ANGELS
Chapter 38 - From the Deep

I regained a blurry consciousness briefly when I heard voices around me and felt the firm softness of a stretcher beneath. The pain was going away and my wounds were knitting themselves together. I noted absently that it was being done by I.V.-administered Potion, which seemed strange. That has the same healing effect as drinking the Potion or being Cured, but unlike those methods, injection fixes injury without restoring energy. Even as I was mended I couldn't move, could barely blink, but I tried to turn my head, groaning as it fell to one side.

"Ssh, it's okay," a male voice said from above, and I squinted through half-open eyes at messy brown hair and a distorted, vaguely familiar face. "We're taking care of you. Stay still."

"Cloud, Cloud - "

"The blond boy? They're fixing him up, he's gonna be fine."

I closed my eyes with an exhale of grateful relief, and when I looked again my vision was clearer. I recognized the face observing me now, though the name still eluded me. It was one of the younger doctors from the science lab, the one who had used to compliment me on my eyes, the one who had come to Costa del Sol to do my mako treatments and had expressed concern about my lack of appetite.

I felt reassured to see him, but I continued to weakly scan the movement all around me, needing to see Cloud with my own eyes. I caught sight of him on another stretcher, unconscious but being dosed with Potion in the same way I was. I was about to call out to him, to tell him it would all be okay, when someone stepped between us and blocked my view of Cloud's face. White lab coat, dark ponytail, hands folded behind his back. I prayed to be wrong, but there was no mistaking Hojo's shrill voice.

"So this boy is the one who finished him off? Fascinating, just fascinating. I'll take this one too. He'll make an excellent test subject."

"No!" I shouted, trying to struggle, shrugging off the hand that stroked my hair, but the warm weight of a Sleep spell fell over me, and I was gone again.

zfzfz

I don't want to talk about the lab and what went on there. I can't even think about it without feeling prickly all over, not like my skin's crawling but like it's trying to tear itself off. Most days, I would have found that a relief. That, death, the drugs that knocked me out...except for Cloud. Being alive meant I could take care of him as much as I was allowed, hold him, soothe him when he cried even in the nearly unconscious state he was usually in. Some days I remembered nothing but him, and while petting his hair I was jolted to remember Angeal doing the same to mine. So many nights, when he thought I was asleep, Angeal would lay awake for hours, combing his fingers through my spikes as I breathed softly against his chest.

Fuck, I don't want to talk about it. And I'm sure you, whoever you are, don't want to hear it. But what I feel is like every grief in my life has been woven together and is trapped in my heart. Will telling free me of this, as crying once uncoiled the snake from my stomach? Maybe.

I promised myself I'd hold nothing back from this memoir. Of what I remember, I'll tell as much as I can bear to. You'll be witness to these horrors, stranger who has traveled with me this far. You will see what was done to Cloud and I while the world thought we were dead. What ShinRa did, and allowed.

zfzfz

I don't remember being told anything when we were first brought to the basement laboratory of the ShinRa Mansion, but I must have been, because when I was lucid, I knew things. And because Hojo liked to talk, I gained more information over time. Cloud and I had been declared dead along with Sephiroth. The 1st Class had nearly revolted at the news, but order had been kept by the cool heads of Commanders Averman and Halloran. Still, many deserted or disappeared, and the rest were in mourning, zombies rallying themselves and each other with "For Sephiroth" (and even "For Zack") and yet performing like dancers without music. There was nothing to follow anymore.

I knew what Hojo intended for Cloud and I was to continue Project S, though the specifics weren't clear to me at first. Never really were, to be honest. Part of the reason for that was the drugs, a lot of them. Mako, for one, a higher dose than I was used to, and Substance J, which I knew was Jenova cells. And drugs to make us cooperate, sometimes something like Selatacyn to keep us still, sometimes another that knocked you out or made you sleepy and dazed. I hated that one, because it made physical pain impossible and left me with the kind I wouldn't have chosen to keep.

Time was impossible to keep track of there. Not just days, but hours. We were "fed" intravenously with a vitamin-rich solution three times a day, but often it felt like a lot more or a lot less. I think the first day I was lucid at all was the day Hojo complained about that Turk commander trying to gain access to the mansion, always prying and asking questions. Cloud and I were side-by-side on examining tables for injections, and I was alert enough to pay attention.

"Tseng?" I murmured, wondering if he guessed we were alive, or if Reno knew.

"Don't worry," Hojo laughed. "The president won't let him interrupt my work. You and Subject C will be superior creatures when I'm done with you. If not, you'll at least be stepping-stones on the road to a race of god-men. Like Sephiroth."

"You aren't worthy to speak his name," I hissed.

He laughed, knowing how harmless I was no matter what I knew. "I gave him everything. Including his name," he said, inserting the needle and gently scraping it along my arm when it was withdrawn. "You cared for him, didn't you?"

I refused to answer, refused to let myself be mocked for a wound that was still open, but I couldn't keep back the tears. Hojo laughed again, a sound straight out of a nightmare.

"Then I'll tell you a secret, Subject Z, something to make you more cooperative. I don't think Sephiroth is gone forever. With the proper application of Jenova cells and the right host, I think I can recreate him. You should be honored to take part in my work."

Cloud groaned softly in his sleep, and I weakly tried to reach for him. "Cloud's just a cadet," I pleaded. "Let him go and I'll do anything you want."

"Yes, you will, both of you. And you will be anything I want."

Hojo felt the muscles in my arms and abdomen and then did the same to Cloud, as though he were comparing us. At first, his touching had been only that, like any scientist's curiosity about the surface of something. It changed one day when I was strong enough to angrily refuse a scan with Sense materia, the specialized kind used by medical practitioners. Angeal had taught me how to make the mental wall that blocked enemies from learning your stats, but I'd rarely had need or the patience to use it. Hojo wanted me awake, I guess, or he would've just knocked me out, and he knew my real weakness. He stepped from me to Cloud, smirking as fear filled my face.

"Okay, I'll stop, just leave him alone."

Hojo didn't have many methods of punishing us. The mako hurt, but not much combined with the other drugs, and I guess we were too valuable to damage. Separation was the worst, and I thought he would roll Cloud onto a gurney and put him in another room to teach me a lesson. Instead he pet Cloud's hair gently, drawing a relieved sound from him; Spiky must have thought it was me. The other hand's fingers played over Cloud's face, the porcelain features frowning just slightly.

"Subject C is quite a pretty child, isn't he? Sweet and delicate and fragile, just like a doll."

"Get your hands off him," I growled. "You fucking sick - "

One hand went to Cloud's chest and slowly descended.

"I'm sorry," I said quickly, changing tactics. "I'm sorry, Doctor, please, I'll be good, just don't..."

"You won't refuse anymore, will you, Subject Z?"

"No, Doctor," I said, feeling a nausea that drug-numbness couldn't dull.

"Good. If you behave today, you will be rewarded. Cooperation is better, Subject Z. Remember that."

I hated to do it, but for hours afterward I did what I was told on the first request and answered the questions I had always scowled at before. I didn't growl when Hojo patted my head like a dog, I didn't squirm when needles approached, I didn't scream that I was Zack, not Subject Z. And that night, before we were sedated and put into our mako tubes, one of the assistants gave me a milder tranquilizer than usual and wheeled me to a small room that was thickly padded all around, the floor, the ceiling, the walls, the heavy metal door. He sat me down against the far wall and told me to wait, and Hojo came in a moment later with Cloud. My heart seized up with fear of what might be happening, but then Cloud was placed on my lap and clung to me instinctively with the relieved noise, and I was so happy to be able to hold him that I just put my face into his hair and wept. His fingers weakly tried to grasp my shoulders, either to comfort me or to keep from being torn away, I don't know.

"Spiky," I whispered. "It's okay, baby, I've got you."

"Does he know it's you, do you suppose?" Hojo asked softly, with a strange light in his eyes.

I wanted to kill him, tear him into pieces in that moment and every one after. But I had no strength to do anything but clasp Cloud to me, and I couldn't pull away when Hojo grabbed my wrist and used it to force my hand between Cloud's legs. "No," I said, meaning to yell but begging instead, and he looked at me emotionlessly. Not because he didn't understand, like Sephiroth, but because he didn't care, which is infinitely worse.

"Your hands or mine."

Fuck, Spiky, I'm so sorry. I couldn't let that monster touch you. Maybe it's worse that I, your best friend, held you in a hug that you trusted to be safe and jerked you off while you were unaware and mostly unconscious. You snuggled closer to me and I whispered love and apologies in sobs that couldn't drown even your softest moans. Hojo watched intently, like we were something anticipated happening in a petrie dish, and when it was over, he nodded and left without a word. I was allowed to hold you for an hour, then, and that became the routine, the ritual that was nothing like Angeal's had ever, ever been. Enough time wrapped in my arms and my voice and you would calm, stop the constant shifting and whimpering and rest like you were having dreams instead of nightmares. On those nights, your sleep would be as peaceful as a tired child's, with no tears spilling into the mask over your face.

I lost a little bit of my soul every time I used you that way, Spiky, but for the relief it gave you to be near me, I would do it again. I would have done it forever until there was nothing of me left, and hoped that something of me would linger in you when I'm gone. So I'd always be there for you to either lean on or curse. Whichever you need.

zfzfz

That wasn't the extent of it. Much as I hate to realize this, Hojo had access to Cloud and probably wasn't satisfied with just watching. Gaia only knows what went on while I was unconscious or in a different room. The most I can hope for is that it was no more than what the monster did to me.

Yeah. In case you were wondering, I wasn't spared. At injection time, sometimes Hojo's hands would wander to do to me what he made me do to Cloud. Any further than that was rare, but it happened. The first time he stripped my pants off and unzipped his own, I was terrified, but determined to only show anger.

"You're so hard-up you have to rape?" I hissed. "Is that what you did to Sephiroth?"

"No," Hojo said mildly, pushing two fingers inside me and casually stroking himself. "Only this."

"I know what he was to you! How could you do that to your own son?!"

He showed no surprise or disapproval that I knew. "Sephiroth was mine...only mine. What everyone wanted was mine."

"Someday you'll get what you deserve."

"Yes," Hojo sighed. "Immortality."

zfzfz

It wasn't just Hojo with us in that lab. That was both good and bad. Bad, because of the other doctors, one in particular, who idolized Hojo and were weirdly thrilled to follow his every command. Good, because of Simon and Omou, two big guys who were guards or low-level assistants, I'm not quite sure which. They were big, like small giants, and because they could carry Cloud and I easily, it was their job to take us to and from the shower room each morning.

In the outer room, in the presence of the doctors, they would roll their eyes at the pathetic burdens we were and make suggestive comments about where they might stick the soap. Once inside, however, with the warm water spraying loudly, Simon and Omou would undress us with as little handling as possible, and settle Cloud into my arms before beginning to gently wash us. They would have helped us escape if doing so wouldn't have cost them their families, which I understood and told them so each time they apologized. Their kindness alone was really something, a daily reminder that we were human beings, not specimens. Names, not merely letters.

I think Cloud, especially, broke their hearts. He looked even a little younger than he does now, and they both had kids of their own. "How you doing, pal?" Omou would always say to Cloud as he worked shampoo into the wet blond spikes. "Don't worry, I won't get any soap in those pretty blues of yours." Cloud was rarely awake enough to be aware of them, but after awhile he didn't flinch or whimper at their touches, no matter how out of it he was.

Simon and Omou called me "kid" in addition to "Zack", which didn't bother me, because I felt too helpless to insist that I was an adult. I also learned not to be too embarrassed by how thorough they were, knowing they were only doing their jobs. But sometimes, if I'd been touched the night before or I had been remembering Angeal's wonderful hands, I cried when they cleaned certain parts of me. When this happened, Omou would take care of Cloud and Simon would hold me to his chest under the clean spray of water and quietly berate Hojo and try to comfort me.

"It'll be all right, kid," he'd murmur. "You're strong, stronger than this. You'll outlive that fuckin' doc, just don't give up, don't let him defeat you."

So they were our allies. I thought Garrett, the young doctor who had always been so kind to me, surely would be as well. One day, when I was drugged with Selatacyn and just finished the nutrient drip, he unhooked the IV and wheeled the table I was on into a small room where supplies were kept. He smiled as he leaned over me and patted my cheek, and I smiled back, though I was already starting to cry. I did that constantly, and especially when I was away from Cloud. Not needing to be strong for him for a few minutes brought up all the emotion I wanted to hold back. A million old losses and present-day fears.

"Hey, don't do that," Garrett said gently, moving his fingers over my hair. "I hate to see those beautiful eyes made into puddles. Ssh, you'll be okay, I'll make sure."

"Can you help us get out of here?" I whispered. "I know you'd be risking a lot, but you could come with us. And you can name your price, anything."

"Anything I want?" he murmured. "For years, there's only been one thing I wanted. Do you remember, in the lab, all those times I told you I love your eyes?"

I wanted to curl up and keep crying, I wanted to be able to move to fling his hands away from my face. What I saw in Garrett's intent black eyes was what I had never noticed before, what I had mistaken for friendliness. Their stare was like Genesis's but worse, because there was nothing inhuman in them, no one but the human to blame. Angeal, Angeal, I wanted Angeal, and the overprotectiveness I had once pouted at.

"For so long, I've loved you, worried for you, worshipped you." Garrett's voice was growing colder. "But why would you have seen me at all? You cared for nothing but Hewley, saw nothing but him. Do you know how I felt, watching you walk out of the labs and into his unworthy arms?"

"I'm sorry," I whispered, and I don't know if I really thought that would make a difference or if I just couldn't think what else to do.

"It's all right," he said, smiling again, fingering the waistband of the white pajamas we were usually kept in. "I have you now. I'll take better care of you than he could. I'll keep you safe. No, no, look at me. Let me see those eyes."

I couldn't move as he gracefully stripped me, lifting and lowering my arms and legs and back as carefully as any nurse. Even if I hadn't been concerned about Cloud hearing me, I couldn't scream either. I felt a wail deep inside me, curled up in a ball, but it was stuck, lodged like a stone. It was like after Angeal's death, I couldn't scream, only whimper. Garrett prepared me very slowly, using oil and working all the way up to five fingers, and when he pushed my legs up and entered me, it didn't even hurt.

The pleasure, thank Gaia, was muted and felt distant, like something happening in the depths of a sea while I was on the surface. When Garrett was finished and his cock was softening inside me, he had to stroke me for a long time to make me come. After I did, crying sobs that shook my frozen body, he took it as a sign that I was meant to be his all along. He whispered that to me, and other insane endearments, while he kissed me and touched me everywhere. His hands felt reptilian, clumsy, wrong, as all hands but Angeal's did when they massaged, as every pair of lips but Angeal's did when they pressed my cheeks and mouth and eyelids. Every kiss of Angeal's had been a blessing and a piece of home, like a path I could always follow if I found myself lost. Garrett's tongue was only a slimy hunk of meat that tried to claim me.

"I've wanted you so long," he said into my ear. "Do you remember the very first time we met? Mako tests, your first cadet year. I was assisting, and when the needle entered you I imagined I was doing the same, filling you slowly, being careful with your small, innocent body. When you were dizzy, I helped you back to the waiting room, and I wanted so badly to lay you down and just take you, the way you needed to be taken..."

Garrett put his hand on my nape and lifted, making my head tilt back so he could press his face to my exposed neck. I could feel his mouth on my skin as he spoke, like the poison of his horrible words was entering my blood. "Angeal," I wept, not caring if it made Garrett mad, hoping it would, so maybe he'd hurt me in a way I could handle. "Angeal!"

"He's not here to protect you anymore. But I am."

Garrett was hard again, I could feel it on my thighs as he repositioned me. He entered me again, this time driving directly against my prostate and I couldn't move away, couldn't stop clinging to the memory of Angeal filling me perfectly, his lips swallowing my cries as my body swallowed him. I opened my mouth, but only I could hear the scream that escaped.

zfzfz

When something bad happens, people always ask why. Like if we had an explanation, it would all be somehow easier to bear. There wasn't much to do in the lab except remember and think, and I asked myself the unavoidable question.

On the surface, the reason for our presence there was simple, if anything can be from as devious a source as Hojo. He had reason to believe that being fed on by Genesis gives a minute exposure to the Jenova cells that drove the lust for blood in Genesis and Angeal. He had long wanted to continue Project S and compare its effect on an already enhanced SOLDIER to the effect on a pure subject. He said it was fate that brought us into his superior hands. Fate, which had once been my friend, which had carried me to Angeal.

Some days I was listless, concerned only with day to day survival, and more with Cloud's than my own. Other times, I refused to accept that it was all really happening, that my path could have led me here. Circles are supposed to return to their beginning points. But would I really never see Gongaga again? My life had started, really, with Angeal, and he was gone. I had no choice but to believe he was gone. I still talked to him, though, and even thought I saw him a few times, usually in the mako tube, where we had been warned that the high dose could potentially cause hallucinations.

The last time I had this welcome vision, the lab had been quiet and nearly empty for weeks. Hojo had gone away for a few months with several of the small staff. I don't know where or why, just that he was unreachable. He had left Dr. Garrett in charge, and during that time, I only felt at all safe in the tube, where his hands couldn't go. Cloud was asleep in the next tube over. He was doing better with Hojo gone, and Garrett didn't touch him, though he sometimes threatened to if I didn't kiss back or make the needy noises he wanted.

Dreams and reality tended to blur into each other in there, but when I saw Angeal standing in front of me, Buster in hand and wing extended, I felt so sure it was real. My visions and dreams had been faded and full of an Angeal who wept as I did, who clung as I wanted to. This Angeal was standing calmly, like he was watching me face a new obstacle in training, and he spoke to me in his teacher-voice.

"I can't stay with you, Zack. I would only hurt you, as I've always done."

Imaginary or not, I knew I would break completely if he turned and I had to watch him walk away from me again. I banged on the tube with my gloved fists and screamed into the mask "Angeal! Wait!" I began to lose sight of him, not because he was leaving but because everything was changing. The green world of mako around me, the color of Bio that I had cast on classmates and enemies, was fading into blue. Sky-blue, Cloud-blue, like his eyes, not mine, and there were clouds at my feet, like I really was in the sky.

I was free for those few moments, not just out of my prison and strong again but at peace, filled with a contentment life rarely allows and love can sometimes imitate. I looked at the clouds and thought, I know one of you, and I wasn't even worried about Spiky, because I felt sure that we'd be all right. Then it occurred to me that I might be dead, ahead of schedule, and Angeal had come for me like he promised but was still plagued by guilt.

"Angeal," I said, looking into the summer sky with my winter eyes, "I love you. I forgive you everything. Every moment of doubt and fear, every secret, every tear I wept when you left me. I love you. Only love. Forever."

The sky became clear, and the world became glass. Then something shattered. Or maybe it was everything.

zfzfz

The scream I had been choking on so long finally came out of me, joining with that breaking sound. I felt myself fall from the broken tube, gulped in air as I lay on the floor, and I dozed for a little while. When I woke, I was able to get up without much trouble. The mako and other treatments had enhanced me beyond SOLDIER level, after all. Other treatments. I had Jenova cells in me. I didn't feel anything new or alien or evil, but...my racing thoughts came to a halt when I saw what was in my hand, what I had used to hoist myself off the floor. The Buster Sword. I had been afraid Hojo might have destroyed it. Angeal had been holding it and here it was, did that mean...I looked around me but I didn't see him.

What I saw was the body of Dr. Garrett face-down on the stone floor nearby, the blood of a fatal sword-wound congealing beneath him. I was still too dazed to feel much of anything, which I guess was good, because I didn't want to take pleasure in a death. But there was more death, I could sense it nearby, and there were no other signs of life except Cloud. Cloud!

I went to his mako tube, stumbling a little at first but getting steadier with each step, and pressed the button to drain it. When I opened the glass door, Cloud fell into my arms, and I got down on my knees and held him close. He was out of it, even more so than when I'd last been with him, but though unconscious, he still brought out the same warmth in me he always had.

"I've got you, baby," I whispered to him, dripping tears into his mako-soaked hair. "I'm gonna get us out of here."

Okay, and now the angst will ease up. A little. For a while. Er...let me know what you think. To be continued!