Rating: PG13 for language and angst themes
Author: BeautyLiesWithin
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or any other related names or indicia.
Summary: One shot. A Riku/Sephiroth pairing. Riku muses over Sephiroth who is now dead. No yaoi. Just angst. I might add some chapters if people want it. If not, it'll just stay a one shot. Please read and review.
Dedicated to Sora Lover / Jenni. I have a little letter for you in chapter 7 of "Song of the Flying Bullet". I'll put it up soon! I love you, girlfriend! Keep your head up!
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He wasn't evil.
I know I sound crazy. People ask me, 'If gutting people for fun, taking over the universe, destroying it, practicing dark magic and being the One Winged Angel of darkness wasn't, then what the hell is?'
But I knew the real him. He wasn't evil. I saw beneath all that.
He was pure. He was innocent.
I don't know what made me first come to him. Perhaps it was because he was so beautiful. I'm not gay, but I know the feeling of instant attraction. He was beautiful to me in every way. He was so poised and graceful. He invoked so much fear and awe in me. I couldn't help but wonder what made him so.
They could all point and accuse him of being evil, but they could not deny his beauty. He was an angel and he always will be. I don't think there ever was or will be another one as beautiful as him. Even his clone… Cloud Strife… Even he couldn't surpass the original and true One Winged Angel's beauty.
But now, I think deeper. And somehow, I feel as though it was deeper than just mere physical attraction. For me, he was a forbidden fruit that I longed for more than anything else. He was so much like me.
Mysterious. Powerful. Unmerciful. Proud. Strong. Graceful. He was an enigma to me. As I was to myself. I felt as though when I was with him, I could see where I was going. He was my future. He gave me the hope that I would become him. He was my path that I would follow. He told me I was like him in every way he could name. To me, there was no higher praise. To me, it was a promise of a beautiful life for me when I was older.
And then he died.
And it was my best friend who killed him. It was my best friend who destroyed my past, present and future.
I suppose one could say Sephiroth was my best friend and not Sora. But with Sephiroth and I… It was much deeper than a friendship. More or less a sort of… connection. It was a sort of bonding. We shared too many feelings and pasts and uncanny likenesses which couldn't be wiped off as 'coincidences' of 'friendship'.
I grew to trust the dark angel and god as though I would trust him with the universe if its fate were to be in my hands. That kind of trust I had developed with Sora had taken us a life time and at the moment had been unstable. Sephiroth and I trusted eachother in a matter of moments. From the moment we locked eyes for the first time… We felt as though we were one.
We were not lovers. I don't regret that. We were too intimate and close to be lovers. It was more than love. I don't know.
They say that it is a crime to proclaim, 'more than love'. I don't think so. We didn't need to be lovers. We could not be any more close than we already were. For us, love was not an issue. We were whole. We were content. We were happy.
I still shudder when I mention, think or hear his name.
Sephiroth.
It suited him beautifully. It had an evil tinge to it. It instantly gave you the feeling of security, evil, power, strength and ambition. No one else had that sort of name. No one dared take it. It was only him.
I still cry myself to sleep on his bed. I can't bring myself to sleep, though. I can't sleep without him by my side. When I do close my eyes for brief moments… it's not sleep. It's a half sleep that attempts to nourish me. But nothing can. I am weak and unwhole without him. I can not sleep alone. And I refuse to sleep with none other than him. So where does that leave me?
To me, all is evil. Even myself. He was the only innocent, pure and perfect in this miserable universe. And now, he no longer exists. It's not fair that he should have died. I know that the things he did were evil. Though it was not him. He was pure. He was an angel of the darkness. I know it sounds ironic and contradicting. I can't explain how he was innocent. But he was. I remember how he would repent and feel pain beyond words when he had seen what he had become.
"Riku… Look at me. How can I be perfect and innocent to you? I am an evil demon! Can you not see?"
"You aren't, Sephiroth. You aren't."
"Look at me, Riku. I too, was once as pure as you. But look at what I have become. I am driven by the darkness. A mere slave to the greater power. I am driven by the cold whips of the evil. No where to run. No where to stop. And this is my fate. To bring evil to all there is."
"You will fight. And you will defeat it. Because you want it. You will find the light…" I whispered.
My god. My kami-sama. My Sephiroth.
Pure innocense. Pure beauty. Pure Sephiroth.
I can not bring myself to think of any other.
I no longer feel. I only feel pain, hurt and rejection. And sadness. I sometimes wonder… Is this my punishment for loving an angel and envoy of the darkness?
Perhaps it is.
But the pain… This price… It is worth it. Once touch of his skin… One look of his face… One breath of his lungs… One beat of his heart… To merely know that such a being existed… It is beyond price. It is without value. A life time of pain is a miniscule price to repay for being one with Sephiroth.
I still remember how much fear he first envoked in me… Those foolish times when I was intimidated by him.
The moment I saw the moon light flash against his skin, hair and eyes… I wanted nothing more than to touch him. To run my hands through his beautiful and pround mane of vain silver that made the moon jealous.
How timid I was… When my hand slowly crept up to touch his hair for the first time. His hair… It was like liquid silver. I no longer felt softness with my hands unless it was his hair…
"Do you bleach your hair?" I asked, my fingers slowly and trepidly running through his long silver locks.
"Does it feel that way?" he whispered, allowing me to kiss his hair.
"No. It is the softest thing I've ever touched…" I blushed, running my hands through his beautiful hair over and over.
"Why did you shudder at my touch, Riku?" he said softly.
"The saying… "Touched by an angel…" it's come true." I said, my hands and eyes still marvelling at his beautiful hair.
Because of that… I no longer see any beauty in the world.
He was the only beauty to me.
There was nothing else.
I no longer feel joy. I no longer feel softness. I no longer see beauty. I no longer feel love.
My heart now rests in oblivion. Beside and with him. I am always with him.
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I don't know why I wrote that down. Maybe it was because I had to get it out.
I read over it. It's a lot shorter than I imagined it to be. I thought it was tonnes long.
"The best and most beautiful things in the world can not be seen or even touched… They must be felt with the heart."