Yazoo fluttered into conciousness so gradually that he couldn't recall waking. It added to the confusion that the deepness of the darkness brought. This place was blacker than night, not a scrap of light to be found, not a single photon to trip his inhumanly sensitive retinas. He and his brothers all had the night vision of an Ark Dragon, but this place was truly dark. It felt enclosed and strangely peaceful for an unknown space, the air was humid and damp and smelled comforting. He was wrapped in an invitingly restful warmth which soothed him and beckoned his mind to return to sleep. It was like the rearing tubes he had developed inside of before he had known the pain of the outside world.
The smell was so familiar, one he had sensed every day of his short life. It was the smell of likeness, of shared goals, thoughts and blood. It was the smell of Mother's family, but it wasn't Yazoo's own scent. It was subtly different. Stronger, more masculine and muskier. It smelled like Loz.
Yazoo's long, slender fingers sought feather-light touches in the dark like the feelers of a blind cave creature, building up amental mapof his surroundings, but he quickly met with flesh that wasn't his own. Soft skin on a hard, toned body and Yazoo's face began to crease into a hopeful smile as he began to remember the blood-drenched Reunion and doubt his loneliness. He found his brother's head and could feel Loz's gentle breath on the back of his hand. Yazoo ghosted over Loz's features as if he daren't believe it really was his brother, tracing that strong nose, heavy brow and short, coarse mane.
Loz began to stir, and Yazoo's eyes welled up with an aching relief at his brother's evident survival.
"Loz?" Yazoo found his voice and cringed at how loud a whisper echoed in this hard-walled place. "You're alive?" It was a stupid question, but he couldn't help himself.
After a moment of what Yazoo presumed to be an equal measure of shock, surprise and disbelief on Loz's part, everything came at once.
A tightening of Loz's embrace with his incredible strength reigned in as if he feared he would break his brother if he didn't moderate himself. Strings of words tumbled out without much thought behind structuring sentences and Loz began to cry.
"Shh Loz" he cooed through his own thick emotion "it's going to be ok, we're alive." Yazoo knew it wouldn't stem the tide, he just wanted to say some words of comfort for his teary brother.
"But Yazoo, I thought you wouldn't make it. I thought you'd die. I was frightened you'd die too and I'd be left all alone." Loz buried his face into the long, silken hair draped over Yazoo's shoulder.
Yazoo soothingly stroked the back of his bigger brother's head and neck, patiently listening to him and for once revelling in the sound of his sobbing. Loz was alive. "Hush now my brother, don't cry."
"I'm not crying." Loz protested half-heartedly.
"Its alright brother. I am too."
They both cried in the dark for what felt like an eternity, tears running freely as emotions overflowed and flooded out of control. Survival instincts doling out euphoric sensations in reward for evading death and unbridled joy at each other's company after fearing the death of all their family. They mourned the passing of Kadaj and the loss of their Mother after coming so close to knowing her inexorable presence. They wept until their eyes were dry and they had no more tears to cry. They embraced each other tightly, as if they were so eager to never know loneliness ever again they wished they could crawl inside one-another's skin. Together the silver haired brothers wept until their eyes were dry and they had no more tears to cry.
It was quiet for quite some time and Yazoo almost believed Loz had fallen asleep from the emotional exhaustion.
"What are we going to do next?"
Yazoo sighed. "I don't know brother. What do you wish to do?"
"I want mother."
"As do I Loz." Yazoo reached out, trying to find his brother's cheek to bestow a gentle, calming touch of solidarity in the dark. "However, I'm not sure how we can search for her without Kadaj. Mother has never entered into my dreams in the same way as she did with Kadaj, she never told me her will firsthand."
Loz understood the sugared graveness in Yazoo's tone and he whimpered since he couldn't cry another drop, not even over the prospect of never finding Mother.
"Hush my brother. There are many more pressing obstacles in our path before we can resume our search for Mother." Yazoo spoke softly as a siren, able to seduce the most hardened ear and lull the most cynical mind into false security if he desired. He wanted to impart the severity of the situation but avoid causing his sensitive brother further turmoil and stress. "Cloud still lives. He wants to be Mother's only son and will not rest until he has made it so. He is a haunted man Loz, obsessed and insane. It's in his eyes. Cloud is possessed by Sephiroth's memory, his own personal Nightmare. He will come looking for us soon brother, his paranoia will drive him and he won't rest until he is sure we are dust."
"I'm too weak to fight him Yazoo." Loz admitted, the shame he felt was evident.
"As am I brother."he consolidated, comforting his huge, muscular brother's ego.
"Then we need to run! We're still in Midgar, Cloud is too near, he'll find us!" Lozpanicked.
"We are inside the ShinRa ruins?"
"…Yes."the muscular brothercringed, expecting admonishment for his stupidity.
"No that's good Loz, very good, it was very clever, you have been very clever. You've kept us both alive. You have saved us both." Kadaj's impatience and intolerance had only ever worsened Loz's confidence. In recent months Loz had seemed to surrender to becoming a pawn, doing precious little unless he was instructed to do so, much to Kadaj's domineering delight.
"I cast Cure. Twice." Loz puffed his chest out a little in pride,revelling those rare words of positive reinforcement and elevating Yazoo for a few moments.
"See? You're much cleverer than you think." Yazoo smiled but only to himself in the pitch blackness. "You brought us both in out of the rain and found a safe place for us to hide. You've even healed us, and you are such a reluctant mage."
"I healed you."
There was something about the way Loz said it that struck an odd chord in Yazoo. "You cast Cure twice?" He tested.
"On you."
"Both of them?" Yazoo exclaimed.
"Please don't be angry Yazoo" Loz begged "you were so hurt I thought you wouldn't make it, I didn't want to loose you brother. I didn't want to be alone. I didn't think, I only managed to cast twice…"
"But what of your own injuries?" Yazoo cut him off gently, stemming Loz's self-destructive apologetic tirade.
"I'm… I'll be alright" Loz insisted.
Yazoo remembered the duel with Cloud in the underpass, the bomb on the overpass, the fire and crashing down hard on the unyielding city streets. The struggle to catch up with Kadaj had been laborious and agonising, and Cloud's butchery had added to the broken brothers' already numerous injuries. The burning rain had been like salt in the wounds. How could Loz still be alive, let alone conscious after all that with no curative magic or a single potion? The fact that Loz had rescued them both in that state was an incredible prospect to someone as physically delicate and sensitive as Yazoo. He was lying on Loz's still beaten body, and the thought of how many of his brother's broken bones he was pressing down on turned Yazoo's stomach. He lifted himself up, trying to climb off Loz's battered torso.
Thick, strong arms tightened around Yazoo "I'll be alright Yazoo, please, please don't go, I want to be with you."
"I'm not leaving you Loz, I'm not going anywhere."
"But I want to be close to you."
"Loz…"
"I need you. Please?" His arms curled tighter.
Yazoo had no desire to worsen Loz's injuries by wriggling or pushing against his fractured chest, and neither did he want to sadden his injured brother after his heroics. He surrendered, settling back down on top of Loz. "Then you should sleep my brother, you need your rest."
"What if Cloud finds us when I'm sleeping?"
"Then I'll stay awake. I'll protect us."
Loz sniggered weakly.
"Hush you. Sleep now my brother, I shall think on how we can escape. I'll have a plan for us by morning."
"How will you know when it's morning?"
"I'll take an educated guess. Now please sleep Loz, you must rest."
Yazoo pondered in the dark and poured over thoughts and ideas. Loz tumbled into the realm of sleep swiftly, and proof of his ill-health was in the gentle snore which accompanied his melodic breathing. Yazoo's calculations weren't interrupted by the mild sound, but rather by concentrating onthinking light thoughts as he prayed his weight was causing no further damage to his stupid, foolish, heroic, selfless brother.
-o-o-O-o-o-