A Love on the Sidelines
By: 4quintessence
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Square Enix, the fanfiction to me.
Pairing: CliffxFayt
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The crew finally arrives in the Greeton capital of Granada. Strange things happen as soon as they walk through the main gates. More is revealed about Cliff & Fayt's weird visions, Sophia gets very angry at someone, Coco and Loco get into trouble, and we end with Cliff opening up about his past. Can't give away too much!
Shout Outs - Zel: Oh there's more schoolgirl where that came from :D expect another scene. LOL omg u thought Cliff might wear that outfit?! HAHA. This fantasy show I watch called Beastmaster - this muscular guy runs around with no shirt on and he talks to animals...kinda reminds me of Cliff...and he has a healer friend that tags along with him and he protects him - has two ferrets in it called Kodo and Podo. So I just came up with my own similar names :D THANKS so much for the SO TTET manga link! thats awesome. im on volume 3 and its very good. i think there is more CliffxFayt in the game tho ;) i hate fu'tards. good rant. thats why a katana comes in handy sometimes :D btw, we are taking over FF with our CliffxFayt stories! go us! Spectral: Thanks for the PM. Stupid school. I sent u one back. Enjoy...
Chapter 14:
The view from above is unlike any other. Soaring high in the sky, the Greeton flyer who kidnapped Sophia flapped onwards towards the grand city of Granada. He never tired of watching the world from above, especially on such a picture perfect summer day. His vibrantly reddish wings stood all alone in a sky saturated by a sapphire shade of blue as streams of air spiraled past him, coaxing his skin to life with their wispy touch. This was freedom at its finest and he thought how lucky he was to be able to go pretty much wherever he wanted without the burdens of land travel. Quiet, peaceful, refreshing.
Stretching his arms out as far as he could, the flyer was now gliding across the rainforest below, passing gentle hills of trees and a conspicuous lake that sent the sun's rays bouncing back up to him. He followed the winding path of the river that left the lake's end and eventually spilled over a cliff into a pool surrounded by black rocks. The road to Granada from the outlying towns was now visible and it looked as if a giant had taken a dagger and struck it straight along the earth, separating the jungle into two as easily as one would a watermelon. Soon the high stone walls surrounding Granada and separating it from the woods came into view and the flyer began his descent to the plaza just inside the towering main gate.
A sensuous waft of ocean air blew past the flyer as the city grew larger and larger. He could see the sea far off on the other side of Granada and the fresh breeze felt wonderful as it caressed his charcoal hair and sent it flapping behind him. He watched as a group of six people sauntered through the entranceway, led by a couple with blue and blond hair. Stopping in mid-air, the flyer slowly lowered himself with long strokes of his wings and landed softly on the glassy street. Staring briefly at the travelers, he spun around in a circle, tucked his wings close to his back, and marched off towards the palace.
-------------------------------------------
Fayt, Cliff, and crew breathed audible sighs of relief as they approached the gateway to Granada. It was the day after the festive bonfire at Wizaria and Braedon had led them to the main roadway where they had said their farewells. Fayt had been pondering what the visions and voices he was hearing could possibly be about, especially now that he knew Cliff was having similar ones too. They had begun to see Greetoners flying overhead this way and that and their red, orange, and yellow wings made them stand out like sore thumbs against the sky and its scattered clouds.
They had finally reached their destination, after one too many delays. Fayt's anxiety over Sophia was deepening and he started doubting himself over whether they had wasted too much time in the jungle. With Cliff's left arm rested snugly over his shoulders, the bluenette found it possible to at least partially forget his unease as he strolled past the huge wooden doors of the city. The crew stopped suddenly and had varied reactions to what they were seeing in front of them. Cliff shouted 'What the?' while behind them Nel uttered 'It can't be.' Other travelers continued past the party as they stood frozen in shock.
What really surprised them was that the city had such a futuristic look to it. All of the streets were made of translucent blue glass and they were impeccably clean. The wide plaza in front of them sported a gigantic fountain surrounded by a quadrangle shaped park littered by people both with and without wings. Looking farther into the distance, the party saw a city of contrasts. The houses lining the roads had white and blue glass walls — only see through in certain areas — and the roofs were made from the rainforest wood that was plentiful to the region. Walkways spreading outwards from the main entrance were lined with palm trees and some of the taller buildings had topical bushes growing on their roofs or hanging off balconies. The step temple from Cliff and Fayt's visions was visible in the centre of the city — the only stone building in Granada made from a profusion of green, yellow, and blue painted rock — but neither remembered what it looked like so they didn't recognize what they were seeing.
Nel broke the silence. "Now this is intriguing. I've heard all about how Greeton is the most technologically advanced society on Elicoor, but this is my first time visiting the capital. It's a little different than I imagined…"
"I'd never expect to see a place like this on an underdeveloped planet," Maria stated blankly as she squinted her eyes from the sun.
"Hmph. What the hell was the King thinking by planning an attack on Aquaria and not Greeton? Ha! This place looks a whole lot better than that rotten hole you call Aquios," Albel declared, meeting Nel's icy glare. "I'd sure love to slice the wings off some of these cowards so they won't be able to kidnap our people ever again."
Just then a flyer drifted over them and Albel took a wholehearted swipe at it with his katana. Unfortunately it was a little too high up and it safely landed in the park ahead of them. Mirage was opening her mouth to ask about where they should look for Sophia, but she quickly closed it again when she noticed that everyone around them had started staring at Cliff and whispering to each other. People were gasping and covering their mouths in shock as they all tried to get a closer look at him. A group of young women finally walked right up to him to ask his name. After he gave it, they bowed down before him and yelled to the crowd: "The prophecy is true! Our saint has come to save us!"
The mass of Greetoners who had assembled in a circle around the group began to bow down in unison, some holding their hands up towards the sky while others were cupping them in prayer. Coco and Loco poked their heads out of Fayt's bag to see what all the commotion was about before promptly dropping back down after seeing everyone staring in their direction. Cliff was rather enjoying the attention, so he stuck out his chest and put his hands on his hips, flashing the crowd a superman smile.
"All hail Lord Cliff!" one of the girls shouted. "HAIL LORD CLIFF!" the crowd responded enthusiastically. Maria, Mirage, and Nel started giggling while Fayt stood there blushing from all the attention they were attracting. Suddenly the swarm of people parted on one side and a man in burgundy robes strolled through. With a loud whoosh he spread his fiery coloured wings out as far as they could go, pushing spectators aside in the process. A wreath of flowers was firmly fixed onto his balding head.
"Welcome. I am Lord Arzem of Granada. So it is true. Hurry, please come with me to the temple so we can talk."
With that the crew was swept away from the zealous onlookers by his bodyguards and whisked down the sparkling streets of Granada.
-------------------------------------------
Inside the massive temple Lord Arzem led them along tall corridors, past groups of loiterers and into an enormous room that contained rows of pews on one side and a pedestal with a diary on it on the other. An old man was standing over the book, his white robe matching well with his long silvery hair. As they entered the room, Arzem closed the massive doors behind them.
After circling around on the spot to survey his surroundings, Fayt had to settle his main worry of the moment: "Lord Arzem, before we discuss what just happened out there can you tell us if you know of a girl named Sophia that was taken by one of your flyers."
"Ahhh...yes, if she is with you we can let her go. I will go retrieve her. While I am gone, my advisor Darien will answer any questions you have and explain the reaction of our people to your presence." Arzem swiftly exited the room and posted guards outside the door as the old man turned towards them.
Darien's wisdom was displayed in the subtle curves of the wrinkles on his face, the sands of time shaping them as the wind does the dunes of a desert. This man did not have wings, but as he walked towards them there was a spring in his step, a lightness to his motion. Foreseeing a long talk, Albel sat down in one of the pews to sharpen his katana as the sunlight filtered into the room through tall thin windows. Darien strode up close to Cliff and studied the black markings that encircled his neck. The blond stared at him with his arms crossed, not sure whether he liked a stranger this close to him.
"Yes! You are the one! Hurry come see!" Darien cried, ushering them over to the pedestal.
There, on the diary's open page, was a diagram of a male Klausian with those distinctive tattoo-like lines on his neck. Fayt and Cliff both blinked at the picture, trying to figure out how this could happen.
"The prophecy of this book and its teachings tell of a day when a man with these markings will come to our city and save us from terrible invaders that look like Greetoners with wings but are actually weapons of destruction. Our entire religion is based upon this book and to us you truly are a saint! Now for us to be certain, please tell me if you have had any visions of this place. The scripture says we will know for sure it is our saviour if he has weird visions..." Darien was practically jumping up and down beside them.
Cliff's eyes widened in remembrance. "Yo man! I saw this very diary in a vision I had in Arias! This very room…" The blond closed his eyes and stood silently as Fayt looked at him anxiously.
"Cliff, this is really strange…" the bluenette began before Darien interrupted.
"No! Don't you see?! The prophecy will be fulfilled! Let me explain. One thousand years ago a visionary man wrote this scripture which foretold of an invasion by powerful enemies that would wipe out our entire planet and many others. The people who would send these monsters are supposedly from an alternate universe. He had been born to prevent this from ever happening and he tried to destroy the culprit — a company that was conducting secret killing campaigns in his own world and that would eventually attack our world — but he failed in his attempt. He promised in the book that this very year someone from his blood lineage would arrive here with those markings and carry on his mission, this time being successful. And that saint is you Lord Cliff!"
"Wha…?" the blond muttered, opening his eyes again and seeing Sophia and Arzem entering the room.
"SOPHIA!" Fayt exclaimed, running over and giving her a big hug. Her clothes were a bit dirty, but otherwise she seemed fine, her eyes as bright as ever.
"Are you okay? What did they do to you?"
Clenching her fists she recounted her imprisonment. "It was terrible Fayt! They thought I was some sort of spy so they kept questioning me and when I said I didn't know what they were talking about they dunked my head in a toilet over and over again!! I thought they were going to drown me. Then they made me undress and they tickled me all over with the tip of their feathers! You have no idea how horrible it is to have that happen and not be able to do anything about it!" By now her breathing had quickened and her bottom lip was quivering slightly.
"I'm tremendously sorry Ms. Sophia. We thought we had evidence that you were a spy. The flyer who kidnapped you will be punished, I can assure you that," Arzem replied. "Any friend of Lord Cliff is a friend of ours."
Sophia glared at him and inhaled loudly through her teeth. "And that's not all, they also forced me to eat Brussel sprouts! THE grossest food in the universe." She shivered as she recalled having the vile green balls stuffed down her throat.
Maria had been sympathetic with Sophia's plight up until the Brussel sprouts. "Come on Sophia, it couldn't have been that bad."
"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!" Sophia shrieked, clearly on edge from being incarcerated while Cliff and Fayt jaunted around the jungle making love under waterfalls.
Without warning, Sophia lunged at Maria and tackled her to the ground, her eyes widened like the rim of a toilet bowl. Much high-pitched screaming followed as Sophia yanked at Maria's azure hair and the latter fought back by slapping her hard across the cheek. "PSYCHO BITCH!" They grabbed each others arms and Sophia tried to wrestle Maria until she surrendered while the bluenette tried to push the Earthling off of her. Sophia was about to sink her teeth into the Quark leader's forearm when Mirage seized both of them in mid-battle and hauled them to their feet.
"Apologize, both of you, now," she commanded. "Please."
As they both hung their heads and said sorry, Sophia caught sight of Albel sitting on the edge of his seat and could tell that he had been very amused by the battle between them. Is that a puddle of drool…?
"Whoa Sophia...calm down, I think you need some rest," Fayt offered, his ears still ringing from the screaming. "Lord Arzem, is there somewhere we can relax?"
"Ahh, yes. I will take you to your rooms and we will continue this conversation tomorrow. By the way Lord Cliff, there is a throne reserved for you in the palace attached to this temple. If you need any help at all, just ask any of our servants."
Cliff was standing beside his boyfriend, still in a bit of a daze from the day's events.
"Come Cliff," Fayt ordered, grabbing his hand and dragging him after Arzem.
-------------------------------------------
The next morning, Fayt and Cliff awoke in a lavishly decorated room and were treated to an enormous breakfast of scrambled eggs, pancakes, bacon, and hash browns. The evening before Fayt had had a long discussion with Sophia to soothe her nerves and reassure her she wasn't a psycho bitch as Maria had alleged. Cliff was awfully quiet as they ate and eventually Lord Arzem came to take him to the throne room so the royal court could formally greet him. Fayt sat alone in the bedroom not sure what to do when he heard Nel shout from across the hallway. He rushed over to see what was up.
"FAYT!" she cried as he walked into her room, "When I woke up one of your creatures was curled up and sleeping in my hair! You should keep a closer eye on them."
As Nel was talking, Loco bolted across the floor from under the bed and slithered up Fayt's leg and onto his shoulder, hissing at the crimson-haired woman in front of him. Ignoring the ferret, she turned to the mirror and started picking fur out of her hair.
"I'm sorry Nel. I didn't know they had escaped our room. I guess when Cliff left they got out…"
"BAHHHHHH!" Another scream echoed down the hallway and through the open door.
Fayt darted over to Albel's room, fairly sure he was going to find Coco there getting into trouble. Sure enough Albel was holding Coco tightly in one hand as the ferret writhed around trying to bite him. Albel's hair was puffed up all funny on one side from sleeping on it.
"Fayt! Your precious weasel was snooping around my room when I woke up and look what it did! It shat in my shoe, the filthy maggot," Albel snapped as he pointed to the shoe that was smeared with ferret poo. "And that's not all," he continued, his eyes burning hot like magma, "I fucking stepping into it and got it all over my bare foot!"
The bluenette couldn't help but snicker through his nose. "I'm sorry Albel. I'll keep better watch of them. Come Coco."
"I SURE HOPE SO LEINGOD! Next time they try to pull that off I'll cut them in half like worms and believe me you won't have four ferrets, you'll just have four dead pieces of them!"
-------------------------------------------
The rest of the crew went out to look around town while Fayt stayed in the palace, worried about Cliff. He was playing with Coco and Loco on his bed when the Klausian burst into the room in mid-afternoon.
"UGH! I finally escaped from all those wackos out there. Can ya believe it Fayt? They think I'm some kinda god or somthin'. They were all lining up to come bow before me and they wanted to touch my neck...but I didn't let 'em."
Fayt noticed that Cliff had a flower wreath around his head like Arzem and he also had a jewel necklace dangling around his neck. "I don't know what to say Cliff. I'm really confused."
"Tell me about it! Anyways, let's jet outta here and get some peace and quiet. I was told there's a hill on one side of Granada that overlooks the city so we might as well go and take a look..."
Feeling a sudden urge, Fayt ran over to Cliff and spontaneously leaped onto him, holding himself up by wrapping his legs around the blond. Cliff laughed as Fayt kissed his neck. "I wasn't gone that long was I?" The bluenette stuck out his bottom lip and jumped down so they could walk out of the palace.
It was a bit of a hassle getting to this hill since they kept getting accosted on the streets by Greetoners interested in seeing their saviour up close. Word had spread quickly. The weather also wasn't so great today as an ominous fog had settled on the city, darkening the otherwise vibrant streetscape and giving the couple an eerie claustrophobic feeling.
They finally marched up the long road to the lookout, free of rabid spectators, and emerged out of the low-laying cloud into the brilliance of the summer sun. They sat down together on the grassy slopes and looked out towards the city. All below them an ivory blanket of fog spread out as far as they could see and only the very tip of the temple poked through. It appeared as though the clouds were another layer of the planet's surface as there were higher and lower sections, the latter looking like sky rivers and the former looking like something you could walk on.
They both sat with their legs outstretched and their arms behind them for support. "Fayt, do ya think it's weird that both of our best friends are girls?" Cliff suddenly asked out of nowhere.
"...No, not really," the bluenette responded, running a hand over the hair on the back of his head. "Who says that guys have to have male best friends? Where did that come from anyways?"
"I dunno. I've just been thinkin' bout a lot of things since we got here."
Fayt snuggled up closer to Cliff who was concentrating on the fog below. "Why? Is there something you want to tell me?" he asked, staring anxiously towards the Klausian.
"Have I ever told ya bout my parents Fayt? ….No, I didn't think so. Well since I know so much bout yours I figure you should know more about my past. Hmmm...how do I put this," the blond pondered, mindlessly tugging the grass with his fingers as he searched for the right words. "Y'know, my dad wasn't exactly the nicest person when I was little. Actually...he was an abusive...sonuvabitch, if ya know what I mean," the blond exclaimed nervously, peering out of the corner of his eyes at the bluenette.
Fayt's brow wrinkled with concern as he listened to his sweetie. "What? Really? Towards you?"
"Oh, no no no. Towards my mom," he replied, sighing heavily. "I can still remember when I used to lie at the bottom of the stairs and eavesdrop on them fightin' in their room. I musta been like ten years old. They tried to hide it from me, but I was smart enough to know what was goin' on. She kept saying she'd bumped into things around the house…"
Cliff closed his eyes and lay back onto the grass. Fayt followed him down and rested on his burly arm, listening intently while thinking how glad he was that Cliff was opening up to him.
"Anywho, when I was a few years older I really started urging my mom to throw him out. I always thought of what I would say to them if I wasn't so damn scared…"
Hey girl you know you drive me crazy
One word puts a rhythm in my head
Still I'll never understand why you hang around
I see what's going down
Cover up with makeup in the mirror
Tell yourself it's never gonna happen again
You cry alone and then he swears he loves you
Do you feel like a man when you push her around?
Do you feel better now as she falls to the ground?
Well, I'll tell you my friend, one day this world's gonna end
As your lies crumble down, a new life she has found
Face down in the dirt she said, this doesn't hurt she said I've finally had enough
A pebble in the water makes a ripple effect
Every action in this world will bear a consequence
If you wade around forever you will surely drown
I see what's going down
I see the way you go and say you're right again,
Say you're right again, heed my lecture
- 'Face Down' by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
"...Then one day she did finally divorce him and he died shortly after in a car accident," the blond continued, the moisture gathering in his eyes belying his straight face. "Later on, I kept beating myself up over the fact that I hadn't been able to do anything to protect my mom from him."
"But there was nothing you could have done Cliff. You were too young…"
"I know," he replied quietly, watching a dragonfly flitter past them. "But from then on I promised myself I would protect someone who needed it the way I couldn't to my mom...And then I found you…" At this Cliff turned and smiled lovingly at Fayt. "Thing is, my dad was so great when he was in a good mood, but then there was his dark other side, so I never knew what to think of him. How can ya miss someone like that? Like I do…There were so many things I wish I could've discussed with him when I got older...I guess Mirage was always there for me and that helped…"
"Shhhh," Fayt cooed gently as he leaned in and pressed his lips over Cliff's, feeling the blond's tense body loosen up and relax from the long, sweet kiss. Cliff felt much better, much lighter, after revealing his internal pain to his boyfriend. He decided to change the subject.
"So Fayt, why didn't cha tell Darien that you were having visions and hearing voices too?"
"I'm not sure. I don't trust him, to tell you the truth. I have a feeling he didn't tell us the whole prophecy, I think he's hiding something from us…"
"Ya might be onto somethin' there. Let's go take a look at that diary ourselves."
TO BE CONTINUED!
(A/N: my story's gonna get darker for the last few chapters but i'll still keep it funny. i can see the end tho...makes me sad)