Trapdoor (Part 2)

by anza (08.11.05)

"You're being stupid," Sephiroth said with absolute certainty. His green eyes - so similar to Kadaj's! - flickered upward from where he was tuning his guitar to meet Cloud's. The blonde shrank back a little; they'd worked together for the longest time now, yet Sephiroth always had an air of authority and discipline that exuded no matter where he was nor what he was doing. Even now, as he strummed a chord (B major, Cloud noted absently), his thigh-length hair almost touching the floor, he was relaxed and yet still strung tautly. Cloud was reminded of a bow, the arrow hopefully pointed somewhere other than his head...

"And why's that?"

"You're determined not to change your relationship with the boys, right? You won't, not if you want to enough. Just succeed, and everything will be fine." Sephiroth had the right to care; he was a closer cousin than Cloud was, but deemed himself 'unfit' to adopt the boys when their parents died. There was a scandal that ruled him out of that decision - something with his pretty secretary, her name started with an "Ae-"? - and by default the court dropped responsibility onto Cloud's head like an unwelcome rainstorm.

He had to admit he overestimated them, those three displaced boys that stared up so hopefully at him at his front door that day. He expected them to be running around, making trouble for him everywhere, proverbially turning the house upside down (and sometimes, he realized they still could) - but he found his own perchance for practical jokes and pranks in his youth served to his advantages. He learned to know the look and the mild flick of Kadaj's hand that signaled a prank was in process, and that Cloud could either stay to watch or he could stop it (and risking three sulking boys for the rest of the week). Most times he watched; the brothers always picked good targets and pulled some spectacular ones before. The school bullies, the disliked teacher, the snobby slut - these were their targets. When the principal called Cloud in with one or all of the boys in tow, Cloud feigned innocence. No idea at all. Yes, of course he would scold them later.

Afterwards, he jotted the details into his diary and shared it with his closer collegues. Sometimes he would hear exploits later of Tseng's errant nephew attaching a tea set complete with table, chairs, and food onto the ceiling, or Tifa's second cousin found guilty of hanging the dorm's most annoying boy from the top bunk with miles and miles of dental floss. Other times, Rufus Shinra himself would come down from the thirty-fourth floor of his private office to demand if Cloud was the one who put the idea of painting his walls pink with rainbows into Reno's head. The guilty party always winked his left eye at Cloud. After Rufus stormed off to find the building's janitors, Cloud would blink back innocently.

But other than the pranks (and they were sure to never play them on Cloud; he was their darling older brother and the almighty supplier of their allowance), they were nice kids, if not overly smart ones. Cloud received a report the second week they'd transferred that Kadaj had solved an equation faster than the teacher had. It was fortunate the teacher thought it was amazing, not deficient to his authority. It was cruel, but Cloud told the boys to be stupid. Smart as they were, ironically they played dumb well. There were no more incidents, though Cloud was sure they each had their own private encounters.

"It's not that easy," he argued, but his voice trailed off. Perhaps it was that easy. Perhaps pushing it away was that easy.

Sephiroth finished tuning the guitar and plugged it into the synth. A blazing riff rippled forth and filled the little garage with sound. From the side alley Yazoo gave a whoop. A moment later something crashed and Cloud heard Loz cursing creatively. "You'd better stop hanging out with Cid," he admonished, but Loz only gave him a wry grin, hefting the largest drum in his arms.

They set up briskly. Cloud debated whether he should pull out his guitar; the boys had been good lately, and he rather missed jamming with his old band. But Tifa was the owner and bartender of her own bar, and Vincent was halfway across the world, studying ancient war strategies and weapons in the East. Cid was Loz's employer and sponsor, and the only one who Cloud heard about all the time, though Tifa was starting to enter the picture again. He could picture his own guitar, lying in its case in the back of his closet, its red and white starting to gather dust.

"Nii-san," Kadaj called out. The youngest's eyes were brimming with hope. "Please?"

He couldn't say no when three pairs of green eyes looked at him quite like THAT. With a sigh, he dragged the guitar out, tuned and plugged it in as the other four started practice on the songs they already knew.

They weren't serious, the four (and sometimes five) of them. Sephiroth and Cloud were both high-profile executives in Shin-Ra Company, and the other three, though adequate, weren't enough to make a good band. Sure, Kadaj's voice was so malleable and duplicitous that he would make a nice, sexy idol for girls to scream over during three-hour concerts and four-month world tours, but Cloud wasn't sure he could handle the stress of having all three of them away from him at once. He was at least used to having Kadaj at home all the time; Yazoo came back from university every two weekends and all the holidays; Loz checked in every Tuesday after testing out the latest aircraft equipment Cid designed and sold. Their family hadn't broken up completely, but Cloud was finding it hard to give up what little connection they shared in six years of brotherhood.

Six years was a long time too, he was finding. But all children left home someday. He just wished he really was their brother, so all of their childhoods would belong to him too.

He struck the strings so hard the others stared at him in amazement. But Kadaj only grinned, and launched into song. Through slitted eyes Cloud watched the youngest sway as if mesmerized by the song, hands caressing the microphone stand. Flinching, he turned away, his hands desperately scrambling for notes that would describe the voice of his conflicting soul. They rang true, and Kadaj's voice turned keen and pleading, the song arching towards a climax. Cloud broke into the interlude with a sparkling solo, hearing more than feeling the song grate against the leaden stone in place of his heart. When they were done, they were all panting hard, Loz turning to stare at his oldest brother increduously.

"Why'd you go so fast," he grumbled. Cloud threw him a towel, and he wiped the sweat that had beaded on his forehead. Yazoo took the time to shrug off his sweatshirt. Kadaj, in a black ensemble topped with silver jewelry ("There's no one to see us anyway," Cloud had heard Yazoo tell the youngest earlier. "Why're you all dressed up?"), clinked as he sashayed over to him.

"Nii-san," he said playfully, "what was THAT all about?"

Dumbly, Cloud heard himself say, "Huh?"

"You're not venting the missed chance of kissing Tifa at the dance, are you?" He'd heard all about the dance the next day, after he'd pestered Cloud for an entire morning while they tidied up the house.

Without permission, Cloud smiled almost challengingly. "No," he answered simply and took a seat on the amp.

Kadaj leaned against the other side. On the side, the other three were listening to the recording of the song. But somehow, now that the torment of the song was over, he had settled down back into his skin, contemplating the energy he'd conjured in his notes. Like always, Kadaj sensed that. "Nii-san," he said softer, "nii-san, won't you practice with us more? It's more fun when you're jamming with us."

Sephiroth's words rippled stormily through Cloud's head like an impending earthquake. Placing his hand on Kadaj's head briefly, he clasped his guitar and wandered dreamily out of the room, feeling the youngest's eyes boring into his back.

----------

If he'd known he spent two years in college and another year in graduate school to prepare him to file paperwork, he wouldn't have spent the time and the money. He was flattered, of course - "I only take geniuses," Rufus Shinra had declared when he took over the company from his father - but as his secretary had called sick and there were somehow no replacements in the entire sixty-two floor building (not including the five story parking garage beside it - which all the employees found woefully inadequate. Thankfully the bottom floor was reserved for executives such as Cloud himself), Cloud found himself filing paperwork. It was a job that he hadn't done in 7 years. Like a foot soldier, he'd started from grunt work and worked his way up to the top. People asked him how. He only replied he had the right sense to act at the right times.

Once, Kadaj had teasingly asked him who he bribed. Cloud couldn't say he did bribe anyone, but it did hit a little too close to home. In the end when he opened his eyes and found himself head of his department, with all the days of being commanded by someone other than Rufus Shinra over, he was as surprised as anyone else. It had all seemed a great boiling soup of people and places and names and money, sometimes here and sometimes there. In the end, he hadn't bribed any one person - donations to organizations worked better, once he made a little name for himself.

"Tifa called. I think she wants to get together sometime," Yazoo's voice drawled through the answering machine when he returned to his office. He listened to the background pandemonium of pots and pans clashing as Loz and Kadaj fought over who was to cook dinner ("I can cook better than you, dimwit!" "Nii-san likes my food better! Let's not completely waste his money, shall we?") while he stared out the window and tried not to smile too widely. It wasn't good for his image if someone saw him giggling in his office for no apparent reason.

With a yawn he closed up for the day. It was an hour commute back to the suburbs, and he didn't want to be late. Though Loz's birthday wasn't for two weeks, it was good to be home on Tuesdays. Yazoo's school had let out early for some important holiday; they all seemed to blend into his head at this hour. Kadaj was still slaving over college apps - he wanted to go to the same university as Yazoo and Loz, but it was picky about its essays, and he wasn't a spectacular essay-writer...

Sephiroth's sleek black sportscar was parked beside his bike, as always. Cloud gave his bike a loving pat and turned the key in the ignition. When the engine rumbled into life, the sound vibrating through him like thunder, he grinned to nobody in particular and started towards the exit. As he neared it, he thought he recognized the figure standing to the side - and then stopped the motorcycle completely. "Tifa," he exclaimed, surprised. "What are you doing here?" He eased his big black monster next to her.

"Bar's closed for the day. Some dude broke a cup over another guy's head and the police are writing both of them up. I'm not allowed to open until the hospitalized guy's condition has stabled, or until the police all commit hara-kiri over the tragic state of events." She huffed in exasperation. "They think I couldn't stop it because I was a woman. Bastards."

"They'd get the short end of the stick if they tried to fight you." Cloud was really fighting smiles today.

She scowled. "Damn right!"

He knew she wasn't there just to meet him. Her bar, only a scant block away, was a favorite among the Shinra executives, as it was close and Tifa, cutting her fine figure and her lashing tongue, provided ample amusement outside of the office. Cloud knew her well enough so that he was the first one to know when the previous owner sold the bar to Tifa herself. He also knew her well enough to know she broke up with her last boyfriend because he tried to kidnap her. "I attract the wrong sorts," he remembered her telling him. He had snorted, and she had snickered.

Things like that. They were good friends. So...

"Then you've got time," he said in his decision-made voice. "Come home with me and meet the boys. They'll be thrilled to finally see what's keeping their nii-san coming home so late at night." His lips quirked in invitation.

So that was what she came for, he thought when her eyes lit up. An exclamation of joy and eagerness, and then they were maneuvering through the traffic jams towards home. Her arms around his waist were warm even as his face froze into an expression of blankness in the whipping winter wind.

----------

"Hope you didn't eat too much hairgel," he quipped as he parked the bike into the garage. Tifa eyed the mikes and amps in the corner and started smiling again. "I don't suppose sitting behind me was much fun."

He had meant it - he wasn't great at conversations, he wasn't social at all, so why had she chosen him? "Why so much hairgel anyway?"

"I wanted to defy gravity." Her ensuing laughter richocetted off the walls in a way that was new and a little surprising, but Cloud wasn't sure if he liked it or not.

They got to the introductions soon enough. Yazoo tried to pick her up (Cloud cuffed him lightly on the head), and Loz tried to feed her peanut butter cookies (Cloud cuffed him too; "No sweets before dinner!"). Kadaj looked her over, swept a bow, and got down on one knee to kiss her hand. Cloud cuffed him the hardest, but he wasn't sure why. A tendril of the green monster wrapped around the stem of his heart when he saw the half-lidded gaze Kadaj gave her. He just wasn't sure who it was for.

"They're charming," she whispered to him as they entered the kitchen, together, shoulder to shoulder.

Loz had left the chicken in for too long, so they cut off the blackened parts while Yazoo ran to the nearest deli to buy an already roast one. The green beans were alright, as was the pasta and the sauce, but Cloud balked when he realized all they had for desert was peanut butter cookies. While he frowned over the problem, Tifa casually plucked Kadaj's frilly pink apron off the hook, looped it over her head and tied it around her waist. Cloud stared at her with a surprise that he couldn't even begin to describe.

"Close your mouth, or you'll catch flies," she teased. Her eyes were saying, If you like me like this, then imagine me with nothing but the apron on.

Obediently he shut his mouth and turned back to mixing the dough for the cream cheese clouds. No, no, it was all wrong. The way she looked in it - it was all wrong. He was struck by the sense of loss, seeing Tifa in Kadaj's apron. It hugged her form in all the wrong ways. She had looked spectacular two nights ago at the dance, dolled up in a way that fit his conception of her. But now, seeing her taking the place where Kadaj was, he was keenly aware how much he would lose if he was to start seeing her now. Time away from Kadaj, time away from Yazoo and Loz...he wanted to keep them right there, right next to him where he could reach out and place his hand on their shoulders. He wanted to protect them.

He wanted them to be reliant on him.

They weren't. Not anymore, and perhaps they never were. Reliance and stability was what a parent was there for, wasn't it? So that the child could rely on them until they grew up enough to take care of their own businesses. Cloud had done nothing wrong so far, he'd let them go, letting go of them little by little, so now that he'd released them into the world, he could see them fly like kites let loose, ever more brilliant in their wild freedom.

His heart ached. He didn't want to be alone. That was why he would marry Tifa when the time came. But in his heart, he didn't want a girl - he wanted the boys, their silver hair, green hairs and glittering smirks, frightening in their intensity yet gentle in their caring. These were his boys, and he dreaded the day he would see them off to start their own families.