Trapdoor (Part 14)
by anza (05.12.05)
"No," Cloud answered calmly, though his heart was beating so fast out of his chest it was a wonder the Turks hadn't been alerted yet.
"But -"
"NO."
They stared at each other. Yazoo tried again. "Nii-san, I don't think you understand Kadaj's dependence on you," he said, punctuating dependence. "I don't think he can live without you, that's what I mean. You don't realize how much he looks up to you, adores you, loves you, nii-san. If you took him away now, he'd go into shock."
"I can't be here for him!" Inwardly Cloud winced; his voice grate so harshly against the white, wordless walls. "I can't stay for longer than tonight!"
"Then say goodbye at least!"
"No!" Cloud felt something in him breaking, shattering, crushing so utterly into the dust of yesterday. "No, he must stay here -"
Yazoo stood abruptly, eyes blazing. "You don't know how much we love you! You just want to protect us, and you have! You've done everything so well, nii-san, and we love you for it! Every time you showed you cared, even when we told you we didn't want you here, it told us you would be here at home when we came back drunk or wasted or hurt. Now it's our turn." Cloud recognized the decided tone of voice as one he used himself earlier. "I've got a place to back to - I've got the university. Loz has his apartment and his job. But Kadaj doesn't have anywhere to go. If you leave, you can't possibly ask him to stay here where he can be reminded of you every day."
"Then take him elsewhere. You can." Cloud was perfectly serious.
So was Yazoo, matching him stare for stare. "He wants you, nii-san."
There was a way he said it that made Cloud look closer. Yazoo was standing in the middle of the living room, a little diagonally, his sleep clothes hanging loosely off of him, but the two jewels of eyes, set like living windows, gleamed out from under his hair, holding Cloud there. In an instant, Cloud's heart froze, his face tightening as if someone had screwed it shut like a coffin lid.
Yazoo saw it immediately, and stepped forward. "Nii-san, listen to me!" Cloud listened, half-heartedly. It hadn't been a secret after all. His sickening infatuation with his youngest brother, a boy ten years younger than he was - disgusting, distasteful, loathesome, offensive betrayal of everything he was supposed to be -
"Nii-san!" Yazoo's voice cut like a dagger through his thoughts. The other was there, suddenly, standing in front of him, shaking him slightly. "Nii-san, pull yourself together! Tell me something: who do you think I am?"
He was confused and lost. "Yazoo. Yazoo, my brother...," he hesitated to say the last word.
But Yazoo didn't flinch like he did. "Yes. Your brother. Someone who probably knows you better than yourself, nii-san." He let go, his voice continuingly, flowing and untroubled. "Nii-san, I've known for a long time now, maybe even before you knew yourself. And I can tell you, it's not unrequited."
But Cloud wasn't listening. Under his breath, he was hissing softly, "...disgusting, he trusts me as a brother, disgusting, disgusting..."
"No!" Yazoo was shouting, and an absent part of Cloud's mind noted it was very unlike him. "No. No, nii-san." Was Yazoo begging? It sounded like he was. "No, nii-san, I'm not lying. And it's not wrong." At that word, Cloud twisted out of his grasp. "Nii-san, you have to take him with you," Yazoo added desperately. "You know how much pain it will cost you if you left him, so you must know it would break him if you left him here without even a goodbye!"
"No!" Cloud tore himself away, willing himself to crush those hopeful dreams into powder, washing his hands of his almost-sin. He didn't want it - he hadn't ever wanted to feel this way, and now that Yazoo had presented this in front of him, he didn't want to admit the heady lurch of happiness his mood had taken, spiraling upwards with every dream he remembered.
"YES!" And with the force of someone who knew exactly what they were doing was right, Yazoo dragged his older brother up the stairs.
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Kadaj had not awoken, though they had shouted their loudest downstairs. For a moment Cloud looked down at that sleeping face, so young and so lax in the moonlight, and then put one hand on his shoulder. The clock on the bedside read four in the morning. He began to shake him awake, watching the blinds play shadow tag over the silver pool of finery on the pillow.
"I'll start packing," Yazoo murmured to him. Cloud told him where his spare guitar case was, and then Yazoo was gone in a flash. Under his shaking and murmuring, Kadaj had begun to awaken.
Cloud watched, enthralled, as those green eyes cracked open, shut, then fluttered open again. A long "Mmmhph" came from the back of his throat, along with a stretch of his arms. And then nothing, the room falling into silence. Cloud was about to shake him again when Kadaj shifted again, green eyes seeing him for the first time. "Nii-san?" That quiet voice in the silence shattered all of Cloud's hopes to keep Kadaj here. He knew, in that moment, that he couldn't push Kadaj away now, couldn't possibly bear being apart from him now that they had walked so far together.
The door banged against the wall, and both of them looked up at Yazoo, struggling with the guitar case. "Sorry," the middle brother muttered, and kicked open the case.
The silver-haired brothers both stopped, shocked, as a fully loaded .30 caliber rifle met their eyes.
With quick strides Cloud pulled down the second compartment and opened Kadaj's underwear drawer. "Help me," he commanded Yazoo, who pulled the shirt drawer completely out of the bureau to sort through the clothes. Kadaj seemed frozen on the bed, staring at the both of them with wide eyes.
"What are you doing?" he finally asked.
"Packing," Cloud and Yazoo answered in unison. "You're leaving with nii-san," Yazoo added as an afterthought.
"What?" Kadaj said in disbelief. "With nii-san?" Now that he knew, Cloud caught the glimmer of hope in that question. "Where are we going?"
"Out of Midgar. In fact, if I can manage it, off of the Continent completely." Yazoo spared him a glance of "Are you sure that's not overkill?", but Cloud gave a nod to affirm his statement, and fished Kadaj's passport out of his drawer. Along with that came his PhD diploma, his citizenship papers, his driver's license, and some of his baby records. With that, the second compartment was filled. Slamming it down, he opened up the top comparment and began to stuff clothes into it. "Get dressed," he told Kadaj tersely.
"But why?"
Cloud spared enough time to say, "As long as you're with me, you don't need to know anything." Both the brothers looked up at that, but Cloud's only response was to grab Kadaj's favorite guitar in the corner, lay it into the velvet second compartment, and slam the lid down.
Outside, the very beginnings of the sunrise began to streak over the horizon.