I apologize right off the bat for any typos, I've been far too scatterbrained to really edit anything I've written in like...the last month which is horrible of me, but I can't seem to do it. I try but I'm suddenly finding myself far too scatterbrained and I've had horrible luck with betas in the past so I generally don't even go there. If it's too atrocious tell me and I'll take it down and redo it, or at least try to.

...I follow up fluff with some insightful angst. And by insightful angst I mean 'do I even like this thing? It seems incomplete but you know what? I'm posting it anyway.'

...but insightful angst makes me sound less neurotic.

Mortality

Zack's hands clench numbly around the hilt of Angeal's sword and it's several moments before he can even feel the worn, solid surface against his skin.

He knows Angeal is gone, but it isn't something he can wrap his mind around quite yet, so he pushes it aside, focusing on the little swarming half thoughts that wisp off of it.

Mortality, he notes dully, is a multifaceted state.

It's often forgotten and taken for granted. Zack himself is usually guilty of this. He can't even count how many times he's taken his mortality for granted in battle. It's one of the things Angeal would repeatedly lecture him on and one of the things Zack would repeatedly laugh away. It seemed now that he'd taken Angeal's mortality for granted as well. Angeal was strong, inhumanly so and skilled beyond the abilities of most anyone Zack had ever come in contact with. He had always been so attentive, so solid and warm, so safe and real…it had never even occurred to Zack that he might ever be gone.

But he was.

Mortality is often unwanted as well. Human kind will yearn for something more, something better and more powerful. Was Genesis not, even as Zack knelt beside Angeal's body, desperately seeking his Goddess, his symbol of immortality? And Zack cant say that he wanted Angeal's mortality either. Without it…without it he'd still be here, holding Zack to his chest, petting his hair and telling him that it was okay, he'd only done what he was told, what he had to do, his slow, steady breathing lulling Zack into a peaceful acceptance.

But mortality…mortality can also be a good thing. His own mortality, Zack realizes, is certainly one. The feeling slowly returns to his body and his grip loosens to a more comfortable, natural hold on Angeal's sword. His own mortality is going to be the driving force for what time he has left. He's not going to give in, he's not going to give up, because he knows Angeal wouldn't want it and he knows that he owes himself more than that, not just Angeal. He promised himself that he'd be a hero and he won't give up on that. He'll not only continue onward, he'll excel, he'll make his living existence into something that Angeal will be proud of, something that he can be proud of, all the while knowing that their separation can't last forever and that one day his own death will come.

And then mortality will be a blessing because it will bring Angeal back to him.

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