Title: Fix Me
Summary: Seeing Cloud's hurt for so long made him hurt, too.
Pairing: Cloud/Sephiroth
Warning: boy/boy, depression, everything...just, everything
Disclaimer: I don't own them, I just write about them getting screwed over for personal satisfaction.

*When a member of the JROTC is called a ROTC, it should be pronounced as Rot-See. (ex: The ROTC flinched at the Commanders voice.)
Also, for those of you who don't know, Sephiroth is on the armed drill team, hence why they were spinning guns in the highschool. A lot of this probably won't make much sense unless you've been on drill team, but to get an idea of what he's doing there are plenty of videos of drill teams to look at.

It had been a week since Sephiroth had found himself in the infirmary, most of the swelling already gone, though yellow bruises dotted with purple and blue still clung to his jaw and cheek. Since that incident, he'd approached Cloud more often, and Friday found them on a bench sharing lunch in a quiet setting. Not that the blond could tell, either way. Zack hadn't gone to school that day, presumably skipping class, so the Drill member had decided to ask him.

The pair sat in the inner courtyard; a small environment surrounded by the school. A glass dome shielded the field from the falling snow. The area was covered with overgrowth; the school hadn't hired a groundskeeper for years. While Master Chief's students were usually tasked with cleaning up the school, Vincent asked the inner courtyard be left alone.

I think I would have gone crazy after not hearing anything for so long. The silveret wrote on the notebook they shared.

I think that you'd have to be crazy to begin with to still be sane.

What a paradox.

Sephiroth decided that he liked this, sitting here with the blond. The overhanging branches of the willow tree, the snow trapped away from them, and the overgrowth of the raised basins that made up a good half of the place had an interesting effect. He was sure that the marble floor had once been completely flat and eloquent, but with time the thirsty trees had broken it apart. The wispy roots of the willow seemed to reach out with one hundred arms, trying to grasp the stronger roots of the oak in the center of the sanctuary. It was quiet. But then, Cloud wasn't much of a talker. The ROTC didn't seem to take notice that while he was taking in the scenery, he was being taken in.

The younger made a sort of coughing sound, looking away and presenting the notebook they'd been using to communicate. Would you like to come over tonight? the line read. The other considered this a moment. He knew he didn't want to go home for as long as he could avoid it, but he also didn't want to intrude on Cloud's family. Will your parents mind? he replied after some time. My mom suggested it the blond hurriedly scribbled.

Cloud's mother was a nice lady, the kind Sephiroth used to imagine his mother was. She was also surprisingly youthful, and she appeared to have been the source of the vast majority of his new friend's traits. Everything except for his eyes, he noted. Her's were a beauty in their own right, shifting from shattered olives to broken mirrors, but Cloud's seemed to be fashioned out of gems; deep, glowing sapphires. Not even the actual stones could claim to be more beautiful.

Everything had been fine, until halfway through dinner.

"It's great to see my little boy making more friends; lord knows how hard it's been with that hearing barrier. I'd been hoping he'd have a girlfriend by now, but ever since Tifa-"

Cloud's chair screeched backward as he stood, effectively silencing his mother. He stormed off in the direction of his room.

It occurred to the cadet that perhaps those who can't hear listen closer than anyone.

"Oh dear...that is still quite a sore spot for him, I see," the youth's mother looked down sadly. "I'll clean all this up, would you go check on him for me?"

In the upper parts of the Strife residence, Cloud could be found sobbing none-too-quietly into a pillow. Sephiroth would've liked to've given a bit of warning, but the younger couldn't hear him. It hurt a lot, right then, to see how much his underclassman was hurting. He wanted it to stop. He wanted to stop it himself. But what could he do? He didn't know anything about this 'Tifa' character, but what ever had happened was obviously very painful. His body lulled with the heft of his heart, but he made his way over to the other boy.

Lightly, he began stroking his friend's shoulder. Cloud froze for a moment, then quieted down into shaking breaths and turned to face the ROTC, clutching at his chest while being comforted. Some time after patting his back, Cloud had fallen asleep. But not Sephiroth, not for several more hours.

This hurt. Hurt so bad that he wanted to cry, too. He wondered exactly what was bothering him so much about Cloud suffering; it wasn't like it was his problem.

Only, it was; he had made it so. Sephiroth wanted to take away the pain. Wanted to do as Cloud had asked.

"Fix me..." he'd cried, diamonds pouring from sapphires. "Fix me..."

Sephiroth wasn't sure how; wasn't sure what even needed fixed.

In his own room the next day, the silveret was aggressively practicing half beat, the rifle getting heavier and heavier with each twirl.

He went through the motions over and over and over. His hair was tied back and out of the way. His body was dripping of sweat and his arms were so, so very sore...

Sweaty palms rendered pinning useless, the practice weapon falling heavily and loudly to the floor. He could hear his father's yelling far before he got to the door. He didn't know why the old man bothered anymore, with all his talk about how useless spinning guns around all day was, how, eventually, it would become obsolete as technology developed. He grabbed a towel, heading to the adjoined bathroom.

Sephiroth always thought about strange things in the shower, but not in the same way as most teenage boys. He was thinking right then about how people never wanted to hear the flaws of the people they admired, even the true things. How, instead, they would rather blindly worship someone they knew only a few things about. He knew he was guilty of this, he certainly had been growing up. His mother had always been a touchy subject. When he was little, he'd even pretended that she was around. No one could badmouth his mother and get away with it...but he'd never met her. He'd always thought of his mother as this divine being, but really, he didn't know. Would never know. He sighed, toweling his body and grabbing his hairbrush. "Genesis," he acknowledged, not at all surprised to see the redhead in his room.

"Allow me," he offered, confiscating the brush.

"This isn't one of your better ideas, Gene."

"You always assume I only come here to sleep with you."

"I suppose I do," the younger agreed. "Have you ever thought about why that is, though?"

"I just said you always assumed that, not that you were wrong," he corrected wryly.

The younger shook his head, grabbing his brush back. "Get out, Genesis, before my dad catches you here."

The other narrowed his eyes. "Still playing Rapunzel locked away in this tower of yours, I see."

"I don't need rescuing. We're not little kids anymore, Genesis. I refuse to let you drag me down with you."

"All this talk about how you're going to be something one day, how you're not like me... But are you really any better than me? No matter what you say, you're still just daddy's little puppet," the redhead spat, moving back to the window.

"Maybe... But at least I'm not yours anymore."

A/N: We're learning a little more about the characters, nothing too exciting, just yet. Thank you all for reading, I'm hoping for a review from one or two of you, if you have time.

Tobirion: Thank you for reviewing. I do know my way a bit around this area, being raised by my grandfathers, one of whom had lost his hearing. Despite his trouble hearing people, he was a brilliant man,and I hope that the people who read this can try to work through similar barriers to recognize the great people they don't even realize surround them.