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.
Genesis Rhapsodos was not possessive. Didn't know how to be, really. He was a firm believer in generosity. Sometimes, he thought that might be a main factor to much of his downfall; he expected his partners to be faithful to him but gave no restrictions on how many others they could be faithful to. Perhaps he seemed distant to them, but he had not meant to. If they decided to leave him, he never fought for them, never asked them to stay. He always remembered how upset that had made many of his previous partners, all female if he cared to remember a bit further. He didn't. Because it hurt to remember.
The redhead had not been born with a jealous bone in his body; did not have the capacity to be possessive, jealous, envious of anyone because nothing in the world really belonged to him to begin with, especially not another human being. No, he didn't know how to be jealous...
But he knew how to want.
Knew how bad it hurt to want. Knew the pain of wanting to hold on to someone, -even just the idea of that person- when it was so impossible.
Cloud was not stupid. Cloud was deaf. He could not hear, but he could listen in his own way. If he tried really hard, he could even speak, to some extent. He lived in a silent world, could not know what his friends sounded like, these days. Cloud did not always have a hearing impairment. He remembered what it was like to hear voices and sounds. He remembered the sounds of every word he wished he never had to hear. He remembered the way he had to ask people to repeat themselves over and over, louder and louder every day. He remembered waking up crying one morning simply because a bird had woken him up and he thought that was a beautiful thing because he knew that one day he wouldn't hear that bird ever again.
Cloud remembered every thing. Cloud remembered every pain.
And it was all locked inside, with no way to get out. He wrote about it. He drew about it. He cried about it. But no matter what he did, it was always stuck inside of him. It was the lump in his throat, it was the tremor in his hand, it was the tightness of his chest, it was the blood on his lip, it was the crescent moon marks on his palm, it was insomnia every night, it was his bad posture, it was his need to be against the wall so he could see what everyone else was doing because What if they're looking at me? even though most everyone had gotten over the fact that Cloud was not being rude, but simply couldn't hear them.
Helen Keller had said that blindness separated people from objects, but deafness separated people from people. He could never imagine how she must have felt, but he was certain she was right on both counts as he was definitely feeling the separation.
Genesis had a system to things. There were many ways many things could be done, but for him there was always one course of action and that was how it should be done. The problem was: Sephiroth had broken his system. He'd had many partners, many of them at the same time as another, but he'd never gotten quite so attached as he had to Sephiroth. Not to say that he'd not been attached to any of the others; he felt certain he'd loved them all, at least at some point. He loved the 'no-stringers,' he loved the 'let's-be-friends-ers,' he loved the 'one-night-standers,' he even loved the couple of 'scandlers.' But he loved Sephiroth.
Loved the closeness, the struggle, the growth, the friendship, the way he could go from 'I love you' to 'I hate you' and back in sixty seconds or less. Loved the gentleness, and harshness, and honesty, and naivety, and how he'd insisted he wasn't gay for the longest time but still loved the redhead. He loved the way that Sephiroth sometimes wanted to be him, and he almost always wanted to be Sephiroth.
Genesis had certain ways, but Sephiroth had shown him better ones and he didn't use them and he lost the only partner he'd ever called a lover because he was stubborn ans he was stupid and why does this hurt so much?!
Genesis' system was broken, but now he had nothing else left to use.
Sephiroth never thought much about the way a house would work with hearing impairment. By the fifth time he had visited, he was slightly embarrassed to find that even the blond's dogs knew more sign language than he did. Most of the house had been fitted to Cloud's needs by the insurance company. Through writing, Cloud explained that the alarms were connected to the lights. In case of a fire, every light in the house would flash and there was no area without so much as a lamp. He had an alarm clock as well, but it was often rendered useless on account of covering his head with blankets. Cloud had agoraphobia, and hated open spaces because he could never tell what was happening around him, so often he made his bed a cocoon. Sephiroth noted that the rest of the room had the same theme; his desk was facing the rest of the room from the corner and his closet was walk-in; he probably shut the door so his back wasn't to the open space. Everything in the house that seemed normal before seemed to have an elaborate set up; even Fenrir and Beast were not only his pets, but also for security.
Everything difficult about Cloud's life made him appreciate his own more.
Sorry for asking you over so suddenly, I just didn't want to be alone. the blond scribbled on the note pad. Over time, the silveret had discovered the times when responses involving words were unnecessary, and he just smiled and ran a hand through the unruly spikes...
But something odd happened. Something the ROTC had never really felt with anyone, even Genesis. It wasn't a spark, not really; it was more like time froze. Even that, he decided, was much too cliche, but he couldn't find a better explanation. Time froze, but his heart was beating hard anyway, and Sephiroth could swear he heard it. Even as the boys' heads moved forward -millimeter by millimeter- Sephiroth wasn't entirely sure what was happening or why it was happening. Everything in the room was still around them, but Sephiroth could swear explosions were happening somewhere as he felt the blond's lips press against his own. They were chapped from the biting and peeling the blond abused them with, but they felt perfect regardless.
Everything had suddenly clicked in to place in the silveret's head.
A/N: I wanted to wait for a review, but it looks as if it's not coming. Oh well~
Hope everyone -guests, followers, reviewers- enjoyed the new chapter!