A/N: My favorite fan fiction author, .rain, said they would like to see an after story when I asked, so, songfic galore, a several part after story.
Disclaimer: As awesome as I am, I, unfortunately, do not own Final Fantasy.
Warnings: Angst, fluff, shounen ai, the whole shebang.
Chapter summary: This is Hell, and neither fourteen-year-old, nor twenty-year-old are ready to cooperate with it; or the other, in Hope's case.
Chapter 2: Not Ready
This was a bad decision. All of them knew. None of them were ready. It was Hell, this place. This state of mind was also Hell.
To Hope, it was all torment. He hated this man, and he was stuck with him.
He hated how he played hero.
He hated that he was so much taller.
He hated his smile, he hated his laugh.
He hated how he let his mother volunteer.
He hated how he let her die.
He hated his blonde hair, his stubble.
He hated how likeable he was.
He hated how he shrugged off negative emotions.
But there was one thing that Hope hated about the older man more than anything else; Hope hated how he loved Snow.
Oh yes, Hell indeed. And how unprepared for it he was.
He wasn't prepared to avoid death, public execution, no less, with each individual step he took.
He wasn't ready to run and hide the rest of his life.
He wasn't ready to lose his freedom; his alone time.
He wasn't ready to constantly change cities with each fallen group of soldiers.
He wanted to change it all. Who wouldn't want to? PSYCOM was sick of tailing them; people were sick of dealing with them; they were sick of hiding from everyone else.
He knew they felt it; all of them. Especially Snow.
PSYCOM's constant promises to end them, though it felt like he was sick of living anyway, hadn't gone over yet. Everything felt too unreal for his liking.
Hope felt tired, but exhilarated at the same time. Snow's lips against his felt both right and wrong. He knew Serah wouldn't like this, none of them would. And if she ever woke from crystal stasis, he could only imagine which of the two she'd go after.
Hope might not mind sharing, but Snow was definitely not something he would want to divvy up if she woke. After all, Snow would have to choose one of them at some point.
That, he thought, That would be closer to Hell than this is.
That night, he lie wide awake, to much on his mind. Not to mention all the paranoia.
Why should I be worried? Why should I keep on pretending like this isn't real when I know it is? I know he doesn't like Serah, at least not like that, he told me she was always more like a sister. But then, things change; things always do, people being no exception.
I'll move along; he'll like me more than her, he'll choose me. Definitely. Still, minds do change…
Snow felt all of that, lying down beneath Cocoon. He was over Serah. He was done with putting up a façade for everyone. No matter how scared he was, or how unreal it felt to let himself be himself, He was done with acting.
They were supposed to have other ways of saving the world. This was not supposed to be one of them. They weren't supposed to be destroying it.
They had four options.
Do nothing and become Cie'th.
Kill Barthandelus and the other evil fal'Cie.
Play it by ear and hope it turns out well.
Escape to Pulse and rot away.
Somehow, becoming Ragnarok had made its way onto the list. How rude of it.
They were supposed to be redeeming themselves to Cocoon. That seems like it would be hard to do if Cocoon was destroyed.
Remove all the bad they had done, from themselves and everyone else. To save people, to argue they were actually good. This didn't seem like it would end well…
A/N: Well, cliffhanger on the second chapter, isn't that just like me? Should have a new chapter up soon. Hope you like it, .rain!