Warnings: Innuendo... and not the song by Queen, either
Chapter 16 : Take a Giant Step
The staircase foyer was much dimmer than the kitchen. Some barely visible family pictures and mementos hung on the walls and one small blond was sitting on the bottom steps, staring narrow-eyed at them, almost feral. Zack's posture changed as he neared, smoothed out and gentled, as if he were approaching a wild animal. The familiar body was extremely thin, almost skeletal; there didn't seem to be enough flesh to make a whole person.
"Hey, Niisan," the First said softly.
"Zack," the blond acknowledged.
The dark-haired SOLDIER took that as an invitation to sit beside him on the step. Sephiroth mirrored Zack's technique and tried to appear as non-threatening as possible. Blue eyes, lit from the inside, cautiously tracked his movement—blue eyes, with vertical cat-slits for pupils. Sephiroth's eyes except for the colour and the untamed gleam. It made him pause a moment before continuing his approach.
Zack looked at him, "General Sephiroth, I told you about Niisan." It was a reminder that this aspect wouldn't respond to any other name.
"I remember," Sephiroth confirmed.
"Do you need me to warm you up again, General?" the youth asked and made his companions stop and catch their breath, both because of his tone and the content. His voice was low and sensual, full of a sexual teasing that Cloud had never displayed. And yet Niisan was obviously referring to what Cloud had visualized in Nibelheim, when he went into that odd, protective trance. At least, if Sephiroth had correctly extrapolated the events from his SiC's disjointed, second-hand account.
"I am very warm now. Thank you," the General responded. The blond peeked at the General from under his bangs. It looked like he was either assessing the statement for lies or invitations. The light from the kitchen lit Niisan's hair. It wasn't the warm, soft gold that he remembered. It was nearer to silver-grey, almost the shade of Sephiroth's own hair.
"We want to go to your house, Niisan," Zack said.
Large eyes turned to the SOLDIER. Nissan's posture changed, his tight leather clothing creaked at the movement. The youth tilted his head, dipping it a bit so that he looked flirtatiously through his lashes at Zack. "But I like it here."
"And you know I like having you here, but we need to go back," the First insisted.
Niisan added a little pout, "It's not safe there."
"Sure it is."
The silver-haired youth shook his head. "It's too near the beach but not far enough from the depths." Zack frowned at the reference to their conversation with Dr. Imeera. "And I don't like pain. At least not mine."
"What do you mean," Sephiroth asked, puzzled by the statement. Huge eyes finally looked straight at him. It was disturbing though. There was sexual invitation but beyond that there was nothing, no recognition in Niisan's eyes, to say that his familiar shape held the Cloud he knew. It reminded him of the way Genesis had looked at him before asking for sex. Heat but no warmth. Intimate but not personal. He almost retreated but reminded himself that this too was a part of the Cloud he wanted back.
Niisan walked slender fingertips up the General's arm. "I mean I like to play games." He reared back, fingers now covering his mouth in mock enlightenment, "Oh, you mean about the house? I, we... I tried to stay in the shallows but they could reach me there. But when we, I mean, I shifted it to the deeps it was already damaged and the sky leaked in. If you get too close to it, you get sucked into the river." His voice was very close to condescending.
Sephiroth blinked. That had made absolutely no sense.
Zack carefully placed a hand on Niisan's slender back and ignored what he had said; the aspects often said incomprehensible shit. "We're going to help you fix it," he assured him. "I swing a mean hammer and I'm sure the General knows a few things about construction." It wasn't really a lie. SOLDIERs learned the basic of constructing buildings so they knew the best areas to target when they needed to destroy them.
The youth shifted to look at the dark-haired warrior. "If I agree, will you take your shirts off?" he teased, batting long silver eyelashes.
Zack laughed, "Fuck, Niisan. You never give up do you?" He gave the youth a fond smile, "Getting the house fixed will bring you one step closer to seeing me, and Sephiroth, without our shirts... or anything else."
"What does he mean, 'I could be sucked into the river'?" Sephiroth asked.
Two pair of mako-bright eyes looked at him but it was Zack who answered. "The Lifestream is his sky and it's filled with voices. They call out, sometimes really strongly. Niisan," he jerked a thumb at the silver-haired youth, "doesn't like being in the Lifestream."
"Mother doesn't like me to go there," the youth agreed.
It wasn't really enlightening but Sephiroth supposed it would make more sense once they reached Cloud's house. "Then we won't let you be, hmm, 'sucked' in." To him it was a simple solution and he stated it as fact.
Niisan blinked his luminous eyes. He seemed puzzled, most his erotic confidence had disappeared. "You won't leave me there?" he asked in a soft, small voice.
"We won't leave you there, Niisan. You have my word."
For a moment, a brief instant, the soft, uncertain Cloud of his memories was echoed in those eyes, in that face. Then snarky Niisan was back. "Okay then, but I'm doing this under protest. It's probably filled with dirt and rodent shit. I bet there's no bath either." He held out his elegant hands like an emperor to his subjects. Zack took one of the delicate hands but Sephiroth hesitated.
This was the aspect of his Cloud that had responded with purrs when Sephiroth had stroked the mako off his skin, the man who would order his superior officer to cum for him while down on his knees, sucking on his General's testicles—Sephiroth shifted at the memory of Cloud enjoying himself with him in the shower at Nibelheim. This Cloud wouldn't merely walk, but would strut across a room, enjoying the movement of muscles and flesh while thinking of naughty things.
Sephiroth was tempted, very tempted, to lean forward and kiss this over-confident, brazen and bratty persona senseless, just to remind the youth who he was playing with, but he also realized that Niisan had a petty, spiteful side and it did not fill him with confidence. Was this some kind of trick? Would they end up abandoned in some vile place while the youth made them beg for rescue or perform some humiliating act? He looked at Niisan in assessment and the youth squirmed uncomfortably and blushed.
Niisan didn't like that. His eyes went frosty and narrow, his narrow chin jutted out in rebellion. He stood abruptly.
"Well, c'mon!" he shook his free hand at Sephiroth impatiently.
Zack looked at him in concern, unsure of what was causing his companion to hesitate. That the dark-haired First hadn't hesitated to take Niisan's hand was somewhat reassuring but, then again, Zack was known for his impetuousness… and he was dithering, Sephiroth realized. He was as nervous as a man on the day after the wedding, wondering if the reality of partnership would match the daydream.
He grabbed the offered hand.
"Brace yourself," the silver-haired youth warned even as the room began to spin, "I am not feeling happy anymore."
The General was sure he heard Zack mutter 'oh shit' just before the pictures stretched and blurred. Then Sephiroth felt stretched and blurred. He was pulled out of himself and flung across a void. He was everything. He was nothing. He was spinning. He was still. Then he felt himself coalesce, all his parts rejoining, reforming until, with a shiver, he was whole. He was himself again, complete, and very nauseous. He panted roughly until the feeling passed, closing his eyes to concentrate on bringing his body back under control.
"A little more warning next time," he instructed his—hopefully his SiC, with an unhappy look.
"Sorry, Seph, I didn't know he was in a pissy mood. Besides, there's no way to describe that sensation."
That was likely true, the silver warrior thought. He'd never experienced anything like it... and he hoped never to experience it again.
"You should be asking me for more warning," Niisan huffed, "after all, I'm the one who brought you here."
Sephiroth looked down at the silver-haired youth. He was shorter than Cloud was in real life, closer to the height he'd been in Nibelheim. It brought back both happy and unhappy memories for the swordsman. He lifted that stubborn chin with one finger. "I have a feeling, my little diva, that you are likely to do exactly as you please and damn what anyone else wants."
Niisan gave him a sly, lopsided smile and purred, "True. I have more fun when I'm the one in control."
Both the swordsmen shifted to loosen their suddenly tight pants.
Zack cleared his throat, "At least the setting looks pretty good."
Sephiroth looked around. The light was thin and everything looked like it was behind a thin curtain. All the edges and colours were blurred and hazy. Although, the General thought, maybe not seeing the details was a good thing. There was scrub and other sickly plants trying to survive in dry, flaking earth. Trees were covered in a thick coating of brown dust from the blowing dirt. Flowers lined their path, poor, withered things that wilted under the strain. It seemed like a dying land.
"This is good?"
"Compared to some of the locations Cloud's put his house, yeah." Zack looked around, hands on hips, looking for the path. All the dirt looked the same.
Sephiroth frowned, "It needs rain."
Niisan shook his head. "The rain isn't safe. It takes away more than it gives." He pointed up but Sephiroth had already noticed the sky. It was green; bright and venomous, just like the mako he was familiar with. It also seemed very low. He turned to Niisan to ask a question but the youth was staring at it. His silver hair shone with an unhealthy green tinge. "They want me to go play..." his voice drifted off. This, Sephiroth decided, was not a good thing.
"We have duties to attend to, Niisan." It wasn't enough, he was lifting, "Chores first. Isn't that what your mother would say?"
That brought the small youth back down to the ground. "Mother," he whispered.
Sephiroth squeezed the hand he still held, "No matter," he crooned, "The sooner we start, the sooner we'll finish. I believe is another part of the sequence." Zack chuckled, recognizing the phrases as ones his parents had used on him as a kid.
The youth turned to the tall, silver warrior, "Did mother say that to you?" His voice was amazed, as if he couldn't believe that anyone would dare tell the General anything. Or maybe it was something else, Zack wondered. He'd never been able to figure Niisan out entirely.
"No," Sephiroth responded mildly, "I never knew my mother."
"Oh," the young man whispered sadly. He looked up at the green sky, "I could maybe introduce you to my mom. I think I hear her sometimes so I go look, but she never let me find her and it hurts. She doesn't like it when I look for my mom."
"I'm sure your mother was wonderful. After all, she raised you and you're very special." Niisan blushed and looked away. Then he peeked out from under his extraordinary hair and there was a satisfied smile on his lips.
"Mother gave us everything, didn't she?" Niisan crooned, looking right at the General. His gaze was hypnotic and commanding; teasing and sensual with a hint of mean.
Sephiroth nodded, unable to tear his gaze away from those remarkable eyes. "She was only the start, everything else you did on your own."
Zack rolled his eyes in amusement. Even here, with the little guy incomplete, the two of them couldn't stop flirting with each other. If Seph wasn't careful, he'd get a first-person re-enactment of the events in Cloud's trance, or maybe he'd call it lucky. He altered his stance a bit to give himself some slack in the groin area, the old habit coming back easily and one he'd probably have to get used to doing again. Maybe even more often than before considering he now knew what it was like to do more than sleep with the Silver General.
It had been incredible, he thought before he caught himself because that wasn't going to make it easier to walk straight. He snorted and put his mind back on figuring out where to go in this seared landscape. His left wing tapped his shoulder and pointed at something that might be a path... or maybe a game trail it was so faint.
"This way boys!" he called out and broke the enchantment, theirs and his.
This time there were no other buildings, just a pitted track meandering through a dry, dusty forest. He looked at the trees, wondering where the monsters were because this was the most peaceful he'd ever seen the path to Cloud's house and he didn't trust it. The trees were wrong for Nibelheim, for a start. They seemed like the kind that grew around Costa del Sol, if somewhat less healthy.
They climbed over a curving rise in the road and came to a rickety, wooden bridge spanning a nasty chasm. It was exactly like the ones in the mountains around Nibelheim; exactly like the one that had given away under Private Hansen on their first attempt to reach the reactor. Exactly.
"This is new," he mused.
"That's not reassuring," Sephiroth commented coming up beside him.
"I think it's supposed to be defences or something. Look at the quick release mechanism on the other side." Zack pointed and the General picked out the lever nearly hidden in the rocks.
"Wonderful,' he said dryly.
Niisan grumbled, "It's a little late to think of defence, don't you think?" He draped himself on Sephiroth's right side.
"Nah," Zack disagreed, "It's never too late."
"Just because you're always tinkering with your stupid castle..." the silver-haired youth sneered.
"He's right, Niisan," Sephiroth supported the SOLDIER, "Hojo was at the gate of Zack's house. He's obviously not given up. If there's any chance he or Jenova could attack you..."
Niisan pulled away from him. "But you said you talked to Mother," he was looking at the General suspiciously, "that you liked her."
Sephiroth frowned. He'd obviously missed something in their preceding conversation, but he suspected that Niisan's 'mother' wasn't the same person as Cloud's mother had been. He needed to distract the young man before something happened they'd regret. Given the aspect's attitude and voice he had a good idea what to do.
He raised Niisan's chin with one hand, sweeping his thumb over his mouth. "I like you more," he murmured before bending down and catching that lush bottom lip in his teeth. He dragged it out, scraping lightly, before releasing it. Sephiroth smiled smugly to see the little diva's eyes glazed and nearly breathless from that small caress. "I couldn't do that to 'mother'," he purred.
Niisan pulled his lip in to taste it, eyes closed to savour it. He smiled slyly and half opened his eyes, "That's very true."
A cough from the left. "Not that I don't think that was hot, because it totally was, but we have no idea how much longer it is to the cottage." Niisan growled in frustration. Sephiroth smiled fully and kissed the youth chastely on the forehead before turning back to the bridge.
"I'll go first then." He stepped out confidently. They weren't the ones the bridge was designed to keep out. It swayed but not as much as the real one had. There was less wind in Cloud world, so that helped keep the bridge steady, although Sephiroth had no hesitation in thinking that gale force winds would blow if someone Cloud perceived as dangerous tried to cross. They'd be tipped into the chasm which was filled with roiling green mist. It wasn't the placid, implacable green river of the sky, but an angry, venomous fog that hid deadly things.
He felt the bridge shake when the others stepped onto it but their small movements didn't upset his balance.
"Are you okay?" he called out.
"I'm good. Niisan is a bit scared but he's balanced," Zack replied.
"I'm not scared, not in the slightest," Niisan countered, "It's not like I'm in any danger of falling off my own bridge. I can't believe you said that to the General!" He complained, and he kept on complaining and insulting Zack all the way across the chasm.
Once on solid ground, away from the green mist, Niisan turned to swat the big SOLDIER. Zack just grinned, "Got you across, didn't it." His wing fingers flicked at the youth as if laughing at him.
Sephiroth hummed neutrally and ignored the brewing fight in favour of following the path. It clung to the side of the mountain and might be considered a little wider than the trail they'd used to get here, but it didn't seem much more stable than the bridge they'd just crossed. They had to walk in single-file as it curved around the cliff-face in a hair-pin turn, but waiting for them around the corner was a mountain meadow sparkling in the meagre sunlight.
The sparkle was from all the broken glass scattered amongst the sickly plants in the surrounding field.
To Zack, it didn't look any worse than the last time he'd been there and he let out a sigh of relief.
To Sephiroth, the cottage's outside appearance wasn't reassuring, the shutters were unpainted and loose, the windows dirty or broken and the door hung limply from one hinge. There was a gap in one part of the structure where the roof should've been.
He looked at the SOLDIER who gave him a small nod as if to say this is what it should look like or, at least, it hadn't gotten any worse since the last time he'd seen it. Figuring Zack would know the General turned his mind to what would be needed for the reconstruction, while Zack jogged around the cottage for a quick look.
Most of the damage appeared to be on the surface, but the frames themselves appeared to be acceptable. They weren't warped or gaping. He could detect no cracks in the mortar holding the walls together, and the structure didn't appear to have shifted off its foundation. On one wall the stone work had fallen away leaving a large hole. The roof above it had caved in and appeared to be in danger of falling into the house. Fixing it would be the most complicated part of their task, he imagined.
"How shall we do this," Sephiroth asked, wanting a coherent strategy, "work on the house or assemble all the personas?"
"We have to have at least one of him here to work on the house, and it should be one of the older personas, so I suggest we start by gathering them up." Zack made it sound very simple. Sephiroth suspected it wasn't.
"And how do we do that? Does Niisan call them, or do we need to perform a Wutaian Water Dance?" Zack laughed at the General's acerbic question but the silver-haired youth hunched down, sulking. Sephiroth noticed, of course. "What is it?"
A one-shouldered shrug, "They don't listen to me." His voice was full of pouty petulance.
"Hmm," Sephiroth murmured, not allowing himself to be drawn into what he suspected was an old complaint, "Then who will they listen to?"
"Spike," Niisan said immediately, still sulking, "Everybody likes him."
"I'd go with Corporal Strife," Zack disagreed. The General automatically raised his eyebrow to ask for more details. "Fuck! I gotta learn how to do that," Zack exclaimed. His eyebrows went up and down and squeezed together. His eyes rolled around trying to watch them.
Sephiroth didn't bother to sigh, "You were recommending Corporal Strife," he prodded.
"Uh, right. Spike's too much like me," Zack said sheepishly, "He gets distracted easily. Corporal Strife is Army, with a capital 'A'. If you give him a mission, he won't stop until it's complete. "
"He nags," Niisan said in protest.
"But he won't be here so you won't have to listen to him," Zack reassured the young diva. The SOLDIER turned to his CO and added, "He's stubborn and he's good. He'll find them all and bring them back."
"So how do we find him? He's obviously not here."
Zack coloured a little in embarrassment. "I usually stand in the cottage and shout for whomever," he admitted. "They eventually turn up."
Sephiroth frowned at the inefficiency of the method. He looked up at the green sky and thought he might have a better way. "Niisan, you said they get sucked into the sky?" The youth nodded confirmation.
The General had spent many long months immersed in mako, part of, but separate from, the Lifestream. It hadn't enticed or embraced him like it had evidently done with Cloud, but he'd become somewhat familiar with its dynamics. Given what Zack had said about the Corporal and what he knew about the Lifestream, Sephiroth believed he might have a slightly better plan than stand in the room and yell.
A moment's concentration and his wing came out. He'd never used it to fly before—he'd never used it to do anything before, but if Genesis could achieve flight with his one, skinny wing, Sephiroth could fly with his. He ignored Niisan's admiring, or perhaps envious, gasp and jumped as high as he could go, which was considerable, but still short of his goal. He spread his wing to catch the air. It held him, but there was no updraft so he didn't go any higher. Not good enough. Even when he pumped the wing strongly it gave him hardly any lift. He didn't fly in circles, which he thought odd, but he didn't go up. He gritted his teeth in determination. He wasn't going to fail.
One wing wasn't working therefore, he decided, he needed two.
He'd had two wings in the dream when he was sparring with Genesis and Angeal over Junon. They'd all had sets of wings instead of just on one side. They'd flown all over the sky with them.
He tried to remember what that had felt like, not just the flying, but the movement of it, the muscles in his back and chest, the strain on joints and tendons. How he'd felt balanced and whole and free. With a burst of desire and memory and need he felt the second wing pop into existence. He could sense that it was as big as his original and he pumped it, hard. It lifted him the short remaining distance so he could enter Cloud's thick, green 'sky'.
He entered it completely, surrounding himself with its streamers of vivid, greens, everything from deep mossy tones, to light icy ones with the occasional blips of putrid blackness whirling along with them. Jenova. He'd recognize her taint anywhere.
Those bits had called to him, had hunted for him, seeking to attach and infect him, to make him more like her. They were too small to control his thoughts as she had done at the reactor, but enough of them could have overloaded his cellular structure and made him entirely her creature. He'd been their prey. He hadn't reacted well to being the hunted one. He'd managed to avoid them before, destroying them when they came too close. He would do so again while he called to his prey.
"Corporal Strife! Front and centre!" He pitched his voice so it was carried along by the always-moving streamers.
Sephiroth knew that scientists, theorists and philosophers usually pictured the Lifestream as rivers flowing inexorably in one direction. That's not what it was like when immersed in it however. It was chaotic and frenetic, and the streamers moved generally in one direction but not always. He waited for the inevitable shift in direction before calling again, "Corporal Strife! Report for duty!" and the Lifestream took his voice into a new area, spreading it throughout the almost living structure.
"Corporal Strife, reporting, SIR!"
The crisp voice came from behind him. Not exactly where he'd expected but the General quickly turned and saw a young soldier in a uniform so ragged and dirty he looked like an extra from an overdone war movie. Non-standard alterations and repairs made it hardly recognizable as a ShinRa army uniform. It was the eyes that stopped the Corporal from being a stereotype; they were old and tired but watching for the latest threat, prepared for it. A slight smell of explosives and gunpowder hung around him, like he'd just stepped off the battlefield. Maybe he had.
"Stand easy," Sephiroth commanded and the NCO released his stance. The General took a moment to study this incarnation of his lover. He was bulkier than the Cloud of his memories. Heavier-set and thicker featured, and so very solidly here. The General was reminded of Angeal, an oak amongst willows when compared to Genesis or himself. This Corporal Strife would make an excellent sergeant one day, the kind that was called 'the backbone of the army'.
"I understand you're the man I talk to when I want a job done."
"I try, Sir." Like any good grunt when faced with a very superior officer, the Corporal was staring neutrally over the General's left shoulder, waiting patiently for the officer to open his mouth and reveal himself to be an idiot... or not.
It was a posture Sephiroth was familiar with. Master-Sergeant Lutton, a Lifer in the Regular Army, had treated him the exact same way for the first few months. Sephiroth also recognized that this man was unafraid of the Silver General. He'd seen death, and maybe worse than death, and whatever the General could throw at him couldn't compare to that.
"Excellent," he smiled approvingly and watched as the Corporal's shoulders straightened involuntarily. "What I require of you, Corporal Strife, is to locate your personas that are currently playing in the Lifestream; you are to find them, and bring them back to the cottage."
"Understood, Sir."
"This mission is to be pursued with extreme urgency. If any of your aspects gives you any trouble you can either come get me and I will deal with it, or you can tell them to bring it up with me, but you are to get them to me at the cottage, undamaged, one way or another. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Any questions?"
"No, Sir."
"Go get them for me, Corporal Strife." Sephiroth dismissed him.
The Corporal snapped to attention, "Sir. Yes, Sir!" and then he was gone, dissolved into the mist.
His immediate task completed, he took a moment to examine the Lifestream which had become the focus of so much research and concern. He could feel Jenova's... legacy. Her oily, black taint, full of anger and despair was spreading through the green. Eventually, they'd have to deal with her infection, but not right now. Now he had a cottage—and a lover, to rebuild.