Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Shattered Children ❯ The Cost of Sympathy ( Chapter 15 )

a/n: The first scene takes place between Shattered Dreams and Shattered Children. The second scene takes place before Shattered Dreams.

 

Shattered Children: Interlude Five

The Cost of Sympathy

 

She felt the kiss against her cheek before anything else. Zack was getting better at sneaking up on her. This time nothing gave him away until she felt his warm lips press against her. Elena smiled, turning to greet her lover.

 

“Hey, hot stuff,” she said, sliding her arms around his neck. “I didn't catch you this time.”

 

He wrapped his arms around her waist, dragging her body against his. “I told you, didn't I? We SOLDIER's are good at what we do.”

 

Elena rolled her eyes and rose up higher to kiss him, their tongues immediately tangling together in a sloppy kiss. He felt warm and his clothes slightly damp, the sharp tang of sweat on the air. She pulled back, wrinkling her nose.

 

“Been training again?”

 

Zack shrugged, rattling the sheath on his back where his enormous sword hung. “I managed to convince Seph to stick around for a few days. If I don't keep him occupied, he'll run off again.”

 

“And then you'll pout,” Elena said with a faint grin, remembering how Zack had first acted when Sephiroth disappeared.

 

He had moped around like a lost puppy, so damn concerned that he had hardly eaten. It had taken her rapping him firmly upside the head to get him to get over everything and act like a man. And that was on top of dealing with her Commander's behavior as well. Tseng had been ten times worse than Zack, although he had hid it a lot better.

 

“Oi!” Zack countered, giving her a faint squeeze with his arms. “I'm a man. I don't pout.”

 

She chuckled at him. “You pout,” she said, trailing her fingers upwards and plucking them over his stiff locks. “Between you and Tseng, I don't know what I'm going to do.”

 

Zack snorted, leaning down to nibble at her throat and ear. “Hey, I'm not nearly as much a handful as Seph is or Tseng.”

 

“Maybe not.” Elena hummed, shivering as his tongue nipped rather pleasantly at her, stirring her body into responding. “Don't you have work you should be doing?”

 

“Don't you?” he responded, breath warm against her skin before he dropped his mouth lower, tugging aside her collar so suck on her shoulder.

 

She promptly forgot about the files on her desk, or the phone that was likely ringing in her office. She was supposed to be off in an hour or so anyways. What was wrong with cutting out a little early, especially when Zack was doing that with his tongue, one of his hands already wandering to her breast. Suddenly, she wanted a place with a surface. Wall, floor, couch, it didn't matter.

 

“Nothing that can't wait,” Elena managed to gasp out, pressing forward and rubbing her body against his. She could feel his growing arousal nudging her and she wanted it inside her.

 

Zack chuckled, his hand dropping to her buttocks where he hitched her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Want spread through Elena's body and between the two of them, it didn't matter that one of her coworkers could walk in at any minute. It only added an edge of excitement.

 

She purposely avoided thinking of their prospective charges, emotionally stunted Sephiroth and emotionally stupid Tseng. How either men were capable of surviving on their own, Elena would never know. And it was partly because of them that there was so much uncertainty between her and Zack.

 

She thought she might have loved Zack. There was a part of her that was really fond of his presence, that made her insides warm whenever he smiled at her. Elena loved the way Zack touched her and how happy he made her feel. But she also knew that she could never be completely devoted to him, that she didn't belong wholly to herself and therefore, couldn't give all of herself to him.

 

Tseng needed her too much, even if he did have Sephiroth. And she understood that it was the same way for Zack. Sephiroth only trusted Zack, though he was slowly letting others in. He depended on his younger companion with a need that was almost painful to watch. And Elena couldn't begrudge him that. There was nothing but love between the two men, unromantic, but love all the same.

 

Zack could never belong wholly to her either.

 

She had told him twice before that she loved him. Once in the heat of the moment when she hadn't been thinking it and it had slipped out of her mouth before she could stop it. And again, when she had been serious and they had been talking about their future. The look in his eyes had been unreadable.

 

He hadn't reciprocated, but she had made it clear that she didn't need him to. It was simply something she had given because it belonged to him. She knew Zack wasn't absolutely certain of his own feelings, and was loathe to say anything without being sure. It didn't hurt her, because she knew he cared in his own way. It might not have been love, but he did hold affection for her. And honestly, she wasn't the type that needed to be told a thousand times a day. She didn't need that reassurance.

 

Zack's lips found hers again even as one of his hands dove between their bodies, reaching for her belt and pants. She helped him out, all that eager to feel him moving inside of her. Zack was fire and heat, the power to her storm. She happily tasted of him, her mouth hungrily devouring his.

 

Besides, Elena wasn't ready for all that family nonsense yet. She wasn't Rude or Reno, she didn't want to settle down with a husband and have kids. She wasn't ready to be a mother or create the perfect happy home. There were too many things yet to do and Tseng needed looking after, even if he wouldn't admit it.

 

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She had every intention of ignoring it. She wrapped her fingers in Zack's spikes all the harder, pressing down against him encouragingly. He growled in his throat, taking a step forward and pushing her against the wall.

 

His fingers fluttered inside her pants, dipping beneath her panties and ghosting across her folds, already beginning to dampen from her arousal. Elena moaned, jerking her hips against his.

 

“Hurry, soldier boy,” she murmured against his lips. “Or I might end this for you.”

 

He gripped her ass all the tighter. “Bossy,” Zack muttered with a smile. “I don't know why I put up with you.”

 

The buzzing against her hip was still going. It was getting to be rather annoying. She tried to push it aside and buried her tongue in Zack's ear, sucking on it mercilessly. It was one of his sweet spots, she knew.

 

“Shouldn't you answer that?” Zack asked after a minute, when even he, too, could feel the vibrations.

 

She groaned, knocking her forehead against his shoulder. “Do you really want me to?” She could feel his arousal pressing against her.

 

“Not really,” he answered. “But it might be important.”

 

Sighing, Elena freed one hand and dove into her pocket, pulling out the ringing phone. She glanced at the name on the readout and repressed the next sigh, pressing SEND and bringing it up to her ear.

 

“Elena, here.”

 

Tseng's voice poured through the receiver. “Where have you been? I've been calling for the past five minutes.”

 

“Sorry, boss. I was... otherwise occupied,” she responded, sharing a secretive smile with her lover. “Why? What's going on?”

 

“I have an assignment for you,” her boss answered, even as Zack dipped his head and started nibbling on her throat again. She was sure to have a mark later.

 

She fidgeted, her arousal not fading in the slightest. “Is it necessary for right this second?”

 

“Well, no, but--”

 

“Good,” she interrupted chirpily, not feeling the least bit ashamed of herself. “Then I'll be up in ten--” Zack coughed. “--twenty minutes. By the way, boss, Sephiroth's in the building.”

 

As Tseng sputtered on her parting words, she hung up the phone and promptly dropped it to the ground. It bounced on the carpet, completely unharmed. If it vibrated again, she wouldn't be able to hear it.

 

Smiling, she returned her attention back to her lover. “Now, where were we?”

 

He was all too willing to pick up the pace.

 

*****

 

“You look bored.”

 

Green eyes turned towards the busty young woman impassively. “Not really,” Yazoo responded before shifting back towards staring through the glass.

 

He was currently sitting in the window seat, arms locked around his knees as he stared at the lights of the town. Loz was playing some game in the other room. Kadaj was still sleeping off the last effects of whatever strange experiments they had been doing on him. It was mercifully quiet. Yazoo enjoyed the moment, it gave him time to think, though about what he wasn't quite sure.

 

The woman looked at him, reminding him that he was still uncertain of his motives, before moving to sit on the seat next to him. She turned to face the same view as he, and silence reigned for a time.

 

“Don't you have any hobbies?” she asked finally, clearly trying to make conversation. It was something new to Yazoo, speaking with others, holding an actual conversation rather than waiting for the next pain to start.

 

He shook his head. “How would I?”

 

She shrugged. “I don't know. I was just curious.” The woman - Tifa, he reminded himself - turned her eyes back towards him. “Can you read?”

 

He frowned. “Of course I can.”

 

“It was just a question, no need to be so defensive,” she responded, her voice pleasant. But it did nothing to ease his mood.

 

His fingers drew tighter around his knees, anger still boiling beneath the surface though it didn't show on his expression. “Why did you save us?” he asked, staring hard through the window. He idly wondered if he could touch the stars, still fascinated by a brightness he had only seen perhaps twice before.

 

She hummed in her throat, fingers tapping an idle pattern on her knee. “I wonder,” Tifa responded. “Why didn't I just let them kill you? I should have. It's not like this world needs another Sephiroth.”

 

“Or three.”

 

Tifa tipped her head. “Or three,” she amended.

 

Silence reigned for another long moment. In the background, they could hear Loz whooping as he defeated his enemy on the game he was playing. Something called Mortal Kombat, if Yazoo remembered correctly. It was the perfect thing to distract his elder brother, who after rounds of testing, ended up rather simple-minded.

 

He was keeping an ear cocked for Kadaj as well. His little brother was going to be racked with nightmares for some time, and Yazoo was ready to move at a moment's notice. He knew what it felt like all too well to be suffering from bad dreams with no one to wake him. And Kadaj was the strongest of them.

 

They were brothers; they had to stick together.

 

“I don't believe I even thought about it,” Tifa finally said, leaning against the wall with an almost nostalgic smile on her face. “When I heard about what they were doing, when I saw how young you three were, I just acted.”

 

“But you hate ShinRa,” Yazoo countered, having heard the women's diatribes not long after she had pulled them from the laboratory.

 

She inclined her head, and he watched as her fingers clenched and unclenched, power practically rippling through her arm from the simple motion. “Yes, I do. But I also loved ShinRa, once upon a time. Maybe. In my own special way. But I also think, that I might have loved him just a little more.”

 

“Him?” Yazoo couldn't help it; he was intrigued by this woman. She could be so vicious, but also kind. And he was indebted to her, since she had saved them. He wanted to understand.

 

Tifa hummed, her cherry-brown eyes shimmering. “The three of you... sometimes it's like I can see him in you. All of you. I don't know. Maybe me saving you was penance for not saving him all those years ago.”

 

“Do you mean Sephiroth?”

 

The woman scowled, shooting him a look. “Of course not,” she snapped with a snort. “I hate Sephiroth. He took everything from me.” Her hand fell to her belly, as if remembering an old wound. “Everything I could have wanted, he stole.”

 

Yazoo frowned, looking down at his folded hands, all pale and unmarked. He knew Sephiroth had been branded and tattooed, but he and his brothers had not. In fact, there was a lot different in the way they had been created and raised. It was as if Hojo did not want to make the same mistakes, though he delighted in the hatred he had managed to cultivate.

 

“Who is it then?”

 

She shook her head, a mirthless huff escaping her. “You wouldn't know even if I told you his name, unless Hojo bragged about what he did to him.” She paused, looking Yazoo over. “Then again, maybe you would. I see a lot of Cloud in you three, Yazoo. And maybe, that's all it was. The same helplessness, the same begging to be saved.”

 

Yazoo blinked in confusion as Tifa slid away from the window seat, rising to her feet. She smoothed down her shirt with one gloved hand, and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Her eyes weren't on him, but flickering restlessly over the rest of the room.

 

“Whatever you three do now, is up to you. I've given you your freedom but I can't decide what you do with it. All I ask is that you refrain from destroying this world. No matter how much revenge you may want to cultivate.”

 

When the last of her words fell, Tifa left from the small sitting room that Yazoo had taken up residence in, her stops silent across the floor. She turned down the hallway, likely heading towards the kitchen to whip up something for dinner, leaving the silver-haired boy to his thoughts.

 

He turned his attention back towards the window and the night beyond, mulling over her comments. Forget the anger. Forget revenge. Easy for her to say when she hadn't suffered anything like he. But then, none of them really considered revenge. They never thought further than existing because escape seemed so impossible. Yazoo had been ready to die in that sterile place. Loz was only waiting for it.

 

He hadn't ever expected rescue, he hadn't expected to be given a chance to live. And now, he didn't know what to do with the life he had been given. He could still feel the mako, burning in his blood, and there was an urging, faint but present, at the back of his mind. But it was dull and incoherent, not yet pressing.

 

He wondered if it was Jenova. If the strange cravings for violence and the desire to spill blood were hers as well.

 

He wondered if he even knew how to be human.

 

Another roar and Loz celebrated another victory. There was a low thump on the wall to his right, the one that separated this room from the bedroom he shared with his three brothers. As expected, the nightmares had come.

 

Yazoo unfolded his limbs and rose to his feet, sweeping his hair over one shoulder. Silent steps took him out of the room and to the right where he made his way to their bedroom where the door was shut. He cracked it open, peering into the darkness broken only by a small nightlight.

 

Kadaj was tossing and turning on the bed, lips muttering incoherently though the fear was evident in his tone alone. His forehead was plastered with sweat, causing his hair to stick to it. It was too familiar a sight and Yazoo hated just the glimpse of it.

 

Still, he entered the room anyways, and sat on the edge of the bed. One hand came out, grabbing Kadaj's shoulder and squeezing gently. His brother was shaking beneath his grip, entire body wracked with trembles.

 

“Kadaj,” he said, just loud enough to wake his brother but not startle him.

 

A low moan filled the room as Kadaj froze and then collapsed back against the bed. A moment passed before his eyes fluttered and he awoke, though the shaking did not subside.

 

“Yazoo?” His voice was raspy, as if he had been screaming endlessly though Yazoo would have heard it. Then again, there was such a thing as silent screams. A pain so intense that it stole your voice and your breath.

 

“Dreams again?”

 

His younger brother nodded and turned away, staring at the wall. “Bastard,” he hissed lowly. “If he weren't already dead, I'd kill himself.” But he also sounded vulnerable, for all his tough guy act.

 

“I know.” Yazoo watched his brother for another moment, watched Kadaj try to get control of himself and failing miserably. “You should go back to sleep. Finish burning the poison out.”

 

A sharp bark of mirthless laughter escaped the younger boy. “Right. I'll get on that.”

 

Yazoo frowned and then swung his legs up onto the bed, lying down behind his brother.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“You'll sleep better if I'm here, won't you?” Yazoo asked. “Or would you prefer if I went and got Loz?”

 

Kadaj was silent before shaking his head. “He would hug me to death.”

 

“That he would.”

 

Yazoo knew his brother would never admit it, but it was obvious by the way his body calmed that Kadaj was comforted by his presence. In the darkness of the room, sharing a small bed like they had so many times before, it was easier to deal with the nightmares. It had always been bright in the laboratory. Bright and lonely.

 

Quiet fell on the bedroom again and Yazoo let his breath even out, wondering if he would be able to fall asleep as well. He wasn't really tired but one could never get enough rest, he supposed.

 

“Yazoo?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Do you think we're human?”

 

The middle brother blinked. It was odd for Kadaj to ask him anything like that. “I don't know. Tifa seems to think so.”

 

Kadaj snorted. “She would.” He paused, and then changed directions. “Sometimes, in my dreams, I'm not. I'm a monster that destroys everything. I've even burned down a town and murdered indiscriminately. It makes me wonder if maybe, my dreams just reflect reality.”

 

“I don't know how to answer that nii-chan.”

 

The younger boy patted his hand over the mattress, as if fascinated by the comfort of it. “I don't either. I don't really at all.”

 

Kadaj said nothing more and moments later, Yazoo heard the deep and even sounds of his breathing as he drifted back into sleep. As for himself, however, he lay there for most of the night, simply thinking.

 

And wondering.

 

*****