Post by Anime Monster on Jun 30, 2007 1:08:28 GMT -5
Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII or any part of the Final Fantasy series.
Author's Note: I believe I've only posted this on ffvii_yaoi, but I might have posted it on adultfanfiction.net...
Rating: T
Summary: Everything began in Nibelheim.
Warnings: Shounen-ai/Yaoi/Slash, language, Vincent POV
Pairings: Cloud/Vincent
I stayed in the Forgotten City because they calmed in the Forgotten City. She was the one to calm the demons, Aeris, she calmed everyone's demons, and we lost her here. When Kadaj and his gang had made their head quarters here I had wanted to kill them for desecrating a holy place, but I restrained myself, she told me to. Cloud had tried to punish them for desecrating this place, and had lost.
After the remnants were killed and the world saved, again, I couldn't return to the holy city. Cloud had mentioned forgiveness, was there a way for me to be forgiven? I traveled for a long time, going to Lucrecia's cave, the ruined Shin-Ra tower in Midgar, the northern crater and cave, Icicle Village, and many places that we had gone together, AVALANCH and I, in our journey to stop Sephiroth, but I never returned to the Forgotten City and I hadn't gone to Nibelheim yet. I knew it was Nibelheim I had to go to, everything began with Nibelheim, therefore, shouldn't it end there to?
I wasn't the only one who was reluctant to travel to the city where everything started, Cloud also didn't want to return to the remake of the town he came from. I don't know what caused it, but I found myself in the mountain chain that Mount Nibel was part of and despite my reluctance to travel to the beginning again, I turned and made the trek to Mount Nibel. I thought that if I entered by way of the mountain than maybe it would be different. I know I was fooling myself.
The Mako reactor was still standing, no longer in use, it was never taken apart like many of the others, I had thought that Shin-Ra had perhaps forgotten about it, but the fact it was no longer pumping Mako out of the ground denied this. I thought about entering, but decided against it at the last moment and continued down the mountain. The bridge across the gorge was down, as usual, had there ever been a time when someone could cross it safely? Probably not, but it didn't matter, I knew the way through the caves better anyways. It was longer, but I made my way off the mountain, and there before me was Shin-Ra manor, the only thing (other than the Mako reactor) that survived the fire, but you wouldn't be able to tell that with how EVERYTHING was rebuilt just as it was before the fire, even the rooms inside the buildings were the same, Tifa had told them that when they had entered her bedroom. It made them wonder: Was Shin-Ra watching them all along?
I wrenched my attention from the town; none of the townspeople had even glanced in my direction as I made my way up to the front door of the manor. For a moment I had the silly idea of knocking on the door. No one had lived here in over four years, and no one, other than scientists and myself, had lived here in at least thirty years. The door squeaked as I pushed it open. The manor hadn't really changed, only gotten more dilapidated and rotten looking. I carefully stepped inside, pushed aside a cobweb and shut the door behind me.
It wasn't the manor itself that held my reluctance for coming to the small mountain town; no, it was what lied beneath the manor. My feet were not silent as I moved across the floor, the only time my movement was quite is when I literally glide without my feet touching the ground. The metal tips of my boots wouldn't allow me to walk as silently as I used to.
I stayed on the main floor for a good hour before I managed to bring myself to ascend to the second floor where the entrance to the basement was located. Despite being up there I didn't immediately go to the basement, I went around the rooms remembering who had stayed in which rooms back before I died. I finally brought myself downstairs, but not to my thirty year prison, no I walked to the labs in the back, the labs that Cloud and Soldier First Class Zack Fair had been held prisoner in for five years.
Upon entering I could imagine the experiments they underwent here and it was not a pretty thought. The books and files were still there, covered in a rather heavy layer of dust, but still there. I blew some dust off of what looked to be the most recent and found the reports of the cloning project. I picked one up to find it to be a summary of the specimens.
Specimen C, a picture of Cloud floating in one of the tanks surrounded by a green liquid, his eyes shut, failure, status unknown. Specimen Z, a picture of a man that looked like Cloud with black hair rather then blond floating in the same tank, failure, status deceased. Specimen K, a picture of a man who looked like Kadaj with blond hair floating in the same type of tank, incomplete, status discontinued. Specimens L and Y were obviously Loz and Yazoo with auburn and black hair respectively had the same status as Kadaj. 'Where had they got those names from?' I wondered to myself. The rest of the Specimens were the completed clones that we had seen up at the North Crater all those years ago. All of them now deceased, despite what the files said. So Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo had been incomplete clones, they looked more like Sephiroth than any of the other clones, but there was probably a reason for that not in here.
"So this is where you've been," a voice came from behind me.
If it wasn't for the fact I knew the speaker and knew he wasn't my enemy I would have shot him, had I been that engrossed in my reading that I hadn't even heard him approach? He clanked when he walked, like now.
"Your questions about forgiveness got me thinking, so I came here," I said.
"The beginning," Cloud said glancing over my shoulder at the list of specimens with their pictures. He pointed at the black haired one, "Zack."
"You look alike," I said. He nodded and looked around, touching the tanks. "This is where?"
"Yes," I didn't even need to finish the question he knew what I was talking about. Both of us had a connection through the mad scientist. Sometimes I'd like to think that had Zack lived we might have had a connection as well, Cloud speaks so highly of him that I wish I had met him. Of course, I never spoke my wish out loud.
I closed the book and put it back on the shelf. "These can't be only the Jenova Project and the cloning project," I said gesturing to the books.
"I don't think they are," Cloud agreed. We looked at some random files in the room with the tanks, but all that was there was stuff predating the Jenova project in the room, mostly in conjunction with the Ancients, on the other side, information on the cloning project could be found, including what had been done to Cloud and Zack. The two of us move to the hallway where early research on Jenova and documentation on Sephiroth before he went crazy, but after he had become a SOLDIER in Shin-Ra were facing each other, it was obvious that these shelves were in chronological order, and if one knew the date, one could put a date that such and such happened.
We made it to the office, after we had agreed to look through the books we hadn't spoke except to tell our findings. I had worked my way up from Pre-Jenova through Jenova research, he had worked backwards from the clones down through Sephiroth's past. As we entered the office I had a sudden sense of déjà vu, looking around I found the source of my feeling. "This is where I died," I said out loud, not even realizing I had spoken until Cloud put a hand on my shoulder.
"This room?"
"No, this exact spot, I was standing right here when Hojo shot me with my own gun," I replied quietly. Cloud had surprised me with his gentle hand on my shoulder.
"Everything begins and ends here," he said quietly. He seemed to be silently warring with himself on something and I silently waited to see if he would say or do something else. Again he surprised me by wrapping his arms around me in a hug.
I was shocked and didn't move. He was hugging me; did he expect me to start crying? No, Cloud knew me well enough to know that I wasn't going to start bawling my eyes out. Deciding to go with it, I leaned into his embrace, resting my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes, if he was trying to accomplish telling me how alive I was, he was doing it, if he was trying to accomplish something else, I didn't know what.
A thought struck me, he was acting almost like how I acted to Lucrecia, was he trying to court me? The fact I thought it shocked me, but the fact that I actually considered it shocked me more. If Cloud was trying to court me, would I deny him? It had never occurred to me to date a guy, let alone be in an intimate situation with a guy, but if this was anything close to what it felt like, I don't think I would mind. Cloud was warm and his embrace made me remember that the past was the past and that I wasn't there anymore.
His steady breathing and warmth actually made me doze off for a moment, at least I think I did because the next thing I know is that Cloud's speaking again, and I didn't register all that he said, "--shoot you?"
"What?" I muttered against his shoulder, not wanting to move, I was comfortable.
He looked down at me, despite the fact that my eyes were still closed, I felt his shoulders move as he moved his head, "Where did he shoot you?"
"My arm," I replied.
"Then you probably never died," that never occurred to me. I remember seeing the gun aimed at me and pain in my arm before collapsing. When I woke again I had those monsters inside me.
"Then what happened?"
"Hojo shot you and the fact he did probably shocked you so he knocked you unconscious. Much the same happened to Zack and me in the reactor. Hojo used something on us that put us in a coma-like state until he either forgot to give us the chemical or stopped giving them to us. I know for a fact he couldn't bring the dead back to life, I tried to find a method to bring back Aeris, but I found nothing," he stopped speaking and I digested the information. I wasn't even really aware that I had wrapped my arms around him, trying to offer the same comfort he had given me.
I think it was the nice feeling that I was getting from Cloud, but when he kissed me I kissed back without a second thought. After everything I went through and how cold and uncaring I usually was, I didn't even think it was possible for me to blush, but I was doing it now, like a virgin, much to my embarrassment. When we parted I realized Cloud was also blushing, "I didn't mean to do that," he whispered.
"Did I act like I minded?" I was shocked by the word coming out of my mouth.
"No, but I should have asked first," he held me tightly, almost as if he was afraid I'd disappear. It occurred to me as I was thinking that, that he probably did expect that.
"I'm not going to disappear," I said. He loosened his grip and we parted, it was kinda awkward, but I had enjoyed his company and I had enjoyed his more intimate company. Despite the fact that all he did was hold me and that one kiss we shared, it felt more intimate than any time I had been with Lucrecia. My composer started to come back together, but I still didn't know what to say.
We stood there like that for awhile just staring at each other. I don't know which of us moved first but like a pair of magnets we came together again and kissed. I didn't ask him how long he wanted to be with me, or anything sappy like that and he didn't ask me anything at all. It was by mutual silent agreement that we decided to be together. It wasn't our friend's business, maybe Tifa's only in the respect that Cloud wasn't interested in her, but otherwise, what we did together was our business and we silently decided to keep it that way.
Author's Note: I believe I've only posted this on ffvii_yaoi, but I might have posted it on adultfanfiction.net...
Rating: T
Summary: Everything began in Nibelheim.
Warnings: Shounen-ai/Yaoi/Slash, language, Vincent POV
Pairings: Cloud/Vincent
The Beginning
"Decisions made from desperation / No way to go / Internal instincts craving isolation / For me to grow
"My fears come alive / In this place where I once died / Demons dreaming / Knowing I...I just needed to realign
"Fell in a river of illusion / And apathy / Drowning in a self-induced confusion / I'd rather be / Yeah!
"My fears come alive / In this place where I once died / Demons dreaming / Knowing I...I just needed to realign
"My fears come alive / In this place where I once died / Demons dreaming / Knowing I...I just needed to realign
"Yeah!
"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
"My fears come alive / In this place where I once died / Demons dreaming / Knowing I...I just needed to realign
"My fears come alive / In this place where I once died / Demons dreaming / Knowing I...I just needed to realign / Yeah!"
--"Re-Align" Godsmack
"Decisions made from desperation / No way to go / Internal instincts craving isolation / For me to grow
"My fears come alive / In this place where I once died / Demons dreaming / Knowing I...I just needed to realign
"Fell in a river of illusion / And apathy / Drowning in a self-induced confusion / I'd rather be / Yeah!
"My fears come alive / In this place where I once died / Demons dreaming / Knowing I...I just needed to realign
"My fears come alive / In this place where I once died / Demons dreaming / Knowing I...I just needed to realign
"Yeah!
"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
"My fears come alive / In this place where I once died / Demons dreaming / Knowing I...I just needed to realign
"My fears come alive / In this place where I once died / Demons dreaming / Knowing I...I just needed to realign / Yeah!"
--"Re-Align" Godsmack
I stayed in the Forgotten City because they calmed in the Forgotten City. She was the one to calm the demons, Aeris, she calmed everyone's demons, and we lost her here. When Kadaj and his gang had made their head quarters here I had wanted to kill them for desecrating a holy place, but I restrained myself, she told me to. Cloud had tried to punish them for desecrating this place, and had lost.
After the remnants were killed and the world saved, again, I couldn't return to the holy city. Cloud had mentioned forgiveness, was there a way for me to be forgiven? I traveled for a long time, going to Lucrecia's cave, the ruined Shin-Ra tower in Midgar, the northern crater and cave, Icicle Village, and many places that we had gone together, AVALANCH and I, in our journey to stop Sephiroth, but I never returned to the Forgotten City and I hadn't gone to Nibelheim yet. I knew it was Nibelheim I had to go to, everything began with Nibelheim, therefore, shouldn't it end there to?
I wasn't the only one who was reluctant to travel to the city where everything started, Cloud also didn't want to return to the remake of the town he came from. I don't know what caused it, but I found myself in the mountain chain that Mount Nibel was part of and despite my reluctance to travel to the beginning again, I turned and made the trek to Mount Nibel. I thought that if I entered by way of the mountain than maybe it would be different. I know I was fooling myself.
The Mako reactor was still standing, no longer in use, it was never taken apart like many of the others, I had thought that Shin-Ra had perhaps forgotten about it, but the fact it was no longer pumping Mako out of the ground denied this. I thought about entering, but decided against it at the last moment and continued down the mountain. The bridge across the gorge was down, as usual, had there ever been a time when someone could cross it safely? Probably not, but it didn't matter, I knew the way through the caves better anyways. It was longer, but I made my way off the mountain, and there before me was Shin-Ra manor, the only thing (other than the Mako reactor) that survived the fire, but you wouldn't be able to tell that with how EVERYTHING was rebuilt just as it was before the fire, even the rooms inside the buildings were the same, Tifa had told them that when they had entered her bedroom. It made them wonder: Was Shin-Ra watching them all along?
I wrenched my attention from the town; none of the townspeople had even glanced in my direction as I made my way up to the front door of the manor. For a moment I had the silly idea of knocking on the door. No one had lived here in over four years, and no one, other than scientists and myself, had lived here in at least thirty years. The door squeaked as I pushed it open. The manor hadn't really changed, only gotten more dilapidated and rotten looking. I carefully stepped inside, pushed aside a cobweb and shut the door behind me.
It wasn't the manor itself that held my reluctance for coming to the small mountain town; no, it was what lied beneath the manor. My feet were not silent as I moved across the floor, the only time my movement was quite is when I literally glide without my feet touching the ground. The metal tips of my boots wouldn't allow me to walk as silently as I used to.
I stayed on the main floor for a good hour before I managed to bring myself to ascend to the second floor where the entrance to the basement was located. Despite being up there I didn't immediately go to the basement, I went around the rooms remembering who had stayed in which rooms back before I died. I finally brought myself downstairs, but not to my thirty year prison, no I walked to the labs in the back, the labs that Cloud and Soldier First Class Zack Fair had been held prisoner in for five years.
Upon entering I could imagine the experiments they underwent here and it was not a pretty thought. The books and files were still there, covered in a rather heavy layer of dust, but still there. I blew some dust off of what looked to be the most recent and found the reports of the cloning project. I picked one up to find it to be a summary of the specimens.
Specimen C, a picture of Cloud floating in one of the tanks surrounded by a green liquid, his eyes shut, failure, status unknown. Specimen Z, a picture of a man that looked like Cloud with black hair rather then blond floating in the same tank, failure, status deceased. Specimen K, a picture of a man who looked like Kadaj with blond hair floating in the same type of tank, incomplete, status discontinued. Specimens L and Y were obviously Loz and Yazoo with auburn and black hair respectively had the same status as Kadaj. 'Where had they got those names from?' I wondered to myself. The rest of the Specimens were the completed clones that we had seen up at the North Crater all those years ago. All of them now deceased, despite what the files said. So Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo had been incomplete clones, they looked more like Sephiroth than any of the other clones, but there was probably a reason for that not in here.
"So this is where you've been," a voice came from behind me.
If it wasn't for the fact I knew the speaker and knew he wasn't my enemy I would have shot him, had I been that engrossed in my reading that I hadn't even heard him approach? He clanked when he walked, like now.
"Your questions about forgiveness got me thinking, so I came here," I said.
"The beginning," Cloud said glancing over my shoulder at the list of specimens with their pictures. He pointed at the black haired one, "Zack."
"You look alike," I said. He nodded and looked around, touching the tanks. "This is where?"
"Yes," I didn't even need to finish the question he knew what I was talking about. Both of us had a connection through the mad scientist. Sometimes I'd like to think that had Zack lived we might have had a connection as well, Cloud speaks so highly of him that I wish I had met him. Of course, I never spoke my wish out loud.
I closed the book and put it back on the shelf. "These can't be only the Jenova Project and the cloning project," I said gesturing to the books.
"I don't think they are," Cloud agreed. We looked at some random files in the room with the tanks, but all that was there was stuff predating the Jenova project in the room, mostly in conjunction with the Ancients, on the other side, information on the cloning project could be found, including what had been done to Cloud and Zack. The two of us move to the hallway where early research on Jenova and documentation on Sephiroth before he went crazy, but after he had become a SOLDIER in Shin-Ra were facing each other, it was obvious that these shelves were in chronological order, and if one knew the date, one could put a date that such and such happened.
We made it to the office, after we had agreed to look through the books we hadn't spoke except to tell our findings. I had worked my way up from Pre-Jenova through Jenova research, he had worked backwards from the clones down through Sephiroth's past. As we entered the office I had a sudden sense of déjà vu, looking around I found the source of my feeling. "This is where I died," I said out loud, not even realizing I had spoken until Cloud put a hand on my shoulder.
"This room?"
"No, this exact spot, I was standing right here when Hojo shot me with my own gun," I replied quietly. Cloud had surprised me with his gentle hand on my shoulder.
"Everything begins and ends here," he said quietly. He seemed to be silently warring with himself on something and I silently waited to see if he would say or do something else. Again he surprised me by wrapping his arms around me in a hug.
I was shocked and didn't move. He was hugging me; did he expect me to start crying? No, Cloud knew me well enough to know that I wasn't going to start bawling my eyes out. Deciding to go with it, I leaned into his embrace, resting my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes, if he was trying to accomplish telling me how alive I was, he was doing it, if he was trying to accomplish something else, I didn't know what.
A thought struck me, he was acting almost like how I acted to Lucrecia, was he trying to court me? The fact I thought it shocked me, but the fact that I actually considered it shocked me more. If Cloud was trying to court me, would I deny him? It had never occurred to me to date a guy, let alone be in an intimate situation with a guy, but if this was anything close to what it felt like, I don't think I would mind. Cloud was warm and his embrace made me remember that the past was the past and that I wasn't there anymore.
His steady breathing and warmth actually made me doze off for a moment, at least I think I did because the next thing I know is that Cloud's speaking again, and I didn't register all that he said, "--shoot you?"
"What?" I muttered against his shoulder, not wanting to move, I was comfortable.
He looked down at me, despite the fact that my eyes were still closed, I felt his shoulders move as he moved his head, "Where did he shoot you?"
"My arm," I replied.
"Then you probably never died," that never occurred to me. I remember seeing the gun aimed at me and pain in my arm before collapsing. When I woke again I had those monsters inside me.
"Then what happened?"
"Hojo shot you and the fact he did probably shocked you so he knocked you unconscious. Much the same happened to Zack and me in the reactor. Hojo used something on us that put us in a coma-like state until he either forgot to give us the chemical or stopped giving them to us. I know for a fact he couldn't bring the dead back to life, I tried to find a method to bring back Aeris, but I found nothing," he stopped speaking and I digested the information. I wasn't even really aware that I had wrapped my arms around him, trying to offer the same comfort he had given me.
I think it was the nice feeling that I was getting from Cloud, but when he kissed me I kissed back without a second thought. After everything I went through and how cold and uncaring I usually was, I didn't even think it was possible for me to blush, but I was doing it now, like a virgin, much to my embarrassment. When we parted I realized Cloud was also blushing, "I didn't mean to do that," he whispered.
"Did I act like I minded?" I was shocked by the word coming out of my mouth.
"No, but I should have asked first," he held me tightly, almost as if he was afraid I'd disappear. It occurred to me as I was thinking that, that he probably did expect that.
"I'm not going to disappear," I said. He loosened his grip and we parted, it was kinda awkward, but I had enjoyed his company and I had enjoyed his more intimate company. Despite the fact that all he did was hold me and that one kiss we shared, it felt more intimate than any time I had been with Lucrecia. My composer started to come back together, but I still didn't know what to say.
We stood there like that for awhile just staring at each other. I don't know which of us moved first but like a pair of magnets we came together again and kissed. I didn't ask him how long he wanted to be with me, or anything sappy like that and he didn't ask me anything at all. It was by mutual silent agreement that we decided to be together. It wasn't our friend's business, maybe Tifa's only in the respect that Cloud wasn't interested in her, but otherwise, what we did together was our business and we silently decided to keep it that way.