CLOSED • Someone take these dreams away

[velvetshot]

Who: Sephiroth + Yazoo
When: Early December
Where: Casa de Jenova
What: A family blow-up, probably
Warnings: TBA

( Sephiroth has to have realised that his Remnant has been avoiding him. Cloud had been somewhat short-sighted in springing the truth of Aefenglom on Yazoo without any kind of preparation: his piece about Kadaj had been just enough to tip the Remnant over from denial into real heartbreak, and with no real understanding of how to deal with those emotions? Yazoo has been trapped deep in his grief, temporarily arrested by an inability to express (or even to process) what's happened to him.

Spending the full moons alone was difficult. He doesn't remember the whole ordeal — there had been pain, perhaps a little blood, exhaustion from a night spent roaming the Wilde — but the next morning he'd awoken in his ruined attic free of injury or signs of attack. His desire to be close to Sephiroth, to Cloud and Zack, had been overwhelming in that moment, and of the three of them ...

Well. Sephiroth is the only one who hasn't rejected him outright, and the only one who might some day be able to understand what it is he's feeling.

Yazoo returns to their home in the dead of night as though nothing has happened; as though he hasn't spent days missing, and isn't tracking dirt and the scent of dried animal blood through their shared space. He washes, changes into some soft, dark clothes that aren't his leathers, then waits in his room until he can hear the sounds of Sephiroth preparing his breakfast. When the spitting of fried eggs stops, he heads downstairs and glides directly to the kitchen table, where he promptly takes Sephiroth's plate and removes it to the counter before taking the seat opposite. No breakfast for you, Sephiroth. Yazoo wants all of his attention. )

I need to talk to you.

( He looks different somehow — less sure of himself. What had been an untouchable, smug haughtiness has been reduced down to something simple and aloof; a way of keeping his distance from others as opposed to sneering his dismissal. Seating himself opposite, Yazoo folds his hands on the table in front of them and looks him in the eye: )

About our family.

Comments

[supersoldier]

[Of course he's noted that Yazoo's missing, the house gone quieter than normal without the presence of a second to inadequately fill its too-large space. And perhaps if it had been anyone other than his brother, he would have gone looking; but the connection between them, that cellular bond, was kept tangible, alive and stirring even in the dead hours of the night, and there had been no immediate need.

Still, maybe two or even three days longer, Sephiroth would have taken to the Wilde and closed that space between them, investigating why there was a wrongness to the reverberation of his spirit felt in their link. But then nightfall comes that same day, and Yazoo returns -- he can sense his cat-quiet footsteps prowling about the house, even quietly stationed in his own room. His Harpy's instincts scent soil and blood.

He decides that it would be easier to question him in the morning.

A morning where Yazoo decides to take the initiative, anyhow, stealing his breakfast plate away from him with a brazenness that very few would consider, a sort of personality defect undoubtedly passed down from himself. His mouth tugging into a frown, Sephiroth looks at him--really looks at him this time--and immediately notes the change. As if something has taken the air out of him and pushed him further away, a cold and uncertain distance in malachite eyes.

Our family. He says the words, and Sephiroth cannot think of a faceless pair of scientists, or the whole of a company that kept him sheltered and weapon-sharp under their corporate wing. He can only think of that awful creature called Jenova with whom he shares its DNA; because he knows that Yazoo refers to only this, his warped notion of Mother shadowing every thought.]

You mean about Jenova.

[This subject had being hanging above them like sharpened knives for so long; maybe it's time for them to land where they may.]

[velvetshot]

Yes.

( Yazoo confirms, unsure whether he's relieved or irritated that Sephiroth at seems aware of the fact that this conversation was inevitable. Has he been avoiding talking about it? Has he been intentionally waiting for Yazoo to reach his breaking point? Such thoughts are cruel enough to twist the knife already buried between his ribs, and the Remnant has to take a moment so as not to flinch against the pain. )

But not just Mother — the others too.

( Kadaj, Zack. Cloud. The ones who've spent time here, in Aefenglom, without that alien pull in their cells to guide them towards their Reunion. Yazoo falls quiet for a moment, considering, before lifting his chin just a touch: )

You're not the man who made me. ( It's a horrible thing to admit, but it's starting point if nothing else. ) And I know that my existence sits ill with you.

( If this is upsetting to him, he doesn't show it. The strange flux of these untested emotions had got the better of him when he'd spoken to Cloud, but Yazoo now believes himself to have a tight enough hold on himself so as not to embarrass himself in front of Sephiroth.

... Maybe. )

But I need to know what you know of her.

( A beat. )

Please. I don't — I can't feel her here. Do I truly no longer have a purpose?

( That's what Cloud had said. That's what Kadaj had apparently realised. Yazoo wants to hear it from Sephiroth's lips before he makes any drastic decisions about his future. )

[supersoldier]

[He should feel a flash of shame snake through him, a tinge of regret when hearing the truth so plainly spoken: And I know my existence sits ill with you. But Sephiroth doesn’t, rarely ever ashamed of how he feels. Because yes, to glance upon Yazoo is its own discomfort, like his presence tows with him the reminder of his future known to the others here. He is representative of so much that he still has trouble accepting, what he wishes to avoid, and not merely because he created him from the depths of the Lifestream. It's because he looks at Yazoo--just as he looks at him now, so eager for him to answer these impossible questions--and sees himself reflected in turn, all the parts formed by a desperate want to belong. To adhere himself to a design, as defined by an outside force.

The focus on family. The trepidation towards losing purpose. It makes him uncomfortable, because he knows he's the one whose gifted these qualities to Yazoo.]

And what do you define your purpose by? Jenova, or what the others have told you?

[Because the implication is clear, isn't it? Yazoo has found the others from Gaia here, or at least a few of them, and maybe this is what has had him shaken and missing for days.]

She isn't here. I come from a time from before I even knew of her existence- [If just barely, saved from the cusp of madness via being stolen away to another world.] -but I was told of Jenova's nature by Cloud, and her connection to me.

[His eyes harden.]

I may have her genetic material in my own biology, but that doesn't make her my mother. And by extension, she isn't yours.

[velvetshot]

( Sephiroth's blunt response leaves Yazoo looking ashen and vaguely ill, but then he didn't expect much more from him in the first place. In many ways this was a last, desperate attempt at convincing himself things might work out in his favour — and Yazoo is disgusted in his willingness to finally concede defeat. To have Sephiroth deny Jenova outright was one thing, but to acknowledge that she's made him what he is and still choose to reject her?

It takes Yazoo's breath away. He doesn't know how Sephiroth can bear it — not when the thought alone brings him so much deep-rooted pain. )

I see.

( Finally, he looks away. Yazoo's gaze drifts to the middle distance as his eyes lower to a spot between them on the table, momentarily unable to even look at his maker. )

... We were never told. My brothers and I, we simply ... came to be, knowing what we had to do. Kadaj felt it most, I think, or perhaps you gave him a deeper understanding of your designs.

( The Remnant shrugs. It doesn't matter. Kadaj isn't here, and Yazoo doesn't even have the faint pull of Mother's cells to anchor him to his purpose. His attention drifts to the window, his expression smooth of any emotion as he gazes out into the street. It had seemed so simple back on Gaia, but now ... )

You've been a terrible brother. Cloud too.

( Zack was kinder to him, if not more wary of him, but at least his rejection didn't come with follow-up wounds. )

Did you know he spoke to Kadaj? With the woman.

( Yazoo still doesn't know her name, but— )

The one who had to die.

[supersoldier]

[At that, a bite of offense runs through him — as though he should be obligated to be anything to Yazoo at all, creator or no. He never asked for this; he has not yet fallen into madness, never made the decision to create three brothers from himself, never wished for the responsibility of one or two or any of them in Aefenglom. But he has taken Yazoo in, all the same, lives with him and seeks to make certain he is doing well enough—to a middling extent—and he has the presumption to call him a bad brother?

Sephiroth’s tone lowers, just a slight change that can mean all the difference in the world.]

And what do you expect me to do, then? Don’t hold me to the same standard as a madman — I will tell you what I know, not only what you want to hear, Yazoo. It isn’t my fault you don’t like it, and it isn’t my fault that you’ve sunk so much of your existence in what someone else expects of you. Either from myself or that thing you call mother.

[He has a mind to get up and leave him with that, cut this short if Yazoo will only take his words to twist them into blades to toss back. But the question he utters next is baffling, mostly due to its qualifier.]

What woman?

[What woman had to die? He knows of Zack, who has come back from the dead, but that is the extent of it.]

[velvetshot]

( Yazoo's attention rolls back to Sephiroth somewhere in the middle of his rebuke — a lazy loll of the head that spills liquid silver over his shoulders as he sizes the other man up. Each bite of his words strikes flint against flint to spark anger beneath his grief: how dare he claim no responsibility for what he's done to him? How dare he refuse to be held to the standards he himself made, whether in his future or no? Those catlike eyes narrow just a fraction as he sits in momentary silence, still and unreadable as a black lake on an airless night. )

Who knows what I expected. Whatever it was, I see now that it was far too much.

( Disappointing. These people have been nothing but disappointing, and he rises to his feet as if to follow through on what Sephiroth had considered moments before. )

Everything I am is going to be your fault. All of these things you consider my failings — they're your failings, too, and if they appear worse in me? It's because you'll tear us into pieces so that we can never feel whole without her. Without you.

( It's a wholly unfair accusation — who knows what Sephiroth expected of his backup plan in his madness — but Yazoo doesn't feel particularly unjustified in slinging it at him anyway. If this is it, if they're finally getting it all out in the open, why not go all the way? )

I hate that I need you.

( He moves around the chair, tucking it in against the table out of a hazy sense of something like habit. )

As for the woman, I don't know. Your memories are strange to me.

( And because he's feeling particularly spiteful: )

Ask Cloud.

[supersoldier]

[He wonders if that’s meant to sting rather than provide reasonable advice. Because speaking to his bondmate would assuredly be more useful than expecting anything from Yazoo in this moment, as though everything will just deflected and decried by his brother no matter how he approaches this.

And then his brother rises, giving into the impulse that Sephiroth had pushed aside just moments before, and he feels the licking flames of agitation twist in his chest. There is very little that can truly get under Sephiroth’s skin, for all that he keeps tamped down under a layer of cold steel, but Yazoo is managing it — maybe it’s expected that a piece of himself can push just the right buttons, dig his nails in and see what can be brought to the surface of Sephiroth’s emotions.

The worst offense is that Yazoo should stir anything at all, and then threaten to leave it like this, when he was the one who requested to speak? His voice adopts the edge of harsh military command-]

Sit. Down. We’re not done.

[velvetshot]

( Sephiroth's tone pierces through Yazoo like a lance, but where another might feel distress in being spoken to in such a way? Yazoo feels only relief — not only in the fact that he's managed to rile him in the first place, but that this version of Sephiroth is at least capable of taking command. He looks at him hard, tempted to try his luck with pushing him just a little bit further—

But this is bad enough as it is. Yazoo holds his gaze, pulls out the chair, and slowly lowers himself into it again. )

We aren't?

( But he's closed again. Cold, again, as though he isn't speaking to perhaps the one person in Aefenglom who will be truly unfazed by his behaviour. )

I'm not sure what more you could want.

( Yazoo tilts his head. )

My answers won't satisfy you.

[supersoldier]

I’m not looking for your answers to satisfy me. You’re the one seeking some kind of reassurance in all of this.

[Else why would he choose to even have this conversation, never mind the fact that Yazoo had been so quick to almost abandon it in a flare of indignity?

Sephiroth steadies his thoughts, his mind, tamping down the needling irritation that his brother had unearthed; it’s difficult for him to drive this particular conversation in any given direction—there are so many paths, so many chances to stumble over conflicting ideas—but even as he turns all approaches over in his mind, none of it shows on his features. Like Yazoo, the ripples quiet themselves into still water.]

I spoke with Kadaj during his time here.

[Which should sound obvious, given his connection, but their first few interactions had been so fraught and impossible to comprehend that it had tainted the whole of their fleeting relationship.]

He was like you. Unable to know what to do with himself without the guidance of Jenova. But even he came to the conclusion that this place gave him a certain... freedom. Unbound as we all are from any expectations born from Gaia. No longer defined by outside influence.

[It applied to Kadaj. To Sephiroth. And now, to Yazoo.]

...you said my memories aren’t clear to you. But my feelings should be, if you’re a part of me, and so I know this must be true:

[His gaze is steady.]

Your loyalty to Jenova is born from a desperate want to belong. A sense of someone caring for you, loving you. It must have been the same for your brothers. Or am I wrong?

[velvetshot]

( Sephiroth's gaze may be steady, but Yazoo's lowers in small increments as his brother says his piece. Hearing it aloud is difficult — not least because he'd been under the assumption that Sephiroth wouldn't be able to properly understand, different as he is from the expectations he'd had of him upon his arrival. Yes, Yazoo wants to belong. Yes, he wants to be cared for and loved — and to be able to love in return.

It's why those rejections from Zack and Cloud had hurt so much, and why Cloud's follow-up suggestion that he simply find something else to live for had pushed him over into real anger. )

I don't know what to do with freedom.

( A frown creases his brow — but this one is more confusion than anything else. )

I was never supposed to want that.

( He falls quiet for a long moment, before finally lifting his eyes to Sephiroth again. )

Did Kadaj find it?

( His freedom. A reason to live, beyond Jenova. )

[supersoldier]

[A pause, telling on its own, if only because Sephiroth cannot quite know the answer.]

…I don’t know. He disappeared from this world soon after that revelation finally took root.

[And would he carry that with him away from Aefenglom, or would his mind and experiences completely reset upon returning to Gaia — if that is indeed where he went? Sephiroth cannot know, but the latter is an awful thing to consider, because he at times wonders if it may be the fate chained to him, too.]

But whether or not he found it isn’t the point. It’s the fact that he accepted it, just as you need to.

[Finally, Sephiroth breaks his statuesque stillness, gesturing with a taloned hand across the table at Yazoo.]

You and I both. I refuse to be nothing more than Shinra’s greatest investment any longer; just as I refuse to accept the kind of man you know me to be. A man with a broken mind and a hatred for the Planet, all because of a lie told to him when he was younger. And now that lie has transferred itself to you, too.

[A disservice, a wrongness against Yazoo’s very being, to want for something he can never have. Jenova, that terrible thing, will never give him love. His future self, for all that he’s heard, lacks the capacity for it, too.]

I can't have that.