On the subject of mutualism...
Pandora's Box: Written for Stick (stickmarionette), in response to the drabble meme. She requested Zack genfic, but come on, you can't have a Zack genfic without the teeniest hints of Cloud, right? XD;;
Zack's parents taught him one thing when he was young, and it was this: be kind to the kid who is picked on, even if you are picked on for it yourself, and it was one of the few things from Gongaga that stuck with him through all the years, through all of the travels of his soldiering life.
He was born, he grew up. His parents were, of all things, a woodcutter and a village midwife, roughing it inside of a small town in the woods that quickly grew into a metallic monster via modern technology; the sign of the times, the coming of the age. The Mako generator dragged his father, clawing, out of his livelihood, and his mother grew more melancholy year after year, as the incurable poisonings and accidents stole more of her patients than she could save, and even she eventually spent her days wasting away at home, silent and frail. But Zack wasn't the sort of boy to let those things get to him, so when he boldly declared, "I'll become the strongest member in all of SOLDIER!" in his eighteenth year, it was all his parents could do to sigh, scrounge around tiredly for their meager life's savings, and send their son off to Junon with a kiss and a handshake.
Zack hasn't written to his parents in about three years. He means to, as he's a good old-fashioned country kid at heart, who misses his mother's cooking and camp-outs with his father, but he never seems to find the time. In Junon, his SOLDIER training is rigorous, and the Mako treatments are a whirlwind of pain that steal away his days, but moreso than the lessons, he's out partying with his friends - guys his age, something he's hardly ever had before, since all of the children in Gongaga seemed to die young after the reactor was built - and it was enough for him to forge his pride, to fake a grin even as his joints ached, to go out with the group even when the treatments were making him sick. A group of friends, even, who called him "the life of the party" and laughed at his jokes, at his dangerous stunts, and friends who would distract the drill sergeant, temporarily, in order for Zack to escape trouble. People to whom he could spread his infinite optimism, intstead of the deadened stares he would receive back home; ah, yes, he was happy to be alive during those years, sparkling and sharp and at the center of attention.
He likes attention, and occassionally does stupid things in order to get it, but he doesn't mind giving attention, either, and would gladly listen to anyone who cared to complain about the troubles in the world, would gladly inject some cheer into the oldest and most broken of warhorses with his jokes and stories and exaggerated gestures - it was the sort of guy he was, the unparaelleled jester from afar. It was a persona he built, a personality that he grew into as easily as a second skin, and though he found familiarity in the people he surrounded himself with, he often found himself wondering, idly, if they were what he could honestly call friends.
He is twenty-one when he meets Aeris Gainsborough. She teaches him that people are not at all what they seem.
She, for one, looks right through him - from his cheesy pickup line to the hand that attempts to sneak surreptitiously around her waist - but she seems flattered by the attention nonetheless, looking up at him from dipped eyelashes, and hanging bangs, with her lips pursed in a way that could either be sensual or annoyed. Her eyes are a brilliant green that make Zack wonder, awestruck, if she had ever been a member of SOLDIER like he was, to which the girl replies, mysteriously, "Who knows? I think they might want me to be." She doesn't explain, and since Zack isn't the type to pry into other people's affairs, he doesn't ask, and she, at the very least, seems grateful for it.
They meet in Junon, where Aeris admits that she will probably never return to this city again, so they agree to live it up while they're there, to enjoy their time together down to the moment - shared sodas and a plate of fries on the harbor - and Aeris leaves him with her address when they part, and, perhaps, the promise of something more, if they ever were to meet again. She is unlike any individual the youth has ever met: serious and wise, yet mischievous and full of spunk, enigmatic yet surprisingly open with her ideals - "I honestly believe that the land can be taught to breed flowers again," she says passionately over ice cream, eyes burning emerald fire - and she's beautiful, a rare sort of beauty beyond superficiality, and one that Zack can never seem to get out of his head.
Aeris lives in Midgar, and they share their first kiss in her flower garden at midnight, when Zack is away from Junon on leave. He is her first love, or so she claims, though he knows without a doubt he is her first lover, from the way she winces and shakes when he first enters her, and it's the most vulnerable he has ever seen her, whether it be here or there. There is nothing enigmatic about the honest anxiety in her eyes, or the rapid thud of her heart, and Zack does the best he can to calm her, grinning quietly in the dim Mako light of the night and taking her hands in his own, talking smooth and going slow. He doesn't mention that he's nervous, too, or that it's his first time as well, because things like that are damaging and uncool for a twenty-one year old SOLDIER who is known for his reputation with the girls, so he covers his nervous swallow with a smile, and plays off the pressure of the moment with ease.
They're aware, in the morning, that it will be hard for them to keep in touch, so they promise to write over breakfast, Elmyra Gainsborough silently disapproving from over the stove, yet never faltering in her forced good cheer. Across the table, the two awkward lovers lock eyes, and in that moment, Zack feels something ominous - feels as though he will never see this girl again, as improbable as that is - and grips her hand tightly in his until he at last boards his train back to the coast, memorizing the lines of Aeris's face as she finally fades off into the distance, the last splash of color in a dull grey world.
It's something that he never noticed until it was told to him from the outside, but Aeris changed him - he came back from Midgar taller, more mature, more at ease with himself and his feelings - and it's something he will forever be grateful for, something he will never forget. He buys stationary in Kalm, and scribbles down at least eight drafts of heartfelt letters before he finally tosses them out of the back of the truck he is hitchhiking in, telling himself that he'll put his feelings to paper properly when he gets back to Junon, in better light.
And Zack means to write, he really does. But training picks up in the summer, along with the treatments, and he is given a new roommate with which to share his dorm - a boy by the name of Cloud Strife - and so, he never quite finds the time. Cloud in and of himself is a life-altering change; Zack can just feel it, the first time they meet eyes - much in the same way he felt when he and Aeris used to meet eyes - and though it unnerves him, a bit, he approaches it the same way he does everything else: with broad smiles, and reckless good cheer.
At first, speaking to Cloud is a bit like opening Pandora's box: it is impossible to tell just what sort of reaction you are going to get. He always blinks, at first, as though surprised he is being addressed, but from there, any variety of scenarios can happen, depending on the subject matter - a smile, a scowl, or even a blush (something Zack finds odd on a boy, though he never says so aloud). Cloud may then reply back, sullenly or modestly, but always low, and always turning his gaze away. After a while, though, he starts to look at Zack - honestly look at Zack, with an uncanny wisdom and solemnity beyond his years - and it's only then that the older boy starts to wonder, briefly, if he has somehow managed to open the gates of hell. It's a strange gaze, that Mako glow, one that burns both bright and sad, like the powerful western fallen star, or the oceanic infinity of the sky at twilight, but there's something that Zack can call "Cloud" in those eyes, too, lost and alone in that field of blue.
Zack's parents taught him one thing when he was younger, and it was to be kind to the kid who was picked on, so he makes it his purpose in life to turn Cloud Strife into his friend. It wasn't as though the other boy was picked on - wasn't as though he couldn't take care of himself, either - but he had always possessed an air of solitude about him, from the first time they met ("...Cloud Strife. I came here alone from Nibelheim, and since no one wants to share a room with me, I'm stuck with you"), to his empty lunches on the harbor ("I don't like the mess. The food is horrible, and the hall is too crowded and noisy"), even down to his one-on-one combat techniques, ill-suited for fighting in a group. It was in his eyes too, of course, in those damnable Mako eyes, showing the torrent of a raging seascape through those windows to his soul; a single sailor left for dead on a jagged piece of obsidian rock.
Zack had the same eyes, but their purpose was different - azure blue of a cloudless sky, cerulean stripe of a rainbow after thunder - his served to brighten, to uplight; to be kind to the kid who was picked on, even, and so he starts to formulate the ideas in his head of how he's going to turn this boy into his friend.
It starts slowly - casual invitations to large parties, or a vulgar yet good-humored note scrawled on a piece of paper from a pin-up magazine - and Cloud ignores these at first, despite the quiet yearning that has started to trickle through his eyes, despite the almost-smiles that he can't quite keep off of his face. Zack tries harder, as is his custom when faced with rejection; makes himself a presence that can't be ignored - takes Cloud out to lunch, just the two of them, and gets him to talk a bit about himself, or spars with him, every now and then, to teach him that fighting with friends can sometimes be fun - and in doing so, he discovers things about himself that he never knew: his hidden insecurities about his outward persona, his inability to keep track of time.
He grows apart from his old friends, but not in a bad way - at first they whisper about the two boys who stay holed up in their room together at night, but quickly give it up when faced with Cloud's dangerous glare and Zack's enormous sword - and though he still doesn't write to his parents or to Aeris, he talks to Cloud, and for the first time in his life, tells someone else about himself, instead of burdening himself with all of the world's problems. Cloud listens, quietly, as Zack raves about his awesome girlfriend ("I'd love to meet her," he says, somberly, and seems to mean it), as he asserts his position on the Shinra and war, as he tells embarrassing stories of the things he used to be afraid of when he was a kid. Aside from the brief days he spent with Aeris, these are the happiest days of his life, and he almost wishes that the other boy would stay as isolated and as anti-social as he had been forever, so that Zack can keep attempting to be his friend, and keep these sorts of days always in his memory.
But time is not a fixed construct, and before his eyes, Cloud starts to unfold before him like a lotus; radiant, yet no less complex, and starts to stand on his own - starts to make his own friends, starts to pick his own idols, starts to idealize his own dreams. But that was a girly comparison, and Cloud hated those, and Zack hated giving them, so it was the only thing between them that ever went unsaid.
It was almost a shame. Cloud was Pandora's box, a thing of misery and envy and shame, with all the good things about him locked inside, in the eternal paradox of his existence, never to be seen by anyone but the blessed. He was creation's folly, doomed to exile since birth, and it was depressing to think that no one would ever see how cute his hair looked when it was down, or to understand just why it was that his knees ached sometimes when it rained, or to even laugh loudly with him when he made a joke at someone else's expense (his humor was like a wasp; small yet stinging); those were the sorts of things that made him wish that things like human vice didn't exist, or that the word "isolation" had no meaning in the dictionary. After all, it was almost like a personal insult to Zack, who had always been kind to the kids who were picked on, even if he suffered for it himself, and the thought of it is enough for him to look down at his nails from inside that cylinder of poisonous green - torn and bloodied from the scratches he had made - and to switch his gaze over to Cloud, lost and broken with both a minute and a millenium's worth of breathing space between them, and make his last big decision.
He has no idea why he thinks of these things as he is dying, with the last of his blood mingling in the dirt with the flow of rain, with his eyelids fluttering and his vision growing dark, with the pain of the bullets dulled only by the force of his regrets. Should have toilet-papered the mess hall like I promised the guys that I would. Should have taken some time off to go see Aeris in Midgar again. Should have written to my parents at least one last time, since now I'm dying and they'll never know -
But there is only Cloud, looking at him with the first signs of cognizance since they have escaped from Nibelheim, looking bewildered and out-of-place in a pair of Zack's old clothes, eyes staring at him in blinded horror as though he is about to be left alone again, out in the cold...he, at least, might act one day in accordance with Zack's memory. But even that, in hindsight, is somehow as ominous as as the almost possessed look that is starting to spark in the other boy's eyes; yes, even that is ominous, in the way that Cloud seems determined not to lose him, not yet.
"Pan...ra's...... ox..... as..... en..... o...end," he tries to say, then dies.
Pandora's box has been opened.
AN: Wow. I really like the end, even though it, like...doesn't seem relevant to the story AT ALL. Any way. Sorry that this story sort of ended up being more about Cloud than it was about Zack, Stick. :( I lose. Pretend something else is new.
Zack's parents taught him one thing when he was young, and it was this: be kind to the kid who is picked on, even if you are picked on for it yourself, and it was one of the few things from Gongaga that stuck with him through all the years, through all of the travels of his soldiering life.
He was born, he grew up. His parents were, of all things, a woodcutter and a village midwife, roughing it inside of a small town in the woods that quickly grew into a metallic monster via modern technology; the sign of the times, the coming of the age. The Mako generator dragged his father, clawing, out of his livelihood, and his mother grew more melancholy year after year, as the incurable poisonings and accidents stole more of her patients than she could save, and even she eventually spent her days wasting away at home, silent and frail. But Zack wasn't the sort of boy to let those things get to him, so when he boldly declared, "I'll become the strongest member in all of SOLDIER!" in his eighteenth year, it was all his parents could do to sigh, scrounge around tiredly for their meager life's savings, and send their son off to Junon with a kiss and a handshake.
Zack hasn't written to his parents in about three years. He means to, as he's a good old-fashioned country kid at heart, who misses his mother's cooking and camp-outs with his father, but he never seems to find the time. In Junon, his SOLDIER training is rigorous, and the Mako treatments are a whirlwind of pain that steal away his days, but moreso than the lessons, he's out partying with his friends - guys his age, something he's hardly ever had before, since all of the children in Gongaga seemed to die young after the reactor was built - and it was enough for him to forge his pride, to fake a grin even as his joints ached, to go out with the group even when the treatments were making him sick. A group of friends, even, who called him "the life of the party" and laughed at his jokes, at his dangerous stunts, and friends who would distract the drill sergeant, temporarily, in order for Zack to escape trouble. People to whom he could spread his infinite optimism, intstead of the deadened stares he would receive back home; ah, yes, he was happy to be alive during those years, sparkling and sharp and at the center of attention.
He likes attention, and occassionally does stupid things in order to get it, but he doesn't mind giving attention, either, and would gladly listen to anyone who cared to complain about the troubles in the world, would gladly inject some cheer into the oldest and most broken of warhorses with his jokes and stories and exaggerated gestures - it was the sort of guy he was, the unparaelleled jester from afar. It was a persona he built, a personality that he grew into as easily as a second skin, and though he found familiarity in the people he surrounded himself with, he often found himself wondering, idly, if they were what he could honestly call friends.
He is twenty-one when he meets Aeris Gainsborough. She teaches him that people are not at all what they seem.
She, for one, looks right through him - from his cheesy pickup line to the hand that attempts to sneak surreptitiously around her waist - but she seems flattered by the attention nonetheless, looking up at him from dipped eyelashes, and hanging bangs, with her lips pursed in a way that could either be sensual or annoyed. Her eyes are a brilliant green that make Zack wonder, awestruck, if she had ever been a member of SOLDIER like he was, to which the girl replies, mysteriously, "Who knows? I think they might want me to be." She doesn't explain, and since Zack isn't the type to pry into other people's affairs, he doesn't ask, and she, at the very least, seems grateful for it.
They meet in Junon, where Aeris admits that she will probably never return to this city again, so they agree to live it up while they're there, to enjoy their time together down to the moment - shared sodas and a plate of fries on the harbor - and Aeris leaves him with her address when they part, and, perhaps, the promise of something more, if they ever were to meet again. She is unlike any individual the youth has ever met: serious and wise, yet mischievous and full of spunk, enigmatic yet surprisingly open with her ideals - "I honestly believe that the land can be taught to breed flowers again," she says passionately over ice cream, eyes burning emerald fire - and she's beautiful, a rare sort of beauty beyond superficiality, and one that Zack can never seem to get out of his head.
Aeris lives in Midgar, and they share their first kiss in her flower garden at midnight, when Zack is away from Junon on leave. He is her first love, or so she claims, though he knows without a doubt he is her first lover, from the way she winces and shakes when he first enters her, and it's the most vulnerable he has ever seen her, whether it be here or there. There is nothing enigmatic about the honest anxiety in her eyes, or the rapid thud of her heart, and Zack does the best he can to calm her, grinning quietly in the dim Mako light of the night and taking her hands in his own, talking smooth and going slow. He doesn't mention that he's nervous, too, or that it's his first time as well, because things like that are damaging and uncool for a twenty-one year old SOLDIER who is known for his reputation with the girls, so he covers his nervous swallow with a smile, and plays off the pressure of the moment with ease.
They're aware, in the morning, that it will be hard for them to keep in touch, so they promise to write over breakfast, Elmyra Gainsborough silently disapproving from over the stove, yet never faltering in her forced good cheer. Across the table, the two awkward lovers lock eyes, and in that moment, Zack feels something ominous - feels as though he will never see this girl again, as improbable as that is - and grips her hand tightly in his until he at last boards his train back to the coast, memorizing the lines of Aeris's face as she finally fades off into the distance, the last splash of color in a dull grey world.
It's something that he never noticed until it was told to him from the outside, but Aeris changed him - he came back from Midgar taller, more mature, more at ease with himself and his feelings - and it's something he will forever be grateful for, something he will never forget. He buys stationary in Kalm, and scribbles down at least eight drafts of heartfelt letters before he finally tosses them out of the back of the truck he is hitchhiking in, telling himself that he'll put his feelings to paper properly when he gets back to Junon, in better light.
And Zack means to write, he really does. But training picks up in the summer, along with the treatments, and he is given a new roommate with which to share his dorm - a boy by the name of Cloud Strife - and so, he never quite finds the time. Cloud in and of himself is a life-altering change; Zack can just feel it, the first time they meet eyes - much in the same way he felt when he and Aeris used to meet eyes - and though it unnerves him, a bit, he approaches it the same way he does everything else: with broad smiles, and reckless good cheer.
At first, speaking to Cloud is a bit like opening Pandora's box: it is impossible to tell just what sort of reaction you are going to get. He always blinks, at first, as though surprised he is being addressed, but from there, any variety of scenarios can happen, depending on the subject matter - a smile, a scowl, or even a blush (something Zack finds odd on a boy, though he never says so aloud). Cloud may then reply back, sullenly or modestly, but always low, and always turning his gaze away. After a while, though, he starts to look at Zack - honestly look at Zack, with an uncanny wisdom and solemnity beyond his years - and it's only then that the older boy starts to wonder, briefly, if he has somehow managed to open the gates of hell. It's a strange gaze, that Mako glow, one that burns both bright and sad, like the powerful western fallen star, or the oceanic infinity of the sky at twilight, but there's something that Zack can call "Cloud" in those eyes, too, lost and alone in that field of blue.
Zack's parents taught him one thing when he was younger, and it was to be kind to the kid who was picked on, so he makes it his purpose in life to turn Cloud Strife into his friend. It wasn't as though the other boy was picked on - wasn't as though he couldn't take care of himself, either - but he had always possessed an air of solitude about him, from the first time they met ("...Cloud Strife. I came here alone from Nibelheim, and since no one wants to share a room with me, I'm stuck with you"), to his empty lunches on the harbor ("I don't like the mess. The food is horrible, and the hall is too crowded and noisy"), even down to his one-on-one combat techniques, ill-suited for fighting in a group. It was in his eyes too, of course, in those damnable Mako eyes, showing the torrent of a raging seascape through those windows to his soul; a single sailor left for dead on a jagged piece of obsidian rock.
Zack had the same eyes, but their purpose was different - azure blue of a cloudless sky, cerulean stripe of a rainbow after thunder - his served to brighten, to uplight; to be kind to the kid who was picked on, even, and so he starts to formulate the ideas in his head of how he's going to turn this boy into his friend.
It starts slowly - casual invitations to large parties, or a vulgar yet good-humored note scrawled on a piece of paper from a pin-up magazine - and Cloud ignores these at first, despite the quiet yearning that has started to trickle through his eyes, despite the almost-smiles that he can't quite keep off of his face. Zack tries harder, as is his custom when faced with rejection; makes himself a presence that can't be ignored - takes Cloud out to lunch, just the two of them, and gets him to talk a bit about himself, or spars with him, every now and then, to teach him that fighting with friends can sometimes be fun - and in doing so, he discovers things about himself that he never knew: his hidden insecurities about his outward persona, his inability to keep track of time.
He grows apart from his old friends, but not in a bad way - at first they whisper about the two boys who stay holed up in their room together at night, but quickly give it up when faced with Cloud's dangerous glare and Zack's enormous sword - and though he still doesn't write to his parents or to Aeris, he talks to Cloud, and for the first time in his life, tells someone else about himself, instead of burdening himself with all of the world's problems. Cloud listens, quietly, as Zack raves about his awesome girlfriend ("I'd love to meet her," he says, somberly, and seems to mean it), as he asserts his position on the Shinra and war, as he tells embarrassing stories of the things he used to be afraid of when he was a kid. Aside from the brief days he spent with Aeris, these are the happiest days of his life, and he almost wishes that the other boy would stay as isolated and as anti-social as he had been forever, so that Zack can keep attempting to be his friend, and keep these sorts of days always in his memory.
But time is not a fixed construct, and before his eyes, Cloud starts to unfold before him like a lotus; radiant, yet no less complex, and starts to stand on his own - starts to make his own friends, starts to pick his own idols, starts to idealize his own dreams. But that was a girly comparison, and Cloud hated those, and Zack hated giving them, so it was the only thing between them that ever went unsaid.
It was almost a shame. Cloud was Pandora's box, a thing of misery and envy and shame, with all the good things about him locked inside, in the eternal paradox of his existence, never to be seen by anyone but the blessed. He was creation's folly, doomed to exile since birth, and it was depressing to think that no one would ever see how cute his hair looked when it was down, or to understand just why it was that his knees ached sometimes when it rained, or to even laugh loudly with him when he made a joke at someone else's expense (his humor was like a wasp; small yet stinging); those were the sorts of things that made him wish that things like human vice didn't exist, or that the word "isolation" had no meaning in the dictionary. After all, it was almost like a personal insult to Zack, who had always been kind to the kids who were picked on, even if he suffered for it himself, and the thought of it is enough for him to look down at his nails from inside that cylinder of poisonous green - torn and bloodied from the scratches he had made - and to switch his gaze over to Cloud, lost and broken with both a minute and a millenium's worth of breathing space between them, and make his last big decision.
He has no idea why he thinks of these things as he is dying, with the last of his blood mingling in the dirt with the flow of rain, with his eyelids fluttering and his vision growing dark, with the pain of the bullets dulled only by the force of his regrets. Should have toilet-papered the mess hall like I promised the guys that I would. Should have taken some time off to go see Aeris in Midgar again. Should have written to my parents at least one last time, since now I'm dying and they'll never know -
But there is only Cloud, looking at him with the first signs of cognizance since they have escaped from Nibelheim, looking bewildered and out-of-place in a pair of Zack's old clothes, eyes staring at him in blinded horror as though he is about to be left alone again, out in the cold...he, at least, might act one day in accordance with Zack's memory. But even that, in hindsight, is somehow as ominous as as the almost possessed look that is starting to spark in the other boy's eyes; yes, even that is ominous, in the way that Cloud seems determined not to lose him, not yet.
"Pan...ra's...... ox..... as..... en..... o...end," he tries to say, then dies.
Pandora's box has been opened.
AN: Wow. I really like the end, even though it, like...doesn't seem relevant to the story AT ALL. Any way. Sorry that this story sort of ended up being more about Cloud than it was about Zack, Stick. :( I lose. Pretend something else is new.