Metamorphosis (Part 1)
Title: Metamorphosis
Pairing: Yesung/Ryeowook
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Crossover with the Final Fantasy 7/Advent Children universe. Set 4 years after the events of Final Fantasy 7, Yesung and Ryeowook have to go on the run from Sephiroth clones who are after Ryeowook for the Jenova cells he is infected with, which cause a terrifying transformation in him.
A/N: My entry for the winged_suju contest, original post here. This one is heavily edited; I added a number of flashback scenes to flesh out the pairing dynamics more, and changed several bits in the original text where I felt it was unwieldy or awkward because I was honestly Not Happy with the first one at all.
Many thanks to hotarumyst , ddangkkoma ,
chibi_roses , and
shiryu_yugure for all the love. Hope you guys like this better!
___
Midgar
It was raining, the sharp scent of rainwater made acidic by the smog and pollution of Midgar permeating even into the tiny room of the clinic where Ryeowook was lying, comatose after his last attack. He was breathing on his own now, at least, his chest rising and falling slowly and steadily, but the small frown between his brows remained there even in unconsciousness.
Yesung was sitting next to his bed and watching his face when Dr. Choi came in with Cloud, both of them looking grim. He tore his eyes away from Ryeowook and stood up, looking from one to the other, his dark black eyes meeting Cloud’s bright electric blue ones, born from the Mako energy infused within him.
There was silence for a moment, broken only by the soft sounds of spattering raindrops, before Dr. Choi spoke.
“The attacks are getting more frequent, Yesung.”
Yesung turned away from him to stare at Ryeowook, still unmoving, and tried to blink away the hot tears that were prickling at the back of his eyelids.
“I know,” he said hoarsely.
“And there’s still Zwelrich. He’s not going to give up until he has Ryeowook,” Cloud said, and at the mention of the name Yesung’s hands, sheathed in black leather, clenched into fists, and the light from the small lamp next to Ryeowook’s bed glinted off the metal plates at the knuckles.
“What do you expect Ryeowook to do?” he bit out. “We’ve already left Avalanche. We’re not dragging the resistance into our fight. And may I remind you that it was because of Avalanche that Ryeowook’s in this state? If we hadn’t agreed to go on that mission, if Tifa hadn’t slipped up, Ryeowook wouldn’t be infected with Jenova cells now.”
Cloud had the grace to look away as Yesung turned fiery eyes on him, but Dr. Choi walked over to Ryeowook’s bed, pulled his eyelids open to check his pupils, pressed fingers at his neck to check his pulse.
“He’s only getting headaches now, and the only reason he falls unconscious all the time is because of the pain, but it’ll get much worse if we don’t cleanse him of the infection soon,” he murmured, and Yesung turned back around to look at Dr. Choi and at his friend, lying motionless in the small bed.
“How much worse?” he demanded, and Dr. Choi shrugged.
“Only Cloud knows,” he said, and at that Yesung swung around to Cloud again.
“Tell me,” he said; he recalled the rumours among the resistance fighters, of how Cloud had had the same infection several years ago, how he was afflicted by the same headaches, how he had somehow managed to overcome it. And suddenly he was seized with hope that maybe Ryeowook could be cured, that the attacks, which had been increasing with frequency over the last two months could finally be stopped, and then both he and Ryeowook would retreat from Avalanche completely. He was already sick of fighting a war that never seemed to end, and Ryeowook agreed with him.
Cloud was now looking back at him, and there was something in his blue eyes that Yesung couldn’t fathom - despair? Pity? But before he could speak, Cloud said something softly, something that made Yesung’s heart stop for a second.
“You have to take him away from here.”
Yesung was flabbergasted. “Take Ryeowook away? Where? He needs medical support if his attacks happen again!”
Cloud shook his head. “Nothing we have here can cure him, Yesung. The same thing happened to me, and there was only one thing that helped.”
Yesung remembered the stories he’d heard about Cloud, and his mouth opened and said it before his brain could process it. “The Lifestream.”
Cloud looked away from him and gazed over at Ryeowook. “Yes. It’s the only thing that will cleanse the infection. Take him fast, before the cells mutate and he starts to transform. Take him there before Zwelrich finds him again, because you know he and his brothers need the Jenova cells in Ryeowook.”
Yesung was trembling when he finally spoke again, gloved hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “I won’t know what to do if he faints again, Cloud. I won’t know how to keep him from the brothers. We barely escaped alive the last time they found us. And I won’t know what to do if he transforms like - like you did, like Zwelrich does. If he transforms and flies off, I won’t be able to find him out there. At least he’s contained within Midgar if we stay here.”
“If you stay here, there are only two possible outcomes,” Cloud said coldly. “Ryeowook will either be found by Zwelrich and made into a fount for Jenova cells to spawn new Sephiroth clones, until they create an army large enough to overrun the world. Or Ryeowook will die from the mutation. Choose which one you want.”
Yesung’s blood went cold at the thought. “But if he flies away from me out there - “
“That’s why I’m here,” Dr. Choi spoke up, and when Yesung turned back to him he was holding up a minuscule black disc on his palm, barely the size of the fingernail on Yesung’s little finger. Yesung recognized it immediately. “You can track him with this, once I insert it into his body.”
“Time is of the essence, Yesung,” Cloud said softly. “If you want to save Ryeowook, you have to go to the Crater and immerse him in the Lifestream. Staying here will mean certain death for you, and a fate worse than that for him.”
Yesung stared at the microchip in Dr. Choi’s hand. It was gleaming and as black as night, as black as Zwelrich’s one single wing, and Yesung tensed up at the thought of Ryeowook like that.
“Do it,” he said at last, and Dr. Choi nodded grimly before bending over Ryeowook, and he sat down next to the bed, never taking his eyes off Ryeowook even as Cloud began explaining carefully to him where he needed to go, and who he should look for on the journey.
___
Chocobo Farm
”Sometimes I hate Midgar,” Yesung groused as he leaned against the corrugated steel wall of their little hideout, tucked behind Tifa’s bar.
“Why?” Ryeowook asked as he crouched next to Yesung. He wasn’t really paying attention, Yesung knew; he was too busy with his submachine gun. He watched as Ryeowook lifted it to his shoulder and peered down at it, examining the wood grain of the handle, and couldn’t help but smile at how engrossed he was.
“It’s just - well, we’ve never done anything except fight, run and hide, have we? We both joined Avalanche at the same time, didn’t we, seven years ago? And since then, we’ve never set foot outside Midgar. It’s depressing, all we see here is metal and steel and bombed buildings.”
Ryeowook looked up at him then, his face growing soft. “Just one more mission, Yesung. One more, and we’re leaving, aren’t we?”
“I can’t wait for it to be over,” Yesung complained, and Ryeowook frowned.
“Can you please concentrate on our mission rather than hanker to get away before we’ve done anything yet?”
“Hey,” Yesung said, choosing to ignore him. “After this, let’s go to the Chocobo Farm. Shall we?”
“Whatever for?”
“I don’t know,” Yesung said, exasperated at what he perceived to be a lack of enthusiasm from his partner. “Check out the Chocobos, take a couple of rides on them. Breathe the fresh air outside, rather than Midgar air for once.”
Ryeowook laughed. “We can go anywhere you want after this,” he agreed easily, and Yesung relaxed.
“The brothers have left Midgar.”
“What?”
“They know you’re out there, Yesung. Where are you?”
“Is this connection secure?”
“Of course it is, Cid engineered it.”
“We’re at the Chocobo Farm. How much time do we have?”
“We estimate that they’re only two days away from where you are. You need to leave right away with Ryeowook.”
“I can’t, he just had another one of his attacks. He needs to rest. We were lucky we were just a couple of miles from the farm when it happened.”
“Take a chocobo from the farm and go. At least get through the Mythril Mines first. The further you’re away from them, the better. Barret will be waiting for you at Mt. Corel.”
“Got it, Cloud. We’re on our way.”
Yesung snapped the phone shut and stared at Ryeowook, pale and clammy and unconscious, and felt his heart sink. They were barely a week out of Midgar and Ryeowook already had another attack, and the brothers were catching up fast, so fast.
He left his room, shutting the wooden door quietly, before tiptoeing down the staircase so as not to wake the family who lived here and bred the chocobos. He slipped out of the large stone farmhouse entirely, crossing the field outside to get to the barn itself, where all the chocobos were kept and where he knew the owner of the farm, Bill, would be.
The whole barn was dark and silent when he entered it except for the soft cooing of the chocobos and the rustling of their feathers, as the large birds shifted in their pens. As he’d expected, Bill was in there, sitting in one of the pens with a sickly chocobo. He looked up as Yesung wandered over, resting his arms on the swinging door, looking over it at the bird.
“How’s your friend?” Bill asked, and Yesung shook his head.
“Still unconscious,” he replied, and the old grizzled farmer sighed, running his hand across his mouth and his salt-and-pepper moustache.
“Stay as long as you wish, lad. Until he recovers.”
“Actually, Bill, we have to leave now.”
“Now?”
“Yes. I - I can’t explain, but we have to. Can I buy a chocobo from you? We’ll need one to carry Ryeowook across the Mythril Mines.”
Bill looked at him and Yesung felt inexplicably uncomfortable under his gaze. He had the sense that the farmer, old though he was, was someone who missed nothing and saw everything, and he suspected what was going on even if he didn’t know for certain. He remembered how Cloud had taken refuge at the farm before as well, while on his own journey, and decided that Bill certainly understood what was happening.
So he wasn’t surprised when the old man stood up and told him that he’d pick a strong, speedy bird for him, and he could go get Ryeowook ready for departure. He was surprised, though, when he fumbled for his money pouch, and Bill put out a calloused hand to stop him.
“I won’t take any payment from you, lad, any friend of Cloud’s is a friend of mine,” he rumbled, and Yesung hesitated only a moment before he bowed in gratitude and left to dress Ryeowook up and collect their weapons.
___
Ship to Middle Continent
“If you stare at that map any longer, Yesung, you’ll go blind.”
They were in their room, in the middle of the three-day voyage across the sea to the Middle Continent, where they would make their way through Mt. Corel and meet up with Barret. Yesung was nervous as hell. He had no idea when one of Ryeowook’s attacks would strike again, and if it happened when they were out in the open…
He was consulting the map Cloud had given him before they’d left Midgar, regretting it almost immediately. No matter how many times he looked at it, the fact was that once the ship docked at the port town of Costa del Sol on the Middle Continent, they had a two-week journey through open territory to Mt. Corel, and then a trek through the mountain itself, before they could reach the mining town of Corel where Barret lived. They would be open, and exposed, and nowhere near so much as a solitary cottage, and if Ryeowook collapsed on him in the middle of nowhere, they would both be sitting ducks for Zwelrich and his brothers.
Ryeowook seemed to know what he was thinking, because he reached across the small space between their twin beds in the tiny cramped room, and Yesung responded instinctively, locking his hand with Ryeowook’s. Ryeowook squeezed it tightly, his hand feeling small and soft under the metal plates of Yesung’s fighting gloves, before dropping it and returning to polish his submachine gun, even though it was already oiled to perfection and gleaming wickedly in the light of the oil lamp, which was flickering as the ship dipped and rolled. Ryeowook always kept his gun in tiptop shape.
Yesung found himself distracted from his perusal of the map as he watched Ryeowook’s hands rubbing a leather oilcloth along the barrel of the gun. His hands, which seemed so small and delicate, could handle the weapon with incredible speed and aplomb, and Yesung’s eyes followed the path of those slender fingers as they caressed the black metal. Ryeowook’s hands seemed to gleam almost silver in the little light they had in the room, and so did his face, and for a moment Yesung almost forgot where he was as the lamplight cast guttering shadows across the sharp planes of Ryeowook’s face. The months of headaches had caused him to lose weight, so his cheekbones stood out in stark relief and he looked thin and pale, but Yesung thought he’d never quite seen Ryeowook like this in all the years he’d known him, weak and vulnerable and yet putting enough trust in Yesung to follow him across the world.
Ryeowook looked up then, only to catch Yesung staring openly at him, and stopped polishing. “Yesung?” he asked curiously, cocking his head to one side, and Yesung blinked and shook himself out of his stupor.
“I’m - I’m not staring,” he blurted out, before clamping his mouth shut and wondering why it always worked before his brain did.
Ryeowook only smiled, and Yesung found himself almost entranced again before he gave himself a little shake and looked back down at his map, hands shaking slightly.
“I just told you not to stare so much at the map, we’ve planned our route out enough,” he said gently, and Yesung shook his head.
“I’m trying to plan for alternate contingency routes, in case… you know,” he mumbled, and heard Ryeowook sigh.
“I’ll be okay,” he said softly. “I haven’t had an attack for almost two weeks already.”
Yesung nodded but didn’t speak. He didn’t trust himself to. He didn’t want to tell Ryeowook what Cloud had said, that once the attacks tapered off, it meant the Jenova cells were already mutating, and sooner or later he would transform into the same one-winged creature that Sephiroth, Zwelrich, and all the other Sephiroth clones did. He looked at the map again. It would take another four months, at least, for them to reach the Lifestream.
He didn’t know if he could protect Ryeowook that far, but he flexed his fingers and felt the reassuring weight of the metal and magic infused into the leather, and swore silently that he would have to. They’d been friends for years, but Ryeowook had never been in such danger as he was now, and if Yesung wasn’t there to get him through this, no one else would.
___
Mining town of Corel
”This place stinks,” Ryeowook complained the moment he stepped back into their hideout. His face was dirtied, and his hair messy and clinging damply to his face. He kicked off his boots and turned to look at Yesung, who was sitting facing the door. “Well? Were you smoking in here again?”
“I don’t believe you,” Yesung said, eyes raking over his friend and taking in his appearance, checking for traces of injuries or blood. “You just came back from a mission and this is the first thing you say?”
Ryeowook grimaced. “I hate it when you smoke, you know that.” He walked over to his rickety cot, placed against the wall opposite from Yesung’s, and flopped onto it with a groan; the flimsy bed creaked in protest. “Now I can’t even rest properly thanks to the smell, and I’m exhausted.”
He was fast asleep almost before he’d finished muttering the words, and Yesung cursed and ground out his half-smoked cigarette in the already-overspilling ashtray, wondering how he could ever tell Ryeowook that the only reason he was smoking was because this was the first time Ryeowook had gone on a mission without him, and he hadn’t been able to sit still all night while he worried and waited for him to come back.
The smell of cigarette smoke in the town’s little pub was overwhelming, the air hazy enough to make Ryeowook’s eyes water, and Yesung noticed the tiny sniffle and little cough just as he was about to reach out and accept the cigarette Barret was proffering. Ever mindful of Ryeowook’s comfort, he pulled back and declined politely, though he stared longingly as Barret placed the stick in his own mouth and drew deeply on it. It had been weeks since he’d had a proper cigarette, and his lungs practically itched for one, but he remembered how Ryeowook had been advising him to quit for years and decided that this journey was probably the best time for him to give it up once and for all.
Ryeowook flashed him a small smile and he felt encouraged by it, grinning back in return and downing his glass of whiskey before signaling the bartender for a refill. Barett was on his phone - Yesung recognized it as the same phones that he, Ryeowook, Cloud, and the rest of the Avalanche team used, all specially engineered to transmit low-frequency waves in short encoded bursts to keep the lines between them secure - talking to someone that Yesung gathered was probably Tifa, back in Midgar.
“All right, all right already!” Barret was grunting, impatiently tapping the large gun grafted onto his left arm on the bar counter; the metal clinked dully on the scratched wood and beside him, Ryeowook winced while grasping his own submachine gun protectively. It bordered on obsessiveness sometimes, Yesung thought, the way Ryeowook tried to keep his gun smooth and clean, sometimes whining about blood spattering on it after battle; but then again, it was just another one of Ryeowook’s many quirks that Yesung was finding increasingly endearing, after weeks of traveling together with no one else but each other.
“Yeah, the runts are here. Yeah, I’ll deal with them, goddammit Tifa, now let me have my drink in peace,” Barret was yelling into the phone, before finally slamming it down on the table.
“She’s worse than Cloud,” he grumbled, turning to stare at them both. “And that spiky-haired skinny ass is bad enough as it is. So, now. Yesung, and Ryeowook, was it? What’s this I hear about the Jenova infection?”
Yesung told him about their journey so far, helped along at places by Ryeowook. He’d had yet another attack on the way to Corel, halfway through the Mt. Corel mountain pass, in the middle of a thunderstorm; Yesung had had to take refuge with him in one of the many natural caves that thankfully dotted the mountain. So far, though, Ryeowook hadn’t grown his wing, nor shown any other signs of transforming, and Yesung was thankful for that.
Barret frowned. “So those crazy Sephiroth clones are after you? Zwelrich, or whatever his dumbass name is?”
Ryeowook nodded. “Him and his two brothers, Nodal and Radiev. They - they want me, because I was infected with the last stock of Jenova cells.”
“They hope to make Ryeowook the new clone creator - using his blood to make an army of Sephiroth clones,” Yesung added, and Barret’s face darkened.
“Those bastards,” he mumbled. “This is like - what’s his face - Kadaj and those idiots all over again. And Sephiroth, I thought we’d seen the last of his mug after Cloud defeated Kadaj the last time.”
“Apparently, there still was one last batch of Jenova cells left,” Yesung explained. “It was deep within Midgar, in the Sector 1 reactor. The remaining clones, Zwelrich and his brothers, wanted to get it, but Avalanche found out about the remnants at the same time. We arrived at the reactor almost simultaneously, but in the fighting, Tifa broke the seals on the box holding it by mistake, and Ryeowook, in trying to save it, got infected. So there are no more cells left except in Ryeowook’s body, and that’s why they want him so badly.”
“Sons of bitches,” Barret swore. “Hojo, that bastard scientist, he should have been clapped in irons instead of running all his insane experiments, hiding cells here and there - “
There was a loud blast as the door to the bar exploded open in flames and the air around them erupted in screams, the patrons scrambling under tables and overturning chairs and glasses in their panic.
A tall figure stepped into the bar, over the smouldering remains of the door, and both Yesung and Ryeowook sprang to their feet as the long, flowing silver hair came into view, unmistakably recognizable. It couldn’t be, Yesung thought frantically, he couldn’t have caught up so fast, couldn’t have found them so quickly, but that hair was instantly identifiable anywhere -
He balled his right hand into a fist and called up the magic, swirling in the magic materia infused into his arm, and slammed a spear of ice straight at the man as Ryeowook, next to him, coolly lifted his submachine gun and clicked the safety off.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, barging into my town?” Barret roared, swinging his gun forward as the man deflected Yesung’s Ice spell with a quick shield; the spear shattered cleanly into the shield and dissolved into mist.
Yesung snarled and brought his fists up, preparing to charge, but Ryeowoook stepped in front of him, face determined. “It’s me you want, isn’t it? Let everyone here go, and I’ll come with you.”
“Ryeowook!” Yesung yelled, but suddenly Barret was there, his superior size and strength pushing Ryeowook back easily, and Yesung caught him around the waist and held him tightly.
“So, you’re Zwelrich, I assume,” Barret rumbled, and the silver-haired man laughed, his voice cold and hard. A single black wing unfurled itself from behind him, and Yesung shivered involuntarily at the sight. That black wing seemed made wholly of evil and devastation, and the thought that it might happen one day to Ryeowook made him clutch him tighter, even though Ryeowook was pushing at his arms, trying to get out of his grip.
“Indeed I am, and you must be Barret, founding member of Avalanche.” His eyes, the same electric shade of blue as Cloud’s, raked over Barret. “Not as impressive as your reputation says, I think.”
Barret growled. “I’m going to kill you, you little snot-nosed piece of shit, you’ll be easy pickings compared to Sephiroth,” he said, and at the comparison Zwelrich’s eyes darkened for the first time ever.
“Say that again, fat man,” he whispered, his wing curling ominously.
Barret turned to Yesung and Ryeowook - Ryeowook stopped struggling - and mouthed just two words, which Yesung caught easily. Nibelheim, Vincent.
“Go,” he said, this time aloud, as Zwelrich flew forward at them, and Barret let loose a hail of bullets at his approaching figure, long enough for Yesung to grab Ryeowook’s hand and dive out through the back door of the bar. They didn’t stop running until they were out of Corel and within sight of the distinctive pointed peak of Mt. Nibel, but even then, Yesung never let go of Ryeowook’s hand.
___
Nibelheim
It wasn’t often they got to do this - sneak out of their hideout without getting caught by either Tifa or Cloud, and run, laughing like little children, to the old abandoned playground in Midgar’s Sector 6, one sector away from Tifa’s bar. Yesung had discovered this place the week before, buried behind mounds of rubble and hidden from most prying eyes, and the both of them navigated the remains of destroyed homes and buildings easily enough before reaching the playground, where they climbed to the top of the little playhouse perched on the slide.
“God, I think I played here when I was little,” Yesung mused as they lay back and stared up at the stars, their hands behind their heads.
“Are you that old that Sector 6 was still around when you were a child?” Ryeowook teased, and Yesung flipped over on his stomach, glaring down at him.
“Remind me why we’re best friends,” he growled, and Ryeowook chuckled.
“Maybe because I’m smart, agile, knows how to work any gun in the market, and even-tempered enough to haul you back when you start getting into arguments with anyone. Oh, and saved your rash ass on more than one mission. Plus, you can’t deny that you love my grilled pork chops.”
“You’re so bloody full of yourself.”
“Admit it, that’s all true.”
“Never,” Yesung grinned; this sort of teasing and banter had gone on between them for years, it made them laugh. “Tell me something new, all you do is brag about your cooking skills.”
Ryeowook blinked up at him. “Well, I also wield some mean magic that even you don’t know how to, and I’m the one who cleans up the mess you make in the hideout, and most of all, I’m the most gorgeous thing you’ve ever seen in your life.”
Yesung paused. “What?” He stared down at Ryeowook. His face was glowing, the moonlight reflecting off the fine planes of his cheeks, and he did look beautiful, more beautiful than anyone Yesung had ever known.
He was shaken from his reverie when Ryeowook burst out laughing, much to his chagrin. “Yesung! The look on your face! That was priceless, I tell you! I know how to shut you up now, oh, that was brilliant, please add intelligence to my list of merits.”
Yesung growled. “You’re going to pay for that,” he said, and then he bent over and tickled Ryeowook mercilessly, until Ryeowook was wriggling and screaming between bouts of laughing and pleading for him to stop.
He didn’t want to tell Ryeowook that if he hadn’t started laughing, he might have actually kissed him.
They found the vampire Vincent easily enough, sleeping in the old Shinra mansion in the northern quarter of the town. The once-handsome manor house was now crumbling and decayed, but according to Cloud, it still held the largest library Shinra Corporation had in its heyday, when the Biological Sciences Department was conducting the various experiments that had ended up in the creation of Jenova cells, Sephiroth, and Cloud, and ultimately led to the various Sephiroth clones. That library, in the dank basement of the mansion, held the reports of almost all of Shinra Corp.’s scientific research, and Cloud had suggested enlisting Vincent’s help and doing some reading up on Jenova cells and the mutations it would cause within Ryeowook.
Yesung and Ryeowook were both relieved to hear from Tifa that Barret was fine - injured, but not severely, and cursing the hell out of Zwelrich every step of the way.
“Tell him we’re sorry that he had to do this for us,” Yesung had said, the line crackling, and Tifa had chuckled.
“He’d curse you too if I relayed that message,” she’d said. “In any case, he put up a good fight; it appears Zwelrich was injured too, that will give you guys some breathing space. Keep an eye out for Nodal and Radiev, but we don’t think they’d try anything without Zwelrich around; they’re like his puppets. Good luck in Nibelheim, guys, and tell Vincent I said hi.”
Vincent was even more intimidating to Yesung than the big, loudmouthed Barret had been, despite his lean, unassuming figure; he hardly spoke, and his entire aura radiated coldness. But once Yesung and Ryeowook had explained why they were there, he’d led them to the library - an immense, high-ceilinged room, stacked with shelves and shelves of books - and pointed out what they needed.
“Sephiroth used to come here too, you know,” he said pensively on the fourth night they were there. Ryeowook had been asleep for a few hours already, having fallen asleep over a pile of books, but Yesung had continued on, devouring page after page and trying to decipher the scientific jargon that littered the books. None of it made very comforting reading. Shinra Corp.’s activities had been a lot darker than he’d suspected, especially in the area of biological experimentation.
Yesung looked up from where he’d been tucking a blanket around Ryeowook, tendrils of soft hair curling over his fingers as he swept his hands across Ryeowook’s neck and shoulders. “Sephiroth?”
Vincent stretched his long legs out and crossed them at the ankles, flipping thoughtfully at the pages of a book he was holding. “Yes. You know, he was the first person ever created out of Jenova cells. He came here to find out the truth about his creation, and when he discovered it, he went berserk. I remember, he spent nights here too, reading and reading.”
Vincent’s dark eyes locked on to Yesung’s. “Make sure this doesn’t happen to Ryeowook,” he said, as he stood up.
“Wha - what?” Ryeowook mumbled, stirring at the sound of his name. “Yesung? Is it time to go?”
“No,” Yesung said quickly, taking his hand and rubbing it between both of his own. “No, Vincent and I are just talking. Go back to sleep. We won’t leave Nibelheim so soon.”
Ryeowook had drifted off again almost before he finished speaking, and Yesung felt his heart ache as he looked down at his exhausted form, mentally counting down to the day when Ryeowook would finally transform. His headaches had all but stopped by now, signaling that the mutation was almost complete; Yesung knew they would never reach the Lifestream in time. From here on, it was a matter of following Ryeowook when he did transform, keeping him from harming others or himself, until they got to the Lifestream.
When he looked up, Vincent was gone, but it didn’t surprise Yesung anymore. He was used to Vincent’s sudden and soundless appearances and disappearances by now, his shapeshifting abilities giving him increased stealth that no human could ever have. Yesung pondered for a while on the irony of the fact that Vincent’s powers had also been infused into him by Shinra - he’d also been a victim of their experiments - and, while musing over this, bent down almost without thinking to skim his nose along Ryeowook’s cheek, breathing in his scent and then pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. Ryeowook stirred slightly at the touch, but his lips turned up in a small smile even though he didn’t open his eyes, and Yesung lay his head down on a book next to Ryeowook, staring at him until his own eyes fluttered shut.
They left Nibelheim the next day, accompanied by Vincent, who wanted to travel with them as far as Wutai, to look for the ninja Yuffie.
___
Between Cosmo Canyon and Gongaga Forest
It happened when they were two days away from Gongaga Forest, having bypassed the town of Cosmo Canyon to cut short their journey.
It all went by so fast, that later when Yesung tried to recall the scene, it was all a blur, though that could also have been his fear clouding his memory. One moment, the three of them were trudging through the deep winding canyons of the Cosmo Valley, the next moment, Ryeowook had suddenly stopped walking and dropped to the ground, hands clutching his head, before letting out a piercing scream.
Vincent, who had been walking in front, whipped around immediately, his shotgun appearing in his hand almost magically; Yesung dropped to his knees next to Ryeowook and tore his hands from his face, but by then Ryeowook was shrieking, his eyes squeezed shut as he struggled on the ground, and Yesung flung himself on top of Ryeowook, pinning him down.
“Ryeowook!” he cried, grasping his face, which was contorted in agony - more agony than Yesung had ever seen on it, even more than when he was having his headaches. “Ryeowook, what’s wrong? Look at me, Ryeowook!”
Ryeowook’s response was to arch his back so violently that Yesung, not expecting it, was thrown off him; he scrambled to his feet, but Ryeowook was already being lifted off the ground, and as both he and Vincent watched wide-eyed, he rose and rose into the air, nothing discernible supporting him as he writhed in mid-air and screamed and screamed, each cry tearing into Yesung’s heart.
”Ryeowook!” he cried out, as Ryeowook threw his head back and gave a final bone-chilling scream, before a large black wing erupted from his back, curling around him before spreading out again with a flourish.
“Oh no. No, no, no,” Yesung whispered frantically. “No, Ryeowook, no - “
The wing flapped gently and Ryeowook’s body righted itself until it was hovering vertically above them, and right before Yesung’s eyes, his short black hair lengthened and lightened, until it was waist-length and flowing out behind him in the wind, the distinctive silver colour gleaming in the light of the setting sun.
Ryeowook tipped his head down to look at them, and Yesung froze, because that was no longer Ryeowook, not the Ryeowook he’d been friends with for years, not the Ryeowook he’d fought with against Shinra Corporation, not the Ryeowook he had fallen in love with during their journey. This was not his Ryeowook. This was Sephiroth, and Kadaj, and Zwelrich, and Jenova, all the clones and their fount, and there was nothing but malice swimming in those eyes, now a bright electric blue.
“Ryeowook,” he said hoarsely. “Ryeowook, please - “
Vincent raised his shotgun and leapt into the air so quickly he flashed across Yesung’s vision as a red blur, his superhuman speed and agility bringing him level with Ryeowook before Yesung could stop him.
“Vincent, don’t, that’s Ryeowook!” he managed to shout before Ryeowook’s lips curved into a sneer, but even before Vincent could fire a single shot Ryeowook’s hands came up and unleashed something at them, something white and blinding and searingly hot, and Yesung saw Vincent, his reactions still faster than any human’s, throw up a quick shield around both of them before the blast hit them, the shockwaves still strong enough despite the shield spell to knock Yesung out.
When he finally came to, the sun had completely set and the canyon was dark, and Vincent was leaning against a tree next to his supine body, staring up into the sky. Yesung’s joints ached from the blast and Vincent, who had been much nearer to it and who had also passed out and fallen back to the ground from that height, had his arm and a couple of ribs fractured, but he assured Yesung that his body healed much faster than normal humans. There was no sign of Ryeowook
“We’ll rest here for the night before following Ryeowook,” he said, and Yesung noticed something small and blue flashing in Vincent’s hands - it was the tracking device linked to the microchip in Ryeowook’s neck which Dr. Choi and Cloud had given him before they set out, all those months ago.
“We need to go now,” he said urgently. He knew they’d find Ryeowook easily, with the device, but the idea of waiting even another few hours was putting him on edge. His whole body hurt, but he didn’t care; all he wanted was Ryeowook. “We need to get Ryeowook back, Vincent, he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s not himself, he’ll be in danger - “
Vincent held up a hand to stop him. “Believe me, Ryeowook is nowhere near any town, or human habitation.” He motioned to the tracking device. “He keeps stopping, too. It appears that his body isn’t used to his metamorphosis yet. He can’t keep going for long, and in any case, as long as he wanders around in the canyons, he won’t go far enough to harm himself.”
Yesung wasn’t convinced and opened his mouth to argue again, but Vincent looked up, right at him, and Yesung suddenly felt drowsy. “Sleep,” Vincent commanded, and Yesung fell asleep as if he had been drugged.
The next day, as they set out to track Ryeowook - the device indicated that he was hovering around outside Gongaga Forest - Yesung found out that, apparently, one of Vincent’s abilites was hypnotism.
“If Ryeowook is hurt in any way, I’ll kill you,” he swore, but Vincent only tapped the device.
“His life signs are still strong,” he said coolly, and Yesung bit his lip and headed west, almost breaking into a run.
___
Gongaga Forest
”I told you to be careful!” Ryeowook cried. “Why are you - oh, Yesung, what am I going to do with you?”
Yesung, tearing his shirt into strips with his teeth, grunted. “Are you going to help or are you going to scream at me? We still need to get out of here.” His head swam, and he closed his eyes for a brief moment, forcing himself to breathe deeply. He couldn’t panic, he had to keep calm, he had to staunch his bleeding and leave at once, before the Shinra guards found them.
He pressed a piece of cloth to his thigh, where the blood was pouring out copiously enough to scare even him, and he dearly hoped his wound hadn’t cut into the femoral artery. “Come on, Ryeowook, I need you,” he rasped, and that seemed to galvanise Ryeowook into action; he knelt down next to Yesung and picked up one of the strips of cloth he’d torn up, wrapping it around his leg.
It took a good two tries for Ryeowook to tie the tourniquet properly, because his hands were shaking so much, but he did it eventually, and as the bleeding slowed to a trickle and then a stop, Yesung stumbled to his feet, reaching for Ryeowook. “Get us out of here,” he said, his head spinning and black dots appearing in front of his vision, but he blinked them away,as Ryeowook’s arm came up and slung around his waist, propping him upright.
“Lean on me,” he said, and Yesung did so, as Ryeowook took a shaky step forward, pulling Yesung with him.
They found Ryeowook unconscious on the ground just outside Gongaga Forest, onetime home of the ninja Yuffie.
It was Vincent who spotted him first with his keener eyesight, but Yesung was the one who’d pinpointed his position with the tracking device, running towards the tiny dot on the ground in the far distance.
He scooped Ryeowook up into his arms when he reached him, breathing heavily, and the first thing he did was check his pulse. It was strong and steady, and he heaved a sigh of relief as he palpated Ryeowook’s chest, arms and legs gently, checking for broken bones.
There was nothing on Ryeowook save for a long scratch along one arm, presumably caused when he’d fallen to the ground after his transformation phase was over. The eerie black wing had vanished without a trace, and when Yesung tentatively ran a hand under his shirt, feeling the skin of his back, he found a large scar running vertically down his shoulder blade, evidence that it had really been there.
“Ryeowook, hey,” he whispered into his ear, cradling him in one arm. “It’s me, Ryeowook, you’re safe now.”
Ryeowook’s eyelids fluttered and he let out a small gasp as he stirred awake; Yesung cupped his face in his free hand, forcing him to look right at him. “It’s all right, I’m here, I got you.”
“Yesung,” Ryeowook breathed, his eyes welling with tears. “Yesung…”
He looped his arms around Yesung’s neck and pulled him closer against him before he dissolved into tears, crying weakly into his neck, tears soaking into the collar of Yesung’s shirt and his breath puffing hotly against his skin.
“It’s all right, I’m here now,” Yesung soothed, clutching him tightly as he shook in his arms, dropping kisses on the top of his head, his forehead, his eyelids. “I’m here and I’m not letting you go again.”
Ryeowook only cried harder, and Yesung felt his heart break, because they were still more than a month from the Lifestream, and they both knew it would happen again, and when it did, they might not be lucky enough to survive.
PART 2 HERE
Pairing: Yesung/Ryeowook
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Crossover with the Final Fantasy 7/Advent Children universe. Set 4 years after the events of Final Fantasy 7, Yesung and Ryeowook have to go on the run from Sephiroth clones who are after Ryeowook for the Jenova cells he is infected with, which cause a terrifying transformation in him.
A/N: My entry for the winged_suju contest, original post here. This one is heavily edited; I added a number of flashback scenes to flesh out the pairing dynamics more, and changed several bits in the original text where I felt it was unwieldy or awkward because I was honestly Not Happy with the first one at all.
Many thanks to hotarumyst , ddangkkoma ,
chibi_roses , and
shiryu_yugure for all the love. Hope you guys like this better!
___
Midgar
It was raining, the sharp scent of rainwater made acidic by the smog and pollution of Midgar permeating even into the tiny room of the clinic where Ryeowook was lying, comatose after his last attack. He was breathing on his own now, at least, his chest rising and falling slowly and steadily, but the small frown between his brows remained there even in unconsciousness.
Yesung was sitting next to his bed and watching his face when Dr. Choi came in with Cloud, both of them looking grim. He tore his eyes away from Ryeowook and stood up, looking from one to the other, his dark black eyes meeting Cloud’s bright electric blue ones, born from the Mako energy infused within him.
There was silence for a moment, broken only by the soft sounds of spattering raindrops, before Dr. Choi spoke.
“The attacks are getting more frequent, Yesung.”
Yesung turned away from him to stare at Ryeowook, still unmoving, and tried to blink away the hot tears that were prickling at the back of his eyelids.
“I know,” he said hoarsely.
“And there’s still Zwelrich. He’s not going to give up until he has Ryeowook,” Cloud said, and at the mention of the name Yesung’s hands, sheathed in black leather, clenched into fists, and the light from the small lamp next to Ryeowook’s bed glinted off the metal plates at the knuckles.
“What do you expect Ryeowook to do?” he bit out. “We’ve already left Avalanche. We’re not dragging the resistance into our fight. And may I remind you that it was because of Avalanche that Ryeowook’s in this state? If we hadn’t agreed to go on that mission, if Tifa hadn’t slipped up, Ryeowook wouldn’t be infected with Jenova cells now.”
Cloud had the grace to look away as Yesung turned fiery eyes on him, but Dr. Choi walked over to Ryeowook’s bed, pulled his eyelids open to check his pupils, pressed fingers at his neck to check his pulse.
“He’s only getting headaches now, and the only reason he falls unconscious all the time is because of the pain, but it’ll get much worse if we don’t cleanse him of the infection soon,” he murmured, and Yesung turned back around to look at Dr. Choi and at his friend, lying motionless in the small bed.
“How much worse?” he demanded, and Dr. Choi shrugged.
“Only Cloud knows,” he said, and at that Yesung swung around to Cloud again.
“Tell me,” he said; he recalled the rumours among the resistance fighters, of how Cloud had had the same infection several years ago, how he was afflicted by the same headaches, how he had somehow managed to overcome it. And suddenly he was seized with hope that maybe Ryeowook could be cured, that the attacks, which had been increasing with frequency over the last two months could finally be stopped, and then both he and Ryeowook would retreat from Avalanche completely. He was already sick of fighting a war that never seemed to end, and Ryeowook agreed with him.
Cloud was now looking back at him, and there was something in his blue eyes that Yesung couldn’t fathom - despair? Pity? But before he could speak, Cloud said something softly, something that made Yesung’s heart stop for a second.
“You have to take him away from here.”
Yesung was flabbergasted. “Take Ryeowook away? Where? He needs medical support if his attacks happen again!”
Cloud shook his head. “Nothing we have here can cure him, Yesung. The same thing happened to me, and there was only one thing that helped.”
Yesung remembered the stories he’d heard about Cloud, and his mouth opened and said it before his brain could process it. “The Lifestream.”
Cloud looked away from him and gazed over at Ryeowook. “Yes. It’s the only thing that will cleanse the infection. Take him fast, before the cells mutate and he starts to transform. Take him there before Zwelrich finds him again, because you know he and his brothers need the Jenova cells in Ryeowook.”
Yesung was trembling when he finally spoke again, gloved hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “I won’t know what to do if he faints again, Cloud. I won’t know how to keep him from the brothers. We barely escaped alive the last time they found us. And I won’t know what to do if he transforms like - like you did, like Zwelrich does. If he transforms and flies off, I won’t be able to find him out there. At least he’s contained within Midgar if we stay here.”
“If you stay here, there are only two possible outcomes,” Cloud said coldly. “Ryeowook will either be found by Zwelrich and made into a fount for Jenova cells to spawn new Sephiroth clones, until they create an army large enough to overrun the world. Or Ryeowook will die from the mutation. Choose which one you want.”
Yesung’s blood went cold at the thought. “But if he flies away from me out there - “
“That’s why I’m here,” Dr. Choi spoke up, and when Yesung turned back to him he was holding up a minuscule black disc on his palm, barely the size of the fingernail on Yesung’s little finger. Yesung recognized it immediately. “You can track him with this, once I insert it into his body.”
“Time is of the essence, Yesung,” Cloud said softly. “If you want to save Ryeowook, you have to go to the Crater and immerse him in the Lifestream. Staying here will mean certain death for you, and a fate worse than that for him.”
Yesung stared at the microchip in Dr. Choi’s hand. It was gleaming and as black as night, as black as Zwelrich’s one single wing, and Yesung tensed up at the thought of Ryeowook like that.
“Do it,” he said at last, and Dr. Choi nodded grimly before bending over Ryeowook, and he sat down next to the bed, never taking his eyes off Ryeowook even as Cloud began explaining carefully to him where he needed to go, and who he should look for on the journey.
___
Chocobo Farm
”Sometimes I hate Midgar,” Yesung groused as he leaned against the corrugated steel wall of their little hideout, tucked behind Tifa’s bar.
“Why?” Ryeowook asked as he crouched next to Yesung. He wasn’t really paying attention, Yesung knew; he was too busy with his submachine gun. He watched as Ryeowook lifted it to his shoulder and peered down at it, examining the wood grain of the handle, and couldn’t help but smile at how engrossed he was.
“It’s just - well, we’ve never done anything except fight, run and hide, have we? We both joined Avalanche at the same time, didn’t we, seven years ago? And since then, we’ve never set foot outside Midgar. It’s depressing, all we see here is metal and steel and bombed buildings.”
Ryeowook looked up at him then, his face growing soft. “Just one more mission, Yesung. One more, and we’re leaving, aren’t we?”
“I can’t wait for it to be over,” Yesung complained, and Ryeowook frowned.
“Can you please concentrate on our mission rather than hanker to get away before we’ve done anything yet?”
“Hey,” Yesung said, choosing to ignore him. “After this, let’s go to the Chocobo Farm. Shall we?”
“Whatever for?”
“I don’t know,” Yesung said, exasperated at what he perceived to be a lack of enthusiasm from his partner. “Check out the Chocobos, take a couple of rides on them. Breathe the fresh air outside, rather than Midgar air for once.”
Ryeowook laughed. “We can go anywhere you want after this,” he agreed easily, and Yesung relaxed.
“The brothers have left Midgar.”
“What?”
“They know you’re out there, Yesung. Where are you?”
“Is this connection secure?”
“Of course it is, Cid engineered it.”
“We’re at the Chocobo Farm. How much time do we have?”
“We estimate that they’re only two days away from where you are. You need to leave right away with Ryeowook.”
“I can’t, he just had another one of his attacks. He needs to rest. We were lucky we were just a couple of miles from the farm when it happened.”
“Take a chocobo from the farm and go. At least get through the Mythril Mines first. The further you’re away from them, the better. Barret will be waiting for you at Mt. Corel.”
“Got it, Cloud. We’re on our way.”
Yesung snapped the phone shut and stared at Ryeowook, pale and clammy and unconscious, and felt his heart sink. They were barely a week out of Midgar and Ryeowook already had another attack, and the brothers were catching up fast, so fast.
He left his room, shutting the wooden door quietly, before tiptoeing down the staircase so as not to wake the family who lived here and bred the chocobos. He slipped out of the large stone farmhouse entirely, crossing the field outside to get to the barn itself, where all the chocobos were kept and where he knew the owner of the farm, Bill, would be.
The whole barn was dark and silent when he entered it except for the soft cooing of the chocobos and the rustling of their feathers, as the large birds shifted in their pens. As he’d expected, Bill was in there, sitting in one of the pens with a sickly chocobo. He looked up as Yesung wandered over, resting his arms on the swinging door, looking over it at the bird.
“How’s your friend?” Bill asked, and Yesung shook his head.
“Still unconscious,” he replied, and the old grizzled farmer sighed, running his hand across his mouth and his salt-and-pepper moustache.
“Stay as long as you wish, lad. Until he recovers.”
“Actually, Bill, we have to leave now.”
“Now?”
“Yes. I - I can’t explain, but we have to. Can I buy a chocobo from you? We’ll need one to carry Ryeowook across the Mythril Mines.”
Bill looked at him and Yesung felt inexplicably uncomfortable under his gaze. He had the sense that the farmer, old though he was, was someone who missed nothing and saw everything, and he suspected what was going on even if he didn’t know for certain. He remembered how Cloud had taken refuge at the farm before as well, while on his own journey, and decided that Bill certainly understood what was happening.
So he wasn’t surprised when the old man stood up and told him that he’d pick a strong, speedy bird for him, and he could go get Ryeowook ready for departure. He was surprised, though, when he fumbled for his money pouch, and Bill put out a calloused hand to stop him.
“I won’t take any payment from you, lad, any friend of Cloud’s is a friend of mine,” he rumbled, and Yesung hesitated only a moment before he bowed in gratitude and left to dress Ryeowook up and collect their weapons.
___
Ship to Middle Continent
“If you stare at that map any longer, Yesung, you’ll go blind.”
They were in their room, in the middle of the three-day voyage across the sea to the Middle Continent, where they would make their way through Mt. Corel and meet up with Barret. Yesung was nervous as hell. He had no idea when one of Ryeowook’s attacks would strike again, and if it happened when they were out in the open…
He was consulting the map Cloud had given him before they’d left Midgar, regretting it almost immediately. No matter how many times he looked at it, the fact was that once the ship docked at the port town of Costa del Sol on the Middle Continent, they had a two-week journey through open territory to Mt. Corel, and then a trek through the mountain itself, before they could reach the mining town of Corel where Barret lived. They would be open, and exposed, and nowhere near so much as a solitary cottage, and if Ryeowook collapsed on him in the middle of nowhere, they would both be sitting ducks for Zwelrich and his brothers.
Ryeowook seemed to know what he was thinking, because he reached across the small space between their twin beds in the tiny cramped room, and Yesung responded instinctively, locking his hand with Ryeowook’s. Ryeowook squeezed it tightly, his hand feeling small and soft under the metal plates of Yesung’s fighting gloves, before dropping it and returning to polish his submachine gun, even though it was already oiled to perfection and gleaming wickedly in the light of the oil lamp, which was flickering as the ship dipped and rolled. Ryeowook always kept his gun in tiptop shape.
Yesung found himself distracted from his perusal of the map as he watched Ryeowook’s hands rubbing a leather oilcloth along the barrel of the gun. His hands, which seemed so small and delicate, could handle the weapon with incredible speed and aplomb, and Yesung’s eyes followed the path of those slender fingers as they caressed the black metal. Ryeowook’s hands seemed to gleam almost silver in the little light they had in the room, and so did his face, and for a moment Yesung almost forgot where he was as the lamplight cast guttering shadows across the sharp planes of Ryeowook’s face. The months of headaches had caused him to lose weight, so his cheekbones stood out in stark relief and he looked thin and pale, but Yesung thought he’d never quite seen Ryeowook like this in all the years he’d known him, weak and vulnerable and yet putting enough trust in Yesung to follow him across the world.
Ryeowook looked up then, only to catch Yesung staring openly at him, and stopped polishing. “Yesung?” he asked curiously, cocking his head to one side, and Yesung blinked and shook himself out of his stupor.
“I’m - I’m not staring,” he blurted out, before clamping his mouth shut and wondering why it always worked before his brain did.
Ryeowook only smiled, and Yesung found himself almost entranced again before he gave himself a little shake and looked back down at his map, hands shaking slightly.
“I just told you not to stare so much at the map, we’ve planned our route out enough,” he said gently, and Yesung shook his head.
“I’m trying to plan for alternate contingency routes, in case… you know,” he mumbled, and heard Ryeowook sigh.
“I’ll be okay,” he said softly. “I haven’t had an attack for almost two weeks already.”
Yesung nodded but didn’t speak. He didn’t trust himself to. He didn’t want to tell Ryeowook what Cloud had said, that once the attacks tapered off, it meant the Jenova cells were already mutating, and sooner or later he would transform into the same one-winged creature that Sephiroth, Zwelrich, and all the other Sephiroth clones did. He looked at the map again. It would take another four months, at least, for them to reach the Lifestream.
He didn’t know if he could protect Ryeowook that far, but he flexed his fingers and felt the reassuring weight of the metal and magic infused into the leather, and swore silently that he would have to. They’d been friends for years, but Ryeowook had never been in such danger as he was now, and if Yesung wasn’t there to get him through this, no one else would.
___
Mining town of Corel
”This place stinks,” Ryeowook complained the moment he stepped back into their hideout. His face was dirtied, and his hair messy and clinging damply to his face. He kicked off his boots and turned to look at Yesung, who was sitting facing the door. “Well? Were you smoking in here again?”
“I don’t believe you,” Yesung said, eyes raking over his friend and taking in his appearance, checking for traces of injuries or blood. “You just came back from a mission and this is the first thing you say?”
Ryeowook grimaced. “I hate it when you smoke, you know that.” He walked over to his rickety cot, placed against the wall opposite from Yesung’s, and flopped onto it with a groan; the flimsy bed creaked in protest. “Now I can’t even rest properly thanks to the smell, and I’m exhausted.”
He was fast asleep almost before he’d finished muttering the words, and Yesung cursed and ground out his half-smoked cigarette in the already-overspilling ashtray, wondering how he could ever tell Ryeowook that the only reason he was smoking was because this was the first time Ryeowook had gone on a mission without him, and he hadn’t been able to sit still all night while he worried and waited for him to come back.
The smell of cigarette smoke in the town’s little pub was overwhelming, the air hazy enough to make Ryeowook’s eyes water, and Yesung noticed the tiny sniffle and little cough just as he was about to reach out and accept the cigarette Barret was proffering. Ever mindful of Ryeowook’s comfort, he pulled back and declined politely, though he stared longingly as Barret placed the stick in his own mouth and drew deeply on it. It had been weeks since he’d had a proper cigarette, and his lungs practically itched for one, but he remembered how Ryeowook had been advising him to quit for years and decided that this journey was probably the best time for him to give it up once and for all.
Ryeowook flashed him a small smile and he felt encouraged by it, grinning back in return and downing his glass of whiskey before signaling the bartender for a refill. Barett was on his phone - Yesung recognized it as the same phones that he, Ryeowook, Cloud, and the rest of the Avalanche team used, all specially engineered to transmit low-frequency waves in short encoded bursts to keep the lines between them secure - talking to someone that Yesung gathered was probably Tifa, back in Midgar.
“All right, all right already!” Barret was grunting, impatiently tapping the large gun grafted onto his left arm on the bar counter; the metal clinked dully on the scratched wood and beside him, Ryeowook winced while grasping his own submachine gun protectively. It bordered on obsessiveness sometimes, Yesung thought, the way Ryeowook tried to keep his gun smooth and clean, sometimes whining about blood spattering on it after battle; but then again, it was just another one of Ryeowook’s many quirks that Yesung was finding increasingly endearing, after weeks of traveling together with no one else but each other.
“Yeah, the runts are here. Yeah, I’ll deal with them, goddammit Tifa, now let me have my drink in peace,” Barret was yelling into the phone, before finally slamming it down on the table.
“She’s worse than Cloud,” he grumbled, turning to stare at them both. “And that spiky-haired skinny ass is bad enough as it is. So, now. Yesung, and Ryeowook, was it? What’s this I hear about the Jenova infection?”
Yesung told him about their journey so far, helped along at places by Ryeowook. He’d had yet another attack on the way to Corel, halfway through the Mt. Corel mountain pass, in the middle of a thunderstorm; Yesung had had to take refuge with him in one of the many natural caves that thankfully dotted the mountain. So far, though, Ryeowook hadn’t grown his wing, nor shown any other signs of transforming, and Yesung was thankful for that.
Barret frowned. “So those crazy Sephiroth clones are after you? Zwelrich, or whatever his dumbass name is?”
Ryeowook nodded. “Him and his two brothers, Nodal and Radiev. They - they want me, because I was infected with the last stock of Jenova cells.”
“They hope to make Ryeowook the new clone creator - using his blood to make an army of Sephiroth clones,” Yesung added, and Barret’s face darkened.
“Those bastards,” he mumbled. “This is like - what’s his face - Kadaj and those idiots all over again. And Sephiroth, I thought we’d seen the last of his mug after Cloud defeated Kadaj the last time.”
“Apparently, there still was one last batch of Jenova cells left,” Yesung explained. “It was deep within Midgar, in the Sector 1 reactor. The remaining clones, Zwelrich and his brothers, wanted to get it, but Avalanche found out about the remnants at the same time. We arrived at the reactor almost simultaneously, but in the fighting, Tifa broke the seals on the box holding it by mistake, and Ryeowook, in trying to save it, got infected. So there are no more cells left except in Ryeowook’s body, and that’s why they want him so badly.”
“Sons of bitches,” Barret swore. “Hojo, that bastard scientist, he should have been clapped in irons instead of running all his insane experiments, hiding cells here and there - “
There was a loud blast as the door to the bar exploded open in flames and the air around them erupted in screams, the patrons scrambling under tables and overturning chairs and glasses in their panic.
A tall figure stepped into the bar, over the smouldering remains of the door, and both Yesung and Ryeowook sprang to their feet as the long, flowing silver hair came into view, unmistakably recognizable. It couldn’t be, Yesung thought frantically, he couldn’t have caught up so fast, couldn’t have found them so quickly, but that hair was instantly identifiable anywhere -
He balled his right hand into a fist and called up the magic, swirling in the magic materia infused into his arm, and slammed a spear of ice straight at the man as Ryeowook, next to him, coolly lifted his submachine gun and clicked the safety off.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, barging into my town?” Barret roared, swinging his gun forward as the man deflected Yesung’s Ice spell with a quick shield; the spear shattered cleanly into the shield and dissolved into mist.
Yesung snarled and brought his fists up, preparing to charge, but Ryeowoook stepped in front of him, face determined. “It’s me you want, isn’t it? Let everyone here go, and I’ll come with you.”
“Ryeowook!” Yesung yelled, but suddenly Barret was there, his superior size and strength pushing Ryeowook back easily, and Yesung caught him around the waist and held him tightly.
“So, you’re Zwelrich, I assume,” Barret rumbled, and the silver-haired man laughed, his voice cold and hard. A single black wing unfurled itself from behind him, and Yesung shivered involuntarily at the sight. That black wing seemed made wholly of evil and devastation, and the thought that it might happen one day to Ryeowook made him clutch him tighter, even though Ryeowook was pushing at his arms, trying to get out of his grip.
“Indeed I am, and you must be Barret, founding member of Avalanche.” His eyes, the same electric shade of blue as Cloud’s, raked over Barret. “Not as impressive as your reputation says, I think.”
Barret growled. “I’m going to kill you, you little snot-nosed piece of shit, you’ll be easy pickings compared to Sephiroth,” he said, and at the comparison Zwelrich’s eyes darkened for the first time ever.
“Say that again, fat man,” he whispered, his wing curling ominously.
Barret turned to Yesung and Ryeowook - Ryeowook stopped struggling - and mouthed just two words, which Yesung caught easily. Nibelheim, Vincent.
“Go,” he said, this time aloud, as Zwelrich flew forward at them, and Barret let loose a hail of bullets at his approaching figure, long enough for Yesung to grab Ryeowook’s hand and dive out through the back door of the bar. They didn’t stop running until they were out of Corel and within sight of the distinctive pointed peak of Mt. Nibel, but even then, Yesung never let go of Ryeowook’s hand.
___
Nibelheim
It wasn’t often they got to do this - sneak out of their hideout without getting caught by either Tifa or Cloud, and run, laughing like little children, to the old abandoned playground in Midgar’s Sector 6, one sector away from Tifa’s bar. Yesung had discovered this place the week before, buried behind mounds of rubble and hidden from most prying eyes, and the both of them navigated the remains of destroyed homes and buildings easily enough before reaching the playground, where they climbed to the top of the little playhouse perched on the slide.
“God, I think I played here when I was little,” Yesung mused as they lay back and stared up at the stars, their hands behind their heads.
“Are you that old that Sector 6 was still around when you were a child?” Ryeowook teased, and Yesung flipped over on his stomach, glaring down at him.
“Remind me why we’re best friends,” he growled, and Ryeowook chuckled.
“Maybe because I’m smart, agile, knows how to work any gun in the market, and even-tempered enough to haul you back when you start getting into arguments with anyone. Oh, and saved your rash ass on more than one mission. Plus, you can’t deny that you love my grilled pork chops.”
“You’re so bloody full of yourself.”
“Admit it, that’s all true.”
“Never,” Yesung grinned; this sort of teasing and banter had gone on between them for years, it made them laugh. “Tell me something new, all you do is brag about your cooking skills.”
Ryeowook blinked up at him. “Well, I also wield some mean magic that even you don’t know how to, and I’m the one who cleans up the mess you make in the hideout, and most of all, I’m the most gorgeous thing you’ve ever seen in your life.”
Yesung paused. “What?” He stared down at Ryeowook. His face was glowing, the moonlight reflecting off the fine planes of his cheeks, and he did look beautiful, more beautiful than anyone Yesung had ever known.
He was shaken from his reverie when Ryeowook burst out laughing, much to his chagrin. “Yesung! The look on your face! That was priceless, I tell you! I know how to shut you up now, oh, that was brilliant, please add intelligence to my list of merits.”
Yesung growled. “You’re going to pay for that,” he said, and then he bent over and tickled Ryeowook mercilessly, until Ryeowook was wriggling and screaming between bouts of laughing and pleading for him to stop.
He didn’t want to tell Ryeowook that if he hadn’t started laughing, he might have actually kissed him.
They found the vampire Vincent easily enough, sleeping in the old Shinra mansion in the northern quarter of the town. The once-handsome manor house was now crumbling and decayed, but according to Cloud, it still held the largest library Shinra Corporation had in its heyday, when the Biological Sciences Department was conducting the various experiments that had ended up in the creation of Jenova cells, Sephiroth, and Cloud, and ultimately led to the various Sephiroth clones. That library, in the dank basement of the mansion, held the reports of almost all of Shinra Corp.’s scientific research, and Cloud had suggested enlisting Vincent’s help and doing some reading up on Jenova cells and the mutations it would cause within Ryeowook.
Yesung and Ryeowook were both relieved to hear from Tifa that Barret was fine - injured, but not severely, and cursing the hell out of Zwelrich every step of the way.
“Tell him we’re sorry that he had to do this for us,” Yesung had said, the line crackling, and Tifa had chuckled.
“He’d curse you too if I relayed that message,” she’d said. “In any case, he put up a good fight; it appears Zwelrich was injured too, that will give you guys some breathing space. Keep an eye out for Nodal and Radiev, but we don’t think they’d try anything without Zwelrich around; they’re like his puppets. Good luck in Nibelheim, guys, and tell Vincent I said hi.”
Vincent was even more intimidating to Yesung than the big, loudmouthed Barret had been, despite his lean, unassuming figure; he hardly spoke, and his entire aura radiated coldness. But once Yesung and Ryeowook had explained why they were there, he’d led them to the library - an immense, high-ceilinged room, stacked with shelves and shelves of books - and pointed out what they needed.
“Sephiroth used to come here too, you know,” he said pensively on the fourth night they were there. Ryeowook had been asleep for a few hours already, having fallen asleep over a pile of books, but Yesung had continued on, devouring page after page and trying to decipher the scientific jargon that littered the books. None of it made very comforting reading. Shinra Corp.’s activities had been a lot darker than he’d suspected, especially in the area of biological experimentation.
Yesung looked up from where he’d been tucking a blanket around Ryeowook, tendrils of soft hair curling over his fingers as he swept his hands across Ryeowook’s neck and shoulders. “Sephiroth?”
Vincent stretched his long legs out and crossed them at the ankles, flipping thoughtfully at the pages of a book he was holding. “Yes. You know, he was the first person ever created out of Jenova cells. He came here to find out the truth about his creation, and when he discovered it, he went berserk. I remember, he spent nights here too, reading and reading.”
Vincent’s dark eyes locked on to Yesung’s. “Make sure this doesn’t happen to Ryeowook,” he said, as he stood up.
“Wha - what?” Ryeowook mumbled, stirring at the sound of his name. “Yesung? Is it time to go?”
“No,” Yesung said quickly, taking his hand and rubbing it between both of his own. “No, Vincent and I are just talking. Go back to sleep. We won’t leave Nibelheim so soon.”
Ryeowook had drifted off again almost before he finished speaking, and Yesung felt his heart ache as he looked down at his exhausted form, mentally counting down to the day when Ryeowook would finally transform. His headaches had all but stopped by now, signaling that the mutation was almost complete; Yesung knew they would never reach the Lifestream in time. From here on, it was a matter of following Ryeowook when he did transform, keeping him from harming others or himself, until they got to the Lifestream.
When he looked up, Vincent was gone, but it didn’t surprise Yesung anymore. He was used to Vincent’s sudden and soundless appearances and disappearances by now, his shapeshifting abilities giving him increased stealth that no human could ever have. Yesung pondered for a while on the irony of the fact that Vincent’s powers had also been infused into him by Shinra - he’d also been a victim of their experiments - and, while musing over this, bent down almost without thinking to skim his nose along Ryeowook’s cheek, breathing in his scent and then pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. Ryeowook stirred slightly at the touch, but his lips turned up in a small smile even though he didn’t open his eyes, and Yesung lay his head down on a book next to Ryeowook, staring at him until his own eyes fluttered shut.
They left Nibelheim the next day, accompanied by Vincent, who wanted to travel with them as far as Wutai, to look for the ninja Yuffie.
___
Between Cosmo Canyon and Gongaga Forest
It happened when they were two days away from Gongaga Forest, having bypassed the town of Cosmo Canyon to cut short their journey.
It all went by so fast, that later when Yesung tried to recall the scene, it was all a blur, though that could also have been his fear clouding his memory. One moment, the three of them were trudging through the deep winding canyons of the Cosmo Valley, the next moment, Ryeowook had suddenly stopped walking and dropped to the ground, hands clutching his head, before letting out a piercing scream.
Vincent, who had been walking in front, whipped around immediately, his shotgun appearing in his hand almost magically; Yesung dropped to his knees next to Ryeowook and tore his hands from his face, but by then Ryeowook was shrieking, his eyes squeezed shut as he struggled on the ground, and Yesung flung himself on top of Ryeowook, pinning him down.
“Ryeowook!” he cried, grasping his face, which was contorted in agony - more agony than Yesung had ever seen on it, even more than when he was having his headaches. “Ryeowook, what’s wrong? Look at me, Ryeowook!”
Ryeowook’s response was to arch his back so violently that Yesung, not expecting it, was thrown off him; he scrambled to his feet, but Ryeowook was already being lifted off the ground, and as both he and Vincent watched wide-eyed, he rose and rose into the air, nothing discernible supporting him as he writhed in mid-air and screamed and screamed, each cry tearing into Yesung’s heart.
”Ryeowook!” he cried out, as Ryeowook threw his head back and gave a final bone-chilling scream, before a large black wing erupted from his back, curling around him before spreading out again with a flourish.
“Oh no. No, no, no,” Yesung whispered frantically. “No, Ryeowook, no - “
The wing flapped gently and Ryeowook’s body righted itself until it was hovering vertically above them, and right before Yesung’s eyes, his short black hair lengthened and lightened, until it was waist-length and flowing out behind him in the wind, the distinctive silver colour gleaming in the light of the setting sun.
Ryeowook tipped his head down to look at them, and Yesung froze, because that was no longer Ryeowook, not the Ryeowook he’d been friends with for years, not the Ryeowook he’d fought with against Shinra Corporation, not the Ryeowook he had fallen in love with during their journey. This was not his Ryeowook. This was Sephiroth, and Kadaj, and Zwelrich, and Jenova, all the clones and their fount, and there was nothing but malice swimming in those eyes, now a bright electric blue.
“Ryeowook,” he said hoarsely. “Ryeowook, please - “
Vincent raised his shotgun and leapt into the air so quickly he flashed across Yesung’s vision as a red blur, his superhuman speed and agility bringing him level with Ryeowook before Yesung could stop him.
“Vincent, don’t, that’s Ryeowook!” he managed to shout before Ryeowook’s lips curved into a sneer, but even before Vincent could fire a single shot Ryeowook’s hands came up and unleashed something at them, something white and blinding and searingly hot, and Yesung saw Vincent, his reactions still faster than any human’s, throw up a quick shield around both of them before the blast hit them, the shockwaves still strong enough despite the shield spell to knock Yesung out.
When he finally came to, the sun had completely set and the canyon was dark, and Vincent was leaning against a tree next to his supine body, staring up into the sky. Yesung’s joints ached from the blast and Vincent, who had been much nearer to it and who had also passed out and fallen back to the ground from that height, had his arm and a couple of ribs fractured, but he assured Yesung that his body healed much faster than normal humans. There was no sign of Ryeowook
“We’ll rest here for the night before following Ryeowook,” he said, and Yesung noticed something small and blue flashing in Vincent’s hands - it was the tracking device linked to the microchip in Ryeowook’s neck which Dr. Choi and Cloud had given him before they set out, all those months ago.
“We need to go now,” he said urgently. He knew they’d find Ryeowook easily, with the device, but the idea of waiting even another few hours was putting him on edge. His whole body hurt, but he didn’t care; all he wanted was Ryeowook. “We need to get Ryeowook back, Vincent, he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s not himself, he’ll be in danger - “
Vincent held up a hand to stop him. “Believe me, Ryeowook is nowhere near any town, or human habitation.” He motioned to the tracking device. “He keeps stopping, too. It appears that his body isn’t used to his metamorphosis yet. He can’t keep going for long, and in any case, as long as he wanders around in the canyons, he won’t go far enough to harm himself.”
Yesung wasn’t convinced and opened his mouth to argue again, but Vincent looked up, right at him, and Yesung suddenly felt drowsy. “Sleep,” Vincent commanded, and Yesung fell asleep as if he had been drugged.
The next day, as they set out to track Ryeowook - the device indicated that he was hovering around outside Gongaga Forest - Yesung found out that, apparently, one of Vincent’s abilites was hypnotism.
“If Ryeowook is hurt in any way, I’ll kill you,” he swore, but Vincent only tapped the device.
“His life signs are still strong,” he said coolly, and Yesung bit his lip and headed west, almost breaking into a run.
___
Gongaga Forest
”I told you to be careful!” Ryeowook cried. “Why are you - oh, Yesung, what am I going to do with you?”
Yesung, tearing his shirt into strips with his teeth, grunted. “Are you going to help or are you going to scream at me? We still need to get out of here.” His head swam, and he closed his eyes for a brief moment, forcing himself to breathe deeply. He couldn’t panic, he had to keep calm, he had to staunch his bleeding and leave at once, before the Shinra guards found them.
He pressed a piece of cloth to his thigh, where the blood was pouring out copiously enough to scare even him, and he dearly hoped his wound hadn’t cut into the femoral artery. “Come on, Ryeowook, I need you,” he rasped, and that seemed to galvanise Ryeowook into action; he knelt down next to Yesung and picked up one of the strips of cloth he’d torn up, wrapping it around his leg.
It took a good two tries for Ryeowook to tie the tourniquet properly, because his hands were shaking so much, but he did it eventually, and as the bleeding slowed to a trickle and then a stop, Yesung stumbled to his feet, reaching for Ryeowook. “Get us out of here,” he said, his head spinning and black dots appearing in front of his vision, but he blinked them away,as Ryeowook’s arm came up and slung around his waist, propping him upright.
“Lean on me,” he said, and Yesung did so, as Ryeowook took a shaky step forward, pulling Yesung with him.
They found Ryeowook unconscious on the ground just outside Gongaga Forest, onetime home of the ninja Yuffie.
It was Vincent who spotted him first with his keener eyesight, but Yesung was the one who’d pinpointed his position with the tracking device, running towards the tiny dot on the ground in the far distance.
He scooped Ryeowook up into his arms when he reached him, breathing heavily, and the first thing he did was check his pulse. It was strong and steady, and he heaved a sigh of relief as he palpated Ryeowook’s chest, arms and legs gently, checking for broken bones.
There was nothing on Ryeowook save for a long scratch along one arm, presumably caused when he’d fallen to the ground after his transformation phase was over. The eerie black wing had vanished without a trace, and when Yesung tentatively ran a hand under his shirt, feeling the skin of his back, he found a large scar running vertically down his shoulder blade, evidence that it had really been there.
“Ryeowook, hey,” he whispered into his ear, cradling him in one arm. “It’s me, Ryeowook, you’re safe now.”
Ryeowook’s eyelids fluttered and he let out a small gasp as he stirred awake; Yesung cupped his face in his free hand, forcing him to look right at him. “It’s all right, I’m here, I got you.”
“Yesung,” Ryeowook breathed, his eyes welling with tears. “Yesung…”
He looped his arms around Yesung’s neck and pulled him closer against him before he dissolved into tears, crying weakly into his neck, tears soaking into the collar of Yesung’s shirt and his breath puffing hotly against his skin.
“It’s all right, I’m here now,” Yesung soothed, clutching him tightly as he shook in his arms, dropping kisses on the top of his head, his forehead, his eyelids. “I’m here and I’m not letting you go again.”
Ryeowook only cried harder, and Yesung felt his heart break, because they were still more than a month from the Lifestream, and they both knew it would happen again, and when it did, they might not be lucky enough to survive.
PART 2 HERE