icedark_elf (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
icedark_elf) wrote2006-09-25 04:57 pm
icedark_elf) wrote2006-09-25 04:57 pm
Fic: <lj user
Title: Learning
Author/Artist: GW Katrina
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII: Mercverse
Pairing/Character: Zack
Theme: 03: Slippery When Wet (![[insanejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/ij-userinfo.gif)
25_streetsigns)
Wordcount: 479
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: FFVII isn’t mine, the concept of Mercverse is.
Warning: AU, and kinda owwie.
Learning
Slippery when wet.
The sign said it all, but he is a child and far too full of energy. Far too confident(ignorant) of his own abilities and dangers. He is eight, and the fence means nothing, only the bit of something that glitters so enticingly.
The rocks are slick, and he feels something slip under his foot. And he just now realizes just how high they really are.
He remembers a shout, a frantic one, and realizes its Cloud, but everything seems to be going so slowly as everything twists and the ground vanishes from under him.
A painful jolt as he hit one outcropping, then the feel of arms around him, but still falling. Could feel each hit that the body around his was protecting him from, the smell of blood and the sounds of things breaking inside the other one.
Then something hits him in the throat, sharp and hard and he can’t breath, blood in his mouth and all he can tastesmell, choking him around the thing that tears through his neck.
He doesn’t remember the end of the fall, eyes rolled up in his head and lips already turning blue from lack of air, a bone in his throat where it had broken and torn its way from Cloud’s body. He doesn’t remember the rescue people pulling him from the other man’s dead arms even as Cloud woke up. Or the screaming the other man directed at the people trying to give aid, telling them to leave him alone and to help Zack.
He only vaguely remembers the voices that talk to him. Light murmurs, words he can’t make out, and not sure if he wants to. Pale light, not enough to let him see anything, but enough so that he knows he’s not lost in the dark.
He’s still scared, though he won’t ever admit it.
Zack is sure that, at some point, he was dead.
Later, Cloud won’t tell him one way or another, which just confirms it for Zack.
Not a story he shares with the twins. Or Seph. Especially since the latter would just point out Zack never seemed to have learn anything from the experience given how he fights.
But Zack does learn something.
He learns what it’s like to wake up and have someone holding his hand for the first time. To open tired, blurry eyes and to see someone sitting next to him, looking ragged and wrung out.
For the first time that he remembers, Zack wants to stay still and let things stay as they are. Cause Cloud is sitting next to him, sleeping in the chair, and holding his hand.
And that’s when Zack realizes just what family is. And that this one is going to stay with him through the good and bad times.
That’s what Zack learned. Though he still tends to ignore signs.
crossposted toicedark_elf, 25_streetsigns, ![[insanejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/ij-community.gif)
mercverse, and acfiction
Author/Artist: GW Katrina
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII: Mercverse
Pairing/Character: Zack
Theme: 03: Slippery When Wet (
25_streetsigns)Wordcount: 479
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: FFVII isn’t mine, the concept of Mercverse is.
Warning: AU, and kinda owwie.
Learning
Slippery when wet.
The sign said it all, but he is a child and far too full of energy. Far too confident(ignorant) of his own abilities and dangers. He is eight, and the fence means nothing, only the bit of something that glitters so enticingly.
The rocks are slick, and he feels something slip under his foot. And he just now realizes just how high they really are.
He remembers a shout, a frantic one, and realizes its Cloud, but everything seems to be going so slowly as everything twists and the ground vanishes from under him.
A painful jolt as he hit one outcropping, then the feel of arms around him, but still falling. Could feel each hit that the body around his was protecting him from, the smell of blood and the sounds of things breaking inside the other one.
Then something hits him in the throat, sharp and hard and he can’t breath, blood in his mouth and all he can tastesmell, choking him around the thing that tears through his neck.
He doesn’t remember the end of the fall, eyes rolled up in his head and lips already turning blue from lack of air, a bone in his throat where it had broken and torn its way from Cloud’s body. He doesn’t remember the rescue people pulling him from the other man’s dead arms even as Cloud woke up. Or the screaming the other man directed at the people trying to give aid, telling them to leave him alone and to help Zack.
He only vaguely remembers the voices that talk to him. Light murmurs, words he can’t make out, and not sure if he wants to. Pale light, not enough to let him see anything, but enough so that he knows he’s not lost in the dark.
He’s still scared, though he won’t ever admit it.
Zack is sure that, at some point, he was dead.
Later, Cloud won’t tell him one way or another, which just confirms it for Zack.
Not a story he shares with the twins. Or Seph. Especially since the latter would just point out Zack never seemed to have learn anything from the experience given how he fights.
But Zack does learn something.
He learns what it’s like to wake up and have someone holding his hand for the first time. To open tired, blurry eyes and to see someone sitting next to him, looking ragged and wrung out.
For the first time that he remembers, Zack wants to stay still and let things stay as they are. Cause Cloud is sitting next to him, sleeping in the chair, and holding his hand.
And that’s when Zack realizes just what family is. And that this one is going to stay with him through the good and bad times.
That’s what Zack learned. Though he still tends to ignore signs.
crossposted to
icedark_elf, 25_streetsigns, mercverse, and acfiction