Kalli's Journal

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Sunrise

"The sun's coming up," Yazoo muttered as he raised his arm to cover his eyes. He winced. That little motion had been more difficult that he'd expected. But since he hadn't managed to move more than a few feet from the edge of the water since the sun had set, he new progress would be slow.

He wasn't afraid of dying. He was afraid of living.

Beside him, Loz didn't answer. Kadaj didn't answer.

He wondered why he was the only one that could talk.

"It's going to be a really nice day."

Finally, Kadaj made a sound something like a snort before he started coughing. And gagging, since he couldn't very well sit up. Yazoo reached out, his arm feeling like a lead weight. He barely managed to brush at Kadaj with his fingertips, unable to do anything to aid his brother.

Loz was still silent. Yazoo wondered.

Kadaj somehow managed to roll enough to cough out blood and phlegm and seawater. They were all soaking wet. But not cold. Not in such a warm place. Not with the sun rising.

"Loz, you're the one who asked her."

No response.

"Loz?"

Nothing.

The first rays of morning hit them a second later, above the trees and chasing away the last lingering darkness in the sky.

Kadaj moaned and spat out more blood.

Yazoo saw the edges of a shadow approaching.

The next time he saw the sunrise, it was from a soft, warm bed. He could feel his toes. He could move them.

"Loz?" he whispered. No one came. He was alone in the room.

Closing his eyes, he went back to the dark.

A few minutes later, he heard someone coughing. If he hadn't felt so heavy, he would have tried to get up.

In the afternoon, or whenever it was that he woke up and stared blankely at the cracked and peeling white ceiling, he could hear the noise around him as he tried to roll onto his side to actually see who was in the room with him.

The nurse wasn't started. In fact, she looked strangely familiar in the split-second before she scurried away. Perhaps she hadn't been a nurse at all.

For a few minutes, Yazoo heard only silence.

And then he had to smile.

"Cloud," he said softly. They couldn't manage to stay dead. Cloud frowned.

"Yazoo," Cloud replied. "You're the only one who's awake."

"Just my luck," Yazoo managed before wanting very much to close his eyes and go back to sleep.

He woke once to darkness, and the second time to dawn.

Cloud was sitting in a chair beside him, asleep as well.

Reaching out, he caught Cloud's sleeve and tugged at it. In the morning glow, Cloud didn't frown. Instead, he looked only sad.

Yazoo was the first to leave the hospital, even though he still rarely felt well enough to walk on his own. Cloud had said something about being lucky.

There was no luck involved.

He wondered how old Cloud was - how much time had passed if Cloud was living in the south. The only signs of age were visible in the mornings when the reds and oranges were still mixed into the sunrise.

Cloud never asked him why. Or how. Or anything more than if he needed anything.

Yazoo sat on the porch much of the day, save for the evenings when they would both go to visit Kadaj and Loz. Loz had only woken up once. Kadaj was full of venom but could no longer back a bit of it up. The nurses tended to play with his hair as if he were a puppy or child.

Eventually, he stopped complaining.

One morning, somewhere between being able to mind a counter at the store for a few hours a day just as something to do and the second time Loz woke up, Yazoo found himself waiting for Cloud to return each evening and detesting the rising of the sun, because that meant he'd be alone in the old, white house that Cloud shared with him.

Kadaj was improving slowly, Yazoo knew. He would no longer be able to keep the bulk of Cloud's attention.

"Cloud?" he asked one morning as he tried to smile and take care of the few dishes in the sink.

"What?" Cloud questioned in response. He had a newspaper from Junon. It looked old.

"How did you know?"

"Aerith told me." That was the end of the conversation.

He ended up in Cloud's bed that night, trying to be demanding and forceful, just like he knew he should.

He wondered how many years had passed. He never asked.

Cloud had pushed him away in the politest way possible. Not sleeping, he just stayed to the far side of Cloud's bed and wondered if he'd be rejected just for craving a bit of body heat.

Kadaj came home a few days after, if 'coming home' was even the term for it, since it had never been his home to begin with and certainly it had never been intended for them.

Cloud muttered something about his space and their space and space in general. He said Sephiroth's name. Yazoo froze at that. It had been the first time Cloud had even said it in all the months that had passed.

They fought over him, or, perhaps, not so much over him as for the right to be the center of his attention. Yazoo was at a loss, wanting to keep his job and social interaction away from Kadaj and Cloud.

He and Kadaj nearly crashed into each other as they tried to sneak into Cloud's room two nights after. They fought.

Neither of them ended up spending the night with Cloud. Yazoo boasted that he had at least managed to sleep with their brother, even though he hadn't slept a wink.

The sunrise was a particularly violent red.

"Red sky come morning..." Cloud joined Yazoo on the front porch and stood beside him in silence for longer than Yazoo could believe. Usually Cloud was quick on his way.

"Cloud?"

"I don't know," Cloud said softly. He wasn't smiling. He never smiled.

One of the nurses had painted Loz's toenails blue. Yazoo hoped he'd wake up again.

Three more days passed. Cloud left for the morning with his sword strapped to his back. Yazoo could hear Kadaj yelling something but he couldn't quite make out the words. As he passed Yazoo by, Cloud said only three words.

"Aerith is trying."

That, Yazoo knew.

Loz woke up again, not long after, and stayed awake. Kadaj wanted him home. Yazoo was afraid. If they were all healthy, Cloud might make them leave. He did not like the thought. He wanted to ask Cloud, but he couldn't figure out the right time.

Kadaj made dinner. That was the first mistake. And he tried to be seductive and sweet, which was the second.

Cloud didn't even make it home.

Instead he dragged into the house at dawn, mud on his clothing and blood on his cheek. Without thinking, Yazoo offered him a towel and leaned to lick the blood away.

Cloud flinched but didn't retreat.

Kadaj was still asleep.

"Dirty," Yazoo chided as he reached for the clasps of Cloud's clothing, peeling away his muddy shirt and letting it drop to the kitchen floor.

"I tracked mud in," Cloud admitted as he reached with the towel to get mud out of his hair.

Yazoo licked Cloud's cheek again.

"Kadaj can clean it later," Yazoo said before kneeling to unzip and unlace Cloud's boots. He could still be seductive, if he had to.

"I will," Cloud countered as he finally took a step backwards and away from Yazoo. "You..."

"Yes?" Yazoo asked. He wondered how much time had passed since that morning he'd first seen the sunrise - the literal version of the metaphorical first day of he rest of his life.

"Yes?" Cloud echoed as he looked down at where Yazoo stayed kneeling, his hair unbound and his frail form dressed in Cloud's old clothing.

"Yes," Yazoo said firmly.

"I need to shower," Cloud announced. He tracked mud all the way up the stairs. Yazoo followed like a puppy.

He and Cloud had done their best to kill one another, after all. And they'd both succeeded. Maybe this was what came next.

He wondered if Aerith would be angry with him.

He wondered if she remembered how good Cloud's mouth felt during a kiss and if that was why he had the chance. Cloud wasn't particularly good at what he was doing, but Yazoo couldn't complain. Mostly he'd just used his own body as bait for information. He wasn't sure he quite knew what a good fuck was.

He wasn't sure that 'good fuck' was what he wanted from Cloud.

Cloud was terrible at taking clothing off of anyone but himself, which was strangely ironic since Yazoo was wearing his old clothing.

Somehow they made it into the shower, with Yazoo deftly working the mud out of Cloud's hair. He paused to leave a bruise on Cloud's neck, sucking harshly until Cloud moaned and grabbed at the little bar that was supposed to hold washcloths but never seemed to have any on it.

A bruise made in lust - Yazoo liked it. He wondered if Cloud would leave a mark on him.

He kept washing, carefully, before letting Cloud reach to cautiously return the favor.

They kissed again and Yazoo slipped on the bottom of the tub, needing to be grabbed by Cloud and held. He could feel Cloud's erection and he tried not to think about it. He wasn't sure why, but suddenly he was nervous.

He wondered what Cloud was thinking.

He wondered which one of them was being seduced.

Somehow they ended up in Cloud's room, between sheets that had needed washing anyway as they kept touching one another in a twisted battle not for dominance but understanding.

Cloud muttered something about not having lotion. Yazoo contented himself with a handjob before settling down to suck on Cloud's erection.

He'd never been so happy to make anyone come and he wondered, really, if this was what life truly was.

Cloud fell asleep beside him. He glanced out the window.

The sun had risen.