paixaorpg | Of Darkness and Light [active]

Entry tags:

Of Darkness and Light [active]

Character(s): Zexion and Cloud
Content: After his sessions with Luxord, Cloud moves on to the next phase of the experiments
Setting: xxxxx
Time: xxxxx
Warnings: Experiments and Zexion being a bastard

For all that wandering the city was interesting, there came a time for other things. This was one of those times and he wasn't going to complain. He didn't get to drop the facade he'd been adopting in the city very often, after all.

But before that, there we things to do. The lab was, as usual, almost spartan in it's simplicity; it held exactly what he would for this need and no more. If he needed to suggest something was there that wasn't already he always had his illusions. But even with that, he wasn't going to get started without giving the room a careful once over. He couldn't have anything failing him when he needed it most.

It was only after he was satisfied that everything was in its proper order that he sent the Dusks to retrieve the first of his subjects. Now to wait and see who this 'Cloud Strife' was.

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He sat at his cell, staring blankly at the wall across him. If anyone asked, he would be hard-pressed to tell them how many bricks there were, or if there were bricks at all. After his encounter with that man earlier, Cloud been feeling... well. A multitude of things.

He tucked his head into his arms, closing his eyes as he finally tired of his activity. I wonder... if anyone's still waiting for me...? He banished that thought away, lips pursing. Even if anyone did, there was no reason to be. They'd all forget, at some point. He wasn't anyone memorable, or valuable.

When the white things came again, he let himself be pulled along, eyes lowered in resignation. It's not as if they could do more damage.

Conveniently enough, Zexion had no intentions of harming Cloud. Or at least not physically anyway. Instead, he was simply content to wait until the Dusks had strapped the boy down and disappeared before making any indication that he'd so much as seen the boy come in. After all, he'd known the minute he'd arrived, the scent of the light in him clearly noticeable even under the haze of resignation.

"Good evening," he offered after a momentary pause. There nothing in his voice to suggest that it was anything but an agreement that he recognized the other's presence, but it would at least tell him if the other was going to be interested in speaking to him.

He tested his bindings and, much to his lack of shock, was unable to move much. When he heard the voice speaking to him - no one else here, who else could it be? He peered up at the speaker.

"... good evening." He returned out of habit before dropping his eyes again.

Interesting, that reaction. Either Luxord had done a very thorough job, or the boy was simply naturally shy. Or some mixture of both. He'd have to look through the boy's mind to find out just which was the answer.

"I expect you know why you're here?" Again, the tone in his voice was one of polite disinterest, almost as if he didn't particularly care one way or the other about the answer he got.

From the set-up and how similar it was to the one before...

"Are you going to talk to me too?" Asking was futile, after all. The other one never did answer his questions. "... are you going to tell me I'm useless too?"

"I am already talking to you," Zexion answered flatly. However whether or not he was going also tell Cloud was left quite conveniently unanswered. Instead, he simply turned and walked straight through Cloud.

After all, the more he knew about the boy, the easier it would be.

That was true. But at the same, the man didn't give him all the details. Like Zack and Reno, he idly thought, remembering the conversation they had. Always answering questions that weren't as important.

When the man stepped through him too, he flinched, feeling the coldness acutely this time.

Maybe this one will tell him his name?

Sadly, that was one thing Cloud was not going to be getting from Zexion. There was no need to mention it and as a matter of fact, not doing so would help keep his anonymity for the moment.

"You'd like to be useful, wouldn't you?"

It was fine. Cloud was getting used to not knowing all the details.

"Yes." But he wasn't capable of doing so, he didn't think. Didn't believe.

Zexion nodded to himself at that. While he could have made Cloud think he wanted to be useful with very little effort, it would be much easier if he already wanted to be useful.

"It must have hurt to be told you were useless," he remarked, turning away from Cloud for a moment, hands busy with something just of Cloud's line of sight.

It's wasn't as if the idea was new. How often, had he been told that he wasn't going to amount as anything, wasn't going to be anything? After repetitions, he'd still fought on, trying to prove them wrong.

His eyes picked up the movement and following them for lack of anything else to do. "... if that's what people believe, then..." it must be true.

"Belief is what turns dreams into reality," Zexion remarked quietly. Consequently, a lack of beliefs could keep a dream from ever being realized, although he was fairly certain that Cloud had experienced that on his own.

"Dreams are just that, dreams." He didn't seem to believe his own words, though. Wanting so much to believe, but...

"I doubt you'll make SOLDIER like that." As matter of fact, Zexion wouldn't have been in the least bit surprised if that had been part of the reason why Cloud had yet to make it, although that was more personal speculation and didn't belong in the conversation. Yet.

He flinched, lowering his eyes and glancing away. When it was worded like that, he felt as if he really wasn't going to pass the exams, after getting back home. People had always said again and again that he'd fail.

The lack of a dream, the lack of faith... A far higher problem than just being weak, than being short and tiny.

"I'm sure you've noticed," Zexion continued, finally turning around and coincidentally allowing Cloud to see what he had in his hands - a small syringe filled with a strange glowing substance. "You try and you try but it never seems to get anywhere."

His eyes followed the thing in the man's hands, recoiling a bit. Drugs? It wasn't mako, and certainly untrustworthy. Cloud swallowed, trying to wet his dry throat. "That's because I'm not good enough," he managed, eyes on Zexion's hands.

"... what is that?"

"Unimportant, at the moment," Zexion answered curtly. The less Cloud knew about it the more it make him uneasy, and leave him to wonder what would happen next.

"All you need to know is that it won't kill you."

Anything that couldn't kill you would make you wish you had, he thought idly, eyes wide as he looked between the syringe and Zexion's face.

There were things that could hurt you, or make it all feel good, like a high. There were a lot of those under the plate, he'd heard.

"I don't do drugs," Cloud said, gauging if he was going to be given the substance.

If Cloud had been looking for any sort of sympathy from Zexion he would find none. There was no way to continue the experiments without either light or darkness being involved and Zexion was not going to settle for an incomplete experiment.

"And how do you propose to stop me?"

He took a few breaths, looking at the syringe again. "I can't," he said, knowing very well that he couldn't.

"You know I can't."

Good. Cooperation at this stage was a more than welcome change; it meant that any further revelations could wait until later. Preferably after he'd been given a suitable amount of light.

"No," he agreed. "You can't."

He wasn't going to give Cloud the opportunity to answer that though, moving to Cloud's side almost before he was done speaking, injecting the light with an efficiency that could only be called 'clinical'.

He opened his mouth to speak, the air only giving way to a choked, weak scream. The pinprick of the needle was lost at the flood of foreign, freezing matter flowing into him, slowly making things duller. His eyesight went fuzzy, clearing after a few moments.

His limbs felt sluggish and out-of-place and things started to ache.

That much, at the least, wasn't entirely surprising. The heart never reacted calmly to being forced out of balance so suddenly. But although it might not be the most comfortable of things it was, at the least not going to be fatal - in that regard, at least, he'd been telling the truth.

But he'd wait a while yet, and see if Cloud managed to speak up on his own first.

Things were just a bit out of whack, he thought, trying to focus hard on what he could and couldn't see. It was as if you were hit with a confuse, only things weren't just in your head.

Or maybe this was just in his head, and he didn't know it.

"What did..." he took a few breaths, hearing his own voice from far away. "-you do?"

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Of Darkness and Light [active]

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