Soldiers' sorrow

Title: Soldiers' Sorrow
Author: Enide Dear
Pairing: Soldier 4-some
Rating: sad
Summary: Drabble. I’m re-playing CC and once more got touched by Zack


“You killed them.” Sephiroth’s voice was as steady as it always was; smooth and cool like polished stone. It betrayed no emotions

Zack didn’t know what to do, or where to look, standing awkward in the door to his own rooms, ShinRa issued boxer shorts hanging loose on his hips. He’d returned from Mondeoheim less than two hours ago, and exhaustion had claimed him. He’d needed sleep so bad, to forget about what had happened, to forget what he had done. It had been successful, to, until the doorbell rang.

“I…wanted to be the one to tell you.” He mumbled, his mind still an impenetrable haze.

Cool green eyes stared down at him, not a motion on that smooth face as to what the General was thinking.

How Sephiroth had got the information that Zack had killed the last of the two men that were the only ones the General had ever called friends, Zack didn’t know. It wasn’t important. The Buster sword stood in the other end of the room, but Masamue was as always hanging from Sephiroth’s hip, within easy reach. If he decided to strike…Zack didn’t want to die but he felt too heavy with guilt and sorrow. Even had he held the sword, he doubted he’d be able to lift it.
He’d killed his mentor, his hero, his friend. Sephiroth’s friends. Even if both Genesis and Angeal had been nothing but monsters in the end. How do you explain something like that? How do you go on living with that knowledge? He’d made Sephiroth promise they’d find their friends and help them, and instead he, Zack, had been the one who…

His spinning thoughts came to an abrupt end as long, strong arms closed around him, pulling him into a tight embrace, his face against the naked skin of Sephiroth’s chest which got wet with tears that Zack realized was his own.

“Thank you.” Something wet hit Zack’s cheek from above and in a heartbreaking, vertigoes moment he realized that Sephiroth was crying to; the salty mako tear stung against the fresh scar on his cheek.

“Why?” He sobbed, holding as tight as if Sephiroth  was a lifeline and he a drowning man.

The embrace he got back was no less desperate.

“For not forcing me to do so.”