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[Final Fantasy VII] [OCs] [Rated M] Stood By The Sea (?/1)
Title: Stood By The Sea
Fandom/Pairing: Final Fantasy VII; uninventive pairings
Rating: ESRB Rating of M for Mature < languge, violence >
Summary: Assuming Cloud Strife ever had a son, and he lived to be twenty-two without anybody killing him, this is how he might have a very bad week.
Notes: Because sometimes, I like to wonder where they'll all be in thirty years or so. And yes, this IS based on a specific song from, you know, real life.
Zachary Strife, twenty-two years old and angry with it, jabbed the radio knob with callused fingers and swore at the stop light, which had turned red. The song playing was one of his least favorites. After the radio finally shut down, the silence in the car was almost as bad as the presence of that song, though just about anything was better than Kenji Uematsu whining about the beach or his dad or whatever shit.
Fortunately for him, he was already swearing when the A/C quit.
"Fucking hunk of junk," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Should've bought a bike."
But wearing all that leather and Kevlar in Edge's heat? No fucking thanks. He didn't know how Shougo stood riding a motorcycle in Wutai, though he suspected it had something to do with not wearing riding leathers. Vincent and Yuffie weren't the over-protective types—okay, Vincent was, but they'd pretty much given up on protecting Shougo around his third disappearing act.
The light turned green. Zach stepped on the gas at exactly the same time as everybody else. The typical Edge jockeying for the passing lane began. For once, Zach was grateful he drove one of the WRO's old Shadowfoxes. They were ugly, they were old, but they got great mileage and they could take on three Behemoths at once. The cars around him were only too eager to stay the hell out of his way.
He clanked and sputtered his way into the turning lane. Congested Edge traffic made it a pain in the ass to turn the Fucking Bullet, as he had named the Shadowfox, but he got the rusting beastmonster parked behind the tattoo parlor where he worked. He secured the steering wheel, grabbed his brass knuckles out of the glove box, and locked the driver door behind himself.
He didn't work in the greatest of neighborhoods and he knew it. He didn't much mind. The less friendly types stayed the hell away from him. Predators recognized predators, and only a sheltered idiot would have mistaken him for prey.
A bell jingled as he walked into Angry Johnny's Skin Art. The door whispered closed behind him, nearly shutting on his ankle. He barely noticed.
Johnny was behind the counter. And, as advertised, Johnny was angry. Considering that Johnny was six foot six, weighed six Behemoths in muscle, and had maybe two inches of un-tattooed skin visible, it was a sight to see. The older man brandished a newspaper.
The photo, a black and white, was of Cloud Strife at the age of twenty-three, shortly after he'd defeated that psycho Bahamut.
Johnny's voice was a low-throated growl. "Look like anyone you know?"
Zach fingered the metal knuckles in his pocket. Looked like he might be using them tonight, depending on how wasted and pissed Johnny got.
"He a relative of yours?" Johnny hitched an eyebrow up.
"My name's fucking Zachary Strife. So yeah, that's my dad. You give a shit, why?"
"Because that means—"
"—That means every dude in the fucking world wishes he was me, and he doesn't know how much it sucks. Just so you know, I don't know how to use a sword."
His mother had been adamant that her children learn how to defend themselves. His father had been equally adamant that neither of them use a sword. Denzel had learned, but as Yuffie had said, "Denzel ec Denzel."
Angry Johnny Truant just looked at him. They stood there, not saying anything, for a few minutes. Neither of them backed down.
Zach relied on the presence he'd learned from his parents.
"All right," Johnny grumbled. "Get your ass to work."
And that was that.
Eleven at night. Edge didn't exactly sleep, but it did quiet down, at least in some places. The urban jungle of Edge's darker parts, however, was not one of those places.
Something about the Shadowfox looked different.
As one of the streetlights flickered back on, Zach swore. Loudly.
One of the ever-present grim faced, sullen teenagers snorted. Another laughed and said, "Shouldn't use words like that onna public street."
Zach pointed t the side of the Fucking Bullet. "You know anything about this?"
The first teen went from sullen to slyly sneering in a heartbeat. He tilted his head and scuffed his foot along the asphalt. "Maybe."
"Try again," he told them.
Midnight and the lights were still on. Then again, they did run a bar. But still, his parents usually closed Seventh Heaven on family dinner night.
He pushed open the kitchen door and stumbled in. In the corner, a radio broadcasted the latest hits. Kenji Uematsu's latest cover of "Always Be" from the original Loveless musical, in specific. That goddamn song was chasing him everywhere.
His mother was washing dishes from the bar in the big sink. Clean dishes—house dishes, he realized—lay stacked next to the little sink.
"Sorry I'm late," he told her as quietly as he could. If Dad was asleep, there was no way Zach wanted to wake him up.
Tifa looked up. He knew when she saw his face; her expression shifted from mere surprise to outright shock.
"Zachary!" Her voice was a breathless gasp.
Just when he thought things couldn't get worse, his father walked in.
"What happened to you?" Cloud asked, his eyebrows as high as they could go.
Zach reached into his pocket, sliding his fingers over the cool, blood-sticky metal of his brass knuckles. He didn't say anything as he ran his tongue over the busted part of his lip.
One of the little dicks had popped him right in the lip ring.
"Another fight?" His father's voice was disapproving.
"I didn't start it," he said, and it was true. Well, true enough. He hadn't thrown the first punch, anyway.
Cloud just stared at him.
Zachary shifted on his feet. "All I did was ask a couple questions. They bullshitted me—"
"Language." His father's interjection was grim.
Zach glared at his father, then gave up. Cloud had faced down Sephiroth, crazy ghosts of Sephiroth, Sephiroth again, Diamond WEAPON, and more monsters than anybody cared to count. He was not going to be intimidated by his own son. "Right. Okay. Fine. They tried to lie to me, I called 'em on it, and one 'em cracked me right on the lip ring."
"Sit down, sweetheart," his mother said, having found an ice pack and a slab of raw meat in the eternity of his staredown with Cloud.
He sat, pressed the ice to his lip and the meat to his eye.
"What were you asking them?" From Cloud's tone, Zach could tell he wasn't buying.
"If they knew who spray painted my car."
His parents looked at each other. Neither said a word, but Zach could tell what they were telling each other anyway. It was obviously one of those "Oh god" "I'll go" "No, I'll go" "No, it's his car, I'LL go" "Fine, you go" sort of looks.
"You're going to have to re-paint it," his father said, crossing his arms over his chest.
Zach kicked a tire. The aging 'fox shuddered.
Cloud shot him a Look. He'd never approved of his children's strength in martial arts. It was something he'd never bothered to hide. Zach could remember hearing his mother telling him to ignore his father being grumpy after their hand-to-hand lessons.
"Sorry. I just can't believe…"
"It's what happens when you park in that part of town." Cloud looked at the gang tag spray painted beneath the insults with a grim, intense expression. "You're lucky it hasn't been stolen."
Zach snorted. "Who'd steal something this old?"
His father gave him a long, hard, searching look. Those blue eyes, already glowing, glinting like steel. When he spoke, his voice was matter-of-fact, "Somebody who wants a car designed to be shot at."
Zach grunted in agreement. There was that.
They stared at the insults in silence. The ruder words obliterating any meaning from most of the graffiti, but one—girly ass car—stuck.
Anger burned in the back of his throat. He wanted to beat the shit out of those two teens again.
"You should find another job," his father said. One that doesn't keep you from family dinner; one in a better part of town, said the ringing silence after his father spoke.
"I should."
"Call us more often."
"Yeah."
But he wouldn't. They both knew it.
His father slanted him a sideways look. A small smile tugged at his lips. "You know, that lip ring's a bad idea. Tactically speaking."
"I'll take it out when I'm dead, Dad."
"You'll never get a real job with it."
Zach snorted. Like he could talk. He was a bouncer at his wife's bar.
That fucking song was playing again. "Will always be," Kenji Uematsu whined, "that same boy who—" He nearly snapped the knob off the radio in his haste to shut it off.
Navy's Coffee Bar was actually a nice place. The owner and manager was an ex-photographer. From what Zach knew of him, he'd been he one to photograph AVALANCHE during the Bahamut and Deepground conflicts.
Navy had recognized him from the start. But he'd never made a big deal out of it.
"The hell happened to your car, Zach?"
Zach gritted his teeth. "It got spray painted, boss."
Fandom/Pairing: Final Fantasy VII; uninventive pairings
Rating: ESRB Rating of M for Mature < languge, violence >
Summary: Assuming Cloud Strife ever had a son, and he lived to be twenty-two without anybody killing him, this is how he might have a very bad week.
Notes: Because sometimes, I like to wonder where they'll all be in thirty years or so. And yes, this IS based on a specific song from, you know, real life.
Zachary Strife, twenty-two years old and angry with it, jabbed the radio knob with callused fingers and swore at the stop light, which had turned red. The song playing was one of his least favorites. After the radio finally shut down, the silence in the car was almost as bad as the presence of that song, though just about anything was better than Kenji Uematsu whining about the beach or his dad or whatever shit.
Fortunately for him, he was already swearing when the A/C quit.
"Fucking hunk of junk," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Should've bought a bike."
But wearing all that leather and Kevlar in Edge's heat? No fucking thanks. He didn't know how Shougo stood riding a motorcycle in Wutai, though he suspected it had something to do with not wearing riding leathers. Vincent and Yuffie weren't the over-protective types—okay, Vincent was, but they'd pretty much given up on protecting Shougo around his third disappearing act.
The light turned green. Zach stepped on the gas at exactly the same time as everybody else. The typical Edge jockeying for the passing lane began. For once, Zach was grateful he drove one of the WRO's old Shadowfoxes. They were ugly, they were old, but they got great mileage and they could take on three Behemoths at once. The cars around him were only too eager to stay the hell out of his way.
He clanked and sputtered his way into the turning lane. Congested Edge traffic made it a pain in the ass to turn the Fucking Bullet, as he had named the Shadowfox, but he got the rusting beastmonster parked behind the tattoo parlor where he worked. He secured the steering wheel, grabbed his brass knuckles out of the glove box, and locked the driver door behind himself.
He didn't work in the greatest of neighborhoods and he knew it. He didn't much mind. The less friendly types stayed the hell away from him. Predators recognized predators, and only a sheltered idiot would have mistaken him for prey.
A bell jingled as he walked into Angry Johnny's Skin Art. The door whispered closed behind him, nearly shutting on his ankle. He barely noticed.
Johnny was behind the counter. And, as advertised, Johnny was angry. Considering that Johnny was six foot six, weighed six Behemoths in muscle, and had maybe two inches of un-tattooed skin visible, it was a sight to see. The older man brandished a newspaper.
The photo, a black and white, was of Cloud Strife at the age of twenty-three, shortly after he'd defeated that psycho Bahamut.
Johnny's voice was a low-throated growl. "Look like anyone you know?"
Zach fingered the metal knuckles in his pocket. Looked like he might be using them tonight, depending on how wasted and pissed Johnny got.
"He a relative of yours?" Johnny hitched an eyebrow up.
"My name's fucking Zachary Strife. So yeah, that's my dad. You give a shit, why?"
"Because that means—"
"—That means every dude in the fucking world wishes he was me, and he doesn't know how much it sucks. Just so you know, I don't know how to use a sword."
His mother had been adamant that her children learn how to defend themselves. His father had been equally adamant that neither of them use a sword. Denzel had learned, but as Yuffie had said, "Denzel ec Denzel."
Angry Johnny Truant just looked at him. They stood there, not saying anything, for a few minutes. Neither of them backed down.
Zach relied on the presence he'd learned from his parents.
"All right," Johnny grumbled. "Get your ass to work."
And that was that.
Eleven at night. Edge didn't exactly sleep, but it did quiet down, at least in some places. The urban jungle of Edge's darker parts, however, was not one of those places.
Something about the Shadowfox looked different.
As one of the streetlights flickered back on, Zach swore. Loudly.
One of the ever-present grim faced, sullen teenagers snorted. Another laughed and said, "Shouldn't use words like that onna public street."
Zach pointed t the side of the Fucking Bullet. "You know anything about this?"
The first teen went from sullen to slyly sneering in a heartbeat. He tilted his head and scuffed his foot along the asphalt. "Maybe."
"Try again," he told them.
Midnight and the lights were still on. Then again, they did run a bar. But still, his parents usually closed Seventh Heaven on family dinner night.
He pushed open the kitchen door and stumbled in. In the corner, a radio broadcasted the latest hits. Kenji Uematsu's latest cover of "Always Be" from the original Loveless musical, in specific. That goddamn song was chasing him everywhere.
His mother was washing dishes from the bar in the big sink. Clean dishes—house dishes, he realized—lay stacked next to the little sink.
"Sorry I'm late," he told her as quietly as he could. If Dad was asleep, there was no way Zach wanted to wake him up.
Tifa looked up. He knew when she saw his face; her expression shifted from mere surprise to outright shock.
"Zachary!" Her voice was a breathless gasp.
Just when he thought things couldn't get worse, his father walked in.
"What happened to you?" Cloud asked, his eyebrows as high as they could go.
Zach reached into his pocket, sliding his fingers over the cool, blood-sticky metal of his brass knuckles. He didn't say anything as he ran his tongue over the busted part of his lip.
One of the little dicks had popped him right in the lip ring.
"Another fight?" His father's voice was disapproving.
"I didn't start it," he said, and it was true. Well, true enough. He hadn't thrown the first punch, anyway.
Cloud just stared at him.
Zachary shifted on his feet. "All I did was ask a couple questions. They bullshitted me—"
"Language." His father's interjection was grim.
Zach glared at his father, then gave up. Cloud had faced down Sephiroth, crazy ghosts of Sephiroth, Sephiroth again, Diamond WEAPON, and more monsters than anybody cared to count. He was not going to be intimidated by his own son. "Right. Okay. Fine. They tried to lie to me, I called 'em on it, and one 'em cracked me right on the lip ring."
"Sit down, sweetheart," his mother said, having found an ice pack and a slab of raw meat in the eternity of his staredown with Cloud.
He sat, pressed the ice to his lip and the meat to his eye.
"What were you asking them?" From Cloud's tone, Zach could tell he wasn't buying.
"If they knew who spray painted my car."
His parents looked at each other. Neither said a word, but Zach could tell what they were telling each other anyway. It was obviously one of those "Oh god" "I'll go" "No, I'll go" "No, it's his car, I'LL go" "Fine, you go" sort of looks.
"You're going to have to re-paint it," his father said, crossing his arms over his chest.
Zach kicked a tire. The aging 'fox shuddered.
Cloud shot him a Look. He'd never approved of his children's strength in martial arts. It was something he'd never bothered to hide. Zach could remember hearing his mother telling him to ignore his father being grumpy after their hand-to-hand lessons.
"Sorry. I just can't believe…"
"It's what happens when you park in that part of town." Cloud looked at the gang tag spray painted beneath the insults with a grim, intense expression. "You're lucky it hasn't been stolen."
Zach snorted. "Who'd steal something this old?"
His father gave him a long, hard, searching look. Those blue eyes, already glowing, glinting like steel. When he spoke, his voice was matter-of-fact, "Somebody who wants a car designed to be shot at."
Zach grunted in agreement. There was that.
They stared at the insults in silence. The ruder words obliterating any meaning from most of the graffiti, but one—girly ass car—stuck.
Anger burned in the back of his throat. He wanted to beat the shit out of those two teens again.
"You should find another job," his father said. One that doesn't keep you from family dinner; one in a better part of town, said the ringing silence after his father spoke.
"I should."
"Call us more often."
"Yeah."
But he wouldn't. They both knew it.
His father slanted him a sideways look. A small smile tugged at his lips. "You know, that lip ring's a bad idea. Tactically speaking."
"I'll take it out when I'm dead, Dad."
"You'll never get a real job with it."
Zach snorted. Like he could talk. He was a bouncer at his wife's bar.
That fucking song was playing again. "Will always be," Kenji Uematsu whined, "that same boy who—" He nearly snapped the knob off the radio in his haste to shut it off.
Navy's Coffee Bar was actually a nice place. The owner and manager was an ex-photographer. From what Zach knew of him, he'd been he one to photograph AVALANCHE during the Bahamut and Deepground conflicts.
Navy had recognized him from the start. But he'd never made a big deal out of it.
"The hell happened to your car, Zach?"
Zach gritted his teeth. "It got spray painted, boss."