#alt 8

The air in the Shinra Building’s grand ballroom was a stifling, perfumed poison, thick with the scent of lilies pumped through the ventilation system overhead, expensive champagne, and the underlying, metallic hum of a thousand mako-powered lights.

To the elite of Midgar, the gala was a display of corporate omnipotence. To Bianca Moore, it was a slow-motion vivisection conducted in the center of a crowded room.

She was draped in the Angel of Shinra finery: a grotesque masterpiece of propaganda designed by the Marketing’s aesthetics board. Her gown was a waterfall of heavy, cream-colored silks and intricate, hand-woven lace that cascaded down her small frame, but the beauty was a structural lie.

Beneath the fabric, a rigid corset was cinched with such violence that it compressed her lungs against her spine. Its internal stays positioned to rub against the puckered, twisting silk of the surgical scar circling her navel. Every breath was a shallow, jagged struggle. Every step she took on the polished marble floor sent a jolt of fire through the unhealed nerves in her abdomen.

Her wings, ten feet of brooding indigo and velvety black, were flared in a static, majestic arch. On this special night, her attendants had pierced small, silver bells directly through the quills of her primary feathers.

With every microscopic tremor of her muscles, the bells let out a thin, melodic chime: a sound of forced celebration that mocked the rhythmic throb of the phantom pain in her scapula.

Beside her stood Sephiroth, a towering silhouette of absolute, terrifying symmetry. He was six-foot-seven-inches of sculpted lethality. His long grey hair was a shimmering river that caught the emerald glow of the mako-chandeliers.

In place of his usual SOLDIER uniform, he wore the pristine, midnight-blue fabric of the SOLDIER dress uniform. The high-collared jacket was tailored to his broad shoulders, accented by polished silver buttons and the sharp, clean lines of military formalwear. His cyan eyes, lit from within by a mako-green glow, remained fixed on the horizon of the crowd. His slit, cat-like pupils narrowed.

Bianca felt his presence not just as a physical weight, but as a thrumming vibration in the Red Thread of Fate anchored to her wrist.

Through the bond, Sephiroth wasn't just observing her. He was a silent passenger in her agony. He felt the cold, oily sludge of the infection she was currently masking with mako-suppressants due to Hojo's latest round of boosters that the professor called vaccines. He felt the way her knees threatened to buckle beneath the weight of the silk, the fine tremors of her thigh muscles as they struggled to maintain the divine posture Shinra demanded.

"Give us a smile, Miss Bianca," a reporter called before them.

She forced her lips into a practiced, porcelain curve, her light pink lip gloss shimmering under the glare of the flash-bulbs. She felt the sharp pressure of her fangs—the upper and lower canines and molars—digging into her lower lip, a quirk of hers when the demonic blood began to boil.

Bianca tasted the copper tang of her own life-force, the heat of her succubi lineage screaming at her to drop the charade, to extend her prehensile tongue and taste the fear of the socialites who stared at her as if she were a prize-winning Chocobo.

Her black hair, styled half-up and secured with the white ribbon Sephiroth had given her once they left the labs and after Glenn Lodbrok and the other two left them both years ago.

Soft tendrils framed a face that was a mask of smoky eyeliner and dark eyeshadow, hiding the bruised hollows beneath her eyes born of a week of daily nightmares.

"The Angel of Shinra," a board member murmured as they passed, oblivious to the fact that their angel was currently imagining the wet, rhythmic shlick of his jugular being parted by her blood-red stiletto nails.

Bianca reached out. Her fingers—capped by those long, three-inch, crimson talons—brushed the starched wool of Sephiroth’s sleeve. It was a gesture the cameras interpreted as affection, but Sephiroth felt the truth. Her nails were digging into the fabric, seeking the stability of his strength as a fresh wave of nausea rolled over her.

This isn't me, she thought.

Inside her, the S-cells and the celestial essence were in a state of biological war. The mako-lamps overhead were emitting a frequency that made her demonic blood itch: a sensory distortion that turned the soft music of the orchestra into the grinding of bone against bone.

She could see the internal geometry of the room as she tried to focus: the way the mako-pipes beneath the floorboards hummed with a sickly green energy and the way the heartbeat of every human in the room sounded like a frantic, rhythmic drum.

Feed, her demonic blood called to her. Her eyes dilated, the constellations flaring to red. Feed. Feed. Feed. Feed. Feed.

"Focus on my heartbeat," Sephiroth’s voice arrived in her mind, not through speech, but through the heavy, low-frequency pulse of the Thread. It was an anchor in the horror of her sensory overload.

He adjusted his stance. His muscular build shifted so that his shoulder brushed hers. To the crowd, it was a hero protecting his fiancée. To Bianca, it was the only thing keeping the world from dissolving into a slurry of gray ash and clinical white noise.

She felt the sympathetic synchronization. Sephiroth’s own side began to throb with a phantom heat, a mimicry of the surgical site beneath her silks. He was carrying forty percent of her physical trauma.

She looked at her wings. The bells chimed—tinkle-tinkle-tinkle—a sound that, to her, was synonymous with the click of Hojo, his lab, and his loppers.

Now, she remembered the day Hojo had clipped them, the sound of the dry bone snapping, the wet, sliding sensation of the marrow being exposed. She felt the ghost of the shears now: a cold, jagged pressure between her shoulder blades.

She had a quirk of humming lullabies to herself when the pain became unbearable: a low, rhythmic vibration in her chest. She began to do it now. The sound lost beneath the swell of the violins.

Sephiroth heard it.

"Almost finished," he signaled through the bond.

A reporter approached. The flash-bulb exploded in a blinding white strobe. Bianca flinched internally. The movement caused the wire supports in her wings to grate against the raw scapula.

"Miss Moore looks particularly radiant tonight," the reporter gushed.

Bianca’s feline pupils dilated until only a sliver of indigo remained. She felt her prehensile tongue flick against the back of her fangs. The urge to kill was no longer a whisper. It was a roar.

Feed. Feed. Feed. Feed. Feed. Feed. Feed.

She wanted to tear the heavy silks away. She wanted to reveal the jagged, necrotic plum-colored flesh beneath, to show them the miracle Hojo had built from cages and needles. But, most of all, she wanted—

Sephiroth’s hand moved. His large fingers closed over her wrist, right where the Red Thread entered her skin. It was a crushing grip: a silent command to remain.

He was the cage of her grief and pain. If she broke now, Hojo would double the stabilization cycles. If she screamed, the Angel would be returned to the Mako-tank for a month.

"I have you," he murmured. His voice was so low it was felt rather than heard.

Bianca leaned into him. The silver bells on her indigo feathers let out a final, discordant jangle as she shifted her weight. She was the Angel of Shinra, a divine icon of silk and bells and blood, but as she stood under the emerald lights of the gala, she was merely a slowly dying girl held together by a white ribbon and the unbreakable, agonizing loyalty of the man standing beside her.

She smiled for the final camera. The light pink lip gloss masked the fanged teeth capable of tearing through half of the people in that room, while beneath the heavy lace, her flesh continued to weep: a secret sacrifice offered to a company that viewed her soul as a line in a ledger.

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“Bobby, can we take off the blindfolds?”

“They're really itchy.”

“Don't be such a baby, not even Mira is—”

“Ouch.”

“complaining,” Bobby finished his sentence and helped Mira, who had walked into the wall. Rumi groaned in annoyance, “Seriously, why—”

“No cheating,” Bobby said sternly and adjusted her blindfold again. “We're almost there,” he grinned excitedly, even though the girls couldn't see it. He was sure they would love the surprise.

Rocking his feet, he waited for the familiar ding of the elevator. When it reached the right floor, he pulled the three of them out of the elevator.

“We're here,” he announced proudly, while the girls fumbled around helplessly.

“Where is here?” Mira asked grumpily, and Zoey added whingingly, “Can we take them off now?”

“You can,” said Bobby excitedly, looking forward to seeing the girls' faces. They didn't need to be told twice and freed themselves from the annoying blindfolds. When they saw where they were, their mouths dropped open.

Read the rest here

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Ponyboy Curtis is the first Curtis brother to make it into college. 

He gets a full ride track scholarship to Oklahoma State University, so Darry and Soda don’t have to worry about paying for his tuition.

“We’re real proud of you, honey.” Soda says.

His brothers both take a few days off of work to drive up to college with Pony.

“We wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Darry says.

As they pull up to the red brick building that is the Parker Residence Hall, where Pony will be living for his freshman year, Pony begins to worry. 

What if his roommate is some entitled Soc? What if his roommate hates him? What if his roommate is weirded out by his cochlear implants, or his little soothing motions?

Stims, he thinks. That's what Darry said.

Darry also said not to worry too much about things like this, but Pony can’t help the way his brain works.

All these scenarios are filling his head, and the familiar feeling of anxiety is creeping up his spine.

Pony thinks Darry must be able to read his mind, because he puts a reassuring hand on Pony’s shoulder, grounding him to reality.

“It’s okay, you’ll be okay.” He signs, squeezing Pony’s shoulder.

The brothers begin to unload the old Ford pickup truck, taking out the three boxes that contain virtually all of Ponyboy’s belongings. All his clothes, books, and trinkets fit inside those three boxes.

Pony heads up to his dorm room while his brothers handle the paperwork at the front desk of the dorm building.

The elevator ride up to the dorm is anxiety provoking, to say the least. 

By the time he reaches the door to his room, his hands are trembling. He shakily turns the door handle, and steps into the dorm room.

Sitting on the bed closest to the door, a blue wheelchair next to him, is a boy with jet-black hair, caramel-color skin, and dark doe eyes. 

His roommate.

The boy is wearing a pair of jeans and a striped shirt. Nothing too fancy.

Pony immediately relaxes. The boy didn't seem like a Soc.

The boy is hunched over a sketchbook, drawing something, his body twitching slightly every so often.

The boy looks up from his sketching, and gives Pony a small, shy smile.

"You must be my roommate. My name's Johnny. Johnny Cade. What's your name?" He signs, while still vocalizing the words.

ASL.

Pony grins widely, "My name’s Ponyboy. Ponyboy Curtis. You know ASL? Are you deaf too?" He signs, his eyes shimmering with excitement as he spots the white cochlear implant on the back of Johnny’s head.

Johnny's smile brightens considerably. He nods, and the twitching subsides. "Yeah, I'm also deaf. I wasn't born deaf though. I lost my hearing when I was seven years old."

Pony nods in acknowledgment. He's been deaf since birth, so he's never known any different. "I was born deaf, but I didn't get my implants until about a year ago."

Johnny looks away for a moment, glancing out the window on the other side of the room, before looking back at Ponyboy. 

“Y’know, I was worried that my roommate would be some ableist jerk… You’re a whole lot better than what I was expecting.”

Pony’s expression softens, “I was worried about the same thing, but I think we’ll get along just fine.”

The door to the dorm room swings open, revealing Sodapop, who is holding a box labeled ‘Pony Box 1’, a wide grin on his face. He places the box on the ground to free up his hands so he can sign.

 “What’s going on in here? Y’all seem to be the best of friends already!” He speaks his words, as well as signing them for Pony.

Soda turns to face Johnny, grinning widely at him. “I’m Sodapop. I’m one of his brothers.” He says, ruffling Pony’s hair affectionately.

Pony makes a noise of protest, batting Soda’s hand away. 

He looks over at Johnny, who has a confused look on his face. Pony realizes his brother’s name isn’t all that easy to lip read, nor is it a common name in the slightest, so he finger-spells it for him. 

“S-O-D-A-P-O-P. Like the drink. It’s a pretty original name, but our dad was an original person. That’s also why my name is Ponyboy.” He signs, laughing softly.

Johnny nods in understanding, letting out a quiet laugh and moving to face Sodapop.

“I’m Johnny Cade.” He signs, before turning back to Ponyboy.

“He said he’s one of your brothers, right? You have more than one?” He questions, tilting his head like a puppy, which Pony decides is an accurate way to describe his roommate.

Pony nods, “Yeah. This is Sodapop, he’s eighteen, and my oldest brother, Darry, who is twenty-two, should be here any minute now.”

As if on cue, the door swings open, and Darry enters the room, carrying two more boxes.

“Jesus, Sodapop, you could have come down and gotten another box.” He says, his tone full of mock annoyance as he places the boxes down on the floor.

Soda grins his signature lopsided grin, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry ‘bout that, Superman… I got distracted meeting Pony’s roommate.”

Darry rolls his eyes at the use of the nickname, playfully messing up Soda’s blond hair in retaliation.

He turns to Ponyboy, his expression softening slightly as he looks at his baby brother, who is now invested in a drawing that Johnny is showing him.

“See, there was nothing to worry about, little buddy. It all worked out.” He signs, ruffling Pony’s hair just as Soda had done moments prior.

Pony rolls his eyes, swatting Darry’s hand away and trying (and failing) to fix his wild, brown locks.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, you’re always right…” 

But deep down, he’s glad. 

There’s something special about Johnny Cade.

The Elites were all suffering.

Rachel forced her flats off, the dull black threatening to fade at any moment now. Her no show socks did nothing to help, holes starting to etch in the bottom from constant wear. There was a lingering smell to them now, not exactly body odor, but definite years of use. Despite all the time that had passed, she still didn't understand what her outfit had to do with Mazes. If anything, wouldn't being comfortable ensure she focused better?

WICKED didn't care though. They never cared.

Thomas stared at the bed in the otherwise empty room that reminded him he was completely and utterly friendless. He was told all the time that this was the right thing, that he was going to be smart and save everyone. All the while, they wouldn't answer a single question on what that would entail. He didn't know a lot about himself as a person, but he was sure being talked down to like a child but having the expectations of an adult couldn't be good for him.

WICKED didn't care though. They never cared.

Teresa sat on the edge of the bed, fiddling with her thumbs as she kept seeing it over and over. The screams of Cranks were haunting her, filling her sensitive soul with guilt for even considering wanting something else. Her stomach churned as the weight of the world was forced on her shoulders. Her dreams were plagued with nightmares, videos and books full of violence and gore making it hard to close her eyes.

WICKED didn't care though. They never cared.

Aris stared at the ceiling, clenching and unclenching his fists to try and get some sort of feeling back without having to acknowledge how badly they hurt. He couldn't even take in all the information that had been thrown at him, his humanity being disregarded in favor of what was most convenient for them. He wasn't sure he was retaining any information at this point, the stress and pain being the only thing he could focus on.

WICKED didn't care though. They never cared.