"Damn, I didn't like the guy, but executed?" Zell said quietly as he stared down at Alexander Deling's grave for a moment before walking away.

"Lucky bastard." Seifer moved on as well to return to the same car as his classmates.

"I never even knew who he was. Seifer, why did you drag me here?" Squall asked, not yet noticing the subject had left. He turned for an explanation and saw the car door shut. "Wha...? Hey, wait up. Asshole." The car drove teasingly an inch forward to prompt his motions.

Luna shook her head, placing a hand on Geo's shoulder and indicating with her head that she and Teth would be waiting in the other car.

Geo gave Jack's shoulder a little rub and a kiss on the cheek. "Don't take it so badly, sweetheart, he was pure evil. Its better this way." She spit on the dirt in front of the tombstone with vengeance and walked to where her friends were waiting. "We'll catch up with you later, Jack." She yelled back, got in and drove off.

Jack sobbed harder and removed the piece of defiled soil with shaking hands. He had been the only one to cry. Pandora had shown up briefly for the service, keeping her face covered the entire time. When he'd gotten a glimpse of it, she'd looked upset and fled the scene quickly. She was too proud to let anyone see her cry, especially over such a painful part of her life.

Jack was left alone then, the birds responding to his choked and ragged inhalations. "I never saw you weak. I... Respected you for your power over yourself. I could never control my feelings. You could never show them. I'm beginning to think you didn't even have them. Outside of cruelty, lust, and satisfaction, that is. No one but me will be upset about this tomorrow. Are you okay with that? I still can't believe you're dead, you know. Where is your sorceress now?" He took a deep breath and turned to look at the small handful of dirt he had removed. "Geo will be angry with me. She never liked you. No, she just never understood you. Not like I do. Must be frustrating to an empath.

"How arrogant of me to think I understand- understood you. I still don't believe you're dead. Did they just weigh down the coffin and hide you somewhere? Are you watching me make an idiot of myself? I hope so. Well, I have to go now, but I'll be back tomorrow.

"Oh! You never met my son, did you? Perhaps that's better though. How would I introduce you? Alexander Deling, a man who helped me enjoy pain." Jack ran his fingers across the epithet engraved just below the name: A SCIENTIST TOO YOUNG FOR HIS ACCOMPLISHMENTS. "Tomorrow then, Alexander. Ja ne."

"I'm home!" the house was just a bit too silent as Jack stepped through the door. They had finally found use for the empty house in which he had spent his childhood in Centra. The door to his room was locked and bored up, entry completely forbidden. He stepped into the kitchen only to interrupt a hushed conversation between his wife, Teth, and Luna. A firm weight established itself on his left shin.

"Dad!" Jack looked down and nearly came to tears again at the sight of his pride holding firmly to his leg. "Hey, where were yoo? Daaaaaad, mom came in all sewious and I was weally weally wowwied!"

He bent down and scooped up his four-year old in a dramatic gesture, flying him around the room, making loud "Whoosh!" noises until he settled him down on his right hip and kissed his forehead while the child giggled. "Don't you worry about it. Dad just had to go say good-bye to an old friend." He cast a searing look over the boy's shoulder to the group and stalked out of the room, replacing his smile when he looked back to his son. "Isn't it time for your favorite T.V. show?"

"YEAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" Came the triumphant cry from the other room. It echoed into the kitchen where Teth and Luna were looking confused as Geo grit her teeth in agitation.

"He still doesn't want Lank to know about death outside of battle with monsters. It makes me so angry! By the time I was his age, I'd seen it firsthand. It was the same for him, too." She blew air up into the bangs falling over her face.

"Maybe that's why he doesn't want him to see it." Luna suggested carefully. One thing you did NOT do was mess with was Geo when she was off on a rant about someone she held closely, but if anyone could stand up to her, it was Luna. Her and Teth were the only ones who had held more than distant association with the couple after they had left SeeD. They lived together in Balamb. Jack had never really gotten over loving Teth, and one could see it in his eyes whenever he looked at the couple.

"I know, I know, I just... I don't want him to be oblivious to the world around him. Suppose a war came up and he suddenly had to deal with death all around him?" It was a sad excuse and Geo knew it, the world was in a time of peace and the last war had ended just after Lank was born, settling the last of the feuds between nations. She still worried. When her parents and family were taken from her she hadn't been prepared for it at all, but she'd still found a way to survive.

"Well, we have to go, we're going to have dinner in Deling tonight. You and Jack want to join us? We could find a babysitter for you. Come on, ne?" Teth interrupted her thoughts.

She waved her hand absently. "No, that's okay. Thanks, though, I just think Jack wants to stay home tonight. He's got a lot on his mind with this whole Alexander thing."

"Okay, bye then!" Luna waved as they left through the front door.

"Bye, have fun." Geo closed the door behind them and walked out to where Jack and Lank were sitting, watching the newest attempt in animation take a crack at a season of "Superman". She sat down on the other side of her son and put her arms around him when he leaned toward her. They all sat transfixed on screen, but Lank's mind was the only one paying attention.

(Exactly four years later)

Geo awoke in the middle of the night to the cold space where a certain braided baka should have been. Her first frantic thought was that he had left forever, leaving Lank and herself to fend for their own. YEAH. RIGHT. This was Jack she was talking about. He was way too clingy and snuggly. When he said "love" it meant you had two choices of dealing with him:

1) You could ask him to leave and ignore him as he went through every possible action just to be near you.

Or..

2) You could simply except it and get on with your day.

Getting rid of Jack was harder than clearing up poison ivy...Unless a professional did it for you. Geo's second frantic thought was that someone had taken Jack. But to have gotten past two trained killers with their son in the house, one of which being an empath? Not likely. Maybe he was just up getting something to drink.

She rose from the warm nest of covers and pulled on her robe. Out of instinct, she peered into Lank's room to make sure he was safe, before going about searching the house. The kitchen light was on, but through every room there wasn't even a mental trace. Lastly she came upon the garden.

It was once a sparring room where Jack and his father would train together, when they were being civil, but after he had moved back, Jack had immediately insisted upon stripping the canvas and the boards away. They had all been burned bloodstains and all. He had wanted to forget about that room as well, but instead Geo had convinced him to turn it into a rose garden. So off came the roof, too, and the only thing remaining were the Japanese style paper doors. An old friend of Jack's, Korelia, had helped them start with the seeds. In its center was a small sitting bench.

This is where she found Jack. He was staring up at the moon holding a dark purple rose near his leg where he was absently pricking patterns in his flesh. When Geo came up behind him and touched his shoulder he jumped visibly and turned to stare at her in shock.

"You're jumpy tonight. What's wrong, can't sleep?" She sat down next to him and looked up.

He shook himself and slung an arm around her waist so he could lean his head against her shoulder. "Not a single fucking blink."

"Because of Alexander? Or just insomnia again?"

"Fear." He answered honestly, but it was only a whisper against her skin.

"You've changed, sweety. What could possibly be here to frighten you but memories?"

"He's not dead, Geo, I know he's not."

She pushed him off the bench with a grunt. "Wake up, Jack! He's dead! Dead like this fucking stone!" She rapped her knuckles against the seat and crossed her arms over her chest stubbornly.

He laughed and got up, dusting off his bare knees, but smearing the dots of blood into more of a mess. "It's just a feeling, nothing more. I don't think it'll change things, it just worries me."

"It worries me."

"What does?"

Geo pushed Jack over again. "Jesus, do you have ADD or something?"

He just stayed down this time, adjusting himself among the warm soil. "Ow, hey, that wasn't nice. Anyhow, why would you be worried about Alexander? You're the one who thinks he's dead."

"I'm not worried over Alexander, I'm worried over you."

"Me?"

"I worry everyday that I'll lose you or Lank. It's always been hard for me to keep the ones I love alive and close."

"There's Luna."

"Yes, and for that I'm thankful. I don't think she'd still be here if she wasn't so powerful. We've been through some rough times."

"We're not going anywhere, honey, don't fret it."

"Jack! You are such a fucking moron! I'll always be afraid, it's part of me and always has been. Death follows my family like the sun rises in the east!" She paused and looked at her hands. "That's why it's not fair to keep Lank in the dark. He's my son too, and he should know about his heritage. Granted, I understand you don't want to tell him what your father did to you until he's older, if at all. But death is something he should know about now and always."

"He's only eight. I was barely that old the first time my father took me."

"And Chocoboy was just as old when you slept with him! How long do you want to wait? His whole life?! I'm telling him. Now." Geo got up and started to go back into the house when the door opened for her.

Lank stood with an empty glass clutched in one hand and the other holding the doorframe. "Daddy, what did your daddy do to you when you was little that makes everybody so quiet?"

Jack silently beat his head against the ground a few times before he got up and gathered his son in his arms. "My daddy was a very mean, mean person, and I'm glad you never had to meet him."

Geo shook her head and went inside to lie down.

"Yeah... But what did he do that was so mean?" Lank hugged his father's neck as they went into the kitchen to refill his glass of water.

"Lank..." Jack warned, but he knew it would do him no good. He had a smart kid, and the more you told him he couldn't know, the more ways he would find to make you tell him. "You know those bullies at your school who pick on all the other kids?"

"Yeah? ...Did your daddy have to go to time out for picking on you?"

Jack laughed genuinely and carried him to his room, tucking him gently into the bed, and sitting on the edge. "Eventually. But there was no teacher to stop him, so for a long time he hurt me..." He sighed, trailing off and looking at the floor. "But whenever he left me alone, I would go and train and make myself stronger, and he got older and I got tougher, until I could finally beat him. It took me a lot of tries and a lot of owies." "Well, it was a dark and stormy night, and he just left. Nobody knows, really." He smiled and kissed his child's forehead.

"Did he die?"

Jack flinched visibly. "Lank, we need to sit down and talk tomorrow about death. A friend of mine died on this day four years ago, not went away, died. That's where I was when you asked."

He was silent for a long time. Jack thought he'd fallen asleep, but when he got up to leave, a small voice stopped him. "Dad, he did lots worse stuff, too, didn't he? I mean, I heard mom talking to these people on the phone, she didn't know I was listening, and she..."

"No. He didn't."

"But mom said..."

"She was wrong."

"But see there's this other boy at my school and he-he..."

Jack was back at the bed in a second. "What? Lank, did someone touch you at school? Please tell me, kiddo."

"I'll trade ya." A wry and clever grin spread across his face. Jack could only stare in astonishment. What a damned con-artist! What sort of monster had he spawned? "That's not fair, Lank, what happened to me is over and done with, if you tell me now we could stop it from happening again."

"I don't think you're done with it yet. Daddy, tell me!"

//I will not yell. I will not yell. I will not yell. Damn, why does he have to be so fucking smart? Kids always see right through everything. Gullible my ass.// Somewhere in the back part of his mind, Jack noticed that his son was not only making a disturbing amount of sense, but he was also speaking with perfect dictation.

Geo was sitting up in bed reading the end of a book. When Jack came in she folded down the edge of her page and looked up at him expectantly. "So...?"

"'So' what?" He snapped, as he stripped off his dirty nightclothes and climbed into bed.

"So how did it go?" Her gaze was stern and steady, trapping him in a corner.

"I told him."

"Everything?"

Jack reached over with a grumble and switched off the light. "Everything. There's no way he'll be able to get any sleep tonight."

"Well what did he say?" She reached over and petted his hair gently, it had grown alot since they'd left Garden and now trailed in a foot of braid behind him when he wasn't slouching.

There was a tensed silence in the darkness and a broken sob pierced it harshly. "He wanted to try it." Jack pulled the pillow over his head to muffle the wail he couldn't suppress. "What kind of a parent am I? I-I... I tried to explain it to him three times and all he said was that it sounded 'nice' and 'fun'!" His whole body shook with sobs.

"Wait, I don't understand, what part was he talking about?" Geo stared blankly at the wall reflecting the invading moonlight on its white surface, trying to control herself as well. It really wouldn't fit to have one of her rages in the same house as her child unless it was an absolute emergency.

"The part about my dad. He wanted me to touch him and kiss him like I do to you." It was barely decipherable through the choking and screaming, probably said with more emphasis on every word, but in order to understand it, one would have to look at the actual sentence.

It was a wonderful time to sit back and think about the situation, so that's exactly what Geo did. She let Jack have a good cry over the matter as she reached a decision. When he was done, she spoke softly and calmly, as if all were right with the world. A simple placebo. "Why don't you?"

He poked his head up from under the pillow with a horrified expression. "What?" He voice was just as dead and heavy as hers was.

"Look at how you just left him, Jack, he's probably sitting up in bed in the same position he had been in when you ran out. He's feeling rejected by his own father and he doesn't even know what he did wrong. You're going to give him a complex about sex for his entire life if you don't go back in there and do SOMETHING. I don't mean molest him, just don't leave him. I can't go in there, it won't be the same."

Jack took a moment to compose himself and absorb what she was telling him. This was NOT going to be easy. Slowly, he got up and went into the hallway, making a reluctant path down it.

The door creaked reassuringly and Jack leaned in the doorframe with his head down. Geo had been right, as always, and Lank was still staring down at his hands blankly. "Look, I..."

"Daddy?" He looked up and sniffed back some tears and mucus, wiping what he couldn't on the back of his hand. "Were you crying, too?"

"I was."

"Is it my fault?"

"No."

"Then whose is it?"

"Mine."

"I... Don't understand..."

Finally, when he was about to move to his son's side, he couldn't. A wire had found itself around his neck, looping once and pulling tightly. There was heavy breathing behind him and with the hand that wasn't holding both ends of the wire, was wrapping him in a snug hold.

Jack's fingers pried and grasped at his own skin around the area being depressed until blood made it too slick to find. He felt his knees buckling and tried to kick the person behind him, but it was dodged with practiced ease. "Daddy? What's wrong? Who's there?" He could hear Lank calling him from the bed. The world was dimming and leaking away down his bare chest and all too soon he would abandon its realm. With miraculous concentration, he found the strength to speak the most important phrase running through his mind. "I love you." He prayed his son heard the raspy whisper.

Blackness and yelling, he felt himself being picked up and carried, somewhere hope screamed that Lank was smart enough not to follow. The sound of a car starting and driving away, he was in it. A deep and sultry voice. "You said you would be mine if I helped her. You swore to it. You will pay for the grief you've caused me."

"Lank? Jack? LANK? LANK...?! Honey, where are you?" Something wet splashed under her foot. The smell she had been dreading to find nearly floored her. The house as empty and there was blood on the floor disappearing in a drag mark and two pairs of footsteps. Someone had been in their home, someone good. A thought struck her and Geo was racing for the keys and the door at once. "I knew it, some people just don't know when to stay dead."

A hand caressed his cheek in a soothing manner, and Jack arched up into it, happy it had only been a nightmare. What shaking his bed then? "Geo...?" The hand left his face and quickly returned jarring him harshly from his happy world of sleep. Immediately sitting up, he regretted it, falling back down sideways, his head hitting a soft but firm thigh smelling of fresh sea air. Jack opened his eyes and stared at the driving console around clothed knees.

"I had hoped you would stay asleep till we had boarded our next vessel, but I suppose we're close enough now you wouldn't make it back before I caught you again."

Who...? The voice was so familiar, but fuzzy from using Lilith. The exact pinpoint of it came when he said "vessel". The hiss and elegance was one of a kind: Alexander. Alexander was dead. "Where are you taking me?"

"Home, dearest, be patient."

"Why did you come after me now, Alexander?"

A hand shifted his head a little, a zipped was undone, and his face was pressed against a warm wet silk shaft of skin. "It's best not to ask now, just do what you were made to do before."

Instinctively, Jack enveloped the head, massaging just that soft area with his tongue before moving down the underside and swallowing the entire length. A harsh moan was heard from above him and the hand at the back of his head worked its fingers among the roots of his hair. Using his teeth to hold the base, he lightly blew air over it to cool the flesh, then rapidly warm it again by closing his lips and sucking. The hand at his scalp pulled him up and the car stopped.

Jack was pressed against the steering wheel and his hips were lifted so that his boxers could be removed. Again he was lifted and now placed over the sensitive head and slowly pushed into. Both moaned deeply and Jack slumped forward, clutching Alexander's shoulders tightly. Fingers gripped his lower cheeks hard enough to leave prints and neither moved, save for tensing against each other.

"It's been so long...So tight..."

Gasping in air, Jack readjusted so he was effectively straddling Alexander with his knees, and ground his hips downward. It had been a long time, too long. Jack hadn't had sex with a man since he'd left Garden, making a final round to say his "goodbyes". That had been nine years ago and blood was coursing in torrents onto Alexander's lap and onto the clean, pressed fabric there. His father had always told him that he healed too quickly and bled too much, but then he'd always said that while taking him. "Too long..."

Small hands gripped the backseat of the car and a tentative glance was thrown between them when he felt the car stop. Lank's eyes grew wide as he strained to look closer as what his father described manifested before him. Although tears were glinting off his father's cheeks and the smell of blood was distinct, there was an unmistakable expression of enjoyment across Jack's face. Lank simply couldn't imagine, but he still wanted to try it and was still mesmerized by the scene.

The leather seat creaked quietly as he leaned forward to observe more details. The rocking motion of the car stopped and two sets of startled eyes turned back to look at him. Things were not looking good.

"Looks like we're not alone." A sickening wide smile slowly replaced the tight concentrated one across Alexander's lips. "You've raised quite the curious voyeur, Jack."

"Don't you touch him, prick." Lank could hear his father's strain to keep his voice steady. "Lank run!"

As fast as he could, he was out the door and running. Lank heard a yelp come from the car and another door open, followed by footsteps. He didn't make it two yards before pale strong arms swept him and over a shoulder. No amount of kicking or struggling would free him, and he realized it was his own father's blood his toes were slipping in.

"Daddy where are we going?" Lank asked around the uncomfortable silence of being tied to his naked and bleeding parent. After the car, they had borded a large ship on one of the now developed ports of Centra, and were currently lounging in a box in the hold. He watched the blood by his feet run back and forth over a board with the rocking of the waves, until it soaked into the wood and stained it. The memory of deconstructing the dojo struck him and repeated endlessly.

"Probably Winhill, no one would think to look there." Jack had been watching out of their only air hole for any type of motion besides the rats drawn by the smell of blood.

"Oh." A painful and confused moment passed. "Why?"

Eyes never wavering from his guard, Jack mumbled as he lay down, pulling Lank with him. "Because the people there are prejudiced if you tell them the right thing. We'll be seen as evil, and punished in the name of Hyne or something to that extent. Maybe even in public." They were completely still side by side, trying to keep the crate even as it was lifted by burly crewmembers.

"I'm scared." He whispered into his father's ear and was replied by an index finger held to a pair of lips. The crate was rested on a vehicle and movements ceased except the perpetual hum of an engine.

A breath passed and Jack was up into a silent crouch and peering through their one point of leaking light. He turned and shook his head to indicate the box was unsupervised, and they would attempt escape. The lid lifted off easily with a gritty slide and was set to the side. Jack was immediately out and pulling Lank with him, putting the top back on the box with a small bump. Making sure they kept lower than the box lid and various items they hid behind, Jack guided his son by the hand through the maze of crates to the front of the large truck. There was a makeshift wall and door separating them from seeing further.

"Don't even try it, Jack. I'll sell your kid into the underground sex slave market faster than it'd take an official bidder. I believe you know the business well." The curtain was pushed aside by an unseen force and Alexander sat calmly in the passenger's seat with his eyes closed in light concentration and stress. A smug smile still rested upon his lips and there was no one in the driver's seat. The wheel moved on it's own.

The room was cold, and damp, and dark. Jack sat hugging his knees in one back corner, and Lank lay on the bed looking up at the ceiling thoughtfully. It wasn't the first time Jack had been in this room; he knew it by heart.

"Dad?" Lank propped himself up on one elbow and looked at his father, expecting a return. When none came, he tried again. "Jack?"

"I heard you. What is it, Lank?" Jack closed his eyes and rubbed a tired hand across them. He couldn't sleep. Tomorrow was his son's ninth birthday.

"At the house, after you left and then came back...?"

"What about it...?"

"Were you going to touch me if I asked you again?"

Jack sighed deeply and got up, moving over to the bed to sit beside him and massage his back. "I don't know, I was thinking about what you asked. I want you to know that I love you forever, and I'll always be proud and accept you, no matter what. I don't want you to think you have to do... Anything in order to get my approval."

Lank smiled and took father's free hand and moved it to the front of his pants. "I know that, I just want you to anyhow. I want both of us to feel good at once." He pushed the still and tense hand onto his bare stomach and pushed it downward. Soon it moved of its own accord and reflex, although trembled. A long moan slid off Lank's lips as fingertips reached the small base of his organ and encircled it.

"If it hurts I'll stop. Please just tell me." Jack moved his other hand lower down his back and spread the smooth cheeks there. His other hand moved in slow long arches while the thumb circled the tip and spread the slight moisture there. Mimicking the motion, other fingers traced the hole until another moan enticed the middle to slip inside a small bit. It moved in more and more, each centimeter slower than the next.

"More..." Lank bucked his hips against the hand in front and pressed down against the finger inside of him, searching for more satisfaction. Another digit was added, and again he cried out that it wasn't enough, forgetting everything but the penetration. Jack removed his grip on Lank's stiff shaft and reached under the bed to pull out a small box. Its contents contained, among other things, oil and a phallic device. Working the latter up to a decent lubrication, the tip soon replaced his fingers. Again, Lank bucked his hips, forcing the whole length into his body with sharp gasps and long moans. A trembling, but persistent hand held it and moved it as the pace dictated.

"Jack, Jack, Jack, never escaped your nightmares, did you?" Alexander appeared in the doorway and Jack jumped back, flattening himself against the far wall and covering his face.

"Oh Hyne, what have I done?" He sunk down to the floor and started crying. A dramatic and overwhelming move.

"Why don't you see for yourself?" Alexander moved in and sat on the bed beside Lank, who had pulled the meager blanket up over himself. "You know, Jack, I knew your father when he worked at Esthar."

"No." Jack covered his ears and fell onto his side, curling up on the dirty floor. "No, no, no!"

"Well yes, actually. My father went there on business to speak with Odine, and I tagged along. I saw you there, too." Alexander was stroking Lank's short blue hair absently, totally unaware (or fully so) of the wicked grin casting his features into something like a fairytale villain.

"No... You're lying!" He screamed and leapt at Alexander, grabbing his throat and squeezing until the veins stood starkly off his hands like worms. It was the first time Jack had physically aggressed him with anger.

A sharp slap snapped him out of it and Jack let go to cradle his red cheek. "Oh, now there's something new..." Alexander crowed, leaning against the wall and letting out a huff of air. "Let's just see how many times you'll dare to try that again." He reached over and grabbed Lank's wrist, tugging him up after him as he stood and moved towards the door.

"Dad!" Lank struggled to not only free himself, but to keep his pants around his waist. In the end, he kicked Alexander in the shin and ran to his father.

Rising with smooth, controlled breaths of anger, Jack walked over to Alexander and threw his fist at his face. When it was expectedly caught, Jack's other hand came up and seized him by the throat again, picking him up and pinning him in the doorway. Knowing he would only be able to hold him for a few moments, he leaned in and closely so that his words were tickling Alexander's lips. "I will do that at any point I want to. I'm not your pet anymore, and you're dead."

"You're wrong, Jack. You are my pet, into death."

(TBC...)

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