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Jul. 8th, 2018 02:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moseyin posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
kickitover[It happens in the middle of nowhere.
Just another nondescript hole Zack's found to curl them up into. Sometimes they're lucky enough to get a bed in the slums somewhere, the outskirts of some crappy little village or the deep, dank alleyways of a larger city. Most of the time they have a tent, if they're lucky, if Zack manages and money allows, and sometimes they're not lucky and they forfeit shelter for food, for potions for when Zack gets a wound that grit and gumption can't close.
Well- Zack does all of these things. They're a 'they' in bodycount only.
It's Zack dragging himself and Cloud across the countryside, it's Zack finding them shelter, finding them food, tearing into monsters to scrape together enough gil to keep them alive. It's Zack looking after the few wounds Cloud acquires during their journey, it's Zack who talks to him, who feeds him, who carries him on his god damn back for days and days and days on end. Weeks. Months.
Cloud isn't often awake, but sometimes he is. Things are hazy like a dream, sloppy like slumber, slips and strips of memory, of experiences that barely thread together to make something patchwork. And that's how it is when it happens too, because it was only a couple times, fighting to break the surface of a pool of tar. He emerges not with a gasp but an awareness, only for a few moments before he's pulled under. Each time Zack was gone, or asleep, clutching Cloud to his chest for protection but too exhausted to hear his breathless whispers of Zack, Zack as Cloud tries desperately to rouse him, if only to reassure him of I'm here, I hear you, I see you, you're not alone until the mako curls around and into him and pulls him back under.
And then, that middle of nowhere.
Cloud wakes to the sun on his face; weak morning sun, wobbly, not yet hot. They'd slept outside. Zack is already awake, humming to himself, murmuring something, fiddling with a fire. He's going to make a hot breakfast for them. A luxury.
Cloud waits those few minutes, tense and unnerved, waiting for the coils of mako to pull him back under. His limbs still feel weak but something is...different this time. Things feel sharper. He can hear things more than Zack this time, more than the beat of his heart and the hush of his breath; he can hear the crackle of the fire, the chirp of far off birdsong. Cloud can feel the humidity clinging to his skin, sticking his clothes to his chest and back. He can smell the outdoors around them.
He is present. At last, he is.
Zack's turning around towards him, probably to collect him and bring him closer to the fire, to feed him again and once Zack reaches for him, once Cloud is sure he'll see he reaches, just barely, and closes a hand around Zack's wrist.] Zack.
Just another nondescript hole Zack's found to curl them up into. Sometimes they're lucky enough to get a bed in the slums somewhere, the outskirts of some crappy little village or the deep, dank alleyways of a larger city. Most of the time they have a tent, if they're lucky, if Zack manages and money allows, and sometimes they're not lucky and they forfeit shelter for food, for potions for when Zack gets a wound that grit and gumption can't close.
Well- Zack does all of these things. They're a 'they' in bodycount only.
It's Zack dragging himself and Cloud across the countryside, it's Zack finding them shelter, finding them food, tearing into monsters to scrape together enough gil to keep them alive. It's Zack looking after the few wounds Cloud acquires during their journey, it's Zack who talks to him, who feeds him, who carries him on his god damn back for days and days and days on end. Weeks. Months.
Cloud isn't often awake, but sometimes he is. Things are hazy like a dream, sloppy like slumber, slips and strips of memory, of experiences that barely thread together to make something patchwork. And that's how it is when it happens too, because it was only a couple times, fighting to break the surface of a pool of tar. He emerges not with a gasp but an awareness, only for a few moments before he's pulled under. Each time Zack was gone, or asleep, clutching Cloud to his chest for protection but too exhausted to hear his breathless whispers of Zack, Zack as Cloud tries desperately to rouse him, if only to reassure him of I'm here, I hear you, I see you, you're not alone until the mako curls around and into him and pulls him back under.
And then, that middle of nowhere.
Cloud wakes to the sun on his face; weak morning sun, wobbly, not yet hot. They'd slept outside. Zack is already awake, humming to himself, murmuring something, fiddling with a fire. He's going to make a hot breakfast for them. A luxury.
Cloud waits those few minutes, tense and unnerved, waiting for the coils of mako to pull him back under. His limbs still feel weak but something is...different this time. Things feel sharper. He can hear things more than Zack this time, more than the beat of his heart and the hush of his breath; he can hear the crackle of the fire, the chirp of far off birdsong. Cloud can feel the humidity clinging to his skin, sticking his clothes to his chest and back. He can smell the outdoors around them.
He is present. At last, he is.
Zack's turning around towards him, probably to collect him and bring him closer to the fire, to feed him again and once Zack reaches for him, once Cloud is sure he'll see he reaches, just barely, and closes a hand around Zack's wrist.] Zack.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-01 02:06 am (UTC)Flinches- shakes his head and grips it for a moment.
Reactor. Something happened to the reactor, here in Gongaga. There's going to be mako contamination, monsters, and this place is probably going to be covered in mako-tainted ash in less than an hour, depending on the direction of the winds. They need to evacuate the townspeople; it doesn't matter if they're seen now, they have to do some-]
We can't, [Cloud whispers, and grabs hold of Zack's arm as if to keep him from running off. Gut boiling with anger, with shame, Cloud starts pulling Zack toward the door of the shop.] Zack- we need to leave, right now.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-04 07:43 am (UTC)The Turks won't be enough, [is his responding mumble, strained, fists clenched at his sides, staring angrily at the door.] Not enough to save everyone.
[It's perfect timing for their escape, the distraction they'd needed precisely when they needed it. It's also the worst thing that could have happened.]
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Date: 2020-06-05 04:49 am (UTC)He hates this. He hates this so god damn much, but-] If Shinra sees you and me here, they'll kill everybody and cover it up.
[That's why they have to go. That's why they have to sneak out, to stay unseen. They could go out there, yes. Kill monsters, carry people to safety- but someone will see them, and someone will call it in. The Turks are too good not to. Shinra in all its cold, merciless efficiency, will know that if a nobody town with a busted reactor sees a SOLDIER and a trooper who should be dead helping the townsfolk, it'll be the end of the company, and they'll send in a cleanup crew to do what they do best. Zack and Cloud- they can't protect Gongaga from all of Shinra, not for long. Not on their own.]
Zack, [Cloud says lowly, leaning in,] I know. I know, believe me. [Cloud wasn't really awake but his brain had stored pieces; his town burning, and then his town fine. Strangers in his house. Shinra bodies trying to drag him back to the labs while Zack fought for their lives in a town that somehow still smelled like a drowned campfire.
Tifa's body in the reactor. Cloud's eyes sting, from the memory or the mako starting to stink up the air, or both. His brain and focus starts to swim.] But we gotta go.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-06 10:02 am (UTC)Cloud's right.
Cloud's right, and he hates it, too. Zack's gaze shifts urgently between Cloud and the door, back and forth, desperation rising, until by some miracle - or mostly due to the steadying hand on his chest - the logic wins out, and Zack practically snarls and twists away, fists balling so tightly at his sides that his knuckles are stark white, pale beneath the shadow of his gloves. Instead of moving to the door (and the open street beyond, where his old neighbours and the Turks will see him coming) he stalks towards the back, to the only window that would fit them. He wrestles with the lock for a moment, but his SOLDIER strength only snaps the old wood and sealant- damn thing's probably been locked for decades to keep the worst of the bugs out, the screen long-rotted. The Zack of this morning would have been careful with it, experienced hands finding something sharp to slide under and pry open with, freeing them with minimal damage to the property of an innocent man who at worst threw a book at him for sneaking sweets from the cabinet while no one was looking. This morning it was fun, they had time.
Right now the window is a barrier and a target for his fury, and they don't have time anymore, we gotta go, so he grabs the shopkeeper's wobbly old stool and smashes it right through the glass, shards and wood splinters scattering outwards. The sound is barely noteworthy over the chaos in town, lost in a sea of screams and violent crashes in the distance. He braces both hands on the sill and hops out, waiting only the handful of seconds needed for Cloud to follow before taking off for the jungle at a dead run. He can't breathe right now, he can't think, he can't stop, and he won't until Cloud tells him to halt. If he stops within range of the town, he- god, he doesn't know. He'll go back. He'll scream. He'll find something - someone - to kill.
So he doesn't stop. He runs, and runs, and he tries desperately not to think about the fire and the smoke and the voices shouting for help that he's abandoning to save his own skin. Some hero.]
no subject
Date: 2020-06-06 10:36 pm (UTC)But then Zack growls and spins away, shakes for a moment before barreling over to an old window behind the counter that they could maybe squeeze through. The brutality Zack exercises on it is outside the norm- or rather, what Cloud's used to, even as he scrambles to grab the broadsword from where it had fallen off the wall and attach it to his harness while Zack takes a sitting stool to the glass. Zack had been too good to show it, trained with military precision to let it out in little slivers to enemies who won't be around very long to talk about it. Zack always wielded his strength like a shiv; efficiently, quickly, putting it away as soon as it was no longer needed to make room for smiles and warmth and easy-going laughter.
Something was knocked loose by the labs. Zack punches out the glass and vaults out the window, doesn't look back to make sure Cloud's behind him (whether because he trusts he is or because he doesn't trust himself not to stop if he looks back), but Cloud is and he's somehow managing to keep up.
They reach the edge of town without brushing past any Shinra personnel and someone calls Zack's name, cut off like they hadn't meant to; Zack is already too far to hear it bud Cloud stops, sees Zack's mother and goes to her long enough to pass over the only hi-potion he'd grabbed from the store. The Fairs are whole, they look uninjured but terrified, and Zack's mother holds his hand when she takes the potion.] "Please- look after-"
[Cloud has to cut her off but squeezes her fingers,] I will, [he promises, too little for what he wants to say but it'll have to be enough as he tears after Zack, boots squelching in the mud when he kicks against the earth in a desperate attempt to keep up.
He spots Zack again near the east entrance to the jungle pathways, where they'd spotted the two troopers posted to signal for intruders and as he watches Zack's hand go to the hilt of the Buster over his shoulder Cloud knows, without a doubt, that Zack is about to cut both of those troopers in two.
So he slows down, just a touch, and lets it happen with his own cold, detached sense of satisfaction.]
no subject
Date: 2020-06-09 09:01 pm (UTC)He does not wait. He does not check. Here and now, they are obstacles, and he treats them as such. With a swift and ruthless lunge he swings the Buster sword and cleaves the head clear off of one of them before either can even think to react, before they can so much as turn. It clips the helmet of the other as it passes, and he hears the other soldier's gasp as his partner's body slumps lifeless into the dirt. He twists his gun in Zack's direction, but the sword is already turning, tearing right through the barrel, shards of metal splintering and shattering like a busted soda can. The Shinra grunt falls backwards, babbling and terrified, both hands lifted in surrender.
On another day, in another situation, Zack would have left it at that. Knocked him out, left him for his friends to find later. Apologized to the unconscious body for the trouble and went on his way peacefully.
Here and now, Zack's already swinging the Buster downwards, nearly splitting the soldier in half; he is, of course, dead before the pieces hit dirt. The helmet splits open and Zack doesn't linger, doesn't spare it even a glance. With the sort of cold calculation earned through years of being locked in a cage, ripped open and pieced back together day after day, fueled by the steadfast refusal to never go back there, he swings his blade to flick the loose blood off and sets it back in place behind him. The metal is still stained and streaked with red, but there's little time to be spared on care and maintenance right now. With these two dead, no one on Shinra's side even knows they were here; they'd have no reason to detain or hurt his parents, or to interrogate the town. They were as ghosts in Gongaga, and the Turks will have no choice but to move on. And they, too, need to keep moving.
When Zack turns to glance at Cloud, to confirm they're still together, it's only for a moment before he starts to run again, aiming to vanish into the jungle. There's a sort of bleakness in his eyes that's never been there before, visible and gone in a matter of seconds.]
no subject
Date: 2020-06-10 10:54 pm (UTC)Cloud stops. Looks around. Zack is sitting on a recently felled tree in the drizzling rain, unmoving. ...where Cloud left him a few minutes ago? Did he? The folded tarp he's been trying to attach to some branches to protect them from the oncoming storm slips further before fluttering to the ground, back into the mud. Cloud lets it, standing there, rainwater dripping from his bangs as he stares down at his hands. Where are
the bodies should go into the woods so Cloud drags the pieces into the thicket next to the path. The scavenging monsters will take care of them, gnaw them down until the cause of death is unrecognizable. When he steps back onto the path, he can't even see the blood anymore, having kicked soil and dirt and leaves over it. Nobody will know unless they look and Shinra will be too busy dealing with the reactor fallout to
-Cloud shakes his head before abandoning the tarp and heading over to Zack's side, sitting down on the tree and resting his elbows on his knees. He leans forward to look into Zack's face. Zack doesn't try to hide from him; doesn't react much to him being there save for a quick glances before he stares back down at his boots.]
Hey, [Cloud says softly, feeling strangely both out of place and at home as he reaches over to chuff the underside of Zack's chin with a knuckle, very gently, barely a touch.] I'm here.
[He doesn't touch Zack again, unsure of how far he should go
but Zack doesn't stay more than a few meters ahead as they jog away from the jungle, to the bike, sidecar long lost to misuse and this time Zack swings up behind Cloud as Cloud assumes the driving position, kicks the rattling thing to life, roars for the lesser known back paths
but wanting to stay there for him. Zack is tactile but Zack is hurting like he's never hurt before- or maybe like he's hurt for the past five years. Zack's hurt-
And he's still Zack.
So Cloud swallows down his discomfort and sits up straighter so he can reach an arm around and cup the back of Zack's neck, pull him down, pull Zack's head against his shoulder and rest his chin on his flagging spikes as the rain really begins to dump onto them.] Don't let them try to prove something that's not true, [Cloud mutters, half angry and half bitter and all sad, all bruised, wringing adoration.] You're a good man. You're still a good man.
pls forgive my slow vacation brain
Date: 2020-06-20 10:09 am (UTC)Emptiness is a feeling he's well and truly familiar with; he'd felt it too many times to count, down in the labs, on the bad days when Hojo was at his most sadistic and Cloud was non-responsive. When the loneliness kicked him so hard and so deep that he almost celebrated the appearance of one of the lab techs, because it'd been too long since he was able to interact with anything except the slow, weightless gurgle of flowing mako in his tank or reinforced glass so thick it took days for even SOLDIER fingernails to carve marks into it. Those were the days he let his mind drift into the black, trying to forget everything. It's not a talent anyone should have, but once it's learned he doubts that it's one that can be forgotten.
He's there, now. That empty dark swallowed him whole as soon as they'd settled and he let the world cease to exist around him, and just like that, he's floating again, surrounded by green. (that's just the forest.) Someone taps on the glass of the next tube over, muttering about injections. (Cloud's here. Cloud's there.) He's talking, his mouth is moving and the words don't mean a thing. (He hasn't said a word in days, he just stares and stares and stares at nothing. Gave up calling for him yesterday; it's another episode, he'll snap out of it soon-)
He's pulled, suddenly, against another body, and the dark curtains part enough for him to take a sharp breath in. He's here, he's here. Still a good man. A good man, who can see half of a face staring up at him from a shattered helmet, neatly split in two, terrified and tearful. Hadn't been that old. Shinra's recruiting young, as usual.
God but he hates mako eyes. They see too much too quickly.]
...I was thirteen, last time I was here. Ten years. Joined Shinra pretty soon after I left. [He exhales, the sound heavy, blinking the rainwater off his lashes and feeling wet fabric on Cloud's shoulder. He didn't notice the rain until just now.] How many innocent people you figure we killed, following orders like that?
[Shinra... it all comes back to Shinra. He'd had a lot of time in the lab to think about all the missions that felt wrong, the years he'd fought against that feeling. Wutai, Banora, Modeoheim. Countless others. Why did it take until Nibelheim, when it was too late to get out, for him to realize how wrong it all was? And now, because of him, Gongaga...
What's good about that?]
joke's on you i'm slower and not even on vacation
Date: 2020-07-13 01:42 am (UTC)Calm descends on Cloud, swirling around them like sitting in the eye of a typhoon. The rain this close to Gongaga is too warm to be uncomfortable, won't set a chill in their bones even if they weren't SOLDIER...or something like it.]
I figure a lot, [Cloud says honestly, voice still low, but for good or for bad Cloud can't find himself agonizing over it. People are dead, and maybe it's their fault for not realizing sooner...or maybe not. Whoever's fault it is, they're still going to need to move forward, and they should do it knowing they're not going to do things the same. That's enough to assuage Cloud's (admittedly muted) guilt into something almost negligible. Maybe it makes him a bad person, to not dwell on things like this. Maybe agonizing over it like Zack would mean he still has a good heart, a good soul, if he ever did.
But it doesn't matter. Cloud can concentrate on just Zack, for now. If he needs to change later...then maybe he will.]
I figure more than just us, people killed people under Shinra orders. Other SOLDIERs, other troopers- hell, Shinra scientists mighta killed more people than we can imagine. It'd be stupid to think we're the only ones Hojo put his claws into. [Cloud turns his head so his mouth and chin are against Zack's hair, murmuring into it almost like a kiss, unease mysteriously gone the second something in Cloud had shifted back into himself...or further away.] That's why you're gonna keep going. You 'n me. We're gonna go right to Shinra's core and we're gonna tear it apart so nobody else like us can use the excuse of orders to hurt people. [Now he does kiss Zack, a hard press of his closed lips against his wet hair, fierce and protective, arm curling around Zack like Cloud would pull him inside and keep him safe that way, if he could.]
HONK HONK IT'S A SLOW THREAD PARTY
Date: 2020-07-29 07:35 am (UTC)For a moment after Cloud finishes speaking, there's no response and no movement on Zack's end; he has to pause and wonder, as he drags his mind away from the misery funk, if he'd just imagined what happened. It was a subtle gesture, so very easy to miss, but firm and undeniable at the same time. He could ignore it if he was a coward, pretend that his SOLDIER perception was too tired or rain-muddled to catch that pressure of a mouth on his hair. He's felt it before, though. He won't ever forget what that feels like, what it is.
He should move, he knows. Get up, be useful, work to get their camp in decent order, walk the rounds to make sure they're truly safe, check on their bike so they don't break down or end up with rain in the gas tank. Don't ruin this by wanting too much. But Cloud's here, Cloud's sitting with him, holding him, and gods if it isn't the first time in what feels like ages that he feels truly, genuinely grounded, despite everything they've been through, everything they had to do to get here. "You 'n me," he said, holding Zack like he was everything, like he might never let go.
He wants this. Too much.
When the moment passes he shifts his position just enough to catch Cloud's eyes, his expression searching, hopeful, almost. His lips are so close to a smile, on the very cusp of it and holding off, entirely dependent on Cloud's response.]
You with me, Cloud?
[With me. Not just with me, but with me. His hand shifts, finding Cloud's where it winds around his body, holding it there to keep him close.]
NOT THIS TIME
Date: 2020-08-02 08:20 am (UTC)This close, the minute tremble of Zack's lips is obvious; not cold. Nerves, probably, terror at what they did, what they're capable of, what they could do. What they will do? No, Zack's never been afraid of a challenge like that. Zack's always been more afraid of never having the chance to try.
So this close, Cloud's heart splits neatly into two parts, fear and want: fear, because for a while he wasn't there but his body was and anything could've happened; fear because Zack still has mysterious, fragile parts to himself that Cloud can't understand, no matter how desperately he wants to be the sure, steady source of comfort Zack needs.
But then he wants, god does he want, he wants Zack to be safe, he wants Shinra to be dead, he wants to stay in his body with Zack's fingers around his wrist, pulling Cloud's arm tight around him. He wants that seething, acidic anger that eats away whenever he sees that ugly Shinra logo to disappear but he also wants to feed it until he can burn down the entire fucking Planet. He wants Zack to exist in a time and place separate from all this hurt, maybe even from Cloud, if only to protect him from a future Cloud can't even begin to see.
It's that there, the fear-want pounding away inside his ribs that makes Cloud act. It's not like what he'd always thought it would be, when he was thirteen and innocent, imagining himself giving Tifa flowers and her thanking him with a kiss. It's not like what he'd recoiled from that one time after making it to Midgar, as he slogged his way up onto the plate and a leering old man had offered to help him make a quick buck. It's not like anything, because in this, like everything else, Cloud is woefully unprepared.
But Zack's still here. And his eyes are...so, so pretty.
Cloud's answer, You with me, Cloud? is a brush of his free hand against Zack's cheek, over his scar, curious, clumsy. Touching in a way he's never touched somebody else before. He slips his hand behind Zack's hair to curl his fingers against the back of his neck, his thumb just barely against Zack's ear, and he leans over to press his lips off-center to Zack's own.
I'm here. I'm here, I'm here I'm here.]