Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Aerith pushed her hair back with a sigh, today hadn’t been the best of days for flower sales, there was a tension in the air that everyone could feel in the slums. Everyone knew a large regiment of Shinra troops had been sent out of the city and only a few returned, which left a sense of fear with them, who did they fight and why? Still she went out to sell flowers though, as it was raining she didn’t want to go onto the plate, but no one was really buying. She looked down at her flowers, smiling at them, she would just have to try again tomorrow. Midgar full of flowers, she wanted to achieve that in a small way still, even if her pockets weren’t going to be full of money. Going up the church steps she paused, something didn’t feel right. The door was mostly open, she pushed it gently.

“Hello?” she called, hoping it was just Tseng or one of the other Turks that were following her rather than someone who would ruin her flowers.

When she stepped inside she noticed two bodies collapsed in the aisle; one slumped mostly against the side of a pew, but head down limply, blond hair obscuring the face, the other face down on the ground in the middle. With a gasp she dropped her basket, flowers scattering against the floor as she ran forward. Upon getting closer she made out the distinct head of hair she never thought she would get to see again.

“Zack!" She fell to her knees next to the man, turning him over onto his back. His top was in tatters, traces of dried blood clumping the torn material together, there were more signs of blood all over his skin. Tears in her eyes Aerith checked him over, there was no sign of any injuries which was a relief, his chest was heaving as though it was hard for him to breathe but he was alive which was what mattered.

“Z-zack… he’s…”

Turning Aerith looked over at the other person whose head raised slightly, staring at Zack, eyes bright blue and glazed over. She didn’t know who he was but he wasn’t trying to hurt them and she could only assume that Zack had brought him here.

“He’ll be okay,” Aerith told him firmly. She brushed Zack’s hair back, he was breathing, he’d be okay.

The other man stared at her solemnly before he closed his eyes, head slumping back down again.

-

“You’re worrying too much,” Zack protested, crossing his arms and pouting like the overgrown child that he was. “I can feed myself.”

Aerith rolled her eyes, hands going to her hips. “Oh really, is that why you dropped soup all over yourself last night? I didn’t know that was a new way of eating, must be a Shinra thing.”

He pouted and looked over to the figure sitting in a chair, staring out of the window absently. Cloud, Aerith had learned, she had been given a basic rundown of what had happened over the past four, nearly five years. It wasn’t hard to tell that something was wrong with Cloud, but just from seeing how he acted the past three days she could see he was getting better quickly. For now he seemed content to just stare out of the window at the flower garden around her house.

“Cloud,” Zack whined, “Aerith is being mean to me.”

Cloud turned his head, blinking slowly as he focused on Zack. “Is she?” he asked haltingly.

Aerith giggled behind her hand. “Am I?” she teased. “Did I hurt your feelings? I’ll be sure to be more careful in the future.” She shook her head and placed the bowl on his lap. “You can feed yourself then, to show I’m not mean.”

“Okay, not that mean,” Zack gave in, slowly eating his porridge, he was quite proud that his hand didn’t tremble. “I’m getting stronger by the day.”

“I know, you’re a big strong SOLDIER.” Aerith sat down on the edge of the bed, being careful not to jostle him.

“Aerith,” Zack said softly, “you know I really do appreciate you helping me, helping us, taking us in. Don’t worry when we’re better we’ll pull our weight. We’re going to start our own business, aren’t we Cloud?”

“Y-yes,” Cloud answered, nodding slowly.

Aerith looked over at Cloud then back to Zack with a sigh. “Doing what, exactly?”

“You know, a jack-of-all-trades,” Zack said with a wave of his spoon, “between us we have a lot of skills.”

Of course, that was a bit vague but she didn’t know what else to expect. “Well, I’m sure a lot of people in the slums need a hand,” she said softly, “and they already know you. But… will you two be alright? You said Shinra are after you, isn’t it too dangerous to stay here?”

Zack was silent for a few seconds, still eating as though he wasn’t avoiding the question which he obviously was. “They shouldn’t find us down here,” he said eventually, “they think we’re dead, so they won’t be looking anyway.”

The Turks probably knew they weren’t dead, they were watching her and had no doubt seen them when Aerith took them to her house. Zack had to know that; he must have figured out that someone knew he was still alive, he wasn’t stupid or naïve, not really.

“If you’re sure,” Aerith said softly, “I’ll help you.”

Zack grinned at her. “I knew I could count on you! Thanks! See, Cloud, I told you Aerith was nice.”

Now the poor man looked confused again. “You said she was… mean…”

Aerith gave Zack a blank stare and a huff before getting up, not being so careful not to disturb his food as she was earlier. She went over to Cloud, crouching down at his side and smiling up at him gently. “It’s okay, I’m not mean. When you’re better I’ll let you help me with my flowers, okay?”

Cloud nodded slowly, turning to look out of the window again. “Flowers.”

“I think you like him more than me,” Zack mumbled, stabbing the porridge with his spoon.

“Of course,” Aerith laughed, “he’s much cuter.”

Zack looked at Cloud and smiled happily. “Yeah, he is. I’m still more handsome though.”

“Whatever you say, Zack.” Aerith got up as Cloud wasn’t paying her any attention now, going over to the door. “I’ll come get the bowl later, try not to spill it.”

“Where are you going?” Zack asked, head tipping to the side like a lost puppy.

“To fill Midgar with flowers.” Aerith waved to them, slipping out of the door with a smile.

-

Why was this so hard? Zack had made three of these things before so why was it so difficult now? Granted, Aerith helped last time but he was completely capable of doing this by himself. He hammered in another nail, securing the wood together, leaning back he tilted his head to the side, it didn’t look that wonky, did it?

“Zack?”

Looking over his shoulder he saw Cloud shuffling over to him, he had brought him to the church but Cloud had mostly been staring at the flowers from his seat on the front pew, not paying much attention to anything Zack was doing. Cloud settled at his side, his slightly glazed eyes staring at the cart, he was getting better by the day but seemed to have trouble focusing at times.

“What’s up, buddy?” Zack asked, smiling reassuringly at him,

“What’s this?” Cloud reached out to lay a hand gently on the wood in front of him.

“A flower cart,” Zack explained, “it’s a present for Aerith, because she looked after us.” Aerith had been great, her and her mother. They let him and Cloud stay with them until Zack managed to get some money together from doing odd jobs to buy them their own place right on the edge of the slums. There were some houses that only the most desperate lived in because monsters turned up too often, which was no problem for Zack, he went out regularly to clear them out. It made it safer for everyone in the slums and for Cloud who had to stay at home a lot for his health.

“Oh.” Cloud nodded slowly, looking thoughtful, he turned to Zack eyes shining brightly. “Do you want a cart?”

Zack paused, looking over at him curiously. “Why?”

“You look after me,” Cloud told him simply, “if Aerith gets one then don’t you deserve one too?”

Well that was… sweet. It made sense when he thought about it, he couldn’t tell if Cloud was teasing him or not though. With the mako still clearing out of his system everything came out a bit deadpan, even teasing remarks. Still, Zack smiled at him, it was definitely cute.

“No, I don’t want a flower cart.” He reached over and ruffled Cloud’s hair. “Thanks for the offer though.”

Cloud stared at him and nodded slowly. “Oh…” he paused, tipping his head to the side. “Do you want something else?”

“I just want you to be okay,” Zack told him gently.

“I am,” Cloud shifted closer, leaning against his side, head on his shoulder. “You looked after me.”

Zack smiled down at him, damn he was being cute today. He rested his head against Cloud’s gently. “Thanks, Cloud. Having you here helps me too.” Sighing, he looked back at the cart, it needed a lot of work done to it to get the Aerith seal of approval. “How about you help me with this cart, you want to thank Aerith too, right?”

Cloud pulled away from him to touch the cart again. “Okay.”

Maybe he wouldn’t be the best help right now but just having the company was enough for Zack. It wasn’t as though he were being that successful by himself anyway.

-

Zack strapped on his harness, making sure it was firmly in place, it stood out a little too much in civilian clothes but he was getting more used to it. He swung buster sword onto his back, yeah the sword really did finish complete the outfit, making him look completely out of place but it was an extermination job and he needed his weapon. It really was amazing that no one had reported him to Shinra at this point but he was grateful for it, he didn’t want to fight them on their own turf.

“What are you doing?”

Turning to face the door to his room he saw Cloud leaning against the frame, not looking the happiest. It really wasn’t hard to tell why as he hadn’t exactly told him about this job. With a smile Zack approached the younger man, reaching out to ruffle his hair.

“Uh, nothing really…what’s up?” he asked casually.

“You’re going out again, aren’t you?” Cloud ducked away from the hand, bowing his head to stare at the floor. “You didn’t tell me.”

It was amazing what a few months would do, Cloud had gotten so much better when he came to Midgar, the Mako poisoning starting to properly leave his system. Cloud claimed it was because of Aerith and her flowers saying they helped him focus, whilst Aerith thought it was thanks to them settling down in one place that did it. According to her their constantly changing surroundings overwhelmed his damaged mind. Honestly Zack was just happy that Cloud was doing better, not at one hundred percent yet but after what happened to him he honestly didn’t expect him to be for a very long time.

“Sorry.” Zack rubbed at his neck self-consciously. “I thought you needed your rest and didn’t want to worry you.”

Cloud raised his head to glare up at him. “You suddenly leaving without any warning would worry me. I’m okay, Zack, I can help you.”

“No.” Zack went over to grab his phone, his PHS sitting on the dresser but he didn’t use that anymore, it was too dangerous to. “Not yet.”

“Then when?” Cloud followed after him, stepping in close and staring up at him defiantly. “I’m stronger now, more than I have ever been. I can help, I can fight.”

“No, Cloud! It’s too dangerous.” Shinra were after Cloud more than they were him, he didn’t want Cloud to leave the house, not unless it was necessary, which it wasn’t at the moment. He didn’t want to lock him up but he wasn’t about to let Cloud risk his own life because he was stubborn.

“More dangerous than carrying me around the planet whilst running from Shinra?” Cloud crossed his arm, frowning in displeasure. “I might not have made SOLDIER but I was in the army too, Zack, I can handle myself.”

Zack rubbed at his hair, looking away from those bright blue eyes. “You don’t know your own strength, Cloud, you could hurt someone. You could hurt yourself.”

“Then train me!” He had been asking for a month now but Zack didn’t even know where to start with that, sure he had gone through it himself but he had proper instructors and he knew he wasn’t one.

“Look, Cloud, I need to go, I’ve got a mission.” Zack walked around him, heading out into the hallway.

“A mission?” Of course, Cloud was following him.

“A job then.” Zack waved a hand, he was allowed to mess up his words, he was only human. “It’s just an extermination, a bunch of monsters are creeping up in the slums and Shinra aren’t sending anyone to take care of it so they’ve hired me to do it in their place.”

“If I come it’ll be good training!” Cloud wasn’t giving in it seemed, running to catch up he slip in front of Zack to get in his face and force him to deal with him. “Please, Zack, I just want a chance to prove myself.”

Sighing Zack stopped, he put his hands on Cloud’s shoulders, squeezing them gently. “You don’t need to prove yourself to me, or to anyone.”

“Then why do I feel like I have to?” Cloud looked Zack dead in the eye. “Please, let me come.”

“Okay,” Zack sighed, lettin out a deep breath. If he didn’t Cloud wouldn’t give up until Zack manhandled him and locked him in, which was harder to do now that Cloud was mako enhanced too. It would also cause a whole mess of trouble later on, an angry Cloud was never a good thing. “You can come if you promise to follow my orders to the letter, no going off on your own.”

Cloud smiled up at him, it was small but there which was important, a few weeks ago Zack had been worried the blank look would stay forever. “I promise.”

Damn he looked so cute like that; Zack ruffled his hair as butterflies attacked his stomach. “Go get changed, we’ll have to get you a weapon that can stand up to your new strength before we do the job.”

There was a pause, Cloud eyeing him warily. “You’re not going to run off by yourself when I get changed, are you?” he asked suspicion clear in his voice.

It was an idea but again, it’d just cause too much trouble further down the line. “No, Cloud, I can behave.” Zack turned Cloud around by his shoulders and pushed him lightly towards his bedroom. “Put something on you’re not too fussed about getting monster guts on.”

Cloud tipped his head back, eyeing Zack before running to his room. Zack went to the door, leaning against the wall next to it, the temptation to leave was there still but he didn’t want to let Cloud down. He would probably be followed if he did go, that could get Cloud lost and maybe even found by Shinra. It was getting hard to keep Cloud safe now that he was lucid, and here Zack thought having to leave a mako poisoned Cloud alone whilst he cleared out a path for them had been hard.

When Cloud came back he was in a black top with a cropped grey bomber jacket over it, a navy scarf around his neck which reminded Zack of his old cadet one, maybe he put that on as a comfort. He had grey trousers tucked into biker boots, the laces weren’t done up properly but with any luck they won’t come undone, though it would teach him a lesson to do them up better in the future if he tripped over them. Zack tossed him a pair of gloves, which he caught with a slight fumble, cute.

“Umm… thanks?” Cloud pulled them on, flexing his hands a few times.

“We’re getting you a sword,” Zack told him, “I know you’ve had some training with them before.” There was always basic training with swords for cadets, Shinra just preferred them to have rifles as a whole, leave the close range fighting to the SOLDIERS and have the infantry as distance backup.

“Oh, yeah, I have,” Cloud nodded and went to Zack’s side. “Thanks for not leaving me behind.”

Sighing Zack raised a hand to ruffle Cloud’s hair, smiling down at him. “I’ll never leave you; I just want to protect you.”

“I can protect myself,” Cloud huffed and bowed his head, hiding the bottom of his face in his scarf. Yeah, that was probably why he had that on. He was used to seeing that action, it was adorable how shy Cloud got over the weirdest things.

“Of course you can.” Zack was used to Cloud needing to be protected, though he knew he hadn’t done the best job of it at times. Cloud needed him. He thought Cloud still needed him, at least.

“You don’t look convinced,” Cloud said, eyeing him.

Trying to deflect Zack wrapped an arm around Cloud’s shoulder. “I just don’t want to let my little Cloudy go!” he whined.

Rolling his eyes Cloud pushed off the arm. “I’m going to stay with you even after you get me a sword, you can’t get rid of me that easily.” He opened the door and nodded for them to leave. “You saved me; I wouldn’t leave my hero all by himself.”

Hero.

Zack flushed bright red, a warm feeling filling his stomach at the idea. He was a hero. He was Cloud’s hero. For some reason that made it about a hundred times better, rather than being a hero of Shinra or even the world, being a hero for just one person felt more important than he ever imagined. He stepped closer to Cloud, who looked up at him, wide-eyed and innocent.

“Cloud,” he said softly, “thank you.” He ducked his head and pressed a light kiss to Cloud’s hair, the spikes tickling his face.

“For what?”

Moving back Zack grinned at him, Cloud’s cheeks were dusted a light pink. Cute. “For being you.”

Cloud blinked at him then shook his head. “Sword?”

“Okay, okay, sword.” Zack grabbed Cloud’s hand and pulled him through the door, locking it after them. He’d get Cloud the shiniest sword they had if it’ll make him happy.

-

“No.” Zack crossed his arms as he watched Cloud swing a sword that was almost bigger than he was, both width and length ridiculous. They had been in the weapons shop for nearly half an hour as they examined all types of swords and weaponry, he could tell that the only reason the owner was letting them stay was because Zack had helped him out last week.

“Why not?” Cloud asked.

“It’s too big for you!” Zack threw his arms up in exasperation. “I can tell you are having problems holding the thing.”

Cloud looked at the sword, turning it over and weighing it. “You have a bigger sword,” he said.

True but so not the point. Zack raised an eyebrow at him. “You know why I have such a big sword and I used to use a smaller, more reasonably sized one.”

“I want a big one.”

“You’re too small.”

That got him an overly large sword pointing at his face and a very unhappy Cloud expression. It was like looking at an upset cat, with really fluffy fur. Cute but could scratch you. Zack reached out, pushing down the sword with two fingers.

“How about we get you a slightly smaller one for now and later on, when you’ve gotten used to your own strength, we can get you a bigger one.” Just not one as big as Buster Sword, because that’d just look funny with how small Cloud was.

“Promise?” Cloud stared at him, eyes big and wide, completely believing Zack if he promised he’d do it, which he now kinda had to.

“Yeah, I promise.” As if he could say no to him.

Cloud watched him, eyes bright and slightly alarming before he nodded. “I’ll make sure you keep it.” Then he went and picked up a sword which was a bit smaller but still obviously bigger than any of the ones they’d use to train cadets. “This one then.”

“Isn’t it still quite big?” Zack frowned at it. He guessed it was smaller but still a bit… much.

“I’m just as strong as you,” Cloud argued.

Zack gave a snort, no he wasn’t. Sure, he was enhanced but Zack had trained for years with his new strength, plus he was a first class. Once again, a sword and a scowl were aimed at him, though looked more like he was pouting.

“If you’re going to point that at me every time I say something you don’t like maybe getting you a sword is a mistake,” Zack said, pushing it down again, though Cloud was holding it steady. “If you really want that one you can have it but if it gets too be too much to handle we’ll have to switch out, okay?” At least it was a more reasonable size than the other one, not one Zack would pick out for Cloud but he seemed determined to have something that was too big for him. Maybe it was a pride thing, or he was trying to prove a point, what it was Zack had no idea at this point. At least this one he could hold without any trouble.

Cloud nodded and put it on the counter. “This one, please.” The seller looked over to check with Zack before nodding, getting them a harness to fit it onto Cloud’s back like the one Zack had. Barely holding back a sigh Zack paid for the overly large sword. He’d have to take on a few more jobs but it was worth it for the small smile on Cloud’s face when he swung the sword onto his back.

“I can help you now,” Cloud told him, “I can even take on a few jobs by myself.”

“Hey, slow down,” Zack held up his hands, eyes wide in shock. “This is a trial one, I’ll give you a bit of training then we go after the monsters. You’re nowhere near ready to do any extermination jobs alone. I mean… maybe a few odd just helping people out, or you could even get a normal job, they don’t ask for much in the way of ID down here so you should be okay. Though I still worry someone will recognise you.”

“No one knew me.” Cloud walked down the street, back straight and looking confident now that he had a sword, it was adorable. It was probably concerning that Zack thought someone walking around with a weapon the nearly as large as he was is cute, but he had accepted that at this point.

“They were after both of us,” Zack sighed, “people may know you from a picture, Shinra knew we were on our way here.”

Cloud hummed and eyed Zack closely. “Don’t they already know we’re here?” he asked. “You said the Turks are watching Aerith, they report back to Shinra, don’t they?”

That was true, Zack had thought of that over and over. It worried him and one of the reasons why he was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. He couldn’t believe they’d let them go after pursuing them for so long, it didn’t feel right. Sure, Zack had defeated a literal army but he doubted that’d dissuade Shinra from going after him for long. Unless something else was going on, they knew where they were, at least in a general sense, so why aren’t they doing anything?

“Hey.” Cloud stopped in front of him, bright blue eyes wide and concerned. “We’re okay.”

Zack reached out, pulling Cloud in for a hug, pressing his face into his hair and taking a deep breath to calm himself down. “I know,” he said softly, “we’re okay. I’m not letting them lock us up any more.” He wouldn’t let them put Cloud through all of it again, he could still hear the screams as they experimented on him and he couldn’t do anything but watch from his tube as they hurt his friend. It wasn’t going to happen.

“I can protect you too now,” Cloud told him softly, “you don’t have to do it alone anymore.”

Nodding Zack, squeezed him tightly for a moment before letting him go. “To do that we need to get you acquainted with your new sword.” He smiled down at him, Cloud didn’t look convinced but he moved back and let Zack lead the way to a less occupied section of the slums. He would get Cloud trained and then maybe he wouldn’t worry so much for his safety, he really did have to let Cloud go slightly.

-

“He ran off again!” Cloud told Aerith as he stormed into the church, seeing her knelt next to her flowers. She turned to him, head tipping to the side as she watched him stomp down the aisle before flopping onto the front pew with a huff.

“Hello to you too, Cloud,” Aerith said pleasantly. “I take it this is about Zack?”

Somehow that made Cloud feel as though he had been told off even though she hadn’t said anything of the sort, Aerith really did have a way about her. He sulked for a few second before slipping off the pew and coming to sit down with her.

“Hello,” he grumbled, “yeah, it’s Zack. He gave me a sword, trained me and we did an extermination job together that went really well. I thought it meant he was going to let me help more but he still keeps going off by himself. This time he just left me a note, usually he at least tells me in person before he goes off. He knows I worry about him.”

Aerith frowned, she passed Cloud a trowel which he took but instead of digging in the dirt he fiddled with the blade. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I know, he just doesn’t think, which makes it worse.” He tilted the trowel so the light bounced off of the metal. “Do you… do you think Zack would rather I leave?”

A hand immediately handed on his arm, making him look over at her, she smiled softly at him. “I think that’s the last thing he wants.”

“It’s because of me that he’s constantly worried and stressed,” Cloud told her softly. “If I wasn’t around he would have it easier. Zack is too nice, he wouldn’t say anything but I know he’s tired. He probably needs space away from me.”

“Oh, Cloud.” Aerith shuffled closer, leaning against him. “Zack cares about you so much, he wouldn’t ever want you to leave. If you feel this way I think you should tell him, he would hate for you to be so upset.”

“But… what if I tell him and he says I’m right? What if he wants me to leave?” Cloud looked over at her sadly, his stomach feeling as though a herd of chocobos were racing around in here. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“He’d never tell you to leave,” Aerith said, her voice filled with such conviction it nearly stopped the horrible feeling in his stomach completely. “I’d be more concerned about him locking you up in that house of yours then letting you leave. He wants to protect you so much, Cloud, you are so loved by him it’s nearly obsessive.”

Cloud flushed bright red at that. He was loved by Zack? That felt so good. “Really?”

“Really.” Aerith pat his arm twice before clapping her hands together. “Now, how about helping me whilst we talk instead of bending my tools out of shape?”

“Huh?” Cloud looked down and noticed he’d slightly bent the trowel, he quickly pushed it back into shape, hoping he hadn’t done too much damage. He really did need to remember he was enhanced now; he didn’t want to break anything of Aerith’s. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Zack’s done worse.” Aerith pointed to the hole in the ceiling. “He came crashing down from there and fell into my flowers.” She huffed and looked so affronted that Cloud had to hide a small laugh behind his hand.

“That sounds about right for him,” Cloud said softly, “crashing into people’s lives.”

Aerith nodded, a sweet smile lightening her face. “It was surprising but not too bad, he gave me and my flowers a purpose.”

“Midgar full of flowers,” Cloud repeated, having heard it before. He looked up at the hole in the ceiling, seeing a ray of sun through it, he smiled to himself. “It sounds like a good purpose.”

“You and Zack are very similar,” Aerith told him, “you feel the same.”

Cloud looked back at her, confused what that meant. He didn’t think they were that similar, Zack was far nicer than he was, happier too. “Because we’re both country boys?”

Aerith laughed, shaking her head. “No, I don’t think it’s that.” She stood up, patting her dress down and went to put some picked flowers into her cart. “Though I don’t know many country boys, maybe they all have the same feel that you do. But, I think it’s your kindness. Both of you are very kind.”

“I don’t think many people back home would agree with you.” Cloud winced after he said that, the fire. He tried not to think about it so much that sometimes it was like he had forgotten but he wouldn’t… couldn’t forget it. “I mean… they wouldn’t have.”

“Cloud, have you properly mourned?” Aerith asked gently. “It’s okay to.”

Cloud shook his head in denial. “A lot has happened since then. It feels like it wasn’t too long ago but I know it was. I know it’s been five years.” It didn’t feel right, it all felt so strange to him at the moment. Maybe it would take some time, it was only a few months since he started to become lucid again and everything that had happened at the start had been a blur.

“Take your time,” Aerith told him, “when you feel you need to mourn you can come to me.”

“Thank you, Aerith.” Cloud looked down and took a deep breath before focusing on helping her with her flowers, he had been taught what to do when he was recovering from the mako poisoning, it focused him, gave him simple tasks to do. It had really helped him, he easily got into it again, clearing his mind.

Behind him Aerith watched Cloud, clasping her hands together. She could hear the Planet, it told her that Cloud was important, that she needed to look after him. She would have even without being told to, he was important to Zack and he was a good person. Praying she wished that Cloud would be okay, if the planet had plans for him then things would probably get more complex for her new friend.

Please, let Cloud be safe.

-

Finishing off the last whole eater Zack spun buster sword, swinging it onto his back. That had taken longer than he would have liked. There had been an infestation of them under a few ruined buildings, they must have been breeding like crazy and finally decided to come out of hiding. After dispatching the first few the rest had swarmed him, then being the good citizen he was he had gone to search for any other places they might have slunk off to, finding two other small groups of them. With it taking longer than intended meant he would go home to an even grumpier Cloud then he expected when he left that morning, he really hoped Cloud wouldn’t be too upset with him. Zack just wanted to protect him for as long as possible and he knew Cloud would beg him to let him come too if he knew he was leaving, he would have to take him on his next easy job to make up for it.

He looked around once more, no monsters ran at him and he had checked the last possible hiding place. All clear. Perfect. Maybe he’d drop by a bakery on his way home, Cloud might forgive him easier if he gave him a strawberry tart, he’d get one for himself as well, that sounded perfect at the moment. This job should give them enough gil that they could afford a few luxuries, pastries was definitely on the agenda.

Zack headed back to his employer, to tell them about what he found and hopefully get his pay, but he paused. Someone was watching him. He sighed, looking around, it wasn’t a Turk as they wouldn’t let themselves be caught so easily, it could maybe be a few Shinra employees but they wouldn’t stand around watching him so blatantly either. Shaking his head, he planted his hands on his hips.

“What is it now?” he asked. “I know you’re there.”

From behind a building a woman and two men came out, looking slightly sheepish. “Are you the ex-SOLDIER mercenary?” the woman asked.

It felt strangely good to be recognised as a mercenary though the whole ex-SOLDIER thing left an ache in his gut. Zack nodded, eyeing them up and down, they were in some kind of slap-dash combat gear. “So what if I am?”

“We want to employ you,” the woman said.

“To do what?” Zack knew not agree straight away, he’d learned that the hard way in the slums.

One of the men stepped forward, staring at him in something close to awe. “We need someone who knows Shinra to help us infiltrate it.”

Zack snorted a laugh, shaking his head. “Not happening, you’d end up dead before you step through the front door.”

“Not the Shinra building,” the woman said, glaring at the man, “a reactor. We want to hire you to help us take down the reactors.”

Were these guys suicidal? Zack waved a hand at them. “Why would you want to do that?”

“It’s destroying the Planet!” The man yelled, gesturing wildly. “We’re going to save the Planet from Shinra!”

Zack sighed, looking up at the plate above him. “Look, I don’t know anything about that, but I do know this. Shinra destroys people, it has hurt a lot of people close to me but I’m not about to start a fight with them that I can’t win.”

“Well, we’re going to fight them and we’re going to win,” the woman said, crossing her arms, face set into a determined scowl.

“I like your determination,” Zack laughed, “but I can’t risk having Shinra on my case right now, and I don’t really see how destroying a reactor is going to do anything but piss them off.”

“Not just one, we’re going to do as many as we can,” one of the men said, “we’re going to save the planet.”

“So you said.” Zack shook his head again, wow these guys were crazy. “Who even are you guys?”

“I’m Jessie,” the woman said, then pointed to her comrades, “this is Biggs and Wedge. We’re part of Avalanche.”

Immediately Zack grabbed his sword, getting into a battle ready stance. “Avalanche?” No way, these people had seemed harmless a second ago, they couldn’t be part of Avalanche.

They took a step back. “We don’t want to fight you,” the man, Wedge, said, “all we want is to stop Shrina.”

“I’ve fought Avalanche before, they killed some of my friends.” Zack eyed them; they didn’t give off the same feel that the Avalanche he knew did but that didn’t mean they weren’t in league with the ones he had fought.

“That was the old Avalanche, we just took the name.” Jessie sighed and gestured down the road. “Look, we’ll take you to our boss, maybe you’ll understand if you talk to him. Plus, we’ll be hiring you, he’ll pay you well.”

A trap? It could be but he didn’t know why they would bother. He wasn’t a SOLDIER anymore and it wasn’t as though he had any valuable information, everything he knew about Shinra was probably outdated anyway.

“Your boss?” Zack straightened up and sighed. “Fine, I’ll come with you but let me get my pay from this job first.” He hoped this wouldn’t take long, Cloud would be annoyed with him enough, maybe he’d get him two pastries in apology. Or a dagger, would Cloud like a dagger to go with his sword? He could always see about getting a rifle for him if he doesn’t like daggers. Maybe he should start with the apology pastries before moving onto weaponry.

He really, really hoped this wasn’t going to take long.

Chapter Text

They didn’t have any strawberry tarts, they only had blackberry and blueberry so Zack bought one of each for Cloud and a second blackberry for himself. It wasn’t a perfect gift, strawberry was Cloud’s favourite, but it’d have to do. At this point Zack would have a lot to make up for, he had been gone all day, having done his extermination job then been subjected to an extremely long-winded lecture from Avalanche’s new leader, Barret Wallace. He was a nice enough man but by the Planet he could rant about Shinra’s evils for hours! In the end Zack agreed to help them, partly out of pure desperation to just be let go. Now he had to go back tomorrow for a planning meeting and a few days afterwards to go destroy a reactor. There was no way he was letting Cloud come along to either so he’d have the fall out of that to deal with.

“Cloud!” Zack called, entering the house. “You home?”

He went to the counter, putting the pastry box down before going to explore the small house for Cloud. He wasn’t downstairs otherwise he’d answer right away, going upstairs there were both of their bedrooms, first he put buster sword in his own room before knocking on Cloud’s door and entering. There he was, sat at the window, staring out into the darkness. He made no indication that he’d heard Zack enter, slowly Zack walked over to him, kneeling in front of Cloud.

“It’s happened again, huh?” Zack sighed, taking Cloud’s hands in his own. The bright blue eyes were directed out of the window, unfocused and probably seeing something that wasn’t even there. It still happened from time to time, it had gotten so much better though. Reaching up with one hand he stroked Cloud’s cheek, pushing his blond hair back, he didn’t so much as blink. If he didn’t know better he’d think Cloud was just a beautiful doll. It was scary to see him like this, like they were back at the beginning again.

With a deep breath Zack rested his head on Cloud’s knee, content to stay with his friend through this episode like he always did. If only he’d been back earlier, he could have sat with him from the beginning of it. He squeezed Cloud’s hands, probably more for his own comfort rather than Cloud’s, he didn’t know if he could even feel it wherever his mind had gone off to.

“Sorry,” he said softly, “I didn’t mean to leave you alone during this.” He closed his eyes, waiting for when he’d be back with him. He’d do better, he wouldn’t let Cloud be alone for a whole day again, it was too dangerous, he was too vulnerable like this.

It was maybe an hour later when Zack felt a twitch in his hand. With a start he looked up, Cloud tipped his head to the side, staring down at him, slowly coming round. Zack smiled up at him, squeezing his hands with a sigh.

“Hey,” he whispered, “you back with me, Cloudy?”

Cloud blinked, letting go of his hand to run his fingers through Zack’s hair. His lips tilted upwards slightly as he watched Zack’s spikes move. “Hey,” he finally said, voice breaking slightly, “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.” Zack sat up a bit more, trying not to dislodge the hand in his hair but very aware that his legs had gone numb. Though moving started an unpleasant tingling in his toes. “I’m sorry, did I keep you waiting long?”

Another slow blink then Cloud shook his head. “I don’t know. I went to see Aerith whilst you were out. When I came back I sat here to wait for you, then… then you were here.”

So, he probably didn’t know how long he was zoned for, not a surprise really. “I got you a present whilst I was out,” Zack told him, “some tarts. They’re downstairs.”

“Oh, thank you.” Cloud took a few deep breaths then ruffled Zack’s hair. “You left without telling me,” he accused, obviously coming around properly now.

“I wrote a note,” Zack tried to duck away from the hands which were really not gentle anymore. “I even signed it with a little heart.”

Cloud flushed bright pink, he was pouting, it was cute. “You said I could start helping you!”

“And you can, just on jobs I don’t think will be dangerous or take us too close to Shinra. I didn’t know how many monsters they’d be today.” It was a pathetic excuse but Zack really just wanted to protect Cloud, it was for his own good.

“If it’s dangerous then I should be there as back up, I can help!” Cloud rubbed at Zack’s hair again then slumped back in his chair. “Zack… do you wish I wasn’t here? Do you want me gone? So… you don’t have to protect me anymore.”

“No!” Zack rushed forward, nearly flopping into Cloud’s lap because of his numb legs. “I want you here, Cloud.” He grabbed Cloud’s hands and pressed their foreheads together. His breathing sped up as a bone deep fear coursed through him. “Don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave me.”

Cloud was important. True Zack had friends like Aerith and sometimes he heard from Kunsel, there were his parents but he didn’t dare contact them in case they were still being monitored by Shinra. He wasn’t alone but he knew in his heart he needed Cloud.

“I won’t,” Cloud said softly, “you’re all I have left. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“I’ll never leave you,” Zack told him firmly. He moved back slightly and kissed Cloud’s forehead. “I’m here for you, if you are for me.”

Cloud breathed out gently, holding onto Zack’s hands with trembling hands. “Does that mean you’ll take me with you on jobs?”

A startled laugh erupted from Zack, he moved back and shook his head. “If it’s not dangerous.” Cloud pouted at him, before he even thought of it Zack pressed a kiss to those lips. It felt soft, right. “You’re so cute when you’re pouty.”

“I don’t pout!” Cloud protested, face flaming red.

Zack stood up, stumbling slightly and pulled on their joined hands. “Come on, let’s eat. You must be starving.”

They walked downstairs, Zack getting his legs back under him properly, though he shook them out before he took the first step. They cleaned up before Zack plated the pastries, making sure that Cloud got the best looking of the duplicated flavour. Cloud thanked him, smiling down at them, that was a good sign that he may be forgiven for running off earlier. Zack ate his own after Cloud took a bite of his and seemed to like it, he wanted to make sure Cloud was happy first. It really was good, Zack ate his enthusiastically, it wasn’t an actual meal but he thought it good enough. Dessert was totally a dinner if it was all you planned to eat, he’d cook them a good breakfast tomorrow so they had something nutritious to make up for it.

“Thanks, Zack,” Cloud said softly, “these are good.”

Grinning Zack leaned on the table. “So, I’m forgiven?”

Cloud shook his head. “No.”

Well that was to the point. Zack flopped across the table pathetically, staring up at Cloud with big puppy dog eyes. How could he make it up to Cloud? He didn’t want him mad at him! Maybe he should have gone with getting him a gun or a knife after all. Boys liked weaponry, right? When the pouted didn’t work he rubbed his forehead against the table with a whine.

“Zack,” Cloud’s voice made Zack turn his head to see him again, “just don’t leave me with only a note again.”

That… was probably a promise he couldn’t keep. “I’ll try not to,” he said, “maybe we should only take on jobs finding lost kittens, that way you could always come with me.”

“Those probably don’t pay as well.” Cloud gave him that small smile again.

“No, but we could be together then,” Zack pouted, Cloud reached over to poke his cheek. “I know, you want us to be together doing the fighting jobs too. There a job I have to do alone lined up for the next few days, it’s going to pay really well. After that we can take on a few smaller ones and I’ll get you all trained up with that oversized sword of yours.”

Cloud didn’t look happy but he probably was tired of protesting at this point, especially as he was probably exhausted from the mako zone out he’d had earlier. “Your sword is more oversized than mine.”

“True, but it has to be big to hold all of the dreams and honour that comes with it.” Zack knew the real weight of it, especially as he had lost so much of his strength after the years in the mako tank. He was getting it back slowly, he was resting a lot more now and could train better than when they were on the road but he wasn’t at the top of his game still.

Slowly Cloud got up, his chair scraping against the floor as he pushed it back, then shuffled over, crouching down next to Zack. He looked concerned, his mako bright eyes shining even in the low light of their kitchen. “You might not be a SOLDIER anymore, but you have a lot more honour than anyone I’ve ever known. It doesn’t have to be heavy.”

“You never met Angeal, did you?” Cloud shook his head. “He had so much honour, strength and pride.”

“Was it heavy for him?” Cloud asked, voice flat but with a hint of concern.

“Yeah.” Zack sighed, reaching out to place his hand on Cloud’s head, squidging down his spikes. “It was heavy for him.”

Cloud frowned, he looked at the floor, obviously thinking of something before shaking his head. “I don’t think honour, strength and pride have to be heavy. Maybe being a SOLDIER was what was heavy. I think that maybe if you try, it could get lighter with time.”

“You’re surprisingly optimistic sometimes,” Zack laughed, getting a bit louder when Cloud tipped his head to the side in confusion. “It’s a good thing Cloudy, don’t worry.”

Taking a deep breath Zack pushed his chair back, taking Cloud’s hands in his and pulling him up as he stood. For the second time that day he leant in, pressing a kiss to his lips. “Thanks, Cloud. Maybe with you around it’ll get lighter.” Cloud nodded slowly, not looking so sure about that, but Zack was confident that just having Cloud near made everything a bit easier.

-

Zack’s first plan had been to try to dissuade this make-shift Avalanche group from going after Shinra. It was basically suicide but Barret had been very insistent about blowing up the reactor. He ranted, he raved, he had speeches. There was even a slideshow about the evils of Shinra and why it was completely necessary that the reactor was blown up. Zack was not convinced but he couldn’t very well let them go get themselves killed, they didn’t seem like a bad sort and he had issues with Shinra too, plus they had a point. Taking down Shinra was a very big goal for such a small group and they would honestly need as much help not getting slaughtered as they could get. So he decided to go along with it, they promised no civilians would get hurt in the process so he was willing to do it. He still owed Shinra for what they put him and Cloud through, some turmoil with a broken reactor was the least they deserved. After they met, they decided on how to infiltrate the facility and set up when to do it.

Of course, Zack had the problem with a stubborn Cloud who even though he’d told him straight away he had to do this job alone was still insisting that he could help. There was absolutely no way that Zack would let Cloud go anywhere near Shinra and definitely not a mako reactor, Cloud was still getting side-effects from his poisoning and going into a reactor was not going to help with that. The less exposure to Mako Cloud got the better.

“I said no, Cloud!” Zack yelled at him, getting fed up with Cloud arguing. He had to go and Cloud wasn’t making it any easier to do. When Cloud stepped back and closed himself off Zack’s heart broke. Damn it.

Cloud didn’t say anything, he clenched his fists at his sides and turned away, walking towards his room. He’d hurt him, but it would hurt more if he came along. Zack shut his eyes, hissing in annoyance. He wanted to punch something, snapping at Cloud wasn’t going to accomplish anything but hurt them both. Zack rubbed at his hair in frustration when he heard Cloud’s bedroom door close, he didn’t slam it but Zack had a feeling it would be a better sign if he did. A soft click sounded so much worse.

He had to go soon or who knows what that stupid group would do. Zack checked he had everything he needed then headed to the door, Cloud knew where to find him if he needed him. Maybe when he got home Cloud was feel better and they could talk like adults. If he was still there when he came home. Before he reached the door he yelled in annoyance. The well of guilt was too much, he would be unsettled the whole time he was out if he left it like this. Instead of leaving he went to Cloud’s room, knocking on the door before entering. There Cloud was sat, staring out of the window again, this time he was still cognizant, even going so far as to glance at him then turn away with a huff. The brat.

“Cloud, I have to go,” Zack said, shuffling through the door a few feet. “Look, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I just… after this job I promise we’ll train together.”

“I am capable of looking after myself, Zack,” Cloud told him firmly. “I was in the army too; I might have only been an infantryman but we were trained for combat.”

“I know,” Zack said quickly, “I really do. After this one, I promise.”

Cloud crossed his arms stubbornly. “Whatever.”

That didn’t sound like forgiveness at all. Zack rubbed at his face, what else could he do? He watched Cloud, the low light somehow made his hair glow, like he was an angel. He really was so pretty, even when mad at him. There was a tingling in his stomach, the same one that sometimes made him kiss Cloud, not that Cloud had asked about it or even seem to register the action half of the time.

“Hey, I know,” Zack said, coming over to where Cloud was sat and crouching down in front of him, “how about one date?”

That got a reaction, Cloud blinked in surprise and actually looked at him. Success. Double success as it caused that pleasant blush to light up his face again.

“A date?”

Zack winked at him. “Just one date to start with,” he said happily, “we can go from there.” Cloud reached forward and flicked him on the forehead. “Hey!”

With another huff Cloud went back to looking out of the window. “Okay,” he mumbled, “one date.”

With a grin Zack got up, pressing a kiss to Cloud’s heated cheek. “Tomorrow,” he told him, “it’s a date.”

“That’s what I agreed to,” Cloud mumbled.

So cute. Zack launched forward for a hug, laughing happily. “Later, Cloud, don’t miss me too much!” He waved as he jogged out of the room. Suddenly he felt a lot better about going on the job, the sooner he was done, the sooner he got to take Cloud out on a date. Maybe they’d go shopping or to a café, Cloud needed knew clothes and he liked the pastries he got him last time.

In his bedroom Cloud touched his cheek lightly then groaned, burying his face in his hands.

-

Zack held up a hand, stopping the others from going further as he peered around the corner. Two infantrymen were station up ahead, he backtracked shaking his head at Barret and the others, then led them back where they’d come from, they’d have to take an alternate route. A big hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“We go this way,” Barret told him.

“There’s two guards, we can find a way without any,” Zack said, “I told you I won’t attack needlessly.”

Barret glared at him. “Any other way there’s cameras, this is the best route, this is the planned route.”

“Scared of a few cameras?” Zack smirked at him. “I thought you wanted people to know about you.”

“I don’t want to be tracked, I’d think an ex-SOLDIER wouldn’t either.” Barret hefted his gunned arm up, making for the way the guards were.

“Wait!” Zack rushed in front of him. “No killing, we agreed on no killing.”

“Then you do it, merc.” Barret stared at him intently, waiting for him to slip up in some way.

With a sigh Zack took off his sword, holding it in front of him. Honour and dreams. Was he really doing the right thing? If only Angeal could help him. No, he couldn’t think like that right now. This was for freedom, a sign that they won’t let Shinra keep them down. Or something like that, Barret had gone on for a while. But he would do this. It was for Cloud’s freedom.

“For Cloud,” Zack breathed out before lowering his sword and taking off, knocking out the guards in seconds. No noise and no fuss. Hopefully they’d be okay there, they should be far enough away from the explosion zone. He led them down to the reactor core, trying to fight as few people as possible. When they got to the core of course there was a giant robot in the way, it was Shinra, why wouldn’t they have a giant robot?

At least Barret was helpful with fighting this one, he didn’t have to worry about any bullets with robots. Though Zack did have to duck out of the way of a few ricochet bullets, not that Barret was paying any attention to that. Zack dodged around the robot, swinging his sword at it hard. He was still getting his strength back but he hadn’t yet met a robot he couldn’t bludgeon into a thousand pieces. It soon fell to his sword and Barret’s gun; it took longer than Zack would have liked especially as this was the area of their break-in that had cameras. They would know he was here; they definitely knew he was alive now. It was more dangerous for him the longer this took. Setting the bomb Zack frowned, a shiver ran down his spine. He looked around. Something was definitely wrong.

“Let’s get out of here quickly,” Zack hissed, running for the exit, as he passed a fire alarm he set it off. No unnecessary casualties if he could help it. Barret yelled something at him but he honestly didn’t care at that point.

The explosion was bigger than expected. Zack stared at the flaming wreckage he had helped create.

What had he done?

-

Cloud was sat with Aerith by the flowers, helping her care for them. He’d come here for a specific reason but he didn’t know how to even bring it up. It was awkward in a way he hadn’t expected to be with his new friend. Would she even want to be his friend afterwards? He hoped so, he didn’t want to ruin anything between them.

“Cloud,” Aerith reached over, placing her hand gently on his arm, “is something wrong? You can tell me anything, you know.”

Well… she had asked. He looked down, running a finger over a lily’s petals gently. He glanced at her then focused on the flower again.

“Umm… Zack asked me out on a date,” he muttered.

“Oh!” Aerith clapped her hands together and smiled at him brightly. “He finally asked you out!”

Huh? Cloud’s head shot up to stare at her. “I thought… you and Zack… aren’t you angry at me?”

She tipped her head to the side and hummed. “Why would I be angry? Zack gushes about you all of the time, when you were at the beginning of your recovery he looked after you so much and would talk about you whenever you were asleep. He really wanted you to get better. It was adorable.” She laughed lightly. “Zack and I... we were together but that was five years ago, I did wait for him, I wrote to him every day for so long. I missed him, he’s my best friend. I think a part of me will always love him, he gave me so much and he’s perfect, but it’s been a long time and we’re different people now. What he went through with you is so much more than what he did with me. It changed him, just like it changed you.”

“Is that bad?” Cloud asked. “We’re different than other people now, it didn’t change Zack as much physically as it did me but is it bad that we’re different?”

“No.” Aerith smiled at him warmly, tapping his arm slightly. “It isn’t bad. I didn’t know you beforehand but I like the you of you now. I only worry about your habit of zoning out.”

Cloud knew that, her and Zack were really concerned about it, he had no control over it though. It didn’t feel right and he knew it wasn’t. He was just lucky nothing bad had happened because of it. There was a reason Zack didn’t want him going anywhere alone, he could zone out whilst walking and that could end in disaster. At least most of the time when he comes back to Zack is there with him, it was comforting to know he wasn’t alone. He smiled to himself, remembering Zack staring up at him with puppy dog eyes hoping for him to come back to himself. It was very sweet.

“Does that mean you’re okay with me going on a date with Zack?” he asked.

“If you want to then of course I’m okay with it. Not that it’s not my decision.” Aerith was very sweet and Cloud was lucky to have a friend like her. “Do you want to go on a date with Zack?”

Cloud flushed, looking back down at the flowers. Zack was great, he was sweet and kind and everything Cloud probably didn’t deserve. He made him happy and although he was more than slightly overprotective, he did feel safe with him.

“Yeah, I do.” Cloud bit his lip then glanced up at Aerith. “Do you think he’d be my boyfriend?”

She practically cooed at him, smiling brightly. “I think that’s where the date is headed. He’s a good boyfriend, Cloud, don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll be great together. You’re both already as cute as any couple out there!” She laughed and Cloud completely relaxed, not that it was hard to in her presence. “It’s about time he asked you on a date, he did that within minutes when I met him.”

Cloud laughed as well. “He told me about that, he thought he was in heaven when he saw you.”

Aerith rolled her eyes at the memory. “He’s a silly boy.”

The jovial atmosphere broke as yelling started outside the church. Cloud got up, striding to the doors to see people running around, that was unusual. He went down the steps, stopping someone who came close.

“What happened?” he asked.

The man he stopped looked him up and down before answering him. “Sector one’s reactor exploded; pieces of the plate fell from it. If you know anyone there you might want to go check on them.” Then he pulled away and ran off, no doubt to do just as he’d advised.

The reactor exploded? He looked back at Aerith who’d followed after him, he raised a questioning eyebrow and got a shake of the head in return. Aerith headed back into the church, clasping her hands together in prayer, Cloud trailed over her not quite sure what to do. He didn’t really know anyone here, even from his military days, he wasn’t sure how anyone in his old troop were, knowing Shinra it wasn’t too likely that they were okay. Pushing those dark thoughts away he kept close to Aerith in case she needed his support. Not that he’d be too good at giving any, with her he was usually the one being offered support and comfort, that was true with Zack as well. He would do what he could though, he wanted to be a good friend to them, it would be some time before they stopped worrying about him, he knew he wasn’t well and couldn’t offer them much when he still needed so much help.

“Where is Zack?” Aerith asked softly, nearly a whisper.

Cloud frowned, where is Zack. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully. That was a thought, a very scary one. He pulled out his phone, hoping that Zack wasn’t anywhere near where the explosion had gone off. “He left me a card with a place in sector seven written on it in case of an emergency, he said to go there if anything happens. With any luck he’s around there.” Still, he’d try calling him, he’d probably answer quickly and put his fears at bay.

There was no answer. Cloud stared at his phone in concern, it had rung out so it wasn’t damaged. Zack was on a job, he could be fighting monsters and not able to answer, or be something and couldn’t hear his phone, he was probably just fine. He had a card for a place in sector seven, if he was there then he wouldn’t be in sector one.

“Cloud?” Aerith had her hands clasped tightly in front of herself. “He’s okay. Zack wouldn’t leave us.”

“Not without a fight,” Cloud said, turning to her and trying to smile reassuringly for both of them. “He took on an entire army, a reactor exploding wouldn’t beat him. Knowing Zack he’s probably run off to help people.”

“It would be loud there,” Aerith added, “he wouldn’t be able to hear his phone.”

“Yeah.” Cloud sat with her on one of the pews, looking at the flower garden in front of them. It didn’t keep him from holding on steadily to his phone, just in case Zack called him back. “He’s probably on the scene right now, getting in people’s way, trying to be useful.”

“That’s our Zack,” Aerith laughed, she held onto Cloud’s hand gently, he squeezed it back, being careful of his strength. They both took comfort in the contact.

-

When Cloud went back to the house he was still trying to stay calm, he’d sat with Aerith for a few hours as they waited for any news. Cloud’s phone didn’t go off and when he tried to call again it rang out. It was hard to tell but Cloud knew that Aerith was more upset about it then she let on, he felt something was off about her but he didn’t ask her about it, if she wanted to talk she would. Personally, Cloud liked comfortable silences, sitting with Aerith was good for that, sometimes Zack was a bit too much for him, he didn’t like silences and tended to fill them with mindless chatter. Not that Cloud didn’t want to be around Zack, he loved him, but especially when he felt worried just sitting silence was calming. Though at the moment Cloud would happily deal with the chatter from Zack, just so he knew he was okay.

No lights were on in their house. Cloud sighed, unlocking the door then locking it again after himself. He took his sword off, carrying it to his room, when he passed Zack’s he sensed a presence there. Stopping, he readied his sword, stepping into the room. At the window was a figure, immediately recognising it he lowered his weapon.

“Zack?” he asked, making sure he was right.

The figure turned and bright blue eyes shone at him even in the dim light. Cloud breathed out in relief. Zack was okay. He rested his sword against the wall and hurried over to Zack, reaching out to hug him tightly, slowly he was hugged back.

“I was so worried when I heard about the explosion,” Cloud said softly, “I didn’t know where you were and you didn’t answer your phone.”

“I’m okay,” Zack whispered, pressing his face into Cloud’s hair, breath rustling the spikes. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I put my phone on silent, I didn’t know you called me. I’m sorry, Cloud.”

“It’s okay.” So long as Zack wasn’t hurt it was all okay. “I have to let Aerith know you’re here, she was worried as well.”

Zack’s hands stroked his back, the man slumping slightly against him. The extra weight didn’t matter to Cloud but it didn’t feel right, something was wrong. He squeezed him gently to get his attention, though he didn’t look up at him, not wanting to disturb Zack’s resting place.

“Zack? Are you okay?” It didn’t seem as though he was, not in the least.

“I…” Zack shook his head, pulling away and looking out of the window. “No,” he said, voice cracking, “I’m not.”

“Do you want to talk to me about it?” Cloud tried, wanting to help, but he knew that it wasn’t always possible to. Sometimes people just had to work through their problems by themselves.

Another shake of the head, Zack’s hands shook before he clenched them tightly, stopping their movement viciously. Sitting down on the edge of the windowsill he continued staring out into the darkness encasing the slums. “I can’t… I…”

Cloud nodded to himself, stepping closer and hugging Zack’s side, arms going around his shoulders, pressing his face into his hair. He squeezed him gently, taking a deep breath. He knew what it was like to not be able to say what he wanted to. Zack seemed so shaken up. Eventually he’d be told what happened, he trusted that if were anything important he’d be told, Zack wasn’t that good at keeping secrets. For now he’d hold him, give him the comfort he needed and just be there for him. That was the most important thing he could do.

“I’m here,” he said softly, “I’m here for you.” He would be here for as long as Zack would let him be. A part of Cloud was happy to be the one looking after Zack, he’d been needing comfort for so long it was good to be the one giving it. It was a selfish part of him but it made him feel a little bit less helpless.

“Thanks, Cloudy,” Zack whispered, a hand coming up to hold onto Cloud’s arm around him. He leant his head against Cloud’s chest, closing his eyes and relaxing. Cloud just held onto him for as long as he needed it.

He looked out of the window at the dark city, with the metal looming overhead Cloud felt trapped. It was claustrophobic sometimes, being in Midgar, like something was squeezing in his chest. Cloud held onto Zack a little tighter, taking comfort in him as well.

Chapter Text

“I’m sorry, I’ll just be five minutes then we can get the date on the way,” Zack said, holding his hands in front of him as though in prayer. Cloud didn’t fully understand why Zack thought the gesture was needed but he had long ago stopped trying to make sense of everything little thing Zack did, it was just easier that way.

“Okay,” Cloud agreed, he moved to lean against the side of the shop they were in front of. Zack had apparently promised a materia seller that he would haul some boxes around, then forgot until they were about to leave the house for their date. Since then he had apologised over and over, all the way to the shop, every single time Cloud had reassured him that it was okay, he could just wait for him.

Zack rubbed his hand through the back of his hair. “You can come inside to wait.”

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. “If I did that it’d distract you and it’ll take ten times as long.” He’d learnt his lesson about that when he come along to some of Zack’s less mentally engaging jobs. Zack was great, he was quick to help but also quick to find something to distract himself with. He’d still do what he was asked, and to a high standard, but it took longer than necessary sometimes.

“Ah, okay, maybe.” Zack smiled at him sheepishly, at least he recognised his own faults. “Right, well, wait right there. I’ll be as quick as possible. Just don’t go anywhere.”

Cloud rolled his eyes. “I’ll be here. Don’t hurt yourself trying to carry too much at once.” Not that it’d be easy for a SOLDIER to be hurt just carrying boxes around, but he knew Zack wasn’t as strong as he once was, though he wouldn’t admit it half of the time. “Go.” Cloud made a shooing motion at Zack when he hesitated. Darting forward Zack pressed a kiss to Cloud’s cheek before laughing, jogging into the store. Wide-eyed Cloud stared after him, not having expected to be kissed, his face heating up. Okay, he needed to get used to Zack doing that apparently.

Around him were a lot of people but the entire area felt slightly off, though Cloud couldn’t put his finger on why. He hadn’t been here before, for some reason Zack hadn’t wanted him to, which was strange considering he often had jobs in this area. Wall Market was in sector six and Cloud had never had reason to come when he was with the Infantry either, not that many would find reason to come down to the slums unless they were on patrol anyway. He kept an eye out, studying everyone as they walked past him, trying to discern why he felt a bit weird there.

A group of burly men jogged past the shop heading further in, they were dressed in a way that flaunted all of their rippling muscles, which was very weird to Cloud, they must have been cold showing that much bare skin. Then some people went to the left of him, heading towards where Cloud could see a lot of neon light coming from. He would have to ask Zack what was that way, or just come back himself some time, he doubted Zack would be happy about that though, not that it’d stop him. If he didn’t do everything Zack didn’t want him to he’d never be allowed to leave the house. He sighed, slumping further against the wall.

“Hey!” someone called. “Hey, blondie!”

He felt someone approach him to his left. Cloud looked up, finding a tall man covered in leather walking towards him. The stranger definitely gave off the impression of someone trying too hard to look tough, he had barely any muscle and a knife very obviously tucked into his belt. It wasn’t very well cared for either if the flakes of rust at the hilt were any indication.

“Yes?” Cloud asked, raising an eyebrow at him in disdain. Anyone who didn’t look after their weapon wasn’t worth his time.

“You looking for work?” the stranger asked, looking him up and down in a way that Cloud definitely did not feel comfortable with. He wasn’t stupid, he knew exactly what that meant and he was not happy about it. He hadn’t slept in a barracks with other men to not know anything about those kind of thing.

“No,” Cloud turned his head away, dismissing him completely.

“Oh, come on, sweetie,” the man stepped closer, he reeked of smoke, the smell stinging Cloud’s sensitive nose. “I know somewhere real good, a cute thing like you could be raking in the cash in no time.”

“I said no, now get lost,” Cloud didn’t even glance at the man.

He should have guessed that the stranger wouldn’t be impressed with that answer, a second later he was right up in his face. Breath rank and eyes slightly bloodshot. Not pleasant. “How about you come with me and see before you decide?”

“Hey!” Of course. Zack stormed out of the shop, glaring hard at the man. “Leave him alone.”

“I can handle this, Zack,” Cloud told him.

The stranger eyed Zack and scoffed. “I was just talking to pretty boy here about a lucrative position, no need to get all upset.”

Zack’s eyes narrowed, obviously not liking what he heard, always quick to defend Cloud even when it wasn’t needed. “Don’t you dare think of him in any positions.”

“Let’s just go,” Cloud sighed, pushing away from the wall and stepping around the stranger. He just wanted to go before Zack got all macho defensive on him, which looked as though it was seconds away from the straight back SOLDIER way of holding himself he sometimes got when he was trying to exert masculine energy or something like that. Cloud didn’t understand completely but he thought it similar to a bird puffing it’s chest out.

Of course, being ignored annoyed the man further, he reached out and grabbed Cloud’s arm with an exclamation of “we’re not done here!” right before he screamed in pain. One second he was holding Cloud the next his arm was bent the wrong was with a rather satisfying cracking sound. Cloud kicked the man in the chest, letting go of his hand which flopped uselessly at his side as he stumbled, falling to the floor with tears streaming down his face.

“No, we’re done,” Cloud said sternly, staring down at the stranger who was writhing in agony, clutching his now useless arm. He turned back to Zack, who was looking at him in a very strange way which Cloud couldn’t decipher. “Are you ready?” he asked slowly.

For a few seconds Zack continued watching him before snapping out of it and nodding. “Yeah,” his voice cracked, he coughed clearing his throat, “yeah, let’s go.”

Cloud nodded slowly, walking around the man on the ground and heading towards the exit of Wall Market, guessing his date plans weren’t there. Zack trailed behind him until they were outside then he sped up to walk at his side. Hopefully their date would go better than the past ten minutes had.

-

There was something wrong with him, Zack was pretty sure about that now. It was one thing to think Cloud was cute whilst he was swinging around a large sword, it was something completely different to think of him as sexy when he just broke someone’s arm. The show of strength, the quick reflexes, the calmness he exuded over the action, all of it just bled together into a ball of warmth that settled into Zack’s stomach. He was sure there was nothing more attractive than watching Cloud twist the arm of a man larger than he was as though it were nothing. Not that it was all about how sexy it was, no he felt fondness and an overwhelming urge to just hug Cloud as well, which had nothing to do with the protective instincts he knew he held near and dear for the other man. Yeah, for some reason this just made Zack love him all the more and he had no idea why. He wasn’t complaining though, he’d never complain about anything that made him want to wrap Cloud in his arms tightly.

He tried to push it down a little bit, not wanting to do anything weird for the time being. He had no idea how Cloud would react if he were to say those thoughts out loud, as far as he knew Cloud was sweet and innocent about those kinds of things. Not that he’d really asked about it, but at this point he didn’t think it was needed, Cloud would let him know what he was and was not comfortable with in time. This was only their first date, there was no need to rush into those conversations.

For now Zack had a date to worry about, the day didn’t start off the best but he was confident that he could take it back. Not that Cloud seemed overly fussed, but Zack knew that he needed to pay attention to only his partner during a date. So he’d do that, he would focus solely on Cloud.

“So,” he said, Cloud looked over at him curiously, “how about we grab some food, I know a few good stalls, then we can take it somewhere special. I found a place I think you’ll love.”

“Somewhere in the slums?” Cloud asked, he didn’t look reluctant at least.

Zack shrugged a shoulder. “Well, yeah. I don’t want to take you up to the plate, it’s not exactly safe.”

“Just curious. I don’t know if I’m even able to get on a train at this point. I’ve always been walking between sectors.” Cloud frowned in thought, eyes darting around as he did, it was very cute.

“I’ve caught a ride on top of the trains so get around,” Zack told him with a laugh, “you can avoid the checkpoints up there. Well, to an extent.”

Cloud huffed a small laugh. “Only you, Zack.”

“When it gets safer I’ll take you with me. Trying to avoid oncoming girders is fun.” Zack grinned down at him.

“I’ll hold you to that.” Cloud looked up at him, his small half-smile in place. “Where are you going to take me then?”

Zack felt butterflies attacking his stomach, excitement filled up and he had to grab Cloud’s hand, pulling him along. “No telling, I don’t want to ruin the surprise. Just follow me.” Speeding up his steps he ushered Cloud towards sector seven where he’d met a kind elderly man who sold Wutaian lunch boxes, which were surprisingly good. Not exactly like some of the food he’d had when in Wutai but it had a good Midgar twist to it. When he got there he bought two, making sure to pay the full amount for them even though the man tried to give him money back because he’d taken a job from him before. He’d already been paid for clearing out the monsters in the area and didn’t want to short change someone who needed the money.

“I don’t think I’ve had anything like this before,” Cloud said, looking at the box he’d gotten curiously. He tipped his head to the side, it reminded Zack a bit of a curious chocobo, eyes wide and hair fluffy. Zack had to smother the desire to reach out and pet him, he didn’t think it’d go over too well at the moment.

“Next stop!” Zack pointed forward before taking Cloud’s hand again, leading him to a deserted area of the sector. He’d cleared a group of monsters out a few days ago and from the looks of it none were coming back yet, which suited his purposes perfectly.

Letting go of Cloud’s hand he pulled himself up onto some rubble, navigating his way around until he came up to a roof, sitting down on the slate as though it were normal. “This way,” he said, motioning for Cloud to follow, which he did with a small sigh.

“What are we doing exactly?” Cloud asked as he crawled across a piece of broken wall to get up onto the roof. He sat down next to Zack, placing his boxed lunch on his lap.

Zack grinned and pointed up to the plate above them. Right there was a hole, it wasn’t that unusual, it was how a lot of rubbish came down into the slums after all, things just fell. This particular one wasn’t the same though. There weren’t a lot of buildings around it and from there the sky was able to be seen clearly, nothing blocking it out. Zack had thought about going to the park in sector six to see the sky where the construction was ongoing but it was a bit of a risk, especially if Shinra were now on the lookout for him after the reactor incident. He didn’t want anyone to see him.

“The sky?” Cloud asked, peering up above them.

“Yeah.” Zack fiddled with box on his lap. “We’re both country boys and we’d been traveling for a while. You might not remember most of it but we saw a lot of sky. I figured you might miss seeing it.”

Slowly Cloud nodded, eyes locked on the sky above them. It wasn’t very special, there was still the artificial light around them but they could see it clearly. Zack watched Cloud intently, seeing if he liked it. There was no clear indication at the moment and Zack didn’t want to press, asking for an answer was a bit… pushy he thought.

“I miss the stars,” Cloud said softly, “I remember… pieces… I remember seeing a lot of stars.”

Oh? Zack didn’t know that, he hadn’t asked much about what Cloud did or didn’t see whilst he was poisoned. It didn’t feel right to. “Stars, huh?” Zack would need to remember that. Maybe when they left Midgar they could have a date under the stars, that sounded nice, peaceful.

“Everything was tinted green,” Cloud continued, “except the stars, they were always bright white.”

“Then when everything calms down I’ll have to take you out to see them, outside of the city and someplace safe.” Zack nodded to himself, he’d do that, definitely.

Cloud stared up at the sky and Zack could see the world slowly fade away from him, his eyes loosing some of their bright blue and his expression levelling out. Within seconds he was blank, having fallen into a mako haze. At the start Zack had tried to stop them, tried to pull Cloud out, he thought it would help but it didn’t. He couldn’t stop them, delay them slightly maybe but it would happen and whenever he tried to interfere it would last longer.

“I wonder what you see,” Zack said softly to himself, knowing there wouldn’t be an answer from Cloud. He turned to look up at the sky as well, at least Cloud could see the sky from here, that might help. “I’m sorry you can’t see the stars.” Who knows maybe that was what Cloud could see in his haze, if so he was glad he had shown him somewhere he could see them from.

Zack took hold of Cloud’s hand, willing to wait for him to come round again. When he was back they could eat their lunchboxes together, they wouldn’t spoil so Zack could wait. It’d be a romantic picnic under the clouds.

-

“Zack!”

Zack turned around, it was hours later, they had finished their lunch and Cloud, though somewhat dazed, was back to himself. Of course, he’d apologised and been upset that he’d zoned out again but there was no helping that and Zack wouldn’t hear a word of apology for it. They had their date still and that was all Zack wanted, just to be with Cloud without any stress. Okay, maybe he worried about Cloud and his zoning out but it wasn’t immediate stress, not in the same way a lot of things were at the moment. That was an ongoing issue, so could be put to the side for now.

Turning he saw Wedge jogging towards him with Jessie and Biggs following along at a more sedate pace. He really didn’t want to get into this right now, not with Cloud right next to him.

“What is it?” Zack asked, he squeezed Cloud’s hand that he had captured again as they made their way home.

“You didn’t turn up to our meeting,” Wedge said, “I was worried Shinra had gotten to you. They haven’t have they?” He eyed Cloud warily, as though he were some kind of Shinra spy. Because of course all of those wore ripped black jeans and sleevless jackets, they also tried to hide themselves in their scarves just like he was doing right now.

“No, they haven’t,” Zack sighed, “this is my boyfriend, not a spy.” Cloud squeezed his hand tighter and practically buried himself in his scarf from embarrassment. So cute!

Wedge smiled at him as though everything was fine. “Are you coming tonight?”

“No.” Zack looked over at the other two. “I told Barret that I’m not going again. I got my pay and I’m done.”

“You’ll get paid more if you keep helping us,” Biggs said. “Barret agreed that you’re worth the money.”

“Not interested.” Zack shook his head and turned away, guiding Cloud back down the street. He was not going to do it again, he had helped them and it was a mistake, a big mistake. This was not what heroes did, he couldn’t be Cloud’s hero if he put people at risk. He’d leave it to Shinra to do the underhanded deeds, he needed to be better than that.

“Come on, Zack,” Wedge tried instead, “you said you wanted to get back at Shinra too.”

“Shinra?” Cloud stopped walking, looking back at the Avalanche members. “You were messing with Shinra? Is that the reason you were upset last night?”

“Cloud, not now,” Zack said softly, pulling lightly on Cloud’s hand to get him to walk again. “You know I wouldn’t put us at risk by going near them.”

“I also know you are hot headed and easily talked into things.” Cloud wouldn’t move, digging in his heels. “Zack, please tell me you aren’t putting yourself in danger because you think you need to get revenge on Shinra.”

“I’m not.” Zack wouldn’t do that, not again. He wasn’t in danger and he wouldn’t put Cloud in harms way. “I promise, Cloud.”

Cloud didn’t look convinced especially not when the three came up to them again. “Barret would like to talk to you again,” Biggs said, “you don’t need to help us, just to talk.”

Zack sighed at them, they were stubborn. “I said no. I’m not putting us at risk, it was mistake and it won’t happen again.” This time Cloud let himself be pulled along, though from the look on his face he would want to have a conversation later, just great.

“We need your help, SOLDIER,” Jessie said firmly, “we just need to know the layout of the place.”

“I’m not a SOLDIER, not anymore.” Zack waved a hand at them as he walked off with Cloud. He wouldn’t fall for it, he shouldn’t have helped them to start with. Sure, they would have probably gotten themselves killed trying to get into the reactor but blowing it up killed people too. Maybe they’d just give it up if he didn’t help them.

“I guess we’re on our own then. I thought he said he was all about honour,” Jessie scoffed, “guess not enough to keep his word.”

Honour.

“What we did wasn’t honourable,” Zack said, spinning around to face them. “Nothing we did was honourable!”

“We are saving the planet, just because you don’t understand doesn’t mean it’s bad.” Jessie stepped up to him.

“We hurt people! People died because of us.” Because of what he did. Because he helped a terrorist group.

“More will die if we don’t stop Shinra.”

“Umm…” Cloud pulled on Zack’s hand, getting his attention. “You might want to have this conversation somewhere more private.”

Right, they were in the middle of a street, who knows who was listening in. “Sorry, I’m done.” Zack wasn’t doing this, Cloud had heard enough already.

“Scared SOLIDER boy?”

Oh no. He was not. Zack glared at Jessie. “Fine. I’ll talk to Barret if you’ll leave me alone afterwards.” He wouldn’t be called scared and told he had no honour. That was not how he was going to honour Angeal’s memory.

Cloud sighed next to him, shaking his head and Zack was pretty sure he rolled his eyes. “Okay, go have fun with your friends.” He let go of Zack’s hand, stepping back. “I’m going to guess that I’m not invited.”

“Cloud,” Zack reached for him but stopped himself. He didn’t want Cloud to come, he didn’t want him involved in any way but… he had an episode earlier, what would happen if he had one on the way home? He couldn’t leave him alone.

“I’ll go see Aerith,” Cloud told him, “you can come pick me up from the church, it’s closer than home is. That okay?”

“I… yeah, thanks, Cloud. Be safe.” Zack ruffled Cloud’s hair lightly. “I’ll be back soon.”

Cloud ducked away from the hand, frowning at him as he tired to get his hair back into its usual disarray. “You’ll tell me about this later?”

Of course, he’d want to know but Zack had no idea how he could tell him. He didn’t want to disappoint him. “I guess.”

Not looking convinced Cloud stepped closer, grabbing onto Zack’s jacket to pull him down to his eye level. “You will be safe and not let your emotions get the better of you.” He said it all firmly in a way that left Zack feeling breathless, told off, and again a bit hot. He liked determined Cloud. It was very attractive. He felt heat rise in his cheeks. Cloud eyed him before rising up slightly and pressing a brief kiss to his lips. It was warm, it was soft, it was beautiful. It also only lasted a second before Cloud moved back. “I’ll be waiting.” Then he glared over at Jessie, Biggs and Wedge before walking away. Zack was left breathlessly staring after him.

Cloud was amazing.

“Your boyfriend is kind of scary,” Wedge said softly.

“He’s pretty cute too,” Jessie added.

Biggs rolled his eyes at them.

-

Zack crossed his arms, watching as Barret paced in front of him, waving his arms around which was pretty dangerous considering one of them was a gun. He wasn’t impressed by the rant that was ongoing, it was as though he were being treated like a child. This wasn’t helping their case at all.

“The Planet is crying out in pain and Shinra is bathing us all in its blood!”

Great so SOLDIERs had literally been having blood baths. Zack rolled his eyes, he’s heard this speech the first time he had come here and it hadn’t gotten any more interesting with age. Last time he had given in to get the man to stop but now he wasn’t prepared to do that again, not after what he’d done. He still didn’t get it, the explosion shouldn’t have been so big, the reactor must have really reacted strongly to it, more than he thought it would.

“Because of your explosion we all have blood on our hands,” Zack cut in, frustrated that the man wasn’t taking the damage they did seriously.

“It is for the sake of the Planet!” Barret pointed an accusing finger at him. “You can’t tell me that you don’t have any innocent blood on your hands, SOLDIER boy, I know you do!”

True. He was a weapon for Shinra, it came with the package. Not to mention, Angeal. He took a deep breath, pushing that aside. He’d tried as much as possible not to kill, he incapacitated where possible, though when fighting a literal army to get freedom he had to kill. They were just soldier’s like Cloud had been, simple cannon fodder for Shinra. It was not something he was proud of. None of it was.

“I put that behind me,” Zack said, clenching his hands into tight fists. “I won’t hurt anymore innocents.”

“If we do nothing the Planet will die and so will everyone on it.” Barret scoffed at him. “Though I doubt you care about anyone but yourself, just like Shinra.”

“Don’t lump me in with them.” Zack couldn’t let himself be emotional, he’d promised Cloud he wouldn’t let his emotions get the better of him. He would just keep refusing to help until they got the idea.

“You’re just a Shinra dog,” Barret slammed his gunned arm against a table. That seemed highly dangerous, Zack shifted his chair further out of the line of fire, he had no desire to be full of bullets again. “You are covered in the Planets blood and just don’t care. I bet there’s nothing on this planet you care enough about to fight for.”

That wasn’t true. He cared about so much; he cared about his friends and family, he wanted to protect his parents, Aerith and Cloud. He’d wanted to protect Angeal and Sephiroth but had failed them. It was a fresh wound still and he didn’t want to think on it.

“I watched Shinra take away my family and I won’t let them do it to anyone else, I won’t let them destroy this Planet.”

Zack took a deep breath, he could see where Barret was coming from but hurting people won’t make up for the hurt he’d gone through. It would make them just as bad as Shinra. Well, not quite but it was a slippery slope.

“I’m sorry, Barret but I can’t be involved in something that is going to hurt innocents.” He stood up, resting his own hands on the table, though still being wary of where that gun was aimed. “I have people I care about too much to risk getting them involved with Shinra. Good luck with your rebellion.”

“Coward! You don’t want to hear the Planet’s cries.”

For goodness sake! Zack closed his eyes, Barret was just repeating the same thing over and over. “Goodbye.” Zack headed out of the underground base, going back to the bar. There he found Tifa cleaning glasses behind the counter, when he headed to the exit she put down her glass and rag.

“You not staying?” she asked.

Zack took a deep breath and shook his head. “I don’t want any more blood on my hands then there already is.”

“I understand.” Tifa smiled at him, sad and lonely. “I know it’s probably petty of me to join in out of revenge but I think that what they’re doing is right. Those reactors bring nothing but pain with them.”

“What happened with Sephiroth… that won’t happen again,” Zack tried to sound sure, like he was completely certain Shinra hadn’t messed with anyone else’s body like they did with his friends. Though his own trauma from the labs and Cloud’s issues stood out to him, but that wasn’t the same. “You shouldn’t blame all of SOLDIER for what he did.”

“They created that monster!” Tifa slammed her hands on the counter in anger. “You saw what he did, Zack! I know you’re not like him but they could create more Sephiroths, they could destroy more and more towns. Someone needs to stop them!”

They did try to make more Sephiroths, they had messed with Cloud and him in ways Zack didn’t want to think about. He knew some of what they were trying to do and none of it was right. They tried to change them in ways which were hard to believe possible. They were possible though, he’d fought Genesis copies before and Angeal… what happened to him was nightmarish. He couldn’t argue against what she said and he didn’t want to.

“I don’t believe in innocent lives being collateral damage,” Zack ran a hand through his hair restlessly, “I don’t think it’s acceptable for someone trying to save the world to destroy someone else’s. There’s no honour in that.”

“I know what you mean, I don’t want to hurt other people but…” Tifa huffed, rubbing at her face in anger. “You don’t know what it’s like to see your whole world be ripped away from you.”

“Maybe not in the same way but I kind of do.” Zack looked away from her and her righteous anger. It was hard to accept it as anything but justified.

“Please, Zack,” she said softly, “just help a little bit longer. Maybe the explosion could be scaled back a bit more, or we could even destroy the reactor in a different way.”

“Do you really think that stopping a reactor will change anything?” Zack asked.

“It’s a start.” Tifa smiled at him, it hurt to look at. “If it helps the Planet and hurts Shinra then it’s worth it.”

They were only looking at the small picture really, there were so many reactors and not enough people against Shinra. Zack couldn’t turn away from her hopeful and hurt expression. He winced, trying to think of a way to get out of it but… he couldn’t… he really needed Cloud to be here, he’s always good at saying no.

“I…” he sighed, what else could he do?

-

Cloud raised an eyebrow at him, leaning back in his chair by the window. It was like looking into the face of disappointment. Zack knelt down in front of him resting a hand on his knee as though pleading with some higher power.

“And you still won’t tell me what it is you’re doing?” Cloud asked, he didn’t sound the least bit amused but also not overly surprised by the outcome.

“Not yet,” Zack hated saying it but he didn’t want Cloud to know for so many reasons now. He didn’t want to admit it even to himself and he definitely didn’t want Cloud deciding to come along to keep an eye on him. “I am sorry, Cloud.”

“You’re getting paid for this, right?” Cloud placed a hand over his on his knee, fingers warm around his.

“Yeah, I am.” Zack smiled up at him. “We might be able to get a house somewhere out of the city, us and Aerith, her mum too if she wants to come along. We could escape Shinra and live free somewhere. You two could make a big flower garden.”

“We could do that now.” Cloud sighed, turning his head to stare out of the window. “I doubt Aerith would be easy to convince to leave.”

True, she still was afraid of the sky, but they would show her how good it was. Zack had promised to take her out of Midgar after all. This job should give them enough that they could find a nice place to call their own and have some left over to allow them to get settled. He liked the idea of starting a home somewhere safe with Cloud. Having Aerith there would be great too, she and Cloud were good friends and it meant he could leave to maybe hunt monsters or something without worrying about Cloud having an episode whilst he was alone. He’d have to talk that over with her, but she had hinted that she was more than happy to help look after Cloud when he was unavailable to do so. Not that Cloud could ever know about that, he was prideful and stubborn, which was very attractive but not ideal when he was being blasé about his health.

“Yeah, I know it’ll take some talking to get her to agree but I did already promise to show her the sky.” Zack squeezed Cloud’s hand gently. “You mad?”

Cloud rolled his eyes. “No, I already guessed how this would end.” He focused back on Zack and let out a long breath. “I still want to know what upset you so much but I’m not stupid enough to think you’ll tell me yet. I can wait. I’m more patient than you are.”

“Hey!” Zack stood up, still holding onto Cloud’s hand, it was so warm and felt so small in his own. “Mean.”

“If you say so.” Cloud sighed and tugged on the hand holding his. “I’m okay, Zack. Just… don’t let them upset you again. I hated seeing you like that.”

“It wasn’t the best for me either.” Zack pulled Cloud up gently, smiling at him. “It’ll be a couple of days before I do the job, I want to forget about it until then.”

Cloud rolled his eyes at him. “It’s night time already.”

“Yeah, the perfect time to go monster hunting!” Zack grinned now, full of energy and needing an outlet for it. “I know you want to.”

Immediately Cloud pulled away and went to fetch his sword, apparently he really wanted to go hunt some monsters. Again, there was that pull of attraction towards Cloud whilst he was holding a sword. At this point Zack really needed to get that sorted out. Still, who wouldn’t find Cloud cute, he was adorable. Zack grabbed buster sword and headed off with Cloud into the night, maybe if he played it right he could get another kiss from him when he was high off a fight. That seemed like a good goal.

Chapter Text

It was beautiful around Aerith’s house, like a paradise that shouldn’t be inside Midgar’s walls. Too perfect and vibrant to be in a city full of smog. Not that it touched Aerith’s haven, it didn’t even get close. The air was fresher, the flowers perfect and the water somehow untouched by the pollution in the slums. Far better than anything up on the plate, no matter what Shinra promoted. Having visited and stayed for a short time Zack truly appreciated it. Just stepping into the grounds he relaxed. He smiled to himself, approaching the gardens where Aerith was working with her flowers.

It had been hard to leave Cloud behind at the house but for the moment he had been content to stay as he was tired. The night before Cloud hadn’t slept well, he’d woken up screaming twice and didn’t settle down until Zack was next to him in bed. From what Cloud muttered whilst half-awake and obviously rattled, he was dreaming of Nibelheim, of both the fire and the lab, though Zack wasn’t sure how much of the latter he remembered. Zack had made hot chocolate and got him settled in bed with a book before he left for Aerith’s. Not that he wanted to leave when Cloud was like that but he didn’t really have much time at the moment, and Cloud assured him that he’d call if he was having nightmares again, how much Zack trusted him to was another matter entirely.

Either way he was here now. Aerith was kneeling in front of a flowerbed, her basket next to her as she tended the flowers and picked some to cut. It was soothing just to watch her, but that would be creepy on a few different levels.

“Hey,” he said, coming over to crouch next to Aerith, moving his sword slightly so it wouldn’t get in the way.

She looked over at him and smiled, raising a flower to place into his hair with a small laugh. “Hello,” she said, “it’s unusual to see you without Cloud nowadays.”

“We’re not attached at the hip,” Zack said with a laugh of his own, “I think he’d hate that.”

Aerith hummed, brushing the soil from her hands. “Maybe, he does like to be independent.”

“Don’t I know it,” Zack sighed, shaking his head, Cloud was so headstrong which was a pain to deal with sometimes. “Actually, it’s kind of about that why I’m here.”

“Oh?” She tipped her head to the side.

Zack rubbed at his hair, being careful not to dislodge the flower. “Yeah, I’ve got a job tonight and I was wondering if you’d be able to look after him for me? Please?” He put his hands together to plead with her.

“Cloud’s not a child, Zack, he won’t like being looked after like one,” Aerith said gently, placing her hands over his to lower them.

“I know but he’s been zoning out again,” Zack told her, looking over at the flowers. “He woke up twice last night from nightmares. I’m just worried about him. Even coming here I’m really… scared. What if he goes under again and I’m not there for him? What if he decides to go out and ends up having another attack in the middle of the street? I just want to protect him, even if I ask he probably would still go out, he’s stubborn like that. So, could you can keep him company tonight until I’m finished with work?”

“Oh, Zack.” Aerith placed her hands in her lap. “If you’re that worried then tell him, I’m sure he’d stay at home if he knew how much his going out affects you.”

He did, he talked to Cloud about it but damn was he stubborn about his independence, not that he blamed him after all he’d been through, he wanted his own too. “I don’t think he likes being locked up,” Zack looked at her pleadingly again, “neither of us do. Please, please, please, could you look after him?”

Aerith closed her eyes and sighed. “Okay, Zack, but we’re just going to spend time together, I’m not babysitting a grown man. If Cloud wants to leave I won’t stop him so long as he seems in his right mind.”

“Thank you!” Zack laughed, launching himself forward to hug her enthusiastically. That was all he wanted, to know he was safe.

They were silent for a few minutes before Aerith tapped his nose with a flower, smiling at him when he looked over at her. “I have a feeling that isn’t all you wanted to talk about,” she said.

Well, she wasn’t wrong. Zack squeezed his hands together tightly. “I did something bad and I’m going to do it again.” As much as he didn’t really want to he had agreed and he was going to do it. “Do you think I’m a bad person?”

Aerith leaned forward and hugged his side. “You’re not a bad person,” she told him firmly, “I don’t think you have it in you to be. I don’t know what it is you’re doing but I trust you, I always will.”

“You shouldn’t,” Zack bowed his head, “first Angeal and now this.” A lump formed in his throat at the thought of his former mentor. Angeal. He would have known what to do to, he would have done the right thing.

“It’s not your fault.” Aerith stroked his hair gently, he slumped against her, needing the support and comfort. “You take too much on yourself, you need to let go, let someone else help carry that burden.”

Zack shook his head, he couldn’t drag anyone down with him, this was his own fault and he was already putting enough pressure on her. “I don’t want to burden you.”

“I’m offering,” Aerith sighed, as though dealing with him was such a trial. “If you don’t want to talk to me then you should at least let Cloud know what’s wrong, he’s worried about you too, just like I am.”

“I can’t. I don’t want you two to know what I’ve done.” Zack shuddered and curled in on himself. “I don’t want to upset you both.”

“Too late!” Aerith pulled away, turning him so he was facing her. “We’re both worried and what’s worse is knowing that we could be helping you but we aren’t. We can’t. You need to tell us what’s wrong and let us help.”

Zack stared at her, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand to stop any tears that wanted to fall. “I’ll think about it. After tonight.”

She huffed, hands on her hips as she leaned over him. “Fine, I’ll let you off this time.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re a good person, Zack,” she said softly, sitting back down properly, “no matter what I know that you are a kind, sensitive, loving man.”

Zack rubbed at his eyes again, nodding slowly. “Right back at you.”

-

Cloud was stubborn. Zack knew that at the star. He also knew Cloud wouldn’t be happy about being left with Aerith when Zack went off to do a job. Not that he had a problem seeing her, it was more about the fact that it wasn’t his own choice. Zack held his hand and practically dragged him through the slums to the church.

“I know the way, I can go by myself,” he protested for perhaps the hundredth time.

“Yeah, but I want to escort you,” Zack said, looking over his shoulder and smiling at him.

“More like corral me so you know I’m there.” Cloud huffed but didn’t let go of his hand. It wasn’t held tight and if Cloud really wanted to be could always let go and walk away, Zack would let him. He wasn’t evil or trying to get Cloud to do things he didn’t want to. Though he would whine and try to get him to go to see Aerith still.

Zack squeezed his hand; he would enjoy their walk together even if Cloud was being a grump during it. Just being able to stroll down the street with him made him happy, it was something small to savour, having time together no matter what they were doing. For a long time he’d only had Cloud for company and he’d become more than slightly reliant on it, so any peaceful moment he would take. In time he’d try to wean himself off being so dependant, he knew Cloud needed space but he also still had his problems, so he couldn’t do it too soon. Plus, it was hard to date someone when trying to distance yourself.

Suddenly Cloud held his hand tighter, hissing he stropped in place, one hand raised to his head. Instantly Zack spun around, crouching slightly to peer up into Cloud’s face.

“Cloud?” he asked urgently. “What’s wrong?”

Green. Cloud’s eyes were going green again. Another mako black out maybe? But they didn’t usually cause pain like this, he’d just go under, almost trance-like. Cloud shook his head, eyes wide and gasping in pain.

“S-sephiroth,” Cloud hissed, he raised his head, eyes completely green, staring at something over Zack’s shoulder.

“Huh?” Zack turned around, expecting to see Sephiroth standing there with his sword drawn. Nothing. He let out a breath, relaxing his shoulders. Not the real Sephiroth then. Maybe a day terror?

In front of him Cloud was sweating, turning his head this way and that, eyebrows drawn together and fear etched on his face. This wasn’t good. Zack knew Cloud couldn’t see him, he had no idea if he could even hear him. He’d have to try talking him through it, he couldn’t leave him like this.

“Cloud, Sephiroth isn’t here,” he said softly, “he’s dead, remember?” He reached out to gently cup Cloud’s clammy cheek.

Cloud hissed, turning away from the contact. Then he stepped forward, ignoring Zack being in his way. This was dangerous, who knew what Cloud could stumble into. Zack grabbed his arm, stopping him from leaving. Instantly Cloud screamed, gut-wrenching and full of so much pain Zack had to stop himself from letting go for fear he was really hurting him.

“Cloud, stop.” Zack swung him around, wrapping his arms around him securely. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Cloud. It’s just me, it’s Zack. Remember me, your loving handsome boyfriend?”

A shiver ran down Cloud’s body, he hissed like an angry cat before slumping against Zack’s chest. Not even for a second did Zack think that was the end of it. He kept a hold of him, just standing there, he didn’t know what he was waiting for but he wouldn’t move until he got a sign that Cloud wouldn’t try to wander off.

“I’m here,” Zack whispered to him, “you’re safe with me. I won’t let anyone hurt you again.”

Very slowly Cloud shifted in his arms, raising his head to peer up at Zack. When he looked down Cloud’s eyes were green around the edges but it was an improvement. He smiled down at him, holding him with one arm as he raised the other to push back blond spikes from his face.

“Hey there, you back with me buddy?” he asked gently.

A slow blink was all he got before Cloud buried his face into his chest, rubbing his face against his top like an angry cat. Well, that was answer enough. Zack laughed, rubbing at his hair. That’s good.

“Want to talk about it?”

Cloud shook his head, grunting unhappily. “No,” his voice was muffled but the petulant tone was easy to distinguish.

“Okay then.” Zack hated to let him go but they needed to get moving or else Avalanche might do something stupid without him there. He shifted Cloud slightly so they could walk, one arm looped around Cloud’s waist. “We need to get going.”

Another grumble from Cloud, who pressed heavily against his side. “Can’t I go with you?”

“We’ve been over this,” Zack rolled his eyes, leading them towards Aerith’s church again. “You’re not well enough to go on a job like this. Come on, Cloud, you’re tired from not sleeping last night and you just had a… whatever that was, a mako induced thing.”

“I’m fine,” Cloud muttered but he lowered his head and didn’t mention it again. Stubborn he may be but he wasn’t stupid. Well, most of the time he didn’t act as though he was.

Fine… Cloud hadn’t been fine in a long time. Zack held onto him a little tighter. He hoped Aerith would be okay looking after him today. Putting this on top of everything else Zack was dealing with was nerve-wracking, he didn’t want to leave Cloud without him. If something happened Aerith wouldn’t be strong enough to stop him, he was enhanced and could hurt her. Hopefully him having whatever that was just now meant it wouldn’t happen again today.

“Don’t worry,” Cloud said softly, “I’ll be okay.”

It wasn’t just Cloud he was worried about now though. Still, he couldn’t let Cloud know that, he’d think he didn’t trust him and Zack did trust Cloud, it was the mako he didn’t. Zack stopped them, moving in to press a kiss to soft blond spikes. “I always worry about you,” he told him honestly, not that Cloud didn’t know that already.

“Where’d my fun-loving idiot go?” Cloud teased, though it fell a bit flat. “I like it better when you’re happy.”

Zack lowered his head and kissed his forehead this time before getting them moving again. “I like it better when you’re happy too.” It was hard to tell half of the time but he thought Cloud wasn’t unhappy, mostly.

When they got to the church Aerith wasn’t there, she was probably doing something else, she had a life outside of the flowers. Zack shifted awkwardly, he really needed to get going. “Maybe we should try going to find her,” he said, looking around again.

“I can stay here,” Cloud sighed, he took off his sword, “I can look after myself.”

“Yeah, I know, I know.” Zack ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head. “She knows you’re coming so she’d come back at some point.”

Cloud rested his sword against a pew, he walked up to Zack, grabbing his jacket to pull him down for a kiss. Stunned, Zack didn’t move for a few second before practically melting into the soft lips pressed against his own. When they parted he stayed bent over, staring into Cloud’s brilliant blue eyes, he was so pretty and fantastic.

“I’ll see you later,” Cloud told him firmly, “go do your thing. I have your phone number and I know where to go if anything bad happens.” He pushed away from Zack, giving him a half-smile. “Be careful.”

“You too.” Zack lingered but after Cloud waved his hands to shoo him he headed out, closing the door gently behind him. Kicking at the ground he walked down the steps.

“Zack?”

There in front of him was Aerith, thank goodness. He jogged down to her with a grin. “Hey, Cloud’s just waiting inside.”

Aerith nodded, brushing her hair back over her shoulder. “How is he?”

Immediately his stomach dropped, feeling as though it were sinking down deep into the Planet. “He had an… episode on the way here. Not like normal though, it sounded as though he was seeing Sephiroth. Maybe a memory of Nibelheim?” He hoped that was all it was, with the experiments done on him nothing would surprise Zack.

“Oh.” Aerith bit her lip, clasping her hands to her chest. “It’s a good thing you didn’t leave him at home then.”

“Yeah.” Zack rubbed at his hair awkwardly. “You sure you’ll be okay with him? If something happened and he gets aggressive he could hurt you.”

It was a legitimate concern but the look Aerith gave him said he was being silly. “I can handle myself, mister. You can go now, do your thing, but be careful.”

“Aren’t I always?” Zack laughed, gave a brief salute and jogged off. He really needed to get going.

-

Of course it wasn’t that simple. Nothing was ever simple for him. It hadn’t been as hard as Zack had expected for them to enter the reactor, considering they should have been on high alert Shinra seemed kind of sloppy in security. That was a giant warning sign in his head. Then he noticed they were being lead into a trap. He stopped them before they could keep going.

“No.” Zack had to hold Barret back from continuing the way Shinra wanted them to.

“What’s your problem, soldier boy?” Barret glared at him. “If they want a fight, we’ll give them one!”

“Not if they’re the ones holding all the cards. You have a family to get back to, don’t be reckless.” Something Angeal often said Zack was, but he was learning to be better, he needed to get back to Cloud in one piece. “I don’t much fancy doing what they want. Let’s try a different way.”

“Is there another way?” Tifa asked, looking around. “It looks like everything’s blocked off.”

Zack pointed upwards. “The vents aren’t.”

“You think I can fit in there?” Barret asked gruffly, gesturing with his gun arm.

That was a legitimate concern but what other choice did they have? No way was Zack going to just run into what he knew to be a trap. “Well, let’s find out.”

He dragged over a box to get Barret to stand on so he could shimmy up into the vent. It was a tight squeeze and his gun arm made an awful racket but all they needed to do was get to a different part of the reactor, somewhere that they weren’t being pushed into. With Barret taking the lead then Zack behind him, with Tifa following at a safe distance from the end of his sword, they made slow arduous progress to a different area.

“I feel sick,” Barret complained after two minutes, “it’s stuffy and tight.”

Zack pulled a face, he had a point, it wasn’t pleasant but he never claimed it would be. “Just a bit further. We’ll get out at the next grill.”

Then came the real problem. Trying to get Barret out again. They were lucky that no one came looking at what all the noise was about, especially with all of his swearing, wriggling and the almighty crash that he caused when he finally fell out of the vent and into an ungainly heap on the floor. Wincing Zack hopped out, landing with a lot more grace than Barret did. He held his arms up to catch Tifa as she fell, because he was a gentleman like that.

“Thanks,” Tifa laughed breathless, she rubbed her head with one hand when he set her down. “I was starting to get a headache from all that banging.”

“Hey, it wasn’t pleasant for me either!” Barret grouched.

“Well, we’re out now.” Zack went to the computer that was along one wall of the room, scanning an ID he’d snagged from one of the guards he’d knocked out earlier. Bringing up the map he nodded to himself. “We’re near an exit. Let’s mosey!”

Shutting it down he ran to the door, swiping the ID again before heading to the right. They needed to leave quickly, he’d turn on the fire alarm before they set off the explosion. Just as they reached the door to freedom a blaring started up around them, lights flashing red as they were assaulted by noise.

“To the terrorist group, Avalanche,” a voice spoke over the speakers, echoing in the hallway, “Shinra do not negotiate with terrorists and we will not give in to any of your demands. You try to destroy our way of life and you will be duly punished.”

Apparently, the fire alarm wouldn’t be needed, these sirens would definitely get the everyone moving. Zack hissed and ran faster, slamming the door open to the workings of the plate. It’ll take them some time to get back to the surface but it was worth it for having a more secure exit. “Come on!”

Barret and Tifa ran after him, though a lot slower than he was able to go. Before they got far an explosion rocked the floor and Zack had to grab onto the other two, jumping out of the way of a platform falling beneath their feet. He winced, hoping that it didn’t hit anyone when it landed in the slums.

“Tifa!” Barret yelled, looking over at her.

“It wasn’t me!” Tifa pulled out the trigger from her skirt pocket. “I didn’t press it!”

Zack sighed, leading them away from the explosions. Better to get going as quickly as possible, even as his companions argued behind him. “They probably took control of the feed,” he said, “it’s Shinra.”

“The explosion should have been smaller.” Tifa was looking up at where they could see fire through a hole in the plate.

Pausing Zack gazed up as well, it looked bigger if anything. “From that recording they want to prove a point. I wouldn’t be surprised if they made it bigger. If the reactor was going to be destroyed anyway, why not use it to send a message?”

“Those rats!” Barret yelled, waving his gun arm in rage up at the explosion overhead.

“Come on, nothing we can do but get back down,” Zack said, trying to push thoughts of Shinra out of his mind. There were more important things to do right now.

-

Having someone at her side to sell flowers was nice, Cloud was a calming presence and plus he was good protection. No one would try anything when she had a vaguely grumpy looking young man with a large sword with her. She had teased him about needing to smile a few times, he just rolled his eyesbut gave her a small smile when she placed a red flower in his hair. “Advertising,” she had proclaimed.

When they got back to the church Aerith was more than pleased about their profits for the day. Having a handsome man there helped sell the flowers to women, just so they could talk to him. She’d have to bring him along again in the future.

There hadn’t been any news from Zack yet but he could come find them at her house, she had a few things to do around there which she could use Cloud’s help with. First they’d tend to the flowers at the church then head off, it would be great a break too as Cloud looked like he needed to be away from people for a while before he got too overwhelmed.

“Thanks for the help,” Aerith said, “but maybe we should work on your smile.”

“You smile enough for the both of us,” Cloud grunted, he still hadn’t removed the flower in his hair so he wasn’t that grumpy.

“That’s not how it works and you know it.” Aerith tutted, wagging a finger at him. She went to put her basket on her flower wagon, she only used that when going up to the plate because of how uneven the paths were in the slums.

The world around them shook.

Stumbling on the broken flooring, Aerith grabbed onto a pew for support. Opposite her Cloud did the same, head raising to stair up at the broken ceiling, as though expecting to see something up there. Aerith did the same, just to check. Nothing.

“What was that?” When the shaking stopped Aerith pushed herself up.

“Another reactor explosion,” Cloud said simply.

She turned to him; eyebrows raised. “How do you know that?”

“Just a guess.” Cloud sighed; shoulders drawn up tight. He knew something.

“Cloud?” Aerith reached out to him, wanting to take some of the weight he looked to be carrying. Before she could do anything the doors to the church slammed open. She turned quickly to see a Turk sauntering in, bouncing a baton on his shoulder. Reno. What did he want now? The Turks had agreed to leave her alone, though she knew they were always watching her, probably Cloud and Zack too because of their contact with her. Behind him were three troopers, guns at the ready.

“Yo! Sorry to burst in but I’ve come to collect you, Aerith,” Reno said, looking not the least bit sorry.

She stepped up to Cloud, grabbing onto his arm. “Collect me?” she asked.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Cloud asked, looking him straight in the eye.

Reno eyed him and shook his head, he seemed mildly amused by the whole affair. “Names Reno,” he said, “and, like I said, I’ve come to collect Aerith.”

“I don’t think she wants to go with you.” Cloud reached for his sword that he’d left leaning against a pew.

“Look, blondie, I have higher ups causing a stink because your little boyfriend was out there making a ruckus.” Reno held out the baton towards them, drawing a circle with it. “So,” he said slowly, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

Boyfriend making a ruckus? He must mean Zack. He must have done something to Shinra, they obviously knew he was a threat to them. They had to find him before Shinra did.

Cloud raised his sword. “Then I choose the hard way,” he said firmly.

“Cloud,” Aerith held onto him tighter, not wanting to surprise him when he was seemingly in a bad mood, “you don’t have to fight, we can run.”

“Grab your staff, we’re getting out of here and finding Zack.” Cloud’s eyes were practically glowing now. Aerith stepped away from him, running to the back of the church where her staff was, a healing materia Zack had given her firmly slotted into it.

Whilst her back was turned Cloud launched himself forward, sword sweeping out making Reno jump backwards. The infantrymen stepped forward shooting at Cloud who blocked the bullets with his oversized sword. Aerith promised herself then and there to never make fun of that sword again, apparently it was good for defence even if it was stupidly heavy in her opinion.

“The hard way it is!” Reno stepped to the side. “Get him! Don’t hurt the girl though!”

Aerith rushed forward, swinging at Reno who dodged out of the way easily. He laughed at her attempt, narrowing her eyes she sent a fire spell towards him which stopped the laughing at least. She’d gotten that materia herself, healing was useful but if she was going to dabble in more than her mother’s materia she wanted one that’d protect her. Protect her and her foolhardy boys.

“Look, I don’t want to hurt you,” Reno huffed, “but if you don’t come quietly I’m going to have to.”

“Thunder!”

Reno held out his baton to absorb the thunder spell Cloud had sent his way. The troopers were unconscious on the floor, having been dealt with quickly. Reno laughed at the attempt, shaking his head.

“Okay then blondie, you really are wanting it the hard way.” Then he charged at Cloud, baton raised. Cloud blocked it easily, pushing his sword to the side to try and unsteady Reno, who was of course not going to fall for that but Cloud hooked his ankle around Reno’s leg, then used his shoulder to slam into Reno, before headbutting him. They both crashed to the ground with Cloud on top of him.

“Hey, hey, watch that sword!” Reno yelled as Cloud shifted the sword to right next to his neck. Aerith held a hand up to her mouth, not wanting to see someone’s throat sliced open.

“What the hell is your problem, kid?” Reno hissed. “This is playing dirty.”

Cloud smirked down at him, pressing his knee against his ribs as he settled on top of Reno. “Yeah, it is. I know Turks don’t play fair, so I’m not going to either.” He shifted, his sword scraping against the wooden floor as he got more comfortable. “You’re going to let us leave quietly.”

“Not likely you little punk,” Reno hissed, he raised his legs, heedless of the sword at his neck, bucking and kneeing Cloud in the back which got him to relent on the pressure on Reno’s ribs. With that out of the way Reno brought his baton up and hit Cloud with the taser, sending him flying backwards, ending up convulsing on the floor. Reno stood up, dusting himself off, he stepped up to Cloud and planted his foot on his ribs.

“Looks like the extra juice you gave me really gave that a kick,” Reno laughed.

“Leave him alone!” Aerith ran at Reno, going to hit him in the side with her staff. Reno raised an arm just in time to block it but moved off of Cloud to step back so he block properly.

Cloud got up, grabbing his sword, panting slightly, shivering as he recovered. Aerith was just relieved to see he was okay. He swung at Reno, hitting him in the side that wasn’t keeping Aerith’s staff in place. It didn’t cut deeply and Reno was quick to throw Aerith off and stop most of the damage by blocking him from getting too far into the swing. He jumped back, holding onto his side where he was wounded.

Darting forward Cloud took hold of Aerith’s hand then quickly ran into the back of the church, dragging her behind him. Instead of fighting he was trying to protect her.

“Don’t think you can get away!” Reno yelled. With any luck the injury would make him slower to follow them.

Once they were in the back of the church Cloud hesitated briefly. “Up!” Aerith pointed to the beams above them, there was a hole in the roof that they could use to escape. She pulled him along to the broken stairs then from there were fallen debris they could use to get up higher. Cloud jumped across the wrecked floor first to get to another set of the stairs, holding out his arms to catch Aerith as she jumped across after him. They made their way up, only looking down when they heard their pursuers enter as well, either Reno had another set of troopers outside the church or he managed to wake up the others, either way he had backup and they needed to move fast. Aerith noticed the barrels and with a smirk, pushed one off the edge of the broken flooring. That should distract them. From the cry below she must have hit someone. She hoped they weren’t too injured.

When they got to the hole in the rood Cloud climbed through first, again helping her afterwards. He could be a gentleman when he wanted to be. They needed to climb across the rooftops to get far enough away from them before it was safe to get back down. It wasn’t the most fun in the world but at least it was better than being dragged back to Shinra with the Turks. Plus is was fun to see Cloud trying to keep balanced with that giant sword of his. When they were back on solid ground Cloud grabbed her hand again and ran, that part was annoying, he was stronger and faster than she was. Still, his being protective of her was nice, he was taking the risk to her safety very seriously. It was cute.

“Where are we headed?” Aerith asked breathlessly, trying to keep up.

“Sector seven,” Cloud replied, “we need to find Zack.” He slowed as they got further from the church. “Before he left the other day he gave me this.” He pulled out a card from his pocket passing it to her. “Zack said if anything bad happened to go there, they’ll know where he is.”

“Seventh Heaven?” Aerith read off the card.

“I don’t know where it is but when we reach sector seven we can ask around.” Cloud shrugged.

Aerith nodded, no doubt she’d have to do most of the actual talking to people part of that plan. “Okay,” she said slowly, “come on then.” She took the lead, not wanting to be dragged around any longer. Besides, she knew the back alleys better than Cloud.

She hoped wherever Zack was that he was okay, being mixed up with Shinra was bad news.  Clasping her hands together briefly she sent a quick prayer to the Planet.

Please, let Zack be okay.

Chapter Text

Seventh Heaven was apparently a bar, or so Cloud was told when he asked around for it. They’d reached sector seven with no problems, which was a relief but left an uneasy feeling in Cloud’s stomach, it all felt too easy. He just hoped he wasn’t leading the Turks right where they wanted them to be, it didn’t sit right with him but he definitely had to get to Zack. Aerith seemed perfectly fine with it, asking for directions and leading Cloud around. She was confident and only mildly visibly shaken which was a relief, though he didn’t doubt for a second that as soon as Zack finds out what happened the Turks will rue the day they upset Aerith.

“This way, we’re nearly there.” Aerith pointed down the street, Cloud nodded, checking their surroundings once more before following her. “Apparently there are rumours about what goes on there.”

“Rumours?” Cloud asked, only half-interested. “What kind?”

“The anti-Shinra kind,” Aerith hummed. “There is a lot of upset about Shinra, apparently those who go to Seventh Heaven are the least quiet about it.”

Oh, it wasn’t unusual to find a dislike of Shinra in the slums and at a bar people would be less tight lipped than normal. It wasn’t really anything strange in his mind. He just wanted to go there to find Zack and tell him what was happening, he’d be able to help keep the Turks from getting to Aerith, he knew how they worked more than Cloud did. If it meant walking into a den of anti-Shinra activists then he’d just have to deal with any problems if they come up, not that he thought Zack would send him their way if it would be dangerous.

“Do you think that’ll be a problem?” If Aerith wasn’t comfortable there they’d just have to make it quick.

Aerith held her hands behind her back and walked calmly down the street, as though they weren’t being chased. Not that there was much chasing, they had probably lost the Turks but they still needed to not dawdle.

“I don’t think they’d care about us, we’re not Shinra after all,” Aerith told him after a long pause. “If Zack’s working with them then I don’t think they can be all bad. I trust his judgement.”

“Zack trusts people a little too easily,” Cloud sighed, he loved Zack but he thought everyone who wasn’t directly trying to hurt him was a new friend.

Aerith shook her head, smiling at him. “He sees the good in people, he wants to trust them and I think he brings out the best in people because of that.”

“He also gets taken advantage of,” Cloud said, crossing his arms as they continued down the street. “He keeps agreeing to do nuisance jobs for people because he’s too nice, even though he knows they are perfectly capable of doing things themselves and he barely getting paid for doing it.” It was frustrating to see.

“You like him being nice,” Aerith laughed, her face relaxed and happy to just talk about her friend.

“If he weren’t nice he wouldn’t have ever put up with me.” Cloud wasn’t feeling sorry for himself, it was just a fact. He saw a sign up ahead for Seventh Heaven. “There it is.”

Aerith looked like she wanted to say something but just let out a frustrated breath and followed as Cloud headed towards the bar. “Do you think we were followed?” she asked instead.

“I don’t sense them,” Cloud told her, “but I’m still new to using my enhancements so I can’t be sure.” He didn’t hear anyone following them. “They’re Turks and trained to go unnoticed if they want to but I think we might be okay.”

When they got to the front of the bar Cloud checked around again, there wasn’t really anyone in the street. With all the commotion of another reactor explosion there were other things to worry about than what they were doing. Aerith put a hand on his arm gently, directing his gaze towards her. “It’s okay, Cloud,” she said softly.

How could she be so calm? She was the one they were after, they were trying to keep her out of harms way but it any fear seemed to have left her now. It was admirable. Honestly it was a bit worrying that she was concerned for him now.

“You and Zack are very similar,” Cloud told her, “more so than you think he and I are.”

Aerith smiled at him, standing a bit straighter. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.” She took hold of his wrist. “Come on, let’s go find him then.” Pushing the door open she dragged him into the bar. It was deserted. That wasn’t a great start to finding Zack. “Hello!” she called out.

Nothing apart from the low music coming from the jukebox. “This doesn’t seem very safe,” Cloud muttered, “an open door and a deserted bar. It’s like they are wanting to get robbed.”

“Oh honestly,” Aerith hit his arm lightly, “don’t be so pessimistic.” There was a slight rustle and a light bang. She stepped forward, peering over the edge of the bar, tipping herself over it. “Oh, hello!”

Frowning Cloud walked towards the bar, leaning over it beside her. There was a little girl in a pink dress hiding behind the counter. Strange. Why would a little girl be left alone in a bar?

“Sorry,” Aerith said gently, “we didn’t mean to scare you.”

The little girl peered up at them, blinking her big brown eyes as she clenched her hands into her dress. “Daddy said I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” she spoke very softly, a slight quiver to her voice.

“That’s very good advice, your daddy must be really smart.” Aerith moved back, pushing Cloud to do the same so they weren’t leaning over and intimidating the child. “How about we introduce ourselves? That way we won’t be strangers anymore. My name is Aerith and this is my friend Cloud. What’s your name?”

“Marlene,” the little girl whispered, peering at them with a small hint of fear still.

“What a pretty name!” Aerith clapped her hands together. “We were told to come here by our friend, Zack. Do you know him?”

At the name Marlene smiled and moved to the door blocking off the counter from the rest of the bar, she slipped through it to stand in front of Aerith. “Yes, I know him. He tells bad jokes!” She was bouncing slightly on her heels, obviously excited now.

“That’s him alright,” Cloud said, rolling his eyes.

Marlene looked at him and backed away; her eyes trained on his sword. When he noticed Cloud shifted awkwardly, he supposed a big sword was scary, but if she knew Zack then he had a bigger one so she shouldn’t be too frightened by it.

“Cloud’s my bodyguard,” Aerith told her, “so he needs his big sword to protect me.”

Cloud took off the sword, Marlene cowered away from him when he had it in his hand. He carefully leant it against the bar, making sure she can see it still, he stepped away from the sword. Slowly he walked towards her, crouching down as he’d seen Aerith do to talk to the kids in the slums.

“I’m sorry for scaring you,” he said, feeling awkward about this. He ran a hand through his hair nervously, his fingers caught on something, the flower Aerith had given him earlier, pulling it out the flower was surprisingly in good shape even given the fight and run from the church. He noticed Marlene’s eyes were focused on the flower. Trying to smile he held it out to her. “Would you like this flower, as an apology for giving you a fright?”

Marlene eyed him then the flower before reaching out to take hold of it gently, nodding her head and smiling at him. “Thank you.”

Aerith crouched down as well. “It suits you more than it does him,” she laughed. “Hey, do you know where Zack is? You see, Cloud here is his boyfriend and he’s really worried about him because he loves him so much.”

“Hey!” Cloud glared over at her.

“It’s true!” Aerith smiled teasingly, holding her hands up as though in defence.

Marlene stared between them and nodded, clutching her flower close to herself. “I know where he is!” She scurried over to the pinball machine then turned towards them. “I’m not allowed to go down there but I can tell them you’re here!”

She turned, pressing a button on the machine then scurrying away from it as it gave a low groan. There was a very obvious indent where the floor was different from the rest. Slowly the floor descended, taking the pinball machine with it. Marene knelt at the edge of the hole, peering down. Aerith quickly ran over, putting a hand on her back, ready to grab her should she fall. Cloud kept a bit further away so he wouldn’t scare her again just by being there.

“DADDY!” Marlene called down into the not so secret base.

“Marlene!” a gruff voice replied. “What are you doing there, sweetie?”

Marlene giggled happily. “A pretty lady is here to find Zack! Oh, his boyfriend gave me a flower!” She reached down, leaning with one hand as she held the flower down into the hole.

“Well isn’t that nice, sweetheart?” The voice said the words but Cloud could tell that he wasn’t completely happy about the idea of strangers being near his daughter. Not that he blamed him, but honestly, he shouldn’t be leaving a little girl alone in the bar to start with.

“Pretty lady and boyfriend?” That was Zack’s voice. Thank the Planet he was there.

“Hello, Zack!” Aerith reached down to wave her hand into the hole. “We’ve come to find you!”

There were footsteps, obviously Zack coming over. “Hey Aerith, not that I’m not happy to see you or anything but why are you here? Uh, how did you even know I was here?”

“You left me the card for this place last time,” Cloud called down, still not wanting to go near the hole. “For emergencies.”

“Is this an emergency?” Zack asked, voice sounding more like a sigh than anything.

“Oh no, it’s fine,” Aerith laughed, “Cloud was just being a worrywart. I said we could just go to my house but he insisted on dragging me here.”

Cloud frowned over at her. “Hey, it didn’t happen like that!”

“Why…?” Zack huffed out a breath. “Look, I’ll come up there.”

Aerith grinned over at Cloud for some reason that he wasn’t overly sure about. Half of the things she did he wasn’t overly sure about actually.

“Marlene, honey, can you get away from the hole?” the gruff man asked. He really didn’t sound happy.

“Okay, Daddy!” Marlene shifted back but lost her grip on her flower. “Oh no!” She lurched forward to try to grab it out of the air, slipping as the hand she had been holding herself up with came out from under her. She started to fall. Aerith quickly grabbed her around the waist, torso in the hole with Marlene in her arms.

“MARLENE!” the father’s voice yelled in concern.

“Oh, hello, Zack,” she said pleasantly, as though she’d planned it just to see him.

“Hey,” Zack replied.

Cloud darted over when he saw her slipping, kneeling at her side and grabbing her around the waist too. “Want to get pulled up?” he asked tiredly.

“Umm, yes.” Aerith still had a hold of Marlene. “Hello, Mr Marlene, could you take your daughter?”

“Marlene, sweetheart!” The man must have taken hold of his daughter as Aerith lightened slightly. “Don’t scare your Daddy like that.”

“My flower,” Marlene said softly.

“It’s right here. Still just as pretty as you are.”

“Can you pull me up?” Aerith asked.

Cloud rolled his eyes and pulled, helping her back into the bar rather than partway into the secret hideout. Why Zack was there Cloud would have to ask later, for now they had other problems. Turk shaped problems. With Aerith out of the hole Cloud got up, helping her to her feet. Stepping away from the hole Cloud brushed himself off.

There was a creaking of metal as the pinball machine rose up again, this time with Zack on the platform. It was a relief to see him, he looked a bit worse for the wear, a few stress lines around his eyes and forehead crinkled but he was whole and safe.

Without thinking Cloud stepped up to him, reaching out to touch his arm. Whatever was worrying him they were about to add to it.

“You okay?” Cloud asked, knowing he hadn’t been looking forward to whatever these people were getting him to do.

“Yeah, I’m okay, buddy, don’t worry about me.” Zack ducked down to press a kiss to Cloud’s forehead, he scrunched up his face at the moist lips. Zack just laughed at his reaction.

He wrapped an arm around Cloud’s waist and guided them away from the trap door. Aerith pulled out a chair at one of the tables and sat down, brushing the skirt of her dress under her. That was their cue to join her, though Zack pulled his chair up right next to Cloud’s, settling an arm around his shoulders.

“Okay, so, what brings you both here?” he asked. “What happened?”

“Oh, nothing really,” Aerith waved her hand in the air, “I told you, Cloud just worried for nothing.”

“The Turks,” Cloud told Zack, the arm around him tensed, “one of them was sent to collect Aerith. I fought him and we managed to get away but they want to take her to Shinra.”

“You fought a Turk!” Zack tightened his hold on Cloud. “You okay? They can be pretty ruthless.”

Cloud rolled his eyes, Zack was so protective of him, it was nice but, honestly, he knew he could take care of himself. “I’m right here, aren’t I? No blood or anything. He zapped me with a stun baton but I heal fast so it did basically nothing. Come on, Zack, you know I won’t go down so easily. You’ve been training me.”

“I know… I just… I can’t help it.” Zack turned so he faced Cloud, pouting at him sadly with his big puppy dog eyes. “I don’t want anything to happen to my Cloudy.”

Yeah, cute but Cloud wasn’t so easily taken in. He lightly pinched Zack’s leg which made the big man-child whine, as though it would ever hurt him. “That face doesn’t work on me.”

“Sometimes it does,” Zack grumbled, rubbing his leg. “So, a Turk came to get Aerith. Did they say why?”

“Apparently someone was ‘causing a ruckus’ up on the plate and someone high up in Shinra decided it was a good time to stop just observing her.” Cloud raised an eyebrow at Zack. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that ruckus, would you? The Turk seemed to think it was something to do with my boyfriend.”

Zack coughed and looked away from him. “They did? That’s weird. Didn’t know they were interested in keeping tabs on your love life, you got a secret boyfriend I don’t know about?”

Cloud sighed, sometimes Zack was just tiring. “Zack,” he said sternly, “by any chance did you have something to do with a certain reactor explosion? Or maybe two?”

“No idea what you’re talking about.”

Aerith slammed her hand on the table. “Zack! Did you explode a reactor?”

Zack gave a start, staring at Aerith with wide-eyes. “Uh… yes,” he mumbled, shifting in place.

“Oh, Zack,” she said softly, getting up to come around, wrapping her arms around Zack’s neck from behind, leaning against him. “Is that why you were so upset?”

Cloud sighed as Zack nodded. He pressed himself against his side, hugging him too. It explained why he had been so upset before, the explosion had caused people to be hurt, to die. No doubt Zack blamed himself. He had guessed that it was what Zack had been doing but having it confirmed was saddening. At least he knew now.

“I just wanted the truth, Zack,” Cloud sighed, “thank you for telling us. Is there anything I can do?”

Zack held onto Cloud back tightly. “I’m okay, Spike, just having both of you here helps.” He took a deep breath, steadying himself. “Anyway, so Shinra knows and they’re trying to get Aerith.”

“I’ll be okay,” Aerith said confidently, “don’t worry about me. They won’t hurt me.”

“Aerith,” Zack said, rolling his eyes, “you know that they’re dangerous.”

“Not as dangerous as you,” Aerith hummed, “besides, you never know, maybe they want to enlist me into SOLDIER.”

Cloud huffed out a laugh. “I’m sure you’d be a great SOLDIER.”

“Cloud!” Zack squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t encourage her!”

“Sorry, that’s your job.”

-

For a while they laughed together, Zack smiled at the two of them, glad that they were there even if the circumstances weren’t the best. He needed their presence after the day he’d had.

There was a creaking and whirl from the pinball machine as it descended and came back up to show the other members of Avalanche. Looking over curiously Zack saw Barrett carrying Marlene, he didn’t seem the happiest when he looked over at them, behind him was Tifa who stepped off the platform then froze on the spot when she saw them.

“Cloud?” she asked. “You’re Cloud, right?”

“Yes?” Cloud was staring right back at her, eyebrows creased. Slowly his mouth opened in shock. “Tifa?”

Tifa immediately ran over, leaning right up into Cloud’s face. “It is you!” Cloud pushed himself against Zack slightly so he had more room, he hated being caged in. “I looked for you when I got here but never found you! I was so worried!”

“Uh… I left Midgar for five years,” technically, “and only came back with Zack a few months ago.”

Tifa looked between Zack and Cloud. “So, you’re the boyfriend?” she asked.

“Uh… yes?” Cloud peered up at Zack, frowning. “You told people about me?”

“Hey,” Zack moved his arms to hug Cloud around his waist, “I’m allowed to tell people about my awesome boyfriend. Though, maybe I should have mentioned your name? I’m sure there’re lots of people called Cloud though, so there would be no way she’d know it’s you though.”

Cloud raised an eyebrow at him, obviously not convinced. “How many Cloud’s do you know?”

Right, yeah. “One?”

Aerith snorted a laugh behind them. “Oh, Zack.” She held out a hand to Tifa. “Hello, I’m Aerith, a friend of Zack and Cloud’s.”

Tifa stepped back and took the hand. “Tifa. Cloud and I grew up together.”

“Oh!” Aerith clapped her hands happily. “You can tell me all of the embarrassing stories Cloud doesn’t want me to hear then!”

“Uh, sure?” Tifa smiled at her but looked very much like she would rather have a touching heartfelt reunion then do that right now. “I just… Cloud and I should probably talk.”

“About what?” Cloud asked.

“About… do you… know what happened to… home?” Tifa asked slowly.

Oh, yeah, she didn’t know Cloud was there because he was hiding. “Yes, I know.” Cloud lowered his eyes, curling in on himself slightly. Zack squeezed him gently in reassurance.

Tifa bit her lip. “Of course, it’s been years, of course you know by now.” She grasped her hands together in front of her. “Will you come around here again? Maybe we could talk together about… home?”

In his arms Cloud tensed up, Zack squeezed him again. Talking about Nibelheim was hard for him for a few reasons, not least of which was what happened to them there in the Shinra Mansion. Zack pressed his face into Cloud’s hair.

“Maybe,” Cloud said stiffly.

“Right.” Tifa let out a breath, looking to the side.

“If it’s just to see you then, that’s fine.” Cloud put his arms over Zack’s pulling them away so he could get up. He grabbed his sword before heading to the door.

“Cloud!” Aerith stomped her foot, she smiled apologetically at Tifa. “Sorry about him, it was nice to meet you Tifa.”

“Oh, sure.” Tifa watched sadly as Cloud left the bar, Aerith chasing after him.

Zack scratched at his head, that wasn’t at all awkward. “Sorry about that. I probably should have told you that he was here.”

“Why would you know to?” Tifa asked, looking at him with a small frown. “Did you know we knew each other?”

“Ah, yeah, kind of?” Right, this was all too complicated right now. “Cloud told me about you before, so… a Cloud and Tifa who know each other, I should have asked at least. He’ll be upset I didn’t tell him.”

“He seems the same as usual,” Tifa sighed. “It’s good to know someone else from home is okay though.”

Okay was a very subjective term here. Zack gave a shrug. “I’d better follow them, have a good night.”

“We’ll see you later?” Tifa asked.

“We’ll see.” Zack waved a hand at her, jogging to the door to go catch up to Cloud and Aerith who were standing at the bottom of the steps to the bar. He smiled at them, looking up at the lights that were dimming to mimic the dying light of day outside. “How about I take you out to dinner?”

“Both of us?” Aerith asked. “Not going to ditch me for a date are you?” She leaned forward and smirked up at him.

Zack snorted, rubbing the top of her head as he went over to Cloud, wrapping an arm around his waist. “As though I’d be able to ditch you. There’s a good place a little ways away, come on.” He guided them towards the restaurant, when he’d been there before it hadn’t been too packed, that would be good for Cloud, he seemed overwhelmed already.

He saw a few thugs down the road, he carefully angled the other two from their line of sight. The last thing he needed was someone picking a fight with them, they looked the type to try testing their strength against anyone they thought could fight and probably a few that couldn’t.

“So, what rank SOLDIER do you think I could make?” Aerith asked, smiling over at them.

“Well, if we go by how annoying you can be First,” Cloud snorted.

“HEY!” Aerith lightly punched his arm. “I think I liked it better when you were all zoned out. Who taught you to talk back? Was it Zack? He’s can be a brat too.”

“Hey!”

-

After dinner, which had luckily been nicely calm, Zack walked around Sector 7 with them before heading to the park where he’d helped Aerith sell flowers. They needed to take Aerith home but he was enjoying just hanging out with them somewhere different than usual. It was relaxing.

Cloud and Aerith were sitting atop the slide talking whilst Zack jumped back and forth on the tyres embedded in the ground. He waved to them every so often, Aerith waved back and Cloud rolled his eyes. He’d get him to return the wave eventually, he just had to wear him down.

“I was thinking of fixing some of the floorboards in the church,” Cloud said, “it’s a bit unstable. We could always make your flower patch bigger too. Maybe extend it to around the outside of the pews?”

Aerith hummed, hugging her legs. “So, do you want to fix them or tear them up?” she teased.

“Both.” Cloud huffed at her. “You’re being difficult on purpose.”

“Me?” Aerith gasped, hands clasped to her chest. “You’re so mean to me Cloud. Zack, isn’t Cloud mean?”

Zack looked over at them, walking up to the slide. “I think Cloud’s lovely,” he said with a no doubt stupid grin on his face.

A bright blush took over Cloud’s face. “Idiot.”

Aerith rolled her eyes this time, slumping over her knees. “Stupid boys.”

Laughing Zack climbed up the ladder and slid down the slide, arms raised, letting out a whoop of joy. Eagerly he got up, going back around again. He’d forgotten how fun a playground could be.

“I feel like I’ve taken my child to the park,” Cloud sighed.

“He’s happy, leave him be,” Aerith laughed, leaning back to look up at the plate above them.

Zack waved to them again at the bottom of the slide. “Come play!”

Aerith climbed down, letting Zack catch her. He grinned, setting her next to him. “Come on, Cloudy!” For a second Cloud closed his eyes before nodding, with a smirk he jumped down, right into Zack’s arms, causing him to stumble but not let go. Beside them Aerith laughed, taking a few steps back so they wouldn’t fall into her.

“My hero,” Cloud teased, Zack made sure to keep him held off the ground, staring up at the bright blue eyes shining with mischief.

“For you, always,” Zack said softly. Damn, Cloud was so beautiful.

Cloud leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. “So, you wanted to play?”

Oh, he did. Zack squeezed Cloud before setting him on his feet. “Come on, try the tyre rings.”

“Looks like part of an obstacle course, they used to make us train with those.” Cloud put his hands on his hips looking over at the tyres.

Aerith jogged over, hopping on the tyres, nearly loosing her balance as she sped up. “Come on, if I can do it you can.”

“I never said I couldn’t do it!” Cloud stormed over and followed her lead.

Zack just watched them fondly. His two favourite people having fun, that was all he needed right now. Warmth filled his chest and in this one moment it all felt worth it. All of the pain, the struggling to reach Midgar and even the fear when Cloud zones out. Seeing Aerith trying to encourage Cloud to use the slide he smiled to himself. Yeah, it was worth it. When Cloud actually went down the slide Zack cheered along with Aerith making Cloud pout at them.

There was a loud creak, Zack looked over to see the large doors to Sector 7 open and a chocobo carriage ride out. Odd, there weren’t many chocobos in Midgar. Seeing it head to Sector 5 cleared it up quickly. He knew there was a breeder in Wall Market but he didn’t know they ever used the carriages.

“Tifa!” Cloud got up, running towards the carriage.

Zack exchanged a look with Aerith before running after him. When he got closer he saw that Tifa was definitely the one in the carriage. Huh, she looked different than usual, all dressed up. Cloud jumped onto the back of the carriage, speaking to her through the window, Zack just jogged to keep up to him, not wanting him to get too far away.

“Some guys were asking around about Avalanche,” Tifa was explaining, “they were Don Corneo’s men. I need to find out why and what he wants, whatever it is can’t be good. I’m going to his audition, I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me.”

“But…” Cloud paused, lowering his head, “are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“Of course!” Tifa smiled at him. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Be careful.” Cloud hopped off the back of the carriage. Zack caught him so he wouldn’t stumble, watching the carriage leave for Sector 5.

They stood there for a few seconds in silence as Aerith caught up to them, dragging their swords behind her which they’d left in the park. Bending over she let go of the weapons instead placing her hands on her knees as she panted for breath.

“Who’s Don Corneo?” Cloud asked, looking up at Zack.

“Ah,” Zack turned to Aerith to share a worried look, “he’s in charge of Wall Market. Remember that big flashy building? That’s where he lives.”

“What’s this audition then?”

Zack rubbed at the back of his head. “Uh, I don’t know much, but I do know that it isn’t anything good.”

Aerith huffed at him. “Come on, we’re going to go save her!”

“Save?” Cloud looked between the two of them. “She needs saving?”

“Don Corneo isn’t a good guy,” Aertih said, storming past them and towards Wall Market. “He does horrible things and if she’s going to deal with him she needs backup.”

“What kind of things?” Cloud grabbed up his sword before following her leaving Zack to sigh and do the same.

“All kinds of things.”

“Then we definitely need to save her.”

How was that an explanation? Zack wouldn’t leave Tifa there, of course not, but Aerith was just playing with Cloud at this point, the less you say the more someone will imagine. He’d heard all kinds of rumours about Don Corneo, both new and old, so he definitely would go help as backup but Aerith really shouldn’t be messing with him right now.

“Come on, Zack, hurry up!” Aerith grabbed his hand to pull him along faster, Cloud copying her on his other side.

Damn it, he’d really not wanted Cloud anywhere near Wall Market at night.

Chapter Text

Wall Market at night was loud. That was the first impression Cloud got. Loud and far too bright in the darkness under the plate. Also, his initial thoughts about people not wearing enough clothing in the sector was definitely correct. There were a lot of people and a whole slew of odd smells, his senses were overloaded. He really needed to get used to his enhancements.

“You okay there, Cloud?” Aerith asked, peering up at him.

Cloud took a deep breath, nearly chocking but he would just have to deal with it. “I’m fine. Just… overwhelmed.”

“Yeah, it’s hard with enhancements,” Zack said, “this place is definitely overwhelming.”

Aerith scrunched her nose up but pulled back, linking her arm with Cloud’s. “So I don’t lose you,” she stated.

Cloud was sure there was more to it than that but he was grateful that he wouldn’t lose track of Aerith as well. Zack had let go of his waist when they entered Wall Market, instead leading the way through the crowd, it also served as clearing a path for them as no one wanted get in the way of his giant sword. As they went through there were food stalls that scents mixed together to make Cloud’s stomach rumble with distaste. He hated it.

“We’ll go straight there,” Zack told them, “best to get this over with as quickly as possible.”

It was definitely not hard to tell that Zack wanted them out of Wall Market as soon as he could. Cloud’s arm got yanked back, he looked over to see Aerith had stumbled on a loose cobblestone. Stopping, he helped her straighten up, she laughed awkwardly, a sweet blush on her cheeks.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Cloud frowned when he turned back around, Zack hadn’t noticed that they were left behind. “Come on, we’ve got to catch up with Zack.”

They walked through the crowd, trying to spot Zack, he was tall with a big sword, he couldn’t be that hard to find. Unfortunately it was a bit more difficult than anticipated because of all the people. That and Cloud didn’t have the most height to see over peoples heads, which was annoying to note.

“Where is he?” Cloud huffed, looking around as they stopped in an alleyway to get away from everyone as searching blindly hadn’t been helpful. “We were only seconds behind him.”

Aerith hummed as she peered out at the people. “He should be looking for us by now.”

Which begged the question, why wasn’t he? Knowing Zack he should be running around and yelling their names looking for them. With how overprotective he was Cloud would have thought he’d have found them in two seconds flat.

“Maybe he got turned around?” Aerith suggested. “Or we did?” She frowned, looking at the street.

“We probably just missed him.” Cloud took her hand and pulled her back out into the street. “I know the way, let’s get going. He’ll find us eventually.”

There was a pause before Aerith followed him. “Are you sure you won’t get lost?” she asked, her voice slightly teasing. Cloud rolled his eyes.

“Of course, I have a better sense of direction than Zack.” Cloud headed the way he thought he remembered the big mansion being. That was their initial goal so he’d head there. Hopefully they’ll find Zack on the way.

Life was never that easy. Some guy who smelt like stale alcohol leered at Aerith, slurring something and reaching for her. Immediately Cloud swung her around, grabbing the man’s wrist, stopping him from touching any part of her.

“Back off,” he hissed, pushing him away.

The man looked him up and down. “You’re pretty,” he slurred, “you a boy or girl?” This time he reached for Cloud, which was not on.

Cloud glared at him, pushing him back hard enough to make him fall over. He ushered Aerith away, shooting a look over his shoulder to make sure the drunkard was still on the ground, he was blinking in shock probably wondering how he got there. At least he wasn’t pursuing them, he’d probably forget about it in a few seconds.

“Thanks, Cloud,” Aerith said softly.

“No one touches you,” Cloud replied. He tugged at his jacket awkwardly, pressing the bottom of his face into the light blue scarf he was wearing. It was fine when Zack called him pretty, that made a little ball of warmth spread in his stomach, hearing it from a stranger wasn’t new but he disliked it. Only Zack could call him pretty, Aerith could as well because she was his friend and only does it to tease him so that’s okay he guessed.

“Aww, I’ll protect you too,” she grabbed onto his arm, pulling him down slightly. “You’re so sweet. Do I need to protect you from big bad Zack too?”

What? Cloud frowned at her. “He’s my boyfriend, I don’t need protection against him.”

“No, he looks at you too much, you definitely need protection from him,” Aerith grinned up at him, “never trust a man that gives such lusty looks.”

Immediately Cloud flushed bright red. “He doesn’t give me those looks!”

Instead of the grin Aerith stared at him in surprise, her mouth opening a few times before she giggled. “Oh, Cloud, you are so innocent and sweet!” She squeezed his arm firmly. “Zack adores you and he totally gives you those looks. You’re adorable thinking he doesn’t.”

“I…” Cloud shook his head, looking away from her. “Let’s just find him.”

“Sure, sure.” Aerith continued laying on his arm as they walked, making it slightly awkward and hard to move but he wouldn’t stop her. At least that stopped people from hitting on her, it probably gave them a couple like feeling, which Cloud wasn’t overly fond of but if it made sure no one harassed them then he could cope with it.

Luckily it wasn’t long before a familiar frantic voice was heard coming their way. “CLOUD! AERITH!”

In all honesty he should have been prepared to be barrelled into but it still threw him off balance. Zack practically threw himself at him, wrapping his arms around them both far too enthusiastically. They were crushed together, Zack holding them tightly as he babbled away in Cloud’s ear, loud and frantic. A headache was forming from the sheer volume of his voice quite quickly.

“Zack, I’m right here,” Cloud huffed, “I can hear you, please lower your voice.”

“I was so worried!” Zack pulled back slightly, only marginally quieter. “Both of you were suddenly gone and I didn’t know where to look for you!” His eyes darted between them, taking them in, checking to make sure they were okay. Sweet but he was still loud. “What if someone had taken you into some seedy back alley? What if I never found you?”

Cloud sighed, reaching out to stroke Zack’s hair back, there were cute worry lines around his eyes. Poor idiot. “Zack, I’d find you. No one would hurt us, I promise. See, we’re okay.”

A pout was evident as Zack stared into his eyes. “But what if you weren’t? You could have been drugged and dragged off by Shinra. They are after Aerith and probably still want to get at us.”

True, there had been the Turk trouble earlier. “I doubt even the Turks could sneak around here. They would stand out too much in this crowd,” Cloud hummed, looking around himself.

Next to him Aerith nodded, reaching out to hold onto Zack’s arm gently. “Wall Market doesn’t like Shinra hanging around too much unless their spending money,” she said firmly, “I doubt they would go after us here.”

“But…” Zack huffed then reached out to hug them both again, squishing them against his broad chest. “I was so worried!”

“I know, Zack.” Cloud pat his back awkwardly. “Would it make you feel better if we held hands for the rest of the trip?” So long as it calmed him down Cloud would be okay with holding Zack’s sweaty hand.

Immediately Zack pulled back, kissing his forehead and grabbing his hand tightly. Aerith chuckled, still clinging to Cloud. Great, not only had they been blocking the street whilst they tried to calm Zack down they will now also do so whilst walking. No doubt they’d get a lot of people looking at them, just the attention that Cloud didn’t want. Perfect.

Zack led them down the street, checking on the two of them often, which was a bit irritating but Cloud wouldn’t mention it, though his eyebrow twitching probably gave a bit of his frustration away. They had to squeeze past a few people, much to Cloud’s annoyance. He hated crowds.

“Hey, you there!” a person standing outside of what looked like a hotel said as they got too close. “Have you already got somewhere to spend the night with your fine ladies? We have the perfect rooms for a memorable evening.”

Ladies? Cloud’s eye twitched in irritation. He looked down at himself, he had his black jacket over a navy top, his blue scarf and black trousers tucked into combat boots. He didn’t think he looked that feminine, especially not with a giant sword, he’d been teased about compensating for something before because of it.

“Back off!” Zack hissed, yanking them away. The hand holding Cloud’s tightened as he stormed passed the hotel.

A warmth curled in Cloud’s stomach, Zack was very protective of them and it was adorable. He was so sweet. Beside him Aerith was grinning up at him, it was far too knowing of a smile for comfort.

“What?” he asked her.

“Nothing,” she hummed and giggled into her hand. “He’s cute.”

Yeah, he was.

Suddenly Zack stopped in the middle of the street, his eyes lingering on a building with a crowd around it, two men outside were proclaiming it to be a colosseum. From the sounds of it they were accepting people to sign up to participate. Cloud peered up at Zack who had his mouth open slightly.

“Zack?” he asked. Nothing. “Zack!”

With a shake of his head Zack looked down at him and smiled. “Yeah, Cloud? You okay?”

Rolling his eyes Cloud nodded. “Fine. What’s gotten into you? Do you want to have a look around?”

“Nah, no time for that, we’ve got to save Tifa.” Zack cast one last look at the colosseum before continuing down the path.

Cloud looked over at Aerith who shrugged at him, she had no idea what had gotten into him either. “Zack,” he pressed, “did you want to go there?”

There was a pause before Zack hummed. “I might have to come back here at some point,” he finally said, “they were offering quite a bit of gil to the winner, enough that we could definitely leave Midgar.” He squeezed Cloud’s hand. “Whenever I’ve been here before the sign ups were already over. Might be a bit unfair for a SOLDIER to participate though.” An awkward laugh burst out, which sounded so completely fake it was laughable. There was definitely a hint of sadness hidden in there.

“Ex-SOLDIER,” Cloud reminded him, “you’re a civilian now. We both are.”

“True, true.” Zack looked back at him with a small smile. “Does that make it more or less sporting?”

“They make you fight robots and monsters,” Aerith huffed, “I don’t think being sporting.”

“Do they?” Zack laughed again with a bit more humour. “I could definitely handle that. It might be a good warm-up for fighting Shinra and saving the Planet.”

Cloud shook his head at the man. At least he was acting a bit more like himself, as ridiculous as that was.

When they reached the ostentatious area that held the giant mansion Cloud straightened up. They would go in there and bust Tifa out, granted she apparently wanted information but they could just force it out of whoever they needed to. Going up to the entrance there was a guard who gave them a cold look over the top of his sunglasses, great another idiot who thought they looked cool wearing sunglasses at night.

“I’ll handle it,” Aerith said, separating from Cloud to go up to the guard.

“What? Why?” Zack reached out for her but she continued forward.

“Hello!” Aerith greeted, all chipper and sweet. “One of my friends came for the audition, I was wondering if I could see her.”

The man looked her up and down. “No one’s allowed in who isn’t here for the audition.”

“Can you go in and get her for me then?” Aerith pressed her hands together in a plea.

“No one’s allowed out either,” the man crossed his arms, unaffected by Aerith’s acting.

Cloud raised an eyebrow. “Can’t we just knock him out and bust in?” he whispered to Zack.

“Busting in would alert them and they may take her somewhere or even hurt her,” Zack sighed. “We need to get in and out discreetly if possible. We don’t know how many others are also in there either. The guy has a gun, I’m assuming everyone in there does. We don’t want any civilians caught in the crossfire.”

Cloud didn’t point out that technically they were all now civilians as that wouldn’t really help anyone. He watched Aerith keep trying to cajole the man into letting her in or Tifa out.

“Look, girly,” the man said, getting a bit aggressive now, “if you want in so bad you can join the audition, but you’ll have to look a bit more presentable than that.” He gestured to her outfit. “We can’t let just anyone in. There’s a few hours before we present the brides to the Don, that may be long enough for you. Come back when you won’t embarrass yourself.”

Aerith’s face went bright red, her hands going to her hips. “Embarrass myself!” She looked ready to punch the guy, Zack and Cloud rushed forward, grabbing at her before she could launch herself at him.

“Thanks for the help, bye now,” Zack said kindly, waving as they dragged her back.

When they were far enough away Cloud let go of Aerith, studying the mansion. “I still say we should sneak in and get her out.”

“We don’t know the layout of the building and we probably don’t have time to find out either. Especially not knowing where he’d even keep the girls.” Zack put his hands on his hips, head tilted to the side in thought.

“I’ll go in as a candidate,” Aerith said easily, “I’ll show that guy. Embarrass myself indeed!”

“You’re beautiful, Aerith,” Cloud sighed, “that guy has no taste.”

Aerith grinned at him, cooing. “Aww, you’re so sweet!” She hugged his arm. “You’re beautiful too, Cloud. Which is exactly why you’re coming in with me!”

That stopped Cloud’s brain completely. Zack stared at her then to Cloud, raising an eyebrow. “Umm… Aerith, isn’t it a bride audition? Cloud is a guy.”

“He’s been mistaken for a girl once and asked if he was one earlier too. We could definitely pull it off.” Aerith clapped her hands excitedly. “You’ll look so pretty, Cloud!”

There was that word again, pretty. Cloud had thought he was okay with Aerith calling him that but he wasn’t anymore. “Aerith,” he said slowly, “you want to dress me up as a girl to audition to be someone’s wife?”

“Well, I could go in there alone if you want,” Aerith spoke slowly, “but I thought you would be worried about that.”

“I would!” Cloud agreed then reeled back. Wait, he hadn’t meant to agree, it felt way too much like giving into what she wanted.

“Hi, Cloud’s boyfriend here,” Zack interjected, “I’m not comfortable with either of you going in there.”

“Oh, you’ll love it when he puts on his dress.” Aerith waved her hand at him dismissively.

“Dress?” Cloud was going to object when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Tuning out their rambling he turned.

Slowly a black feather fluttered down to the pavement. It laid there for a few seconds before bursting into flames.

Cloud.

Come to me.

My Puppet.

Taking a deep breath Cloud tried to block out the voice, green pulsating static filled his vision, head swimming. Further and further into the green. Pain throbbing in the front of his head.

Give in.

My Puppet.

Reunion.

“Reunion?” Cloud gasped. “Jenova.”

Hands were grabbing his shoulders, slamming him back into reality. Bright blue eyes stared at him, wide and worried. That was all he seemed to do at the moment. Worry Zack.

“What did you just say?” Zack asked urgently.

“I… don’t know.” Cloud carefully grabbed back at Zack’s arms. “I’m sorry. Did I say something bad?”

Zack’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he shook his head. “It’s… never mind.” He took a deep breath and forced a smile on his face, letting go of Cloud’s shoulders to wrap an arm around his waist, directing him down the street. “We need to get both of you dresses. You’ll look so beautiful.”

“Wait… I’m going too?” When had that been decided? How long had he been zoned out for?

“Yup!” Aerith cooed at him. “You’re going to be my bodyguard.”

Cloud stuck his tongue out at her. “You don’t need a bodyguard, you’ll annoy them enough to surrender.”

She gasped, hands clutched over her heart. “You’re so mean to me!” She sidled up to Zack’s side this time. “Just for that I’m not going to walk with you.”

“Oh, what a tragedy.” Cloud rolled his eyes at her antics.

Zack laughed between them, apparently finding it the funniest thing in the world.

-

None of them were good enough.

Zack searched through the shop, checking out every dress that was in their price range, Aerith had explicitly told him not to go to the other side of the store where the more expensive items were held. According to her finding the perfect dress they couldn’t afford was worse then anything else possible. Which was an exaggeration but any time he tried venturing over there she would drag him back to cheaper options.

“Maybe a few rounds in the colosseum would help,” Zack huffed, “if I win a bit of gil then we could afford better dresses.”

Behind him Cloud snorted. He was seated in a chair next to a mirror and was being a bit of a brat, which wasn’t unusual but Zack would have preferred a little help here. Then again when Cloud had helped he’d purposefully picked out the most ugly dress possible so the less he did the better really. They didn’t need to be sent away because Cloud had no taste.

Aerith was looking through a discount rail, humming to herself happily. She seemed interested in a long red dress which would probably look great on her. There was no help from her on the Cloud front though.

“If you get to go to the colosseum then so do I,” Cloud told him firmly.

Yeah, not happening. Zack frowned over at him, did Cloud really think he was well enough for that? He’d had a weird zone out not twenty minutes ago, there was no way he was risking Cloud’s health because he was being stubborn.

“No.” Zack went over to him, crouching in front of Cloud. “When you’re better maybe, but not right now. You’ve had two… episodes today, sending you in with Aerith is enough to stress me out, please don’t make me more worried.” He pouted up at Cloud, hoping that’d make him understand how scared he was. From the apathetic look in his eyes it wasn’t. Damn, Cloud was growing immune to his puppy dog face.

“I’m fine,” Cloud told him for the hundredth time. He wasn’t fine.

Zack kissed Cloud’s forehead as he got back up. “Come on, Cloudy, help me pick out something to make you look even more beautiful than you already are. Seriously this time.”

Cloud sighed behind him. “You’re looking at dresses, what about a top and skirt?”

That was an idea at least. Zack nodded and went over to look, most of them seemed to accentuate certain assets that Cloud did not have, so they were a no go. Anything low cut was immediately off the list. Maybe high neck but would that give the affect they wanted. Zack sighed and kept looking, they definitely seemed cheaper so that was a plus.

“You’re back!” the man behind the counter yelled.

A gruff voice replied. “Need more gil.” Even from where Zack was he could smell the alcohol practically oozing from the man.

“You need to stop, Dad.” Ah, poor guy. “Why don’t you get back to work instead? We need more clothes, new designs would be good.”

“What’s the point when I don’t have any inspiration!” The father sounded desperate, and drunk.

“Inspiration?” Aerith piped up, she was over by the counter in second, smiling at the man. “What do you need for inspiration?”

Zack turned to watch them, hopefully the drunken man didn’t take her curiosity the wrong way, he definitely didn’t want to get into a fight and end up kicked out of the only suitable clothing store in the sector. Luckily the man was in a talkative mood, hopefully not a violent drunk then.

“I need something different! It’s the same thing every day!” He shook his head, which was a bad idea as he stumbled slightly.

Aerith hummed in thought. “How about helping my friend here?” She gestured over to Cloud who had been attentively watching her too, but when he was put into the spotlight he slumped down into his scarf. “He wants to wear something pretty but most women’s clothes won’t look good on him.”

The man slowly blinked at her. “He wants to be pretty?”

“Yes!” Aerith clapped her hands. “A nice dress would be good. He’s beautiful but it’s a bit difficult to find something suitable for him. Could you help us?”

There was only a slight stumble when the man approached, staring at Cloud intently. “It would be different at least. Yes, I could do that!” He grinned at Cloud. “I could make you the most beautiful young lady anyone has ever seen!”

That was good but also caused a spike of jealousy right in Zack’s stomach. “We need it for a few hours, we can’t ask you do that so quickly,” he interrupted, sending a look Aerith’s way. They would be fine with just a normal dress.

“I can do it!” The man eyed Cloud who tried to retreat even further into his scarf. Adorable. “What material would you like? Cotton, satin or silk?”

“There’s a difference?” Cloud squeaked, obviously uncomfortable with the attention.

The man stared at Cloud and shook his head, apparently his enthusiasm was sobering him up as he only winced instead at the action this time. “How it feels against the skin, how it drapes, the shine and the breathability, to name a few. The materials will give completely different effects when worn.”

“The price would probably be different too,” Zack sighed.

“Never mind that, you’ll get a low price for giving me my inspiration back.” The man grabbed a notebook from behind the counter before looking Cloud over again and drawing something. “So, which material?”

Well, if it’s going to be a low price. “Silk,” Zack hummed, Cloud against silk sheets came to mind which he had to banish quickly. No distractions right now. Even pleasant ones.

The man noted it down, holding out a tape measure he’d also retrieved. “Jacket off, young man, let’s get some measurements.”

Cloud flushed, not wanting to move. That was until Aerith came over and threatened to strip him herself which got him up and shrugging off his jacket, obviously not wanting to have her attempts to ‘help’ anywhere near him. A wise choice, Aerith was great but she was demanding and not afraid to make a scene to get her way. Like a marionette Cloud was pulled around, measurements taken and jotted down.

“You have a very small waist,” the tailor hummed, “that’s good, it’ll help conceal your more manly attributes. What colour would you like it to be?” He held up a few samples of silk fabric in different colours.

“Uh… purple, I guess,” Cloud said softly, ducking his head, his scarf had been taken so he couldn’t hide behind it anymore, poor Cloudy.

“Very well.” The man had a light purple material and nodded to himself when he checked it against Cloud’s colourings. “It should look lovely.” He went towards a curtain in the back. “You can return in an hour and a half,” he told them before hiding himself in the backroom.

They paused, blinking after him. “I guess we’re dismissed,” Zack huffed. Cloud quickly grabbed his things, pulling on his clothes again.

“Don’t worry, my old man knows what he’s doing,” the son said from behind the counter. “Though that’s a short time even for him, it’ll most likely be done.” He leaned on the wood of the counter. “He’ll probably reuse some pieces from other clothes.”

Zack didn’t know anything about tailoring so he just nodded in acceptance.

“Can I reserve this?” Aerith asked. “To buy when Cloud picks up his dress.” Whilst Aerith spoke to the cashier Zack slipped into the back room, Cloud was busy frowning at the floor as he pulled on his clothes again so he wouldn’t be missed for a minute or two.

He had a few things to discuss with the tailor.

-

“This is the place?” Cloud asked, tipping his head to one side as he observed the gym they were standing in front of. Honestly he didn’t get it. The cashier had told them that someone here would be able to help them get a wig for him but this was a gym. To his knowledge they didn’t specialise in wigs.

Ignoring him was what Aerith seemed to be doing best right now and headed inside, immediately striking up conversation with a man next to a boxing ring. They followed her, Zack having wrapped an arm around his waist protectively again, but as soon as he saw the gym equipment his thoughts were elsewhere, he’d still been wanting to solo the colosseum when they left the tailors so it wasn’t a surprise. Zack must be in the mood for exercise, he was probably getting restless.

“This the one who needs it?” someone came up to the them, Aerith trailing behind the man.

“Yes,” Cloud said, narrowing his eyes at the large muscular man.

“This is Jules,” Aerith told them, “he said he’d give us a wig for a price.”

Zack sighed, this saving Tifa trip was going to ruin all his hard work gathering gil to get them out of Midgar. “Okay, how much?”

Jules laughed at him, shaking his head. “I need to know you’re worth it,” he said, “I don’t know anyone who goes blond anymore so as long as you can beat me at a squat off then you can have it.”

“Squats?” Zack perked up, his arm tightening in excitement around Cloud’s waist.

“Can Zack do it?” Cloud pointed to his boyfriend who was nearly vibrating. “He loves doing squats.”

Jules looked them up and down. “You want a champion in your place?”

“Sure.” Cloud gave a noncommittal shrug.

There was a pause where Zack rocked back and forth, which was not pleasant for Cloud who was still held tightly against him. He didn’t need motion sickness from him right now.

“Very well, you can have a champion. I shall have one too.” Jules called out to someone in the ring. “Ronnie!”

A large intimidating man came up to them. “Yeah, Jules?”

“This young man would like to have a squat off,” Jules said, indicating Zack.

“I see.” The man smirked and nodded. “Let’s do this!”

Immediately Zack pulled away, doing a few warm up squats before he was led to the ring where they would hold their competition. This would probably take a while. Cloud went to a bench, sitting down on it with a sigh, he pat the space next to him for Aerith to join him. She nudged his legs, getting him to close them.

“We can use this time to practice,” she said with a laugh, “knees together, sit up straight. No elbows on your legs.”

Having Aerith sit next to him was a mistake. Cloud reluctantly sat how she wanted him to, not that she was following her own advice, with her slumped posture and open legs. He supposed that she was used to acting like a woman so she could get away with it. Why was he doing this again? Sneaking into the mansion would be so much easier, at least in his opinion. Then again, technically he was sneaking in. It was deception at the very least.

With great fanfare on his part Zack had won the squat off. Which somehow led to another with a large man called Jay. Somehow Zack didn’t seem the least bit tired, he was energized if anything. Hhe waved to them happily before the competition started.

“Such an excitable puppy,” Aerith laughed, Cloud could only nod in agreement. Zack had enough energy and happiness for them both.

“I feel like I’m taking a two year old out for the day,” Cloud sighed, first at the park and now at the gym. Must be a good day for Zack.

This competition went much the same as the first with Zack blazing on ahead and not losing momentum. Around the ring the gym goers were calling out encouragement but Cloud couldn’t tell who it was for, they were just yelling. They seemed nice, not the least bit annoyed that Zack was so easily ahead of their friends.

When that competition was done Jules challenged Zack himself, which he agreed to but before they started he bound over to the ropes, jumping them to land outside the ring. “Cloud!” He ran towards Cloud, barrelling into him, nearly knocking him off of the bench. “I need a good luck kiss!”

Yeah, he was buzzed on adrenaline. No way would he ask that of Cloud in front of a room full of people otherwise. Not wanting to let Zack’s buzz be ruined Cloud leaned his head up, indicating that he would accept a kiss. It was wet and had a bit too much tongue, their lips parting with a smacking sound. Definitely not anywhere near the top of their kisses. By the way Zack bounced back into the ring he was fine with the sloppy kiss. Next to him Aerith was smirking.

“Don’t even start,” Cloud hissed at her, wiping at the slobber Zack had left around his mouth.

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Aerith hummed, “I was just admiring what a pretty shade of red your face is.”

With a huff Cloud focused back ono the ring, watching as Zack psyched himself up before the competition started. At least he was having fun with it. Just before it started Cloud gave a small wave to Zack. Rather than it helping him Zack gave a false start and had to catch up on the squats, face going pink. Oh, Cloud hadn’t meant to do that. He clasped his hands together on his lap.

“Aw, it’s okay Cloud, you just made him flustered,” Aerith said gently.

So Zack bouncing around kissing him was fine but Cloud couldn’t even wave to him. It didn’t take much for Zack to catch up, squatting quickly and efficiently. By the end Zack was back to being in the lead and cheered when he was declared the winner, his name written onto some top score board, which Cloud personally thought was a bit weird but whatever, it wasn’t his gym.

As a weird trophy Zack was presented with a blond wig, it had ringlets and looked very nicely made, or at least Cloud assumed it was, not tatty looking at least. Jules came over and told them how to put it on and gave them a wig cap for Cloud’s messy spikes. Wig obtained they left the gym, after Zack finished talking enthusiastically to them. Definitely a good time for him, Cloud was relieved that Zack seemed happier.

“Oh!” Aerith looked between them intently. “What about underwear?”

That stopped Cloud in his tracks. “What about them?”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Don’t be obtuse,” she said sternly, “what type do you wear? You can’t have saggy boxers under a dress.”

Couldn’t you? Why not? Cloud wasn’t convinced. “I’m sure it’s fine,” he told her sternly.

“Can’t say I’m comfortable with you talking about my boyfriend’s pants,” Zack muttered, brows creasing.

“Oh, don’t be stupid, Zack.” Aerith waved her hand at him. “This is important. Depending on the dress you need the lines to be right. In a slinky dress boxers would show.”

A slinky dress? Did that mean tight? Eyes wide Cloud turned to Zack. “I don’t want to wear a tight fitting dress!” he told him urgently.

“Don’t worry, calm down.” Zack hugged him to his side. “I’m sure it won’t be, that’d show your body too much, it’d be obvious you’re a man.”

Breathing out a sigh of relief he focused on Aerith. “No weird underwear.”

She pouted at them, hands on her hips. “Let’s have a look around anyway,” she said, being stubborn for the weirdest reason.

Zack sighed and shrugged. “We have time, it won’t hurt.”

“Oh! And perfume!” Aerith wrinkled her nose at him. “You smell like sweat and mako.”

Zack and Cloud glanced at one another before shrugging. That sounded about right. “Can anything overpower the mako?” Cloud asked.

“Flowers.” Aerith nodded to herself, she always smelt of flowers and dirt. “I’ve seen artificial flower perfumes. That should do it. Oh, and accessories!”

This time Zack winced. “Perfume and jewellery are expensive,” he complained, “where do you expect to get the gil for this?”

She turned to Zack and smirked at him, reaching into a pocket of her jacket and pulling out a small pouch of gil proudly.

“Where did you get that from?” Zack asked.

“You can buy Cloud’s dress, let me buy the extras,” Aerith said with a wink. “This is gil I got from his pretty face earlier.”

“Huh?” Cloud frowned, what did she mean? Again with the word pretty but this time he was confused as to what his face had to do with anything.

She rolled her eyes, tucking her pouch away again. “There were some people who bought flowers from us just because you’re pretty, I charged the creepy leering ones extra.”

“People leered at Cloud!” Zack pulled Cloud tighter to his side making him squeak in protest. “Were you just not going to tell me that?”

“Not if you turn into an overprotective parent.” Aerith grabbed Cloud’s hand, pulling him from Zack’s clutches, who let go only so Cloud didn’t get hurt in a tug of war. “Come on, Cloud, let’s leave Zack to his paranoia.”

Leaving him to it wouldn’t help but Cloud wasn’t about to argue with Aerith, she knew Zack as well as he did. The underwear and accessories however he would argue about. By the time they got to a stall selling jewellery Cloud had agreed to getting one piece, only one, and it had to be reasonable. Aerith picked out a new bracelet and necklace for herself then got to looking for one for Cloud.

“It’s hard without knowing what the dress will look like,” she sighed. “How about this instead?”  She brandished a tiara at Cloud like a warrior would a sword.

Taking a step back Cloud tried to focus on it. A silver tiara with clear crystals inlaid, it looked… a bit gaudy honestly. He frowned at her. “Isn’t it a bit ostentatious?”

Aerith looked from the tiara to Cloud. “You’d look like a princess,” she said, “aren’t you Zack’s princess?”

No, he certainly was not.

Behind them Zack hummed, reaching over to grab Cloud’s hand and kiss the back of it. “He is,” he sighed. For his trouble he got a hard elbow to the stomach winding him and getting him to let go of the hand.

“No tiara,” Cloud told her firmly, if just the thought of him wearing one made them react like that then definitely not.

“Aww, come on Cloud!” Saying no apparently made her want to get it for him all the more. Typical. “Just this. Well… depending on the dress you may need a necklace to add something to it but for now just the tiara.”

“I said one,” Cloud told her firmly, “so either the tiara or a necklace.”

Aerith pouted at him. “Two.” Cloud narrowed his eyes at her. For a few seconds they had a very aggressive eye conversation before she held up the tiara. “This then.”

“Fine.”

She grinned and paid for the items, skipping away from the stall. Wait a moment. Cloud paused, looking at her retreating form. He had said no tiara and she had gotten the tiara.

“You got played,” Zack hummed beside him sounding somewhat smug. He got another elbow to the stomach before Cloud pulled away to go get Aerith who had found another stall that apparently sold perfume. By the end of the trip he smelt like a rose and Zack was walking a few steps behind him. Aerith promised that they could wash a bit of it off the first chance they got. Enhanced senses were not made for whatever it was she had sprayed on him.

-

Aerith waited eagerly to see what Cloud looked like. Whilst she changed into her dress Zack tried to convince Cloud that this was the best plan and he really needed to put the dress on. She had only seen a flash of purple before Zack and the tailor swept him into a changing room when she came out. Luckily Zack winked at her before he went in so she didn’t feel completely ignored. Cloud was the hard one to get to do anything so she understood why he wanted to be there, they didn’t need him fighting with the tailor.

“How is it?” she asked, they had been a while in there, she hoped it fit well enough.

“Beautiful,” Zack laughed. “One second!”

About thirty later Cloud came out of the changing room, face bright red and hands clasped in front of himself, knuckles white from clenching them. Aerith gasped, hands going to her mouth. He looked beautiful indeed. He had on a lilac sweetheart neckline dress, which must have a built in corset from how it was holding his body, with a bell shaped skirt that went down to his ankles. In front of the skirt was a giant lilac bow which distracted from him only having an illusion of a chest form the corset. Apparently they didn’t need to worry about not having a necklace as the tailor had used a strip of the same fabric to make a choker with a teardrop bead hanging from it. They had also put on his wig, the ringlets held in two ponytails with ribbons at the end of them, the tiara perched elegantly on top of the wig.

“You look beautiful!” Aerith told him happily, going over to see what it looks like up close. The scent of flowers overpowered the mako and sweaty boy smell which was good, even after washing some of it off.

Cloud sighed and shook his head. “If you say so.” He lifted up the skirt to move back to look at the changing room, Aerith could see he still had on his combat boots which was… a look, she supposed. “Wait until you see Zack.”

“Zack?” Aerith frowned. “What about Zack?”

“Yeah, what about Zack?” Stepping out of the dressing room was Zack, hands going to hips, head tipped to the side.

“Oh.” Aerith’s eyes widened in shock to see him standing there in a dress which looked a bit too tight on him. It was black with grey cut out v at the front, a black bow at the waist that led down to gathered skirt that went going down to just below his knees with a ruffled bottom. There was a long sleeved bolero with white baggy cuffs over the top of it. The whole thing set off with his black hair gathered into pigtails in front of him with ribbons much like Cloud’s. He was also still wearing his combat boots, it didn’t suit the outfit nor the white tights he was wearing.

It was… strange to see him like this. Whereas Cloud looked like a woman Zack… not so much. Something just didn’t seem right. Maybe partly because everything just looked too small on him.

“So, how do I look?” Zack asked, hands going to his hips.

Aerith bit her lip, not sure what to say, apparently Cloud had no such problem. “You look like you’re wearing a dress.” Which was technically true.

“Well, yeah, but do I look cute?” Zack pouted at him. Cloud went over to him, pulling on one of his pigtails.

“When you pout you’re cute,” he said, “without it you just look like Zack in a dress.”

“So, I’m not usually cute?”

“No, you’re usually handsome.”

Aerith rolled her eyes, she didn’t think this would turn into them flirting. “What about your shoes?” she asked to distract them.

“Oh, there were none in my size,” Zack huffed, “Cloud just doesn’t want to wear the heels that go with his.”

Cloud frowned down at the floor. “My boots are easier to walk in, I would rather have mobility then looks. Plus, no one should be able to see them.”

When he moved they would but Aerith would let it go, they just need to get in after all, it should be fine. Zack however, she had no idea what he thought he looked like, but it would be interesting to see what happens.

“One thing.” Zack went back into the changing room and quickly came back. “Here.” He went behind Cloud and got him to put his arms into the sleeves, setting the black leather jacket on his shoulders.

“Not that I’m complaining, but why?” Cloud asked.

“You have no sleeves,” Zack told him, “you could get cold.”

That sounded fake. That wasn’t the reason. Aerith stared at him, one eyebrow raised. He was jealous, he wanted to cover up Cloud as much as possible. Apparently it was good enough for Cloud who nodded and accepted it. In her opinion he was just happy to put on more clothing and didn’t bother pointing out Zack’s weird behaviour.

With a smirk shot towards her Zack went with the tailor to pay for the dresses, he sighed an awful lot throughout the whole exchange but it could have been a lot worse. She knew he was saving up for something, she’d have to offer him the rest of the extra money she got from Cloud helping out with the flowers, she didn’t want them to be without because she wanted Cloud with her inside the mansion.

“Now what?” Zack asked. “We good to go?”

They walked through the streets away from the gym, Zack had stashed their weapons and clothes in a locker there, apparently it was secure according to Jules. He was hanging off of Cloud more than usual which caused quite a few heads to turn, Aerith didn’t want to even imagine about what they were thinking was going on here. Quite a few people were checking out Cloud who had nowhere to hide his face without his scarf, he was bright pink, it was adorable.

“Make-up,” Aerith told them firmly. “We have time still.”

Zack shifted closer to Cloud, burying his face in his wig. “Do you have any?”

She shook her head. “No,” she admitted, “but I have an idea who we could ask for help. I know someone who works at the Honeybee Inn, we could ask her.”

Immediately Zack stopped, making Cloud stumble because of his tight grip on him. “We can’t take Cloud around there! They’d eat him alive!”

“Hey!” Cloud frowned over at him, it really was more of a pout.

“You’re too pretty, everyone will be after you.” Zack kissed his forehead. “Especially dressed like this, there are tons of horny men around the Honeybee Inn, they’ll be all over you.”

“I can look after myself,” Cloud huffed.

Aerith hummed and smirked at Zack. “He’s used to it, he has a horny man all over him right now.” Cloud snorted in amusement, Zack stared at her, mouth open, eyes wide and thoroughly betrayed. It was amusing.

“You’re mean,” Zack whined.

“Let’s go.” She spun around, heading to the Honeybee, the boys would follow her, they wouldn’t leave her to go there all alone. Within seconds they’d caught up and were trailing after her.

One of the annoying things about Zack was that he could be right surprisingly often. Although it was a new sensation a few men were looking at her a bit too much, maybe she should have had a jacket as well. Cloud was getting more looks than her which should have made her jealous but he got them even when not in a dress so it didn’t hurt her feminine pride at all, especially not when Zack was there being upset enough about it for all of them. He was back to practically smothering Cloud with his own body, glaring at anyone who looked at him a bit too much.

“Zack,” Cloud hissed, “stop it.”

“Stop what?” Zack was terrible at feigning innocence and really should give it up at this point as no one was buying it.

“I can handle a few stares,” Cloud told him firmly, “I don’t need you to protect me.”

With a small whimper Zack lowered his head. He was giving Cloud the puppy dog eyes now. As she expected Cloud gave in with a sigh, patting Zack’s arm gently. They were adorable but also mildly annoying when she was trying to get them somewhere. She went over to where there was a break in the fence next to the inn, ducking under it, gesturing for the boys to follow.

-

“So, what are we waiting for?” Zack asked. They were standing by the back door of the Honeybee Inn. Aerith had knocked and spoken to someone on the other side before they had caught up to her.

Aerith shushed him, shooting a hard look their way. After a minute a woman dressed up as a bee came to the door, she looked them over and shook her head.

“She’s not available right now,” the bee woman told them.

“Oh.” Aerith nearly wilted. “That’s too bad.”

“What was it you wanted her for?” the woman asked. “Maybe someone else can help.”

That got her perking up again. “We were going to ask her to do our makeup for us. Do you know anyone who could help?”

“Well,” the woman didn’t look impressed with that request, “I’m sorry, we’re all busy working. Try somewhere else.”

Surprisingly Cloud stepped forward, out of Zack’s arms which left him bereft. “We’re planning to break into Don Corneo’s mansion and save one our friends from his audition.” Zack’s eyes widened in surprise, Aerith spun to him in shock too. Why would he just say that outright? It was also surprising for Cloud to voluntarily speak to someone so candidly. “To get in we need to get passed the guards, we need to look the part. Could you help us?”

The bee woman narrowed her eyes, assessing them. “Maybe.”

“Come now, my dear, let our new friends in.” A hand landed on the woman’s shoulder and a tall man wearing too much spandex in Zack’s opinion, stepped around her. “I am Andrea Rhodea, owner of the Honeybee Inn, if you are planning to save your friend from Corneo then you are more than welcome here. If a little bit of makeup will help then I will gladly provide it.”

Zack didn’t like the way this Andrea’s eyes were roving over Cloud, he got back into his previous position of wrapping himself around Cloud. “You want to help us for free?” he asked.

“Is that so hard believe?” Andrea asked, one hand waving lazily in front of himself.

“From a businessman? Yes.” Zack raised an eyebrow at him.

Andrea smirked, eyes focusing on Cloud again. “Come through, my dears, we will get you all dolled up for your grand debut.”

“Debut?” Cloud muttered under his breath, shaking his head before trying to follow Andrea, smacking Zack’s hands from around his waist when he tried to hold him back. “Zack,” he hissed.

Aerith just rolled her eyes and grabbed Zack’s arm, pulling him in after them. “Don’t be such a baby.”

They were taken to a dressing room, sat in front of the mirrors and with a clap of Andrea’s hands they were being smothered in all kinds of make-up. Zack had no idea what was happening around them but he hoped they looked good.

“If you intend to interfere in the audition, do so carefully,” Andrea told them, “Corneo has a lot of men working for him, most of whom carry weaponry. They will attack at the slightest provocation. Though from the looks of you, I am sure you can handle yourselves.”

“We can handle ourselves,” Zack told him tensely. He didn’t like the way that this Andrea guy was looking at Cloud. The man even took over doing Cloud’s eyeshadow to be close to him. Fire burned in his gut as he watched Andrea flutter the brush over Cloud’s eyelids.

“As I assumed,” Andrea smiled over at him. He knew what he was doing, he was definitely trying to make Zack jealous. Damn it for working.

The girl doing his make-up told him to close his eyes for his own eyeshadow, which he did reluctantly. When he opened them again he looked over to see Andrea with a small brush doing Cloud’s lipstick, his little finger grazing the bottom lip as he painted the top. He practically saw red at the touch. No one was supposed to touch Cloud’s lips but him.

“Zack,” Aerith hissed at him as he made a move to stand up, her hand clamping onto his arm. The grip would be easy to shake off but he didn’t want to hurt her and he knew he was just being jealous.

Cloud looked over at them, one eyebrow raised but Andrea moved his head with one finger under his chin so he wouldn’t smear the lipstick. “Focus over here, honey,” the spandex clad nightmare said, voice far too husky.

With a huff Zack closed his eyes again so he didn’t have to see Cloud being face fondled by Andrea. Tonight officially sucked. They had to infiltrate a pervert’s lair, he spent his ‘escape from Shinra’ gil on dresses that Cloud would probably never agree to wear again even though he looked beautiful, and to top it off Cloud was being hit on left, right and centre. Maybe he’d be able to grab a few ill-gotten goods from the mansion to make up for the gil lost, he had no problem taking from someone like Don Corneo, who had probably stolen it to start off with. Especially as Cloud was getting dressed up for him and not Zack.

After far too long Zack was jolted back to reality by Cloud tapping his arm. “Zack,” he said, “come on, we’ve got to go.”

Opening his eyes Zack stared at Cloud’s face intently. Beautiful. He was just beautiful. His eyes sparkled with more than mako, his lip a lush pink, cheeks had an artificial flush to them. The only problem he had was that they’d covered up Cloud’s light freckles which was a travesty as Zack regularly had the desire to kiss every single one of them. Putting that aside they had truly brought out Cloud’s beauty. Damn Andrea, he was a face fondling jerk but he and his honeybees did great work. Not even bothering to look at his own reflection Zack grabbed Cloud’s hands, standing up he pulled him in to wrap his arms around him.

“You’re beautiful,” he sighed, “a living vision.”

Cloud looked away, getting one his hands free to lightly hit him on the arm. “You’re ridiculous,” he muttered. “Shut up.”

“About your beauty? Never.” Zack could only smile, shy Cloud was so cute. “Maybe when we’re done you could dress up for me instead of for this pervert?” It was a long shot, a very long shot.

Another hit to his arm. “You’d be so lucky.”

“Oh, I would be.” Zack smirked, that wasn’t a no. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad night after all.

“Come on, boys! We’ve got to get going.” Right. Aerith was standing at the door, Andrea had been talking to her but his eyes were definitely eating Cloud up.

“Right.” Cloud pulled back, he didn’t let go of Zack’s hand as he walked towards them. There was no way he didn’t pick up on Zack being jealous and was humouring him by keeping in contact. It was sweet.

Like the loving puppy that he was Zack followed his master. He even managed to squeeze out a thank you for Andrea, though he couldn’t help but send him a warning glare that he just smiled at. Without his sword he really wasn’t as threatening as he wanted to be.

“Come back anytime,” Andrea said, waving them farewell at the back door.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. Zack would keep Cloud as far away from Wall Market as possible after this. Not that he hadn’t been trying to do that since the beginning but now he knew it was imperative to do so. For his own sanity if nothing else.

“Why did you tell her about going to Corneo’s?” Zack asked when they were out of the crowd around the Honeybee.

Cloud raised an eyebrow at him, squeezing his hand reassuringly. “Because,” he sighed, “if Corneo’s as bad as you both say he is then people who work around here probably don’t like him. From this whole ‘audition for a wife’ thing I guessed he’s been harassing women a lot, so I figured that the ones at the Honeybee had probably been victims of it too, as we’re going against him I thought that they might want to help. Even if it’s only saving one person it might make them feel a bit better about the ones they couldn’t save.”

That was surprisingly insightful for Cloud. Not that Zack thought Cloud was dumb, no, he knew he was quite smart but he wasn’t usually good with people. Maybe all the time he’s spent watching people had helped him understand them. Cloud’s lack of social skills had led him to observe more than interact with them, that probably helped him draw conclusions like this one.

“If Andrea hadn’t turned up I think she would have agreed to help,” Aerith said, “if she’d had more time to think about it.” She smiled at Cloud, beautiful and wide. “You’re surprisingly insightful sometimes.”

“What do you mean surprisingly?” Cloud narrowed his eyes and they went back to their light-hearted arguing again.

More people were staring at them as they walked to Don Corneo’s mansion than previously. Aerith was beautiful, Cloud was beautiful, Zack was probably okay. No one had complimented him directly which was a bit sad but he saw people looking so he assumed he was alright. He wasn’t stupid, he knew he didn’t pull off the dress that well but he had thrown it at the tailor as a tack on to his true desire to make Cloud’s dress so it wasn’t a perfect fit for him. The tailor had just altered a dress for larger women for him but it’d do.

“Something wrong?” Cloud looked back at him, a frown on his perfect painted lips.

“Fine.” Zack wanted to kiss that frown away, then also kiss whatever expression would be next. All of them, all of the time. “I didn’t look in the mirror, am I pretty?”

Cloud blinked at him and nodded slowly. “Yeah.” That didn’t sound convincing, Zack pouted at him. “I mean… I’m not a great judge of pretty things. You’re usually handsome so this is different. I think you look okay though.”

Damn, Cloud was cute when he was flustered and confused. Also very sweet. That had been meant to be a compliment right? In an awkward way. Either way he’d take it.

“Wait a second!” Zack halted by the weapon shop. “You two wait out here, I’ve got to get something.”

“Zack?” Cloud asked in confusion.

“Just a second.” Zack squeezed his hand and darted off into the shop, he knew exactly what he wanted to get. When he came back Aerith and Cloud were standing to the side, looking very confused.

“What did you get?” Aerith asked, hands on her hips, she didn’t like being left in the dark waiting.

Zack swept his skirt up, getting down to one knee in front of Cloud who was obviously flustered at the gesture. “Cloud, I have a present for you.”

“Okay?” Cloud’s eyes darted around them. “What is it?”

From behind him Zack produced a dagger in a sheath, it was fairly plain but it had a good weight and a sharp blade, which were the desired qualities in a knife. “You can’t take your sword in but a dagger should do.”

A smile graced Cloud’s painted lips, shining and happy. For both of them it was hard to let go of their fear of being unprotected, it was probably terrible knowing he was defenceless for a year whilst in his coma. The fact that he kept zoning out randomly didn’t help either. A dagger when he went into the coeurl’s den would probably set his mind at ease some, not that he couldn’t fight with just his fists but a weapon was always preferable.

“Thank you, it’s beautiful. Where can I hide it?” Cloud asked.

“That’s why I’m down here.” Zack tugged lightly on the skirt. “You have a garter on, don’t you?” He did, Zack saw him put it on, it was a great sight. Cloud’s blush was visible even with his makeup on. “May I?” Cloud nodded. Slowly Zack reached up the skirt, the dagger in one hand whilst the other trailed up Cloud’s legs to find his garter. Under his hand Cloud shivered, skin soft and muscles tight, he bit his lip. “It’ll be cold.” Above him Cloud hissed when Zack pulled at the elastic of the garter and placed the dagger against his leg, moving his garter to hold it in place.

“Is it secure?” Cloud asked when Zack’s hands retreated, squeezing his leg once on it’s way out from beneath the skirt.

“So long as there’s no sudden movements.”

“Honestly.” Aerith crossed her arms in front of her. “Did you need to make a performance out of it?” Her voice was teasing but she was definitely watching their surroundings.

“Sorry.” Zack got up, fluffing out his dress. “Just needed to make sure Cloud’s armed.”

“Of course you did.” Aerith tutted and skipped ahead of them. “Come on.”

Zack went back to wrapping his arm around Cloud’s waist, he noticed a slight tremble against him. Cute. He’d have to kiss him a lot when this was over and he was allowed to mess up their lipstick. Carefully he directed Cloud back down the path.

Upon reaching the mansion there was a strained tension. When they’d gone been the first time it wasn’t there but in the hours they were getting ready it had grown around them. Hopefully they could get inside and help Tifa, maybe take the Don down a peg or two whilst they’re there. The man at the door looked them over, eyes lingering on Aerith’s chest which made Zack’s protective instincts kick in, he should have given her his jacket but it was back at the gym. He glared at the man who paid no attention to him as he had moved on to eyeing up Cloud. Which was irritating in a different way.

“So,” Aerith skipped over, standing a little straighter than she usually would, she must feel awkward, “can we go to the audition now?”

The man shifted, adjusting his stance as he stared at her, then Cloud again before his eyes landed on Zack and he sighed. “The women can,” he said.

“Let’s go then,” Zack said, trying to lighten his voice a little.

“I said then women, not you.” The man took out a pistol, aiming it at him.

“Hey!” Zack raised his hands, he didn’t like a gun being pointed at him. He could still feel the force of the bullets that had been buried in his chest, the sound of the shots, the warm blood on his skin, the sound of Cloud crying out for him. No, he definitely didn’t like guns being aimed his way.

The man rolled his eyes. “You two can go in,” he said, “there are only three spaces in the audition, one is already taken so the two women can go.”

That is so unfair, he was totally ignoring Zack!

The door opened and a teenager with a baseball cap over his white hair stood there. For a second Zack thought that Sephiroth had a kid he didn’t know about but that was stupid. Not all white haired people were related to Sephiroth, in fact none that he knew of were. Unless…

“Are these the other candidates?” the teen asked.

“Yeah.” The guard gestured to Aerith and Cloud before putting his gun away. “These are them, Leslie.”

The teen, Leslie, looked Aerith over, nodded and paused at Cloud before sighing. “What’s with the man?” he pointed to Zack.

“Hey!” Zack protested again.

“You are obviously a man in a dress,” Leslie said rather meanly, “I don’t know what you want but the Don isn’t interested in men, go home.”

“No.” Zack crossed his arms, with the gun no longer an issue he felt comfortable again.

Leslie opened the door wider. “Come in you two, the Don is nearly ready for the audition.”

Everyone was ignoring him. It wasn’t fair, he looked fine.

Cloud touched his arm gently, leaning into his to whisper in his ear. “We’ll see you soon. In and out before you know it. Wait for us, okay?” He was talking so softly only Zack’s enhanced hearing could pick it up.

“Okay,” Zack sighed, “I’ll be here, waiting. Be careful.”

“Of course.” Cloud squeezed his arm. “You can go grab our stuff whilst you wait.” He pressed a light kiss to his cheek before moving back.

Before Aerith left Zack carefully grabbed her arm. “Hey,” he said softly, “look after Cloud, okay? That episode earlier… I’m worried about you both going in there without me.”

She nodded and pressed a kiss to his other cheek. “Don’t worry, we’ll be okay. I’ll watch Cloud’s back.”

He nodded and smiled to her, letting go of her arms. Aerith smiled then trotted over to Cloud, taking his hand and leading him inside, following Leslie.

The guard watched Zack closely as the door closed behind them. He hoped they’d be okay. At least he’d given Cloud a dagger, that was reassuring. Turning away from the guard, making sure to stick his tongue out at him first, he moved away from the mansion. So much for buying the dress.

Pain suddenly erupted in his head, his vision blurring, taking on a faint green tinge at the edges.

What was happening?

Stumbling he grabbed onto a nearby gate to steady himself.

He’d never had this before. Why was this happening? He knew that green, it was the same as Cloud’s eyes when he glazed over. Mako green.

Breathing deeply and slowly he tried to move passed the pain. He’s had worse. A lot worse.

From the corner of his eye he saw movement.

A single black feather fluttered down to the ground.

He knew that feather, he’d seen it so many times. Never a good sign.

Taking another deep breath he pushed himself to stand straight. No way was he going to be caught in a moment of weakness.

“Genesis?”

The feather burst into flames.

Chapter Text

The interior of Don Corneo’s mansion was even gaudier than Cloud expected, which was saying a lot because from the outside Cloud thought it’d look extremely pretentious but he was surprised by the sheer effort that the man put into his extravagance. It was most likely done to look important. No one puts a Wutian style house in the Midgar without doing it for show. Looking up Cloud noted the height of the ceiling, it was tall and made him feel even shorter than usual. He didn’t like that.

“This way, ladies,” the man named Leslie said, shooting Cloud a look over his shoulder. He must know, there was no way he said it like that and didn’t know. Not that he cared so long as he didn’t mention it before they found Tifa.

“There’s another girl here, isn’t there?” Aerith asked. “Where is she?”

Leslie sighed and pointed to the side. “She’s where we’re going.” He led them to a door, grandiose and ridiculous, it opened with a loud creak. That had to be done on purpose too, Cloud was sure of it. “Just down these stairs.”

Cloud eyed Leslie who held the door open but didn’t enter. Leslie gestured inside, raising an eyebrow at him, almost as though daring him to question him. Without caring about the stare-off Aerith headed down the stairs, she didn’t even look back. It was almost as though she had no care for any danger that was waiting there. Not wanting to let her wander off alone Cloud followed, lifting up the hem of his dress so he didn’t trip, he was by no means experienced enough to walk downstairs in a dress without snagging the hem.

“Nice boots,” Leslie said before closing the door.

There were torches on the walls, of all things. How dramatic did this Don Corneo need to be? Aerith got to the bottom first, Cloud was still focused on not falling over to be quick about it, he still hadn’t reached the bottom when he heard her speak.

“Tifa!” Cloud looked up, nearly tripping as he got to the bottom. Aerith was standing with Tifa, holding onto her hands as Tifa looked awkwardly at her, seemingly not sure what to do. “Are you okay?”

“Uh… fine, thank you.” Tifa gave a small smile at Aerith.

“Good, let’s get out of here then,” Cloud said, walking over to them.

Tifa looked him over twice before her eyes went wide. “Cloud?” she asked, then covered her mouth in surprise.

It wasn’t that shocking really. “Yeah,” he huffed, “let’s go.”

“No, I need to speak to Don Corneo.” Tifa resisted when Aerith pulled on her hands. “He’s been looking for Avalanche and I need to know why.”

“Because you’re a terrorist group that’s blown up two reactors,” Cloud sighed, with the help of his boyfriend.

“No, there’s got to be more to it,” Tifa shook her head, “if I can be the one he picks in the audition then I can interrogate him.”

“Or you could get hurt,” Cloud argued, “he has armed guards all over the place.”

“I can handle myself, Cloud,” Tifa pulled her hands away and stepped back defensively, “you haven’t seen it but I’m not some weakling that needs protecting.”

Cloud crossed his arms and looked away. “I didn’t say you were. It isn’t weak to need help or to be protected, accepting help is its own kind of strength.” He had to believe that after how much Zack protected him, he wasn’t weak and he had to accept that he just wasn’t able to do some things that he wanted to.

Aerith sent him a sad look, as though she could tell what he was thinking. “Let us help you,” she said to Tifa, “we’re the other candidates for the audition, if either of us gets picked instead we can question him too. With all three of us there’s no way we can lose!”

“Uhh... Aerith? I can’t put you both in danger like that.” Tifa shifted nervously, her hands clenched at her sides.

“Well,” Aerith hummed, “if it’s not us then it’d be two different girls who might not know how to protect themselves as well as we do. Plus, we’re already here so,” she smirked slightly, “you don’t really have much of a choice, sorry.”

Cloud snorted in amusement as Tifa’s mouth opened and closed before she nodded. She really didn’t have much of a choice in this. Oh well.

“So, Cloud,” Aerith spun around, pointing a finger at him, “no trying to run away, we’re now doing an undercover investigation, not a rescue.”

“Why would I run?” Cloud put his hands on his hips in defiance.

“You seem the sort, you’re all shy.” Aerith turned to Tifa with a grin. “Isn’t he so cute? He even gets all shy around Zack who practically drools after him. He even coped a feel outside of the weapon shop, in the middle of the street. They’re so shameless!”

“Aerith!” Cloud felt his face heat up, probably going bright pink. “That’s not what happened and you know it!”

She sighed at him. “Still a blushing virgin.”

That made him turn red. “Aerith!”

“Cloud!” She was positively cackling at this point.

“Umm…” Tifa looked between them, a little lost. “If you don’t want to help, you don’t have to, Cloud.”

Cloud was about to run his hand through his hair but stopped, he was wearing a wig and didn’t want to mess it up. “It’s fine.”

Aerith linked their arms together, holding onto him tightly. “Now, we wait I suppose.” She guided him to sit down on a less than sanitary looking chair. It was best to not to think about what this room was used for. Really best not to. There was blood and torture devices. He purposefully didn’t focus on the table with red stains on the centre, that hit a bit too close to home. He was not going to think about examining tables. No.

For several minutes there was silence, except for Aerith humming to herself, kicking her legs out like a child as she sat. How she could be so calm was beyond him. In front of them Tifa was pacing, she was wound up tight, ready to snap. Not that Cloud was surprised, this wasn’t really a normal situation. He wanted to say something, to comfort her but nothing came to mind. He wasn’t good with words, that was more Zack’s thing, if he were here he’d know what to say.

“It’s okay, Tifa,” Aerith said softly, “we’ll find out why he wants Avalanche and make it so he doesn’t mess with any other women again.” She looked determined and surprisingly serious.

“I…” Tifa nodded slowly, hands clenched tight in front of her, “thank you.”

It wasn’t long before a bell went off and they were called to go upstairs. Cloud got up, running a hand over his skirt quickly to check the knife Zack gave him was still in place. It was. Good. He would need that in an emergency, honestly he thought the entire situation was an emergency, he didn’t want to be there after all. The girls walked ahead of him, Aerith talking softly to Tifa to keep her calm.

There were two men waiting for them at the top of the stairs, they had mullets and sunglasses on, indoors… idiots. From how they walked, all shoulders, they thought they were important and powerful, probably because of those guns they had stashed in their back pockets. It was completely irresponsible, not safe at all and if they ended up shooting themselves in the arse Cloud would feel no pity for them. Not that he would anyway as one of them was obviously looking at Tifa’s breasts, head lowered enough that Cloud could see over his sunglasses where his eyes lingered. Pervert.

“This way, ladies.” One of them swept an arm out and gestured grandly, leading them towards another set of stairs and up to an ornate door. “Your interview is about to start.”

Cloud walked carefully, he still had his boots so he didn’t have to try balancing in heels but he didn’t want to ‘trudge’ as Aerith had put it earlier. He could be graceful if he wanted to, he just never did. Now he couldn’t risk giving himself away. He held his hands in front of himself, trying to stand straight and walk carefully. It was a lot harder than he thought it would be. At least one of them was distracted still, which was less pressure on him, though no doubt awful for Tifa.

The room they ended up in had a large desk with an ornate chair behind it. There were paintings and statues, everything grand and displaying who Cloud could only assume was this Don Corneo. In his opinion there had to be a limit on how overinflated an ego could be and this man’s seemed close to bursting. It was ridiculous.

“Now, the man of the hour, the one, the only, Don Corneo!”

From the curtain behind the desk a short, rotund man burst out. The first thought that came to mind was ‘fat weasel’ but it felt like an insult to weasels. After that it was likening to rats, but again insulting. There was probably no creature it wouldn’t be insulting to liken him to. That was until he got closer, his fingers wriggling as he inspected his potential ‘brides,’ then it came to him. This man was a malboro, he certainly smelt like one.

“Nice, nice, very nice.” Having not been paying attention to what was going on Cloud nearly jumped and punched the man when his arm was grabbed. He tensed up, looking down at the short, disgusting, pervert who was leering up at him. Next to him he heard Aerith’s intake of breath, she must have noticed his reaction.

When he was let go and Don Corneo continued his ‘inspection’ he relaxed slightly. He wasn’t used to being touched by anyone suddenly but Zack, not recently. Sure Aerith grabbed at him and hung onto his arm for fun but she was always very obvious about it, not wanting to surprise him. There weren’t that many memories in recent years where being touched was a good experience.

Trying to shake those thoughts away Cloud focused on Don Corneo who was very nearly touching Aerith’s legs, again there was a certain draw to punching the man out. Then he turned around, red cape-like coat swirling behind him, it was so long and dramatic Cloud had to wonder if he’d ever tripped over it when trying to pull off that move. It would certainly be entertaining.

“Alright! I’ve made my decision, the lucky bride for tonight will be…” Don Corneo looked over at them with hungry eyes.

Aerith looked like she wanted to say something but closed her mouth, reaching out slightly to hold onto Cloud’s skirt, he wanted to take her hand in comfort but resisted, not wanting to draw any attention to her.

“Tonight?” Tifa asked.

“And the next night depending on how you perform,” one of the lackey’s laughed.

“This is ridiculous,” Cloud muttered.

“What was that?” Don Corneo stormed forward, glaring up at him.

“I said this is ridiculous,” Cloud repeated, not particularly caring about this man’s opinion.

“Oh, you like to mouth off, huh?” Don Corneo grabbed at his wrist, it was probably supposed to show he was strong but it would have been as easy as batting away a fly to get out of his hold. “Let’s see what else that mouth of yours can do.” He yanked at Cloud, who allowed himself to go, if only to protect the others from this man’s hands. “The leftovers are all yours boys.”

Leftovers. Cloud glanced back, checking on Tifa and Aerith who nodded to him, they’d be fine. Another tug on his wrist and Cloud allowed himself to be led away. Into the malboro’s lair.

-

Aerith watched Cloud go, keeping an eye on him until the door shut. She didn’t have a good feeling about this. She wasn’t concerned about what would happen to her and Tifa, they could look after themselves but she had promised Zack she would make sure Cloud was alright. Protect him.

“We’re going to have some fun, ladies!”

Without complaint she followed the goons to a different room, there were more of them, all relaxing in a room which had definitely seen better days. In comparison to how ornate the rest of the building was this place was a pigsty. Maybe because it was where all of the pigs lived.

“You ready, Tifa?” Aerith asked, turning to her as the door shut behind them.

“Huh?” Tifa tipped her head to one side.

It was cute how confused she was most of the time. Cloud used to be like that, before he just got tired of trying to figure her out and just went with whatever she said. He’d learnt, hopefully Tifa would take longer, it would be more fun that way.

Aerith turned to the first man who tried to touch her and slammed the palm of her hand into his nose making him scream. It was satisfying. Then there were screams and chaos, Tifa quickly picked up on the plan and fought alongside her, she did most of the work too. Not that Aerith didn’t give as good as she could but she was used to a weapon. She would have to thank Zack later for teaching her some hand to hand moves though, as that saved her a little bit. She wouldn’t thank him too much, his ego didn’t need to be inflated, having Cloud on his arm did that enough as it was.

“All done!” Aerith high-fived Tifa who smiled at her. A bit of fighting and she was far more relaxed.

They might have a bit of trouble outside the room but a lot of the goons had been in here, hopefully it wouldn’t be too bad.

“Come on!” Aerith jumped onto a goon’s stomach before hopping off to head for the door.

“You’re right, we need to help Cloud.” Tifa followed along easily.

“It’s not Cloud I’m worried about,” Aerith said, checking the hallway before heading out. “You might lose your source.”

Tifa let out a confused noise. “What do you mean?”

“Cloud has a knife and a twitchy finger.” She loved him but he wasn’t completely stable mentally half of the time and could definitely become violent. Giving Cloud a knife to defend himself was a good move in some ways but she felt Zack didn’t think it through enough. Personally she thought he didn’t see what lurked behind Cloud’s misty eyes some days.

“But… he had a sword earlier. He’s safe with it, right?”

“Yeah but he also had Zack with him.” Aerith looked over at Tifa. “He’s not dangerous… not to his friends, but we have to be quick or…”

There was a scream, not dissimilar to the death wails of a tortured mako addicted monster.

“That could happen.”

“Cloud!” Tifa ran towards the door, easily knocking out the guards who were heading to the Don’s room.

It really wasn’t Cloud that they had to worry about. Aerith followed along, making sure the guards were unconscious before bursting into the room, the curtain flapping behind her.

There stood Cloud, bloody dagger in hand, dripping slowly onto the gaudy carpet.

Oh, Cloud.

He was panting, shoulders rising and falling far too fast. Arm twitching and free hand clenched, trembling.

Aerith slowly went over to him, touching his arm gently. “Cloud?” she asked, peering up into his eyes, they had that mako green glow about them again but he seemed mostly conscious still. That’s good, he was getting better after all.

The screams continued. Slowly, not really wanting to see, Aerith turned to the squealing pig of a man. There was blood all over the place, it wasn’t hard to see the origin of it, not with how his once brown trousers were now stained red. She winced. There was a large slice in the crotch and she turned away, not wanting to see the mess that was once a working set of overexuberant genitalia.

“Cloud, what did you do?” Tifa asked, trembling near the door, eyes trained onto Don Corneo.

“I fixed a problem,” Cloud breathed out, voice shaky.

He could respond, that was great. Aerith held onto his arm a bit tighter, grounding him.

Don Corneo screamed bloody murder, which Aerith supposed was what was happening.

“He’s…”

“Alive,” Cloud muttered, “for now. Ask your questions before he passes out from blood loss.”

“Will he die?” Tifa asked, the Don screamed more. No one came to save him.

Cloud took a deep breath, eyes focusing on the blood dripping onto the carpet. “Maybe. It depends. Blood loss or shock could take him.”

“Cloud…” Tifa stared at him, horror in her eyes. “We have to save him.”

Aerith sighed, watching Tifa. “Ask your questions then I may heal him.” She still had a cure materia on her.

“I… Cloud…”

“Please, Tifa, leave him alone.” Aerith smiled at her shakily. “Focus on Don Corneo.”

It was hard going, getting information out of Don Corneo, he wouldn’t listen and would only scream in pain. Aerith had to heal him before he would talk properly, then he would just curse out Cloud and all of them. Eventually, after a few threats, they got the information Tifa wanted.

The sector seven plate. Shinra were planning on dropping it. Aerith clung tighter to Cloud, making sure he didn’t go off by himself before they had what they needed.

“You little bitches,” Don Corneo sneered. He had shuffled further up the bed, away from Cloud. It was amazing he could still move, fear probably gave him a bit of strength. “Enjoy your last moments.”

“What are you…”

He pulled a part of his bedframe and the world suddenly twisted and went dark.

Maybe curing him so well had been a mistake.

-

It hurt.

The ground was hard and wet.

Not a great way to wake up.

Cloud sighed, opening his eyes to a dimly lit stone floor. There was a dripping to his left and a horrible smell all around him. Wall Market had been overwhelming but that was nothing in comparison to this. Enhanced senses really sucked sometimes.

A groan came from his side. There pillowed on of his arm, was Aerith, turning he saw Tifa a bit further off, she looked as though she was rousing. Carefully he reached over, checking on Aerith who was coming around without much trouble. Withdrawing his arm from under her carefully, he pushed himself up, retrieving his dagger which had fallen a little way off.

They were underground and from the smell he would guess it was a sewer. Somehow, they had come out of the fall without too much trouble, though their dresses were probably a write off. Zack would probably be annoyed by that as he had paid quite a lot for the dress. Not that he would really show it but Cloud knew he wasn’t too happy about the whole thing.

“You okay there?” Cloud asked them, taking the sheath away from his leg and instead shoving it into the ribbon around his waist.

“Fine,” Aerith groaned, he reached down to take her hand, helping her up before doing the same for Tifa.

Looking around Cloud sighed, stuck in a sewer, great. He had no real idea of the way out, he guessed going a bit to either side then up would probably get them into Wall Market again without being in Don Corneo’s home. Trying to find a way up would be the problem.

“Sector Seven!” Tifa started heading towards the obvious exit to the chamber they were in. “We have to get there and warn everyone.”

There was a growl from nearby. Cloud paused, the other two didn’t hear it, enhancements were a good thing when not assaulted by too many stimuli. He grabbed Aerith’s hand, jogging after Tifa. “We need to move, something is coming this way.”

“What…” there was a louder growl, making Aerith stop mid-sentence. “Okay, let’s go.”

Without needing prompting Tifa ran with them to the exit, leaving quickly and heading away from the growl. With any luck it wouldn’t follow them. When there wasn’t any further noise for a few minutes they slowed down. As Cloud only had a dagger he really didn’t fancy his luck with anything too large and from that growl it was big. Aerith didn’t have her weapon either so it was best to avoid all fights if possible.

“Any idea how we can get topside?” Cloud asked Aerith, letting go of her hand as they walked.

“There might be a sign for Sector Seven if we keep going,” Tifa said, leading the way. “They must put some way to navigate down here.”

Cloud stopped walking. “No, I need to get back to Wall Market,” he said firmly.

“What?” Tifa spun around, storming up to him. “You heard what Don Corneo said, they’re going to drop the plate on Sector Seven, we need to warn them.”

“Sure.” Cloud crossed his arms. “If he’s telling the truth then we do, but we need to get up to Wall Market first. Zack is up there waiting, he’d be able to help us with an evacuation.”

“Sector Seven comes first, we can get there through the sewers.”

Cloud huffed, rolling his eyes. “We could traipse around trying to find a way there and possibly get lost, or we could go to Wall Market, which we are already under and get there far easier. If we go topside we can find Zack, get help and we’d have a direct route to Sector Seven. We might even be able to find out if Don Corneo is telling the truth.”

Tifa was breathing hard, tears forming in her eyes, he couldn’t deal with this. “Do you think Shinra would do it? Would they really drop the plate on a whole Sector just to get rid of Avalanche?”

Would they? Cloud wouldn’t put anything past them, though he’d think there would be more to it than that. Avalanche may have blown up two reactors but they were a small group, the Turks alone would have been able to take them out if they wanted, or they could have sent SOLDIER in to get them, they’d done it before.

“Shinra only care about Shinra,” Cloud walked by her, pausing briefly to look her in the eye. “I doubt it’d be just because of Avalanche; your group aren’t enough of a threat to them to warrant it. If they drop the plate they would have another agenda.”

Tifa’s intake of breath wasn’t comforting. Not knowing how to deal with emotions that well Cloud headed down the tunnel, Aerith followed behind him and was already comforting Tifa with gentle words. Probably baseless reassurances but Aerith would know what to do, she helped him after all.

They walked for some time, Cloud looking for ladders heading up. There had to be one nearby. Somewhere.

“Cloud,” Tifa said softly, “were you really going to let Don Corneo die?”

Great.

“It would have protected a lot of people if he had,” Cloud muttered, “though it’d take a while for him to recover as it is.”

Tifa was breathing hard again, her voice going soft. “You’ve changed Cloud.”

“I joined Shinra’s army, Tifa,” Cloud hissed, looking over his shoulder at her. “I learnt pretty fast what it was they expected from their soldiers. We didn’t use pillows to fight the enemy, we used guns and swords. I have killed my fair share of monsters and people.”

“Cloud… I didn’t…”

Aerith put a hand on her arm gently. “It’s okay, he left that life behind, right, Cloud?”

“Sure.” He turned back around, heading down a different part of tunnel, narrower, maybe there was a ladder here. There was, a small one, but going up even a bit would send them in the right direction.

“Cloud is a sweetheart really, he’s just stressed right now,” Aerith said softly, probably thinking he couldn’t hear her. “You’ll see, when we get topside and sort all of this out, he’d be his usual awkward self. I think the dress and being away from Zack is upsetting him. He’s all in solider mode.”

“Maybe he really has changed more than I expected,” Tifa sighed, “I’m sorry, Aerith.”

“It’s okay.” Aerith clapped her hands loudly. “I know, we should hang out when this is over. We could go shopping and have dinner.”

Sounded like a date to Cloud, not that he was surprised they got on. Aerith would want to be friends with Tifa, they were both nice people. Not like him.

“That sounds like fun,” Tifa said, her voice wavering slightly.

Down a ways Cloud saw light coming from above. Maybe it was the harsh lights of Wall Market. There was a ladder too. Cloud quickly headed that way.

Please let it be a way up. He needed to get out of this suffocating sewer, the smell was only aggravating his nerves even more. He really needed an escape.

-

“Genesis?”

Zack looked around. That feather had to come from somewhere, from someone. Maybe there was a trail of combusting feathers.

“Are you here?”

Damn it, was he going crazy? He hadn’t imagined that feather, right? Maybe the mako really was affecting him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a figure head down a nearby alleyway, that wasn’t surprising or important but they had on a long coat.

Genesis maybe?

But… he was dead, he was pretty sure he was dead. Not that he had actually seen him die but he was definitely near the end when he last saw him. Wounds from their fight and the degradation had been affecting him far too much.

There was simply no way.

Was there?

Maybe something had happened that he hadn’t been aware of.

He had to check, even if it turned out to be just someone in a long coat. He had to know. To be sure. If it really was him then he might need help, or he could be a danger again. Though he seemed saner towards the end, which was an improvement.

Taking a deep breath, he headed down the alley. A few steps in he stopped. It was a dead end and no one was there.

“I really am loosing it,” Zack muttered, shoulders sagging. He really thought he saw someone. Shaking his head he turned around, heading back.

“Hello again, Zack.”

That voice.

Spinning, Zack found himself face to face with Sephiroth.

No.

There was no way.

“You’re…”

“Dead?” Sephiroth smirked down at him. “Did you really think your little friend could kill me? I thought you knew better than that.”

No.

Hojo took them because Sephiroth was dead, there was no way he was wrong.

“You’re dead.”

Before Zack could even blink a hand was around his throat, slamming him into the wall. It squeezed, choking him. He grabbed at Sephiroth’s arm but his hand went through it. His whole body flickered but the pressure around his neck remained.

How?

“I have a proposition for you, Zack,” Sephiroth hissed, head bowing down to whisper in his ear. There was no breath against his skin. “I want you and Cloud to come to me.”

Cloud? Zack tried to speak but only a wheezing huff escaped him.

“Bring Cloud to me, Zack.”

Why did he want Cloud? Because he had killed him? No, there was no way he would ever let Sephiroth near Cloud. He protected him against Shinra and he would protect him from Sephiroth too.

“Disappointing.”

There was tight squeeze to his throat before he flickered again, releasing Zack. Bending over Zack wheezed, trying to take as much air in as possible.

“Stop fighting me, Zack. Together we could tear down Shinra and take the Planet for ourselves.” Sephiroth wasn’t even looking at him, his eyes focused up at the plate above them. “Don’t you want your revenge? You have so much anger inside you, let it out, embrace me and I may even let you keep Cloud when I am done. With the power I could give you all of your wishes could come true, you could protect those who are dear to you, who you love. Come, take your revenge.”

Zack glared at him. Revenge? Anger? Yeah, he felt it. Life wasn’t fair, so much had happened, so many things he could never change but getting revenge wasn’t the way forward. He had learnt that. Trying to get revenge only hurt innocent people.

“No,” Zack’s voice cracked but maybe it gave him a harsher edge, he hoped so, he didn’t want to seem weak in front of a maniac. “I’d never join you and you will never get your hands on Cloud. I trusted you, Sephiroth, you were my friend and you betrayed me. You… hurt so many people. You’re not the Sephiroth I once knew, you’re just a monster wearing my friend’s face.”

Sephiroth flickered, glaring at Zack for a second before his face went into his normal neutral mask. “How disappointing. I shouldn’t have expected better from you. I shall get what I want without your help. In time you will see the error of your ways and if I feel benevolent I may spare you the pain I intend to inflict on the rest of the traitors.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Oh, you’ll see… in time.”

Zack pushed himself off from the wall, glaring at Sephiroth. “Sephiroth, tell me what you’re planning!”

Another smirk, a flicker then Sephiroth disappeared, as though he were never there at all. Which he might not have been.

A single feather fell to the ground and burst into flames.

A calling card perhaps.

So that was where the feather had come from. Maybe he was more similar to Genesis and Angeal than he had originally thought.

Zack ran a hand through his hair, getting his fingers caught on his plaits. He paused. Great, just great. He had just been chocked and intimidated by a shadow from his past whilst dressed unconvincingly as a woman. Not that he thought it bad to wear a dress but the fact that he had been called out on being a man really put a dent in his confidence in his appearance.

At least the Sephiroth figment hadn’t mentioned it.

Had he been real or a mako illusion?

Cloud had apparently seen Sephiroth before, more than once even. Was it the mako or maybe the experiments done on them? Were they seeing fake Sephiroth’s or was something else going on?

Zack groaned, hitting the wall behind him hard enough to dent the bricks. There were too many questions, it made his head spin. Without knowing more about what was done to them there was no way of getting answers. They could always break into Hojo’s labs but they were in Shinra and he had no desire to go there anytime soon. Back in Nibelheim the labs hadn’t provided answer either, none that he understood so soon after escaping. They did have a computer which he hadn’t really tried to access at the time, that might be a good starting point. Still… did he really want to drag Cloud all of the way back there? No, he was probably better off not knowing anyway.

There was one thing he understood from the files he had read before, the experiments hadn’t taken to him so well, but they worked on Cloud for a while before Hojo deemed him a failure because of the poisoning. From the seems of it Cloud’s adverse reaction to mako had probably saved him an even worse fate.

He needed to stop thinking about this and get back to waiting in the open for Cloud. There were more important things to do right now. Maybe he’d talk to Cloud about seeing Sephiroth tomorrow, after a good nights sleep. He rubbed at his face, trying to clear his mind before he went back out there.

“Though the morrow is barren of promises, nothing shall forestall my return.”

No. Not more illusions.

With a groan Zack turned and sure enough Genesis stood there, looking better than he had in a long time. His hair bright again and his features not so gaunt. At least his mind is kind to the man.

“Are you here to taunt me then disappear in a puff of wings too?” Zack asked tiredly. He really needed to get back out there.

Genesis flipped his fringe, showy as usual. “I can assure you that I am not here to ask you to destroy the world with me, I have no interest in such activities.”

“Well, that’s a surprise.” Zack crossed his arms. “So, what does my mako addled mind have for you to say to me then?”

A short laugh. Rude. “I am not here by the same means that Sephiroth was, though he did provide me with a way to communicate to you. I find tearing a hole in your mind a bit of a brutal method, effective though it may be.”

“What now?” Zack clenched his hands, knuckles turning white.

“You really are a slow one, puppy.” Genesis stepped forward, coat billowing even though there was no wind. “Sephiroth was able to get into your mind because of those experiments Shinra does so love to do, however you are a bit more resilient than your little friend and it took him a while to break in. From what I can tell he has been trying since you came back to Midgar.”

“And how could you tell exactly? I don’t remember that being one of your abilities.” Great, he really was losing his mind, trying to get sense out of an illusion.

Genesis rolled his eyes, apparently finding him tedious. Well, ditto.

“Since you left me for dead I was taken in by a group working for Shinra who have nursed me back to health. Though what they’ve put into me is not exactly the standard Shinra mix of noxious chemicals.” Genesis raised a hand, clenching and unclenching it as he stared at it, a sneer on his face. “It has given me back my life but the cost may be too high.” He sighed, shaking his head. “No matter.”

Kind of sounded like it did.

“They have given me some of his cells, the same ones running through you and your little blond friend.” Genesis pointed at him. “That is how I managed to find you, to get into your head. Now, I want you to come get me.”

“What? So you really aren’t real?” Knew it.

“I am real but currently I am projecting myself into you through the hole Sephiroth ripped. Did I not explain that clearly enough, puppy?”

Not really no.

“You left me for dead, now I want you to get me out of here.” Genesis narrowed his eyes at him, probably going for intimidating but he had enough of being scared of illusions for today. “There is a lab under Midgar, deep underground. I want you to break in and retrieve me.”

“Why can’t you just break yourself out?” Zack shrugged, surely he could do that, he had.

“I am currently in stasis, they don’t trust me.” Not a surprise. “There is a way in through Sector Seven, most of has been evacuated right now so you should be able to get through. I can guide you to me when you are down there.”

Zack sighed. “Why should I help you?”

“Because you are not as cruel as other SOLDIERs. You were Angeal’s apprentice, so honour and pride have been drummed into your thick skull.” Genesis smirked, hands on his hips. “Besides, if you don’t then I will keep appearing before you and I know how much you would hate that, I can come visit you whenever I desire.”

With a groan Zack hit the wall again. Today really did suck. Well, not all of it. He had a pretty good time with Cloud, just everything since entering Wall Market sucked.

“Come along now, Zack, you have somewhere to be.”

“Yeah, I have to go find Cloud.” Zack stormed passed Genesis, making sure not to touch him, even if he wasn’t real. He didn’t want illusion chills or something equally gross.

“Ah, yes, your little friend.” Genesis trailed behind him. “Very cute, though a bit empty. It’s not a surprise that Sephiroth wants to use him as a puppet.”

Puppet? Zack turned on Genesis. “He wants to what?”

“Use him as a puppet.” Genesis flicked his hair again. “It is a simple matter for Sephiroth to influence people with his cells, your friend has a lot of them inside him but he doesn’t mesh that well with them. He has too much of his own personality still to be a real clone, which was what Hojo was trying to do with you both. It is a good thing really, all of the Sephiroth clones are completely empty and waste away. He can use each for a limited time, your Cloud could probably be used for a lot longer. It is why he wants him, that and most likely the killing him part.”

“You know an awful lot about this,” Zack hissed.

“I listen.”

Listen? To what? Zack wasn’t overly sure he wants to know.

“Whatever, I need to get Cloud and then I’ll talk to him about this. We’ll decided together if we want to help you.”

“Oh joy.” Genesis was probably sneering, Zack had turned around again before he could see it. “I look forward to seeing him.”

Zack squared his shoulders. He’ll ignore Genesis for now. Two maniacs in his head was two too many.

When had his life gotten so complicated?

If only he could go back to his nice date with Cloud. Maybe he could try getting a few kisses to cheer himself up when he saw him again. Cloud really was the best medicine.

“Please stop thinking about your boyfriend, I can see it too.”

“Then get out of my head,” Zack huffed. He got a few looks from passers-by.

Now he knew how Cloud felt when he was having an episode. He’d have to give him even more reassurance in the future. This was not pleasant at all.

Taking a deep breath of the musty Wall Market air he waited, ignoring the inane chatter from the ghost at his shoulder. Genesis was only doing it to be a git anyway.

Please come soon, Cloud.