Chapter Text
Cloud didn’t like showing up in hospital rooms. It tended to make him... twitchy. Maybe a little stabby, at times. Specifically if Hojo or Sephiroth were there. Hollander was a mixed bag, unless he was dressed in a respectable outfit and closed-toe shoes, in which case Cloud just stabbed him immediately. Hollander and good lab safety practices meant bad things.
For this world, he was spat out into a hospital room. The pristine white tile immediately got splattered with blood as he hacked up a stomachful of the stuff. “Buh,” he said, patting the point where Masamune had just been neatly speared through the front seam of his fancy armored jacket. “That’s unfortunate.” He paused. No, maybe it was fortunate—hospitals were designed to be easy to clean, after all.
He finally looked up, his Cure glowing a steady green as he repaired the deep wound in a set of rapid, precise micro-healings. He’d gotten good at that, recently, after a version of himself had taught him the secret to a thorough and safe gut-wound repair. And speaking of other versions of himself, one was staring at him with wide eyes from the other side of a hospital bed that held...a second version of himself. Third? Whatever.
“Oh, look,” he commented, voice rasping like he’d been chain-smoking for a week straight. “Me, in a coma, and another me as a bonus. Nice hair. Hey, quick question, awake me, how do you and everyone you’re acquainted with feel about committing genocide, mass murder, and/or war crimes?”
The fun thing about springing that question on the unsuspecting was that he could usually get an honest answer out of them. The SOLDIER-looking version of himself didn’t disappoint. “I—don’t do any of those? What—?”
Cloud grinned. It probably didn’t look terribly lovely or reassuring, considering he could taste the blood on his teeth. Ah well. “Great! Good for you, hurdling that incredibly low bar. Careful not to trip. Anyway, second question: is Angeal alive, and if he is then where is he right now?”
SOLDIER Cloud blinked rapidly. “Angeal’s—he’s at home, in the apartment?” He started to rise from his chair, concern and alarm rapidly overwriting his bewilderment. “Hey, I think you should—“
“YES!” Cloud cheered, pumping one fist and regretting it immediately. It hurt like a bitch for one, and accidentally flung blood off his glove and onto the ceiling tiles above for another. Whoops. Yeah that was definitely unfortunate. “Oh, I haven’t had good leftovers in a month!” Actually he was completely out of food, and his last meal had been...two days ago? For a given value of ‘meal’ of course.
He refocused. SOLDIER Cloud was approaching slowly, hands up and slightly crouched, like Cloud was some kind of poor injured wild animal and he was trying to look small and unthreatening as he came closer. “Okay,” he said softly, “you’re bleeding pretty bad, why don’t you just sit—”
Cloud snorted, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. The Cure was still glowing away. “Nice try. Why don’t you worry about Sleeping Beauty over there, huh? I can smell the Geostigma and mako from here.”
SOLDIER Cloud paused, something startled in his expression. “The wh—”
That small pause was more than enough for Cloud to breeze past, striding confidently out into the halls beyond the hospital room. He knew where he was almost immediately: Medical, in the Tower. It looked cleaner and friendlier than normal, which was interesting. His boots drummed a steady beat into the tile as he passed nurses and soldiers and doctors, most of whom didn’t even seem to notice him.
Ah, the unreasonable power of confidence.
Cloud’s eyebrows shot straight up when he passed Lucretia, who looked up just in time to do a full-on double-take when she saw his face. And, since he had to get his entertainment from somewhere, he winked at her and slipped into the stairwell before she could do more than open her mouth to speak.
The major wound in his gut was about half healed. With a put-upon sigh, he started jogging up the stairs like a normal person instead of going up the fast way. It wasn’t worth getting there faster if he accidentally reopened the damn thing. Still, he went faster than an unenhanced person, humming and thinking covetously about the leftovers that Angeal’s (presumably, sane) presence promised. When the door slammed open several stories down, he paused to listen, head cocking curiously to the side.
“This is crazy! How could anyone possibly have—” Zack said, voice faint at this distance. Cloud grinned and started moving again, silently this time.
“Zack. Wait.” That was Sephiroth. Cloud went a little faster, trying not to laugh. There was a pause, a faint startled inhale. “Blood. He went this way.”
Cloud glanced down. Yeah, guilty as charged. He offered a silent apology to the janitorial staff.
Zack spoke again. Or, rather, yelled. “HEY, BUDDY! YOU’RE BLEEDING, PLEASE STOP AND MAYBE SIT DOWN? YOU’RE SAFE, ON MY HONOR!”
This time Cloud didn’t manage to completely choke down his laugh. Oh, Zack. That definitely must have given him away, though, so he jogged up to the next landing and bumped the door open with his hip.
Faintly, just before he was out of the stairwell, he heard a confused, “...did he laugh?”
Maybe he should have felt bad, at least a little, at deliberately confusing them for his own entertainment.
...nah.
He went the back way up, or at least inasmuch as there was a back way through the sprawling Tower. No one stopped him. No one even seemed to notice him, although he was on alert for the signature dark blue of any Turk’s suit. Dealing with them would cause more of a headache than he was willing to deal with. Lucky for everyone, he didn’t spot even one.
Or maybe they were tracking him in a way he couldn’t notice directly. They were sneaky like that.
The one thing he actively did to avoid being spotted was duck into a small common room on the SOLDIER floor when he heard the distinctive click-click-click of Genesis’s heeled boots. He pressed his back against the wall, a thoughtful finger pressed to his lips as he listened to them pass by in an agitated staccato. Interesting, he decided, humming thoughtfully. Then he glanced up, sweeping the room automatically, and found Kunsel halfway through a burrito in the corner, staring at him.
A wicked grin crossed Cloud’s face, split in half by the finger still pressed against his lips. Oh that was too good an opportunity to pass on. “Keep it to yourself, Kunsel,” he sang, and was gratified when the young SOLDIER’s mouth fell open in shock. He was out the door again before another word could be exchanged between them, snickering as he went.
The layout of the First’s floor was unusual and threw him off for a moment, but he managed to track the smell of Angeal’s cooking and the low sound of him speaking. Cloud knocked politely on the door and waited, full of gleeful anticipation—both for food and for the entertainment value of his reaction.
He was not disappointed. Angeal opened the door sharply, obviously agitated, PHS pressed to his ear. His jaw promptly dropped. Cloud smiled at him benevolently. On the other end of the line, SOLDIER Cloud went “...Ange? Angeal?”
“I—”
Cloud’s smile widened. “I’m here to eat your leftovers.”
The brawny SOLDIER stared at him, speechless. When Cloud reached out and gently pushed him back into the apartment with a single finger, he went without much pressure, and Cloud slipped inside.
“Angeal? What’s happening?”
“He’s...here. To eat my leftovers?” He sounded so baffled that Cloud couldn’t help laughing as he sauntered straight into the kitchen. Was it strictly hygienic to be around food when he was still covered in an indeterminate amount of blood? No. Did he care? Also no.
Angeal only hesitated a short amount of time before he closed the front door and followed, but that was enough for him to find Cloud buried in the fridge, rooting around in search of his favorites. “Hell yeah!” Cloud said, popping out with a SOLDIER-sized container of meatballs and sauce. He knew for a fact Angeal made this to be served over pasta, but that wasn’t about to stop him from eating the whole damn thing on its own.
“...alright,” Angeal said, sort of squinting at him like he couldn’t quite figure out what to do, “who are you and what are you doing?”
“Cloud,” said Cloud, nabbing a fork and then hopping up onto the counter to sit with his back to a nice, secure corner. “And eating your leftovers.” To demonstrate, he popped open the container’s lid and promptly set about demolishing the contents.
That distinctive Angeal Leftovers flavor exploded across his tongue. He would freely admit that the way he moaned probably sounded obscene.
“Angeal?!”
Cloud snickered as Angeal sighed and scrubbed a hand across his face. “Cloud, call the others and tell them he’s in the apartment. I’ll handle this until they get here.”
“...right. Is he still bleeding?”
Angeal’s eyes skated clinically over Cloud’s form, a deep frown marring his lips. Cloud, mouth full of meatballs, arched a brow. The man’s frown deepened. “Maybe,” he said to the SOLDIER Cloud. “I’ll handle it.”
“Right. Talk to you later, Ange.” He hung up. Angeal snapped the PHS shut and tucked it into his pocket. For a moment he stood silent, evaluating Cloud, until he finally seemed to come to some decision. He closed the distance between them, a little caution lingering in his body language. Cloud watched him apparoach with open amusement.
“Alright, come on,” he said, reaching out to put one hand on Cloud’s arm, testing the waters. “You can keep the food, but stop bleeding on my counters. Bathroom’s this way.”
Despite himself, Cloud felt an overwhelming rush of fondness for the man. He knew his eyes went far too soft from the strange, taken-aback look Angeal gave him in response. “Oh, fine,” he said, hopping down. “Whatever you want, Angeal.” He decided to push the blatant oddity a little farther, stepping past the man to lead the way to the bathroom himself.
Deliberately, he chose the master bathroom.
As he set down his food briefly to strip off his gloves and unfasten his harness, he watched Angeal through the mirror. There was a question visible in his odd expression— why are you acting so familiar? —but he swallowed it, and possibly his tongue, when Cloud unzipped his jacket and shrugged it off, then pulled off his shirt, exposing his heavily scarred torso.
“I love this thing,” Cloud sighed, patting the armored jacket before he let it thud heavily down onto the counter. He paused to stuff his face with a few more meatballs before adding, “it’s saved me so many injuries. Not all of them, but a—” he caught sight of a bright red patch on the side of his head. “Oh shit.” He leaned over the sink, head turned, and prodded at it with his fingertips. Even a light touch hurt, and when he drew his hand away with a hiss his fingertips were stained with fresh blood.
“That does explain the headache,” he commented thoughtfully.
This was evidently too much for Angeal. Lips pressed into a tight line, he closed the distance between them in two long strides and gently grabbed Cloud’s head, tilting it to get a good look at the same spot Cloud had just been prodding.
“Hey, watch it,” Cloud complained, and was shushed for his troubles.
“How are you still upright?” Angeal asked, incredulous. Then “is that—there’s still shrapnel in here!”
Cloud made a thoughtful noise. “Oh, whoops. Let’s just go ahead and—” He reached up to try and pluck said shrapnel free from where it was wedged into his skull.
The world spun. He blinked and found himself pinned face-first against Angeal’s chest.
“Are you insane?” the SOLDIER hissed, keeping one hand on Cloud’s arm and the other firmly gripping the base of his skull.
The question was rhetorical. Cloud answered it anyway. “No, just practical. You gonna let me fix that thing or what?” His voice was muffled into the top of Angeal’s pectoral muscle. Stupid tall SOLDIERs.
“No I am not going to let you pick shrapnel out of your head bare-handed! How did you even get this?” His grip did not in any way loosen. Cloud could have freed himself if he felt so inclined, of course, but he didn’t...for the moment. The longer he went without a mouthful of those heavenly meatballs, the more inclined he would be to change his mind.
“Got thrown through a couple buildings,” Cloud said to Angeal’s question. The door to the front of the apartment opened at the same time that Angeal made a horrified little noise in the back of his throat.
“What…? Who’s throwing you through buildings? Where?”
“Seph...iroth,” said Cloud, yawning in the middle of the name. Gods he wanted more meatballs. If Angeal didn’t let him up in about three minutes, he was gonna start feeling inclined. “As for where, I wasn’t paying too much attention at the time. Bit busy trying to keep the stabbing to a minimum.”
“Ange?” Genesis called from the front of the apartment, footsteps hurrying toward them.
“In here, Gen,” Angeal responded. “I need your help. He’s a bit... concussed.”
“What?” Genesis inhaled sharply when he stepped into the bathroom. “Goddess. Do we have a second…?”
Unseen, Cloud frowned. Second what…? Ah, second extra Cloud, probably. Normally he would be all “not your Cloud” and that would solve the issue, but clearly he needed a different approach here. What to say…
“I don’t know. Come make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.”
“I’m standing right here,” Cloud reminded them mildly as he was gently urged backward.
“I know you are, darling,” Genesis cooed, taking hold of one of his arms. “Why don’t we just come sit right here and see about that nasty concussion, hmm?” Angeal finally released him enough that he was able to tilt his head back and roll his eyes directly at the redhead, who looked startled at the sight of his face.
“First off, I’m older than you. Second off, I’m mildly concussed, not completely disoriented, so that tone is uncalled for. Third off, if you don’t give me back that container of Angeal’s transcendently-delicious cooking, I can and will put you both in a pin and eat it while sitting on you.”
Genesis and Angeal exchanged a glance over his head. “Alright,” Angeal said slowly, “if we give you the food, will you let us assess that head wound?”
Cloud shrugged. “Sure, knock yourselves out. I can fix it in five by myself, but it makes no difference to me.”
“Let’s do that, then,” Genesis said, still with a tinge of gentle cooing to his voice. Considering he picked the food container up off the counter and handed it back, though, Cloud decided to forgive him.
They walked him over to the edge of a truly enormous bathtub and sat him down as if he was liable to collapse at any moment. As he continued demolishing the container of meatballs, Angeal pulled out a huge medical kit from the closet and cracked it open. Genesis checked the materia in his bracers and excused himself for a moment, coming back with a slightly different set and his signature coat absent.
“So... Cloud,” Angeal said as Genesis started looking over the spot where shrapnel was still lodged in his skull, “you said Sephiroth threw you through some buildings?”
“Mhm,” Cloud agreed through a mouthful of food. He swallowed and clarified, “not your Sephiroth, though.”
Genesis’s hands paused in his hair. Angeal blinked. “What do you mean by that, darling?” Genesis said delicately.
Cloud laughed a little. “You could say I’m uh, not from around here.” This was fun, actually. Maybe he’d been missing out by telling all those universes about his origins as quickly as possible.
“Right,” Angeal said slowly, that concerned sort of skepticism back in his voice. “Where are you from, then?”
“Different dimension.”
Both men stopped completely, digesting his words. Cloud placidly continued munching away at the meatballs. When they were still for a little too long, he spoke again: “Genesis if you don’t get a move-on that shrapnel’s gonna get sealed in under my skin. If I have to perform minor surgery on myself again I’m going to be very grumpy at you.”
Genesis jolted, then returned to his work with stilted movements.
“What...makes you say you’re from a different dimension?” Angeal asked in a tone Cloud was very familiar with: the ‘I know you’re crazy, but I need to know HOW crazy you are, so give me some clues here you insane little man’ tone.
“Possibly the fact that I’ve been bouncing uncontrollably between dimensions for the past few years,” Cloud said. His fork scraped the bottom of the container. He frowned at it. Damn, he was out of food.
“Infinite in mystery is the gift of the Goddess,” Genesis muttered. He dropped a piece of metal shrapnel into a small bowl. It landed with a sharp tink. “I don’t suppose you have any evidence for such an...unusual claim?”
If the man hadn't been actively digging around in his skull, Cloud would have turned and shot him an incredulous look. “You’re joking. I’m sitting here shirtless and you’re asking for more proof?”
Genesis blinked at him, bloodied hands and forceps frozen midair. “I—what?”
Cloud sighed and shoved the empty meatball container into Angeal’s hands, then shooed Genesis away and stood.
“Hold on, you’ve got open wounds on your—!”
“Shush, Genesis,” Cloud said, pulling a washcloth out from under the sink and wetting it. Fresh blood seeped into his disgustingly crusty hair and down his neck, but he ignored that in favor of scrubbing the blood and sweat and ash from his chest. “Alright, look. Closely,” he said, once the damage to his skin was no longer obscured by a layer of accumulated filth.
They were already hovering behind him, hands out like they expected him to collapse at any moment. It wasn’t difficult to direct their attention where he wanted it: at the oldest, ugliest scars from Masamune, and at the newest, freshest one that hadn’t yet turned to a thin silver line. The thick, burn-edged scars from Rapier. The chunky, distinctive bite of the Buster.
He watched without pleasure as they went pale with realization.
“There’s your proof,” he said dryly, taking advantage of their distraction to re-tie his hair out of the way of his head wound and start plucking out the shrapnel himself, far faster than Genesis had been.
“Stop that,” Genesis snapped, snatching his wrist.
“Work faster then, chop chop. Again, I will be very annoyed at you if I have to perform minor surgery on myself.”
The way he ground his teeth was audible. Genesis always got snappy when he felt like he was out of his depth. Cloud almost felt bad at how pale his face still was from the shock. Almost.
“Okay,” Angeal said after several deep breaths. He looked downright sad, with big soulful eyes like a kicked puppy, which was a comparison usually reserved for Zack. “One...one problem at a time. Let’s get that head wound closed first. Are you hurt anywhere else?” Again, he gently urged Cloud backward and sat him on the edge of the tub.
“Nothing worth mentioning,” Cloud said, contemplating how willing he was to wait until the shrapnel had been picked out of his skull before he went to find more food. He decided it was tenuous at best and would only last if Genesis worked fast.
“Mention it anyway? Please?” Angeal asked in a voice dangerously close to pleading.
Cloud side-eyed him for a moment. Bit of an odd reaction, even for an Angeal who knew Cloud. Even for an Angeal in love with Cloud, though he didn’t really have any solid proof of that yet, just a hunch. Clearly, he was missing something else here.
“Well, I got thrown through a building, so minor cuts, extensive bruising, possibly some minor sprains.” He contemplated his boots for a moment, flexing the muscles in his legs. “Femur might have a hairline fracture.”
“And that’s not worth mentioning?” Genesis said, voice pitched up in mild hysteria.
“I mean, the impalement came first. Gut wounds are difficult, you know. Otherwise I already would have taken care of the rest.” He paused. “The head wound was a surprise, I’ll admit. Maybe it was a Grade Three concussion after all…” He considered, then shrugged. It wasn’t like he could develop chronic traumatic encephalopathy, so it didn’t really matter, anyway.
“You were impaled?” Angeal asked, face ghost-white again. His eyes dropped, clearly searching for the point where said impalement had taken place. Cloud almost laughed—a huge portion of the scars on his torso were from impalement. It was like looking for a needle in a needle stack.
“I got better,” Cloud deadpanned.
Genesis’s hands stilled. Cloud reached over and pointedly smacked the redhead’s arm. He glanced over at Angeal and decided to smack his arm too. Poor guy looked traumatized.
Alright, maybe he did feel a little bit bad at his delivery.
“One problem at a time, Angeal,” he said gently, echoing the SOLDIER’s own words from earlier. “It’s really fine. I’m an expert healer, I’ve already fixed it.” He pulled one of his spare mastered Cures out of his pants pocket. “Here, if it makes you feel better, then go nuts. Save me the mana.”
Wordless, Angeal took it. Genesis continued to work, the intermittent tink-tink of bloody shrapnel being dropped into the catch bowl marking his progress. “...this is mastered,” Angeal said eventually, rolling the glowing orb around his massive palm.
“Sure is,” Cloud agreed absently. He was distracted thinking about leftovers, only refocusing when Angeal picked up his arm and started carefully cleaning it with another warm, damp washcloth.
For a little while, no one said anything. Cloud watched through half-lidded eyes as Angeal gently—dare he say tenderly— washed the blood, sweat, and ash from his skin. He took great care with each individual finger, then the palm and back of the hand, then wrist, and so on slowly up Cloud’s arm. Big patches of dark purple bruising marked Cloud’s skin, but Angeal was so careful that it didn’t hurt at all.
Mmm. He was definitely missing something here. The question was...did he care to ask?
When Cloud’s whole arm was clean, Angeal cast with the mastered Cure. He ran his hand slowly across Cloud’s skin as the purple-black bruising and small cuts faded away, like ink dissipating in water. As soon as his arm was healed, Angeal picked the cloth back up and moved on to Cloud’s shoulder and neck.
It became meditative, almost. It wasn’t often that anyone took such care with Cloud. Usually he was on his own. Usually he was healing his injuries on the fly, mid-battle. This was...rare. Maybe even nice.
Maybe.
...and maybe a little too meditative. He was falling asleep sitting up, as his ignored aches were slowly being erased one by one.
Genesis finally finished his work, setting down the forceps and sliding one hand up to cradle the back of Cloud’s skull. “Lean back,” he murmured, reaching for the showerhead with his other hand. Angeal paused, offering extra support as he leaned back in a bit of an awkward position so that Genesis could rinse out the wound into the tub before healing it shut. The lukewarm water stung fiercely as flushed out the gashes, but he didn’t even blink.
Genesis carefully checked that all of Cloud’s hair was out of the way before he cast with his own Cure. Mastered, by the feel of it. Cloud shut his eyes and let the familiar dancing green light wash over him.
He realized a few things once the healing took effect: first, he’d been ignoring a fierce headache and dizziness, and second, his thoughts had been more than a little hazy until now. “Alright,” he conceded to the universe, “that may have been slightly more than a mild concussion. Slightly.”
“You don’t say,” Genesis said dryly. He put a hand on Cloud’s chest to stop him when he tried to sit up. “Wait. Let me get the blood out of your hair.”
Cloud blinked at him, baffled. “Why?”
The look Genesis gave him was...tired? Something that Cloud found difficult to read, at least. “Humor me.”
After a brief pause, Cloud shrugged and leaned back into Angeal’s supporting hand. His eyes landed on the fancy white towels that hung from a rack on the wall and realization dawned. Ah, Genesis wanted to keep his luxury towels from being ruined. That made sense. He was always extremely particular about his possessions.
Sure enough, after Genesis finished scrubbing an apple-and-spice scented shampoo through his hair—and then an apple-and-spice scented conditioner, really Genesis does it look like I care about my split ends— he pulled a fancy white towel down and wrapped it around Cloud’s head.
“One problem handled,” Genesis murmured, drying Cloud’s hair with the finesse of someone who really, really cared about the state of their own split ends. “On to another. Angeal, switch sides with me, I’ll see about his legs.”
“Give me more of Angeal’s food and I’ll consider letting you,” Cloud said, yawning.
“Is that all you think of?” Angeal asked. He’d calmed down from his little freakout, and now his voice was...almost fond.
“Pretty much. Will you move faster if I tell you those meatballs were the first thing I’ve eaten in two days?”
Angeal and Genesis both blanched visibly. Cloud sighed and scrubbed a hand across his face. “Shit, sorry. Habit. I forgot I was trying not to freak you out.”
“I would prefer you to be honest,” Genesis managed to say as Angeal got up and immediately left. Hopefully to go find some food. Most likely to go find some food—it was Angeal, after all. Genesis, for his part, was scrutinizing Cloud’s torso with a gimlet eye. “Is there a reason you haven’t eaten in two days, dear?”
“Bad luck, mostly,” Cloud said, scratching his jaw. “Hit a string of dimensions that were out to get me from the get-go. I haven’t been able to stop fighting for more than about thirty minutes until just now.”
Genesis took a deep breath. “And how long did that last?”
“Ehhh…” Cloud tilted his head back, letting the towel fall around his neck as he squinted up at the ceiling. “Maybe...five days or so? I think it was six dimensions, at least, and we’re up to around twenty hours in each.”
“Five days of nonstop fighting. Alone?” The redhead’s voice wavered slightly.
“Alone,” Cloud agreed, smiling a little. Thank the gods he was alone. He would never wish this on anybody. Not even Hojo himself.
...alright, maybe a little bit on Hojo, but not really, because he also wouldn’t wish Hojo on those poor innocent dimensions.
A startled “ghk?” tore from him as he was pulled into an unexpected hug, face pressed tight into the familiar crook of Genesis’s neck. Warmth and the smell of apple blossoms enveloped him. “Stop talking,” the SOLDIER said hoarsely. “Just...stop talking for a minute. I don’t think my heart can take much more.”
Cloud couldn’t help but snort. “My friend, the fates are cruel,” he quoted dryly. Genesis just tightened his grip, and said nothing. Slowly, Cloud frowned, guilt seeping into his gut like snowmelt. Alright, he definitely needed to start reeling it in. He considered apologizing but decided it would just make things worse. Instead, he sighed through his nose and returned the hug, pouring as much wordless reassurance as he could into it.
Of course, not even Genesis could stop Cloud from breaking the hug when he heard Angeal coming back—and, more importantly, smelled the food he was bringing with him. “Hell yes,” he breathed, lighting up when he saw the sandwich that seemed to be more meat than sandwich. He took the plate when it was offered and caught one of Angeal’s hands, staring up at the burly SOLDIER.
“Angeal,” he said seriously, “have I ever mentioned that I love you.”
The man had enough humor left to snort. “Me, or my cooking?” he asked, retrieving a fresh washcloth and switching places with Genesis so he could start working on Cloud’s other arm.
Cloud already had an enormous mouthful of sandwich. “Ah fnk mhmn mfls—”
“Please don’t talk with your mouth full,” Genesis tsk’d, Sense alight as he began poking at the various injuries on Cloud’s legs.
He rolled his eyes and swallowed. “I can safely say that I love any version of you that brings me your cooking,” he said, this time intelligibly.
Angeal laughed, just a little. “My cooking can’t possibly be that... consistently good.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Cloud promised him fervently. “As long as you’re alive and not crazy, then your food is always good. Except for that one dimension where Genesis was the cook, but that place was real fuckin’ bizarre and doesn’t count.”
The door to the apartment opened. Cloud’s eyes flicked in that direction, but he didn’t comment, and neither did the other two.
“Genesis could burn water,” Angeal said incredulously, gaze still directed downward as he gently loosened the grime sticking stubbornly to Cloud’s wrist. Genesis made an offended little noise in the back of his throat, but conspicuously didn’t refute the claim.
“I know,” Cloud agreed through another mouthful of sandwich, “why do you think it was so weird.”
Sephiroth walked into the bathroom, to no one’s surprise, followed by Zack. Cloud waved the hand that was in Angeal’s grasp—the other was busy cradling his precious sandwich. “Hey.”
Both blinked in surprise at the sight of him, casually perched on the edge of the tub with a sandwich in his lap, shirtless. Or at least, he assumed that’s what was pulling them up short.
“Wow, Cloud wasn’t kidding about him being food-motivated,” Zack muttered, sotto voce. He looked a little pleased with himself when Cloud laughed.
“Zack,” Sephiroth scolded.
“No, he’s right,” said Cloud, taking another huge bite of the sandwich that was getting dangerously close to being gone. “So,” he said, talking around the food, “other Cloud gave me one answer but it never hurts to double-check. Have you done and/or are doing and/or are planning any genocides lately?”
Again, they blinked, and Genesis’s hands froze on his thigh while Angeal’s grip on his wrist tightened a little. “I’m uh, pretty sure we can safely say ‘no’ to all of those, bud,” Zack said with a hesitant, confused smile.
Cloud searched Sephiroth’s expression for a moment before he hummed. “Good. Keep it that way.”
The familiar cool-warm healing sensation of a Cure flowed up his arm. Angeal stood and handed him back his mastered Cure. Poor guy looked like he had a stress headache. “Here. I’m going to go update Cloud and sit with him and the kid. Someone get, ah, this Cloud’s hair dry.”
“Another Cloud?” Zack asked, head tilted and hands on hips. “We’re gonna have to come up with some nicknames if the kid’s a Cloud too.”
Cloud raised his eyebrows at referring to the comatose Cloud—who looked to be about the right age for when Cloud remembered his own bout with Geostigma, namely 22ish—as a kid, but didn’t comment on it. “You can call me Cursed, if you’re looking for a nickname,” he said instead, amused at his own joke.
“No,” Genesis said flatly, while Sephiroth very calmly asked “what makes you say that?”
Cloud hummed, staring forlornly down at his hand as he finished the last bit of the sandwich. “You missed briefing number one. Get me more food and I’ll give you briefing number two.”
Zack snorted. “I’ve got it,” he said, and left the bathroom.
“You are...remarkably casual with us,” Sephiroth observed, moving to collect several things from in and around the sink cabinets.
“Yep. Feel free to speculate, because I’m not giving up any intel until I’ve got more food in my hands. And mouth.”
“He’s a dimension traveller and knows alternate versions of us,” said Genesis, Sense still glowing as he frowned at Cloud’s thigh.
Immediately, Cloud whipped around to give him a betrayed look. “Cheater!” he accused, earning a small, satisfied smirk from the redhead, who didn’t bother to look up.
Something in the line of Sephiroth’s shoulders loosened. “I see. What were those different versions like, then?”
“No information until food,” Cloud said, scowling at Genesis.
Sephiroth laughed. It was a real laugh too, not the hard exhale that normally passed for a Sephiroth laugh. Cloud found himself watching curiously. “Alright,” the silver-haired man soothed, “food first.” His eyes were their normal bright green, but also remarkably pleasant and open when he looked at Cloud again. “Come sit up on the counter for a little while so I can dry your hair.”
“You realize I really don’t care all that much about how my hair looks, right?” he said, but moved to stand nonetheless.
“Not so fast,” Genesis interjected, clamping his hands down on Cloud’s shoulders to stop him. “Your femur is still damaged, but I’m having trouble pinpointing the exact break and making sure it’s safe to fix. You shouldn’t put any weight on it.” He eyed Cloud fiercely. “You certainly should not have been running all over the Tower on it earlier either!”
Cloud rolled his eyes, noting out of his peripheral that Sephiroth came over to join them. “What, you want me to hop over to—” he cut off with a startled gasp as Sephiroth simply plucked him up, walked him the three steps over to the counter, and set him down. Cloud looked at him with wide eyes, feeling like a scruffed cat.
“The fuck?” he choked out.
Sephiroth was poorly hiding a smile as he plugged a hairdryer in and picked up a small bottle. “I take it the Sephiroth you knew did not often help you in such a way?”
“Oh sure, he picked me up,” Cloud said, set on his back heel enough to speak without thinking, “usually on the tip of that oversized toothpick of his and straight into a wall!”
Immediately, both Sephiroth and Genesis went still, giving him horrified looks, and something crashed in the kitchen. And they weren’t stupid. They were warriors. They knew how battle wounds formed, and they knew what different kinds of scars meant.
They both looked right down at Cloud’s naked torso.
“I did—” Sephiroth started, voice dropped to a whisper.
Cloud growled in frustration at himself and dragged both hands down his face. He hated this guilty song and dance. “No, actually you didn’t. A few hundred other Sephiroths did, and some Genesises, and some Angeals, and some Zacks, and some other Clouds, and...literally everyone has had a go at making a Strife Shishkebab at this point, alright? Not you.”
If his words helped, they only took off the edge of the horror. “What happened to you?” Sephiroth asked with naked heartbreak, tearing his eyes away from the ruined canvas of his skin and up to his face
Cloud reached out and grabbed the idiot’s shoulders to yank him closer. “A whole lot of shit that’s not your godsbedamned fault, got it?” he growled right into Sephiroth’s face. When he didn’t get more than a stunned blink, he leaned in even closer, until their noses were almost touching. “Sephiroth. Do you understand me?”
“I—yes,” he said, clarity returning to his cat-slit eyes. “Alright, Cloud, I understand.”
Cloud nodded hard and released him. “Good. Zack, give me that before I lose my mind.”
Zack, who was pale and standing in the doorway with some reheated pasta dish in his hand, lurched forward automatically. “Oh, uh, here.”
“Praise the gods,” Cloud muttered, chowing down immediately. The insanely comforting taste of Angeal’s leftovers soothed his irritation with himself and the idiots around him. “Alright. Everyone shut up. Here’s the gist: I’m Cloud Strife from another dimension, I’m cursed to bounce around different dimensions until someone figures out how to anchor me back home, and I’ve been ping-ponging through the multiverse for somewhere north of three years.” He slurped down another forkful of pasta, eyeing them as they stared. “I’m happily married with kids so don’t get any ideas.”
“You’re married?” Zack goggled, but Genesis gave him a shrewd look while Sephiroth just blinked, still a little shell-shocked.
“You’re not married to us, are you?” Genesis asked.
“I didn’t even know any of you except for Zack in my home dimension,” Cloud said. “So, no.”
Sephiroth finally started moving again, popping open the bottle in his hands and squeezing out some sort of clearish product into one palm. “Oh? Why is that?” he asked in a voice with a tenuous, forced kind of calm.
“I joined ShinRa at fourteen. As far as I can tell by that point Genesis had…” he trailed off, searching for an adequately delicate phrasing. “...left. It’s possible I did technically meet some of you, but I’ve been mako poisoned about five times and counting, so some of those memories are just a big smoothie.”
Zack choked. “Five times? Holy shit, what treatments have you been using to fix five times?”
Cloud blinked, fork paused halfway to his mouth. “Treatment? What treatment?”
“To counteract the mako poisoning?”
They stared at each other for a minute. “There...are no treatments for that?” Cloud said eventually.
“What? Yes there are.”
Cloud sat straight up. “There are?”
Everyone stared for another very long minute. “You...were poisoned five times...and recovered without any treatment whatsoever?” Sephiroth asked eventually.
“First time Zack dragged me around the continent while I was comatose and it fixed itself. Mostly. Second time was followed pretty shortly by the third time. My wife sort of dove into my head and pieced me back together on that one,” he said, frowning. “Fourth and fifth times were after I’d started on the interdimensional circuit, and those resolved themselves pretty neatly as soon as I died.”
Wait. He shouldn’t have said that so casually.
“What...what do you mean by died, darling?” Genesis asked shakily, reaching out and grasping Cloud’s free hand as if he couldn’t help himself.
Cloud grimaced deeply. Nothing for it. “Okay look, I know that sounds bad, but I don’t stay dead, so it’s fine.”
“Stay dead?” And ah shit, Genesis’s eyes were starting to get suspiciously shiny as they dropped to look at his torso again. “Some of these—some of these are kill shots, aren’t they? I thought...they couldn’t possibly be, since...”
“It’s fine,” Cloud insisted. “I just wake up in a new world when that happens. It’s fine.”
He wasn’t all that surprised when Zack pushed forward to pull him into a bear hug. “That’s not fine, Cloud!” he said, voice trembling. “You dying, over and over—” he choked, unable to finish his statement, and buried his face in Cloud’s damp hair. “Don’t say that’s fine. Don’t you dare say that.”
Cloud sighed. “Okay. You’re right, it’s not fine. But I’m still in the middle of this, Zack. Be practical. I cannot afford to process how not okay this is until I’m home. So until that point...it’s fine. At least this means that no matter what, I’ll get home to my family alive.”
Ah shit, his eyes were starting to burn. Down boy, bad emotions!
He thought about Tifa, and his kids, and all his friends in AVALANCHE. He trusted them to get him home. He knew they could do it. And, even though he’d never thought about it this way before, he was so grateful that he was going to get home to them alive. Even his many, many flaws and failings weren’t going to prevent that.
His eyes burned, but he was able to smile, genuinely, as he pulled back and forced Zack to meet his gaze. “No matter what mistakes I make, I get to go home and hug my kids, Zack. So let it go. Pretend you didn’t hear it. It’s okay.”
Zack looked like he’d been sucker-punched. He pulled back, staggering into Genesis’s hands. His chest hitched and his eyes glimmered with unshed tears. “I’m—” he said. “I’m gonna go...sit with the kid.” He turned tail and fled.
Cloud sighed, but he wasn’t all that surprised. Zack tended to be the most emotionally reactive out of all of them. Of course he wouldn’t take a blunt, terrible truth well. Hopefully sitting with his own Cloud and the one who was still in a coma would soothe his raw nerves.
He turned his eyes to the other two, settling easily back into his usual dry, tired humor. “Anyone else got anything smart to say?”
Genesis still looked visibly upset, but Sephiroth had a remarkable poker face. Or at least, it would have been remarkable to anyone except Cloud, who knew Sephiroth better than he knew himself. “Nothing at all,” the General said softly, just as upset as Genesis but containing it well. “Let’s get your hair dry, Cloud.”
He nodded in satisfaction and went back to eating his leftovers. As Sephiroth started applying some kind of product to the damp waves of Cloud’s hair, Genesis took one deep breath, and then another. The Sense lit up again. He put both hands on Cloud’s injured thigh, just above his knee.
“What’s giving you trouble, Genesis?” Cloud asked when he’d been sitting there, silent, for a while—long enough that Sephiroth had moved on to combing the tangles out of his hair with a series of professional-looking metal combs.
Genesis glanced up, looking frustrated. “Your bones are…they’re very… difficult to clearly map. I’m not sure what would happen if I just...tossed a Cure at this.”
“Oh,” Cloud said with realization. “Right. Yeah that thing is about fifty percent calluses at this point. I’ll take care of it.” He didn’t need to map the break out with a Sense, at this point. All he needed was the split-second window of insight that casting with a Cure offered. He took his gloves out from where they’d been sitting under his jacket on the counter and pulled them on.
“Relax,” he said, seeing how tightly Genesis’s lips were pressed together. Bright green lit up the bathroom, just for a moment. “See? All better. I told you, I’m an expert healer.”
“What you are is a heart attack on two legs,” Genesis said, putting a hand over his eyes and taking a deep, deep breath. “I’ll be right back.” He stood and left—or rather, staggered out, devoid of his usual swaggering grace. Cloud shook his head and went back to eating.
Sephiroth eventually turned on the hairdryer and used it, plus a brush, to tame Cloud’s hair into a respectable state. The warmth and the rhythmic pulls of the brush felt nice—nice enough that Cloud leaned into it, eyes shut. Of course that didn’t go unnoticed by Sephiroth, who took a few minutes after the dryer shut off just to...well, there really wasn’t a better description than “pet him.”
Ah, who cared? It felt nice. Honestly, he was falling asleep again, leaned back into Sephiroth as his sometimes-enemy, sometimes-friend scratched bare fingers pleasantly across his scalp.
Genesis came back and Cloud cracked open one sleepy eye to watch. He sat up in interest when he saw what the redhead was carrying.
“My man!” he said, reaching, at the same time that Sephiroth clicked his tongue disapprovingly.
“It’s two a.m. somewhere, Seph,” Genesis said, taking a long drag from the bottle before he handed it over to Cloud. When he took his own long drag, it didn’t taste like much of anything except strong burning. SOLDIER-calibre alcohol, then, which meant it had slightly more of a chance than usual of affecting him. Bonus!
Sephiroth sighed but didn’t try to stop them as Genesis sat down on the floor by Cloud’s boots and they started passing the bottle back and forth. “May I trim your hair?” he asked abruptly.
“Sure,” Cloud said, sinking into a downright contented state. Good spirits, good company, good rest. As far as he was concerned, they could do whatever the hell they wanted for the next nineteen hours until he vanished.
“Thank you.”
“When’d you learn to do that, anyway?” Cloud asked as Sephiroth pulled out a professional-looking set of silver scissors.
“We all did, together,” Genesis answered for him, leaning his head over to rest against Cloud’s calf. “It was easier to help each other after messy battles or training damage than to go out of our way to find a professional. And once the fanclubs got large...well.”
“Cheers I’ll drink to that,” Cloud muttered, raising the bottle. He shivered as he thought of the starry-eyed masses that speckled the continents at home. Most people were perfectly respectful. Most. Not all. He imagined it was much worse in Midgar.
No one seemed to want to comment any further. The quiet snick-snick of Sephiroth’s work filled the bathroom for a while. Eventually the bottle Cloud and Genesis were sharing ran dry, and Cloud went back to polishing off his bowl of leftovers. His head buzzed pleasantly.
Sephiroth finished the trim, sweeping stray hairs from Cloud’s neck and shoulders. Even without asking, he knew that the stained ribbon that had been holding his hair up was important. He pulled Cloud’s hair into a neat, high ponytail and secured it with the ribbon.
“Thanks,” Cloud said, yawning.
“You’re welcome.” He moved to stand in front of Cloud, taking his face in hand. After a moment of quiet contemplation, he said “I admire your strength, Cloud.” He didn’t wait for any response, instead turning away to retrieve yet another washcloth, wet it with warm water, and start cleaning the grime from Cloud’s face.
“I admire your determination to make me look like a respectable human being,” Cloud responded, one eye shut as Sephiroth scrubbed gently at his cheek and nose.
Genesis patted his leg. Sephiroth smiled knowingly. “You’re tired,” he observed, tracing the arch of one eyebrow, then the other. “Would you like to sleep?”
“Maybe,” Cloud said. His stomach was comfortably full, his head still buzzed pleasantly, and he wasn’t in pain. He didn’t need to fight. Sleep would be wise. Bur first— “I should clean my gear.”
“Please, allow us,” Genesis said. “You’re…on some manner of timer, aren’t you?”
“Nineteen hours,” Cloud agreed, his words broken by another yawn. Five days of nonstop fighting was catching up to him. “Then I’m gone.”
“Then sleep, and I’m sure Angeal will have more food for you when you wake.” Genesis stood. “I’ll get you some spare clothes to wear.” He disappeared out the door, leaving Sephiroth and Cloud alone.
As was usual, if strange, Cloud felt no need to keep up any pretenses when it was just him and his former worst enemy in the room. Sephiroth drew the cloth over the line of his jaw. Cloud, without thinking, let the exhaustion that had long since settled in his bones bleed out into his face. Warmth trailed over his chin, then the other side of his jaw, then was gone. After a moment a soft, dry towel replaced it, patting gently over his skin.
“There you are,” Sephiroth whispered. “It’s alright. We have you. You can rest.”
“I’m older than you,” Cloud mumbled, falling forward slightly into what he assumed was Sephiroth’s chest. It rumbled with a muted laugh.
“We have you regardless, Cloud.”
Did he trust them, even missing bits and pieces of vital information? For all he knew, he would wake up in the Science Department on a dissection table. Unlikely, given that he’d seen Lucretia earlier, but nothing was impossible. They were gentle, and ached for his pain. They were, as far as he could tell, sincere. But were they safe?
Did he trust them?
Sephiroth started stroking his hair again, drawing his hand lightly through Cloud’s bangs and across his scalp to the base of the ponytail. His other hand just rested on Cloud’s upper back, a warm and reassuring weight. “You’re safe here. Please, just rest while you can.”
It was Sephiroth’s surprisingly insightful attempt to reassure him that really decided the matter.
Maybe it would come back to bite him in the ass later, but for now? He trusted them.
