Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“In the old days, when the gods walked the lands, there were three great spirit clans. First, the spirits of earth, so strong and steady; second, the spirits of fire, quick and clever; and third, the spirits of the heavens, who held so much magic in their fingertips that they could paint colors across the sky every night.”

Claudia smiled as the little toddler in her lap, who was staring up at her with big blue eyes, enraptured by her words. She continued:

“And the three great clans got along very well. They played with each other, and they shared with each other, and the gods were pleased. But one day, they forgot how to play, and they forgot how to share. Instead, they began to fight. Their fights were over such silly things, but they were very angry with each other.”

“That’s bad, mama,” Cloud earnestly informed her.

“I know, little storm,” she said, kissing his nose. “Hush and listen.

“Now, the great clans were very powerful, and they were so angry they forgot to think about the land beneath their feet. Their anger destroyed much of the Planet, and she grieved, not only for herself but for the children who had forgotten how to live in harmony with her and each other. So she called on the gods to restrain their power. She promised that once they learned how to play together again, she would return their power to them, and they would become the three great clans again.”

“And that’s how people got made!” Cloud burst out, excited.

“That’s right!” Claudia cooed, pulling her pendant from around her neck and holding it in one hand. “The gods took the spirits and made them into people, and then they tied members of each clan into heart-song packs, so that they could learn how to get along again. The great fire spirits became the clever Betas, and the strong earth spirits became the mighty Alphas, and the powerful spirits of the heavens became…?”

“Omegas!” Cloud said, clapping his hands. “Like us!”

“Very good, my clever boy. We are omega, the children of those beautiful spirits of the heavens that had so much magic in them that they painted the sky up in lights every night,” she said, closing his little fingers around the pendant. “And only we can hear the songs of the heavens that our ancestors left to us. Listen. Listen with your heart. Can you hear it?” His face was scrunched up in adorable concentration. She nudged the pendant, just a little, feeding it mana so it would sing high and clear.

Cloud gasped. “Mama! I can hear it!”

Claudia smiled. “It is the wisdom of all who came before us. They will lend you their strength and skill, one day, when you’re old enough to wield full materia. But for now—” she leaned down and kissed the top of his head “—learn to hear the song, and let it comfort you. No omega is ever alone. And one day, your pack will sing to your heart just like this, so that spirits of earth, and fire, and the heavens can play together again.”

Cloud turned in her lap, hands still holding the pendant, and frowned at her. “But what if it’s not a nice song and I don’t like it? Can’t we just be pack?”

Her smile saddened a little. “Oh, Stormcloud, it will be a nice song. I promise.”

“But it wasn’t a nice song for you,” he insisted, frown deepening stubbornly. “And that’s why we’re all ‘lone even though there’s ‘sposed to be more than just us.”

“Baby...that’s…” she sighed. “Alright, how about this? I promise you, your pack will sing very sweetly. But!” she raised a finger to head off his protests. “But, if they don’t, then you can come right home to me and we’ll be pack forever, no matter what anyone says. Okay?”

A beaming smile crossed his face. “Okay! I want you to be my pack, mama. Forever and ever! I love you.”

Claudia’s heart melted. What had she done to deserve such a sweet son? “Oh baby, I love you too,” she cooed, hugging him tight. “Forever and ever.”

There was a knock at the door. Claudia frowned, drying her hands on a dishtowel before going to answer it. She wasn’t expecting any visitors.

It was Cloud. Her heart lept in her throat, first in surprised joy, then in horror. He was leaning heavily against the door, dressed in clothes too large for his frame, covered in bandages. The scent of exhaustion and anguish burned her nose. His face looked drawn and hollow, and his eyes gleamed with unnatural light. A small, beat-up motorcycle sat in the road behind him.

“Ma,” he rasped. He tried to stand upright, but couldn’t. His voice was unsteady. “You s-s-said...you said I could...always come home and we’d be pack.” His eyes started to glisten. “Ma.” His voice cracked. Finally, his strength left him and he collapsed. If Claudia hadn’t reacted as quickly as she did, he would have hit the porch deck hard.

“Mama. I can’t— I can’t—” He broke off, choking on a sob. He felt so gaunt under her hands. This close, she could finally smell blood and the painful sterility of a hospital room clinging stubbornly to his skin.

“Baby,” she breathed, “what did they do to you?”

Chapter Text

Sometimes, Cloud liked patrols. Sometimes he really, really didn’t. It depended on who he was paired with, as they walked the route and kept an eye out for trouble. He was lucky that most of the time he was paired with people from his squad, and everyone in his squad was really nice.

Well. Mostly.

“So what goes on in the hot house, huh? Gimme the inside scoop, Strife. How annoying is it to hear “oooh, Alpha!” for thirty-six hours str—”

“Shut up,” Cloud groaned, shoulder-checking his squadmate as they walked down a quiet street on patrol. “Gods, James, do you get all your info from bad pornos?”

“Bad?” James squawked, shoulder-checking him back, “I am a gentleman and a connoisseur! I only watch the best pornos!”

That managed to startle a laugh from Cloud, and their roughhousing devolved into a little scuffle before they shoved each other playfully and went back to patrolling. “Yeah, well you need to stop getting your ‘info’—” he used the hand not on his rifle to make blisteringly sarcastic air quotes “—from any pornos at all. Heat is literally just like rut, you moron. Everyone gets a little hormone drunk and talks about mates and makes stupid impulsive decisions, and then it wears off and you go back to work.”

The “hot house” was slang for the quarantined Infantry barracks where packless omegas went for their heat. Not that they would have been jumped or anything if they didn’t go to the hot house—heat hormones were just incredibly potent and distracting. Put enough omegas in heat together in a space without high-quality HVAC systems and they might trigger heats and ruts even outside of their packs. That kind of thing would end in a whole department shut down as two-thirds of the workers were out of commission.

Not to mention how disgruntled all the betas would be.

James side-eyed him thoughtfully. “You guys get all cuddly and shit?”

“Some of them do,” Cloud said. He didn’t…usually. Sometimes the hormones hit him hard enough that he’d quit defending his nest and go join the common room. It was nice in small doses, but usually he just wanted to be alone in his nest to enjoy his mini-vacation. “What, you don’t do that in cold storage?”

“Cold storage” was the opposite of the hot house: quarantine for packless alphas in rut. James barked a laugh at his curious question. “Are you shitting me?” He paused. “Alright, yeah, somtimes. Usually after everyone’s gotten all the jitters out by sparring or racing or some shit.”

“Well, we don’t really do the competition part,” Cloud said, snorting. Alphas . “But it’s basically the same. There’re no moaning omegas.” He rolled his eyes viciously at the thought.

“No orgies?” James ribbed, and Cloud shoved him again.

“No! If anything heat is when everyone is the pickiest about who they want. You can’t tell me it’s not the same for alphas, I know for a fact it is.”

“Yeah,” James admitted with a sigh. “You got that right. Half the security in cold storage is just to keep hormone-drunk idiots from tearing through the city looking for their packmates. I can’t wait until I finally find at least one of mine. Hopefully our omega will present soon so I don’t have to keep using cold storage.”

Cloud hummed noncommittally, jaw clenching a little just at the thought of the legal responsibilities that came from his pack finding him. No, thanks. I can take care of myself, and you can take care of yourself.  

His squadmate didn’t let the subject drop, though. “No dreams yet, Strife? You’re getting up into the upper bound for presenting.”

Cloud frowned. “Don’t be stupid. I’m only nineteen and people still present all the way up into the mid twenties.”

“Not a lot though. Aren’t you worried?”

Cloud was worried, but not for the reason anyone would assume. Unlike apparently every single other person alive, he had no desire at all to meet his destined pack. If he had anything to say about it, they’d never even figure out who he was. 

Potentially, it wouldn’t even be hard. Omega dreams linked all post-presentation members of their pack together in the Dreamscape, but there was a catch: magic was the domain of omegas, and if Cloud didn’t reciprocate— offer anything up that could be returned in kind—then there was nothing they could do to force the issue.

But of course, it was only potentially easy. The other way packmates found each other was touch. As long as both of them had already hit their presentation, skin-to-skin contact would establish a pre-bond. He’d heard it was like being struck by really nice lightning, whatever that meant. Once Cloud presented, he would have to be careful who he touched.

He wasn’t too worried though. What were the odds that, out of everyone in the world, any of his packmates were in the ShinRa military?

“Nah,” Cloud said, smirking. “I’m not worried at all.”

Cloud had just about finished logging his patrol report, sweaty and dirty and tired, when he heard someone call his name.

“Cloud!”

He couldn’t help the smile that bloomed across his face. “Hi, Zack,” he called back without turning away from the computer terminal, waving one hand over his shoulder. He rushed through the last few words and had just managed to hit the SUBMIT button when Zack slammed into him from the side, sending the helmet Cloud had been holding skittering across the tile.

“Oof!” he wheezed, laughing at his friend’s puppy-like enthusiasm as they staggered. Zack would never let him fall. “Yeah, hi Zack, I’m happy to see you too.”

They’d been friends for a while now, but Cloud still couldn’t help but feel shy and awkward around the SOLDIER. He was just so bright, like the sun shining on the earth. In some ways, he was everything Cloud wasn’t.

“Six months to go!” Zack said, squeezing him before shifting so that one arm was slung over Cloud’s shoulders. “We’re gonna amp up your training tomorrow, so get lots of rest tonight!” He flexed his free arm, grinning.

“Zack, haven’t we talked about roughhousing with the unenhanced?” Genesis Rhapsodos chided. Cloud jolted a little, startled by his appearance. The two packmates must have been walking together when Zack spotted Cloud.

“Pffft, Cloud’s strong!” Zack said as Cloud ducked his head to hide behind his bangs. “Trust me, Gen, he’s gonna be in SOLDIER, he can take some wrestling!”

Curse his fair complexion, Cloud could feel his cheeks heating up as he blushed. He ducked a little more, chin tucking down into his infantry kerchief.

“Let the young man get there first,” Genesis said, picking Cloud’s helmet up off the floor and handing back to him. He managed a soft thanks. “Now, come, or we’ll be late. Cloud, it was lovely seeing you, but you’ll have to excuse us.”

“He gets really formal when he’s around someone he’s got a crush on,” Zack stage whispered to Cloud, who blanched and flushed crimson all the way to the roots of his hair. Genesis Rhapsodos, with a crush on him? That was a mean joke even for Zack.

Genesis spluttered. “Zackary!” he said. Cloud swore he would have stamped one foot had it been even remotely dignified. His spicy-sweet scent curdled with outrage and a tinge of…embarrassment? “I certainly do not!”

Zack laughed like a fey spirit of mischief, squeezing Cloud’s shoulder one last time before he let go. “See you tomorrow at 1900 sharp, got it?”

“Got it,” Cloud managed from where half his face had disappeared behind his kerchief. He didn’t doubt that they could smell the sharp notes of embarrassment in his scent.

“Zack!” Genesis repeated, and they left together—or rather, Zack speed-walked and Genesis chased after him on a very subtle hunt for vengeance. Cloud shook his head as he watched them go, deliberately putting all the more confusing parts of that encounter out of his mind.

“Weirdos,” he said fondly, and left to go shower. It’d be best if he bunked down early tonight so he could throw everything he had into training with Zack tomorrow.

This year, he would finally make it into SOLDIER.

Cloud dreamed every night. It was part and parcel of being an omega—dreaming was a realm of magic unto itself, and omegas were connected to magic in all its forms. Most of the time it was just like he was connected to the song on a much deeper and much less controllable level. He might dream of fire and wake up with a new intuitive understanding of a spell he was trying to master. Sometimes it was a story, as his own mind used the canvas of boundless magic to try and tell him something. Occasionally it was a nightmare.

Tonight, it was far worse than any nightmare he ever could have imagined.

He woke in a gray, misty void, confused. Emotions that didn’t belong to him filled the air, swirling like they were part of the formless mist—surprise and joy and enthusiasm so bright he thought it would scorch his soul. He searched, reflexively, for its source. The void began to deepen, acquiring color and texture, as if a wild meadow in the Nibel mountains was taking form around him.

He felt another impression—a voice, and joy as bright as the sun: “We’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

The Dreamscape. Cloud gasped sharply, immediately drawing every fiber of his soul back into as small and compact a form as he could make it. He imagined it physically: hands over his ears, head ducked, eyes squeezed tightly shut. No! Go away!  

The day he’d been dreading had finally arrived. Anxiety curled around his chest, but he tried to calm down. He already knew what he was going to do. He’d already decided he was never going to give his “destined” packmates a single goddamn thing. They would never be able to find him. There was no need to be anxious—even if there were one or two other omegas in the pack, they still couldn’t force the issue.

Whoever they were, they didn’t need him anyway.

He sensed confusion souring the air of the Dreamscape, like fruit rotting on the vine. “Hey…what’s wrong, sweetness? Where did you go?”

“Genesis, what’s happening? This isn’t how meeting you here went.”

“I…don’t know. Darling, it’s alright. Why are you so anxious?”

Cloud felt like his heart had flash-frozen in his chest. Forget anxiety, terror burned through his veins with such an intensity that he felt like a supernova, casting the light of his fear across the emptiness of the Dreamscape. It was so intense that it ripped him out of the dream and back into the waking world.

But not before he felt his packmates—the four top SOLIDERs in all of ShinRa—recoil in horror and confusion from the force of his terrified rejection.

Cloud was up and running before he was even properly awake, gasping for breath as he scrabbled at the cold tile and ripped his leg free of the sheet tangled around it. Blind, he bolted out of the barracks, bare feet pounding across the floor as he ran. Where, he didn’t know. Every terrified instinct was screaming at him to run. Because he’d—

He’d—

Rejected them.

He’d just rejected the most powerful men in the world.

And they knew it.

Chapter Text

This wasn’t how the night was supposed to go.

Granted, they hadn’t exactly expected their newest (and, if Genesis’s instincts were correct, final) packmate to show up in the Dreamscape, but they’d been delighted nonetheless. He was an omega, sleepy and confused, reaching out to investigate their presence. Just like with Genesis’s presentation dream, the formlessness had started to fade into something concrete. Angeal thought he might have seen the beginnings of some kind of grassy field, speckled with wildflowers.

“We’ve been looking for you everywhere!” Zack projected, unable to contain his excitement as he reached out to reciprocate the omega’s searching threads of awareness. He was just barely starting to become visible along with the field: a colorless, vaguely human shape.

But then—a retreat, as something like defensive anxiety bloomed through the dream. Everything was plunged back into formless gray. The four of them shared their confusion, searching for something they might have missed, for some reason they might have scared or insulted him.

Angeal was the mediator among them—Seph was too logical, Zack too emotional, and Genesis too bitchy—so even though he had no idea what was happening, he tried to reach out and calm their newest packmate’s loud uneasiness by being calm and gentle. “Hey…what’s wrong, sweetness? Where did you go?”

He felt, vaguely, the impression of hands being pressed tight over ears, and his confusion deepened.

“Genesis, what’s happening?” Sephiroth asked as the older omega imposed his own magic on their part of the Dreamscape. Half of their field of view became his beloved theater. It ended sharply, plunging into the formless gray where the other omega’s will superseded, but they could see each other clearly within it. “This isn’t how meeting you here went.”

No, Genesis had been radiantly smug when they’d finally shared a dream. If he could have sat on them like a dragon hoarding its gold, he would have. He’d been the exact opposite of defensive and withdrawn.

“I…don’t know,” Genesis responded. He’d been briefly delighted to have another omega in their pack, but now he was just baffled. He frowned at the void where the other omega was hiding, head cocked to the side. “Darling, it’s alright. Why are you so anxious?”

Recognition pinged from their newest packmate.

Then his terror hit like a truck.

The closest Angeal could think to describe it was like an impression of someone panicking and shoving them away with all their might. Rejection, of a kind. It was so intense that it tore the Dreamscape out from under them, even with Genesis there to stabilize things.

They woke as one, gasping through the horror of it. Angeal tried to catch his breath, wiping at the cold sweat on his skin as Genesis did the same. Zack and Sephiroth had chosen to sleep in their own apartments that night, but he didn’t doubt they were already heading toward Gen’s.

“What was that?” Genesis said shakily, appalled.

“I don’t—he was scared of us?” Angeal didn’t even bother resisting the urge to pull Genesis over into a hug. It was returned fiercely. Genesis took a deep breath, pressing his face against the junction between Angeal’s shoulder and neck.

“Maybe,” Gen said. “Maybe. But he was withdrawn even before he recognized us. Or…some of us?” He exhaled slowly. “Infinite in mystery is the gift of the Goddess.”

The front door burst open. A second later Zack came blurring in at full speed, and it was only Angeal’s reflexive bark of ZACK! That kept him from launching onto the mattress and breaking the bed frame.

Again.

“What was that!” Zack cried, inserting himself into their hug with slightly less force than he’d used to enter the apartment. “How did we scare him, we barely said anything!”

“I don’t know,” Angeal said, shifting to accommodate Zack. For once, Genesis didn’t make any objection to the younger alpha’s graceless intrusion, which really said a lot about how badly the night was going. In fact, he mostly let go of Angeal to embrace Zack instead.

“I do not think it was anything we did,” Genesis mumbled into Zack’s hair. “But we should wait until Seph gets here to discuss.”

They didn’t have to wait long. Sephiroth hadn’t sprinted all the way there like Zack, but he hadn’t delayed either. The front door opened just about a minute later and Sephiroth came to join them, sitting on the bed next to Angeal. They leaned against each other, wordlessly seeking comfort.

“I was…kind of hoping it would be Cloud,” Zack admitted. “But it can’t have been, he’s not scared of us.”

“He was not scared of us at the beginning,” Sephiroth said slowly. “He was…anxious for some other reason. It was only after I spoke to Genesis that he recognized us. Or…perhaps he recognized me.”

A gloomy silence overtook them as they considered the implications. “You don’t suppose he’s from Wutai, or just anti-Shinra?” Genesis asked, sounding a little defeated.

Angeal’s heart twisted in his chest at the thought. Had they ruined things just by being who they were? SOLDIERs? A feeling of intense agitation made his chest itch. He abruptly extricated himself from the pack hug. “I need to take a walk and calm down,” he managed, waving the others off as they smelled the sour tang of his distress and sat upright to reach for him.

“I’ll come with—” Zack started, but Genesis pulled him down and put a hand over his mouth.

“Go sit in your garden while you’re at it, my love,” the redhead said softly. He knew Angeal the best out of everyone.

“I won’t take too long, I think,” Angeal promised, kissing Sephiroth’s temple. “It should be quiet everywhere at this time of night. Perfect for calming down.”

Cloud was supposed to be thinking of a solution as he ran, but the only thing in his head was a frantic loop of what do I do, what do I do, what do I do? Then it was like he blinked and was suddenly standing in the Tower solarium, gasping for air. The thin grass they managed to grow tickled his bare feet. He looked around at the greenery, bewildered. How had he gotten here? How had he gotten in here?

He glanced down and realized that his keycard was in his hand. He didn’t remember grabbing it. In fact, he hadn’t even stopped to grab shoes or clothes. All he had on was a worn wifebeater and plaid boxers.

Borderline violent tremors started up in his hands and feet as he realized all of this. The painful band around his chest tightened until he was straining for each inhale. He stumbled over to a planter that was at least not directly in sight of the solarium entrance. If he got caught out this late, he was going to be in huge trouble.

What was he going to do? He was—he’d outright rejected the four most powerful and admired SOLDIERs in all of Shinra. Him. Who the hell was he, a useless backwater nobody, to insult them like that? He couldn’t bear to give up on making it into SOLDIER, but they’d surely figure it out if he did. There would be some incident where his skin came into contact with theirs. Then they’d know.

Oh gods, they were going to be so angry. Who the hell would want to be saddled with him? And he couldn’t salvage this, even if he’d had it in him to stomach the responisibilities that came with establishing contact with his pack. They already knew he’d deliberately rejected them. The only real option to avoid all this was to leave. Now. Just go and don’t look back.

But he couldn’t bear to give up like this.

What was he going to do?

He didn’t hear the footsteps until it was too late. Not until he raised his head as he fought to breathe and saw a pair of SOLDIER boots coming to a stop just a step or two away from his bare feet. His head snapped up as his stomach dropped.

Please don’t be—

SOLDIER First Angeal Hewley looked down at him with naked concern, one bare hand hovering up by his face. It took Cloud a second, but once the scent of faintly-upset alpha reached him, he realized he must have been flooding the solarium with the smell of distressed omega.

“Are you alright?” Angeal asked, crouching and reaching for his shoulder. “Are you hurt—“

Cloud reacted on pure impulse, gasping and lurching away from the man’s hand. His head cracked against the planter and he groaned sharply, grabbing the back of his skull. Still, when Angeal went woah, hey! and reached out again, he retained the self-preservation to flinch away a second time, banging his hands against the stone.

Angeal retreated a little, bewilderment coloring his face and his scent. “I—okay, I’m sorry, I won’t touch you. Just take a deep breath.” He took one himself, demonstrating.

Cloud took a deep breath, not because Angeal told him to, but because his brain was going to need oxygen to think its way out of this. His panic refused to ease—if anything, it intensified. Just one casual touch would bring everything crashing to the ground.

And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Angeal wasn’t a stupid man. 

The last thing he’d expected to find in the solarium was a young omega curled up in front of the planter, reeking of panic. That alone was enough to set off the quietest ping of suspicion, but it really wasn’t enough for him to consciously notice it. He approached, worried when he heard the young man trying to keep from hyperventilating.

The distress became so overpowering that he pressed a hand to the space beneath his nose, diluting the scent just enough for him to keep a clear head. The young man finally heard his footsteps, head snapping up, and Angeal was struck by how blue his eyes were. Combined with the blond hair, he wondered if this was Zack’s friend, Cloud. But that didn’t matter. He was going to help regardless

“Are you alright?” he asked as he crouched down, reaching out to provide some light, grounding touch with a hand on the shoulder. “Are you hurt—”

Angeal wasn’t a stupid man. When the blond recoiled violently enough to crack his skull against the stone planter behind him—and then do it again when Angeal uttered a surprised exclamation and tried to stop him—the suspicion that had pinged quietly earlier became more of a blaring siren. 

He sat back immediately, hands raised in placation. He wasn’t wearing his gloves. If he’d managed to touch the young man’s shoulder, it would have been skin-to-skin: the kind of thing that would establish a pre-bond, no matter how much someone frightened of him might not have wanted it.

“I—okay, I’m sorry, I won’t touch you,” he said, struggling to understand what was happening as the omega clutched his head and watched him with huge, scared blue eyes. “Just take a deep breath.”

The young man did, and even though it shook Angeal nodded at him approvingly. “Okay, good. Thank you.” He tried probing a little, watching the blond’s reaction carefully. “I’m not going to reprimand you for being out after curfew, if that’s what you’re worried about. In fact, I’ll walk you back to your barrack once you calm down.”

A split second of blankness came over the omega’s face before it shifted into what Angeal might have described as “strained relief.” It might have been strained because of the stress—or because he was faking it. Angeal didn’t want to jump to conclusions yet.

“Th-thank you,” he stuttered quietly, shifting a little farther away and curling up with his legs drawn to his chest. He watched Angeal with wary eyes.

With a sigh, Angeal let his posture relax into something as non-threatening as possible. He shifted until he was leaning against the planter, facing the same direction as the young man, and waited to speak again until he heard his breath settle into something less panicked.

“I come here when I’m upset,” he murmured. “Usually to do some gardening, but if it’s quiet enough I’ll just sit until I’m ready to talk to someone.” He looked at the blond out of the corner of his eye. “Do you want to talk about what brought you here at three in the morning?”

The young man hesitated. “Nothing important,” he whispered.

“If it’s upsetting you, then it’s important.”

Angeal got a look in return for that. “Well what brought you here at three in the morning?” the blond challenged grumpily.

Angeal did his best not to smile. It would probably be taken the wrong way. “I had a dream that was…well, not bad, I hope. Just something that I’m misunderstanding.”

The omega ducked his head, hiding behind his wild blond fringe. His hands fidgeted on his arms. “I guess I’m just upset because I think I might have to…give up on my dreams and go home,” he mumbled.

That almost made Angeal sit upright attentively, but he restrained himself. It would almost certainly spook the omega. “At the risk of speaking too recklessly, don’t give up,” he said, watching the young man out of the corner of his eye. “Dreams and honor…they’re the most important part of being a SOLDIER.”

The omega shot him a positively paranoid look. “I didn’t say anything about SOLDIER.”

Angeal hummed. “Sorry. Maybe I made the wrong assumption, but…aren’t you Zack’s friend Cloud? He talks about you a lot.”

Cloud’s head thumped back down onto his knees. “...he would,” the omega said miserably, which was an answer in itself.

Angeal didn’t really understand why that would merit misery. Not unless his suspicions were correct. “All good things,” he assured, watching curiously how that didn’t seem to encourage Cloud at all. “He’s very f—he values your friendship quite a bit.”

Cloud stood abruptly, not looking at him. “I should go back to my barrack,” he said uneasily.

“Alright,” Angeal said, getting to his own feet. “I’ll walk you there.”

“You don’t need—”

“Yes, I do. Now come on, don’t argue with me. If you get reprimanded tonight, you won’t be able to train with Zack tomorrow.”

A painful expression crossed Cloud’s face. “Oh,” he said faintly. “Right.”

Normally, Angeal didn’t wear a jacket, but he’d pulled one on for this early-morning jaunt. He took it off and held it out to Cloud. “Here. Put this on.”

The omega eyed it like it was a poisonous snake. “Ah? No thanks?” he said, stepping back.

“Cloud,” Angeal said implacably. “You’re wearing a tank and boxers. If you don’t put a jacket on, someone is going to ask questions I can’t be bothered to answer.”

Cloud took the jacket.

Chapter Text

Cloud remembered his Ma mentioning, once, how powerfully soothing the smell of a packmate was. It made sense—their house in Nibelheim smelled like their pack, just the two of them. When Cloud wasn’t being a rebellious little brat, he would come home and melt into a relaxed puddle just by being surrounded in his mother’s scent.

He hadn’t thought that would also apply to a packmate he just met. In hindsight, it now made a little more sense how Zack was so good at getting him to calm down, but this was ridiculous. He was starting to get sleepy just from the aroma that permeated the jacket around his shoulders. Angeal’s scent was like an orchard—warm and green and growing, with just a hint of sweetness. It made the tight band of anxiety around his chest loosen, bit by bit, until the adrenaline that had sustained him all the way down to the solarium was finally gone.

“You okay?” Angeal asked when Cloud’s pace started to lag. He was suddenly so tired he forgot to be alarmed by the feeling of a hand resting lightly between his shoulder blades, warm through the jacket. The wildly inappropriate urge to purr like he was safely at home with Ma filled him.

“Mmm,” he said, shaking himself and picking up the pace again. Now was not the time for weakness.

“You’re gonna be out like a light, huh.” The words were spoken softly and Cloud was too tired to parse tones. His head sunk deeper into the collar of the way-too-big-on-him jacket. He thought he maybe heard a snort. “Yeah. Alright, almost there.”

He didn’t remember opening the door to the barrack or crawling back into his bunk. But he did remember pulling the edge of the jacket up over his nose and falling asleep to thoughts of mountain orchards and vast plains of wildflowers.

Angeal got back to Gen’s apartment much later than he'd expected, and with plenty on his mind. He closed the door quietly behind himself, but it was unnecessary. No one was asleep. Instead, they were waiting for him on the couch, attentive and concerned.

"Are you alright?" Genesis asked him immediately, brow furrowed. "That was quite a walk."

Sephiroth was looking at him strangely from his position wrapped around Genesis and Zack. His head tilted to the side just a little. "Why do you smell like distressed omega?"

The others sat up at that, eyes widening. "Geal?" Zack asked.

Angeal sighed and ran a hand through his hair, moving to join his packmates where they were crammed into the couch together. He chuffed in mild annoyance when Zack mashed his face into his shirt and inhaled deeply. "Stop it. Yes, I was with a distressed omega for a bit. And…" He hesitated, narrowing his eyes at all three of them. Zack had a strange look on his face, like he was trying to solve a complicated puzzle. "And none of you are allowed to do anything stupid until we've talked this through, got it?"

"Why would we do anything about—" Zack started, then stopped abruptly and bolted upright. "Cloud! I knew I knew that scent! What's wrong, why did he—"

"Sit, Zack," Genesis barked, saving Angeal the trouble as he yanked the younger alpha back down. "Continue, love."

"Yes, I was with Cloud," Angeal said patiently. "He's not hurt. He was in the garden, smelling like this, when I got there. I talked to him until he calmed down and then I took him back to his barrack."

Zack wilted in relief, but both Seph and Gen looked at him with narrowed eyes, sensing that there was far more to his story.

Angeal took a deep breath, trying to think of the best way to phrase his suspicions. Although, after seeing how easily his jacket had calmed Cloud down, he was a lot closer to being certain than suspicious. "I have...a very strong hunch that Cloud is our last packmate."

It felt a little bit like dropping a bomb, the way everyone went silent and still for a moment before exploding.

"What?" Zack breathed, and "excuse me?" cried Genesis, and "did you establish a pre-bond to be certain?" demanded Sephiroth.

"Quiet," Angeal growled. "No one do anything stupid. No, I didn't establish a pre-bond, but the way he reacted to me made me pretty sure."

"But you calmed him down?" Zack pressed. "How could you calm him down if he's that scared of us?" His expression twisted with confusion and upset. "How could he be that scared of me?"

“I don’t think he’s scared of you, Zack,” Angeal said gently. “I don’t know what exactly is going on, but if he wasn’t scared of you before, then it must be something else.”

“One of us?” Genesis asked, expression dropping.

Again, Angeal hesitated. “I…don’t think so,” he said slowly, trying to gather his thoughts. “He wasn’t exactly scared of me when we talked. It was more like he was just scared of me touching him.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment, thinking. Sephiroth turned to Zack and asked, “is he normally touch-shy?”

And while Zack looked a little less upset, he didn’t look any less confused. “No? I mean—sort of. He’s always been less touchy than most people, but he’s never flinched or anything.”

“He certainly did not mind being tackled yesterday,” Genesis agreed, frowning. 

“Is my presence the issue?” Sephiroth asked, the barest thread of hurt in his voice. It wasn’t an unreasonable question. Many people were intimidated by him to the point of fear.

Zack did away with that notion quickly. “No way!” he exploded. “You’re Cloud’s idol! Every time you come up in conversation he gets this look on his face, there’s no way it’s because of you!”

Sephiroth looked relieved, but Genesis rolled his eyes, earning himself a kick from Angeal. Now was not the time for jealousy.

“And it can’t be Genesis either, Cloud likes him,” Zack added, which smoothed things over very nicely.

“Well then, what?” Genesis asked in exasperation, tossing his hands up. “If it’s not any of us, then what is it?”

Angeal tapped his lips thoughtfully. “Zack, has he ever mentioned anything about his birth pack?”

The younger alpha frowned and scratched at the back of his head. “Not much. I know it was just him and his mom, but that’s it.”

“Just his mother?” Genesis asked, eyebrows high. “What happened to the rest of them?”

A thought occurred to Angeal, and his stomach dropped. “I’ve heard of cases where people avoid their packs because they were born into abusive ones,” he said. “You don’t think…?”

Zack opened his mouth for a reflexive denial, but paused and slowly shut it. “Maybe,” he said unhappily. “You wouldn’t think so, but, I mean, he has really low opinion of himself. I’ve never been able to figure out why. He’s really good at what he does.”

“I’ll say,” Genesis agreed with a stupid little grin. “He’s going to get a placement in SOLDIER just from his materia skills, as soon as he gets lucky with a testing cohort that’s not full of those meatheads the execs like so much. His intuition is a sight to see.”

“Enough with your crush, Gen, this is serious,” Zack said, rolling his eyes. “If he’s scared we’re going to hurt him just because we’re his pack, then what do we even do?”

“Be patient,” Angeal suggested. “Don’t give away that we know. Just show him that there’s nothing to worry about, and he’ll come around eventually.”

“Here’s a counter-proposal,” Genesis said, lounging against Seph with a mischievous look on his face. “He already likes us. Give me five minutes to kiss him senseless and I’m sure he’ll come around at once.”

Zack shoved Genesis off the couch before Angeal could. The yelp he made when he hit the floor was very satisfying.

Chapter Text

Cloud stared down in horror at the innocuous garment covering his lap. Had it belonged to anyone else, he would have flung it away from him like a poisonous snake the moment he’d realized what he woke up snuggled into. But it belonged to Commander Hewley, so he couldn’t. He couldn’t even bring himself to push it off him so he could get up and start getting ready for patrol.

The scent lingered: green earth, warm under the sun, melded seamlessly with Cloud’s own personal scent. His bunk smelled good in a way that made his stomach flip anxiously. He didn’t want a pack. He didn’t want any pack! So why did it feel like the gods were conspiring to tempt him with what he didn’t dare to risk having?

Cloud exhaled a slow, shuddering breath, gingerly lifting the jacket from his lap to lay it at the foot of his mattress. He drew on his own inherent grumpiness, using it to cover up the smell of his anxiety. He still had to get through today. Keep it simple, Strife, he told himself, taking deep breaths. The familiar smell of his squadmates soothed him a little. Keep it simple. Just give Zack the jacket like it’s perfectly normal and nothing’s changed.

“Cloud.”

A hand touched his shoulder and he jumped violently, a spike of terror making his hair stand on end. One of his squadmates, Salim, stared at him with wide eyes, hand drawn back but still hovering in the air. The others quieted down too as they took notice.

“I was going to ask if you were okay,” Salim said slowly, “but I think I got my answer. Did something happen?” His eyes went briefly to the jacket at the end of the bunk before moving back to Cloud.

Devon James, the same alpha he’d been patrolling with yesterday, leaned down from his top bunk to join the conversation. “I heard you leave at the asscrack of midnight,” he said, “running like the hounds were after you. What happened, Strife?”

Panic welled up in him at the reminder. He felt cornered. Trapped. The urge to bolt was nearly overwhelming, but he stuffed it down deep and scowled at the floor, avoiding his squadmates’ eyes. “Just a…really bad dream,” he muttered.

“Yeah?” Dev prodded, and while he was an asshole, he wasn’t a dick. Cloud knew he wanted to help. “Nightmare?”

“Nightmare,” Cloud agreed gimly. “But it could have been worse. I didn’t get a reprimand.”

“Who bailed you out?” Salim asked, nodding his chin toward the jacket. “It smells familiar.”

Cloud felt his jaw tighten. He fought to relax it. “...Hewley.”

“Hewley?” Dev goggled, and he wasn’t the only one. “Holy shit, Cloud! How’d you get out of that without a reprimand!”

“He’s nice!” Cloud protested. He didn’t want anyone to think he got special treatment. He especially didn’t want to think that he had gotten special treatment—or, worse, of why he might have.

“He’s a hardass,” Dev shot back.

“He is a hardass,” Salim agreed, and so did the rest of the squad.

“Okay, he’s both,” Cloud said, tossing his hands up. “I guess I just looked extra pathetic or something, I don’t know.”

Salim didn’t seem convinced that was all there was to it. “He left you his jacket?”

Dev gasped so hard he almost fell off the bunk. “Holy shit!!! Hewley’s in Fair’s pack and Fair’s your friend!”

Cloud didn’t have to feign or play up his annoyance. It didn’t matter if Zack was his friend, everyone knew the Commander didn’t play favorites. “What about it, Dev?”

“He’s totally trying to woo you!”

“What?” Cloud said, horrified by the unexpected turn in the conversation. “No! No way!” His horror deepened when there were agreeing murmurs around the room. “I’m not even part of his pack!”

“Like that matters,” Salim said dryly. “Everyone knows Rhapsodos has a crush on you, even if you’re too dense to admit it.”

That was the last straw. Cloud snatched the jacket up and hurled it into the bottom of his locker before he whirled around the pointed hard at Salim. “No, he doesn’t,” he snapped, then transferred his finger to Dev. “And no he isn’t. Drop it.” He didn’t give them a chance to keep ribbing him, snatching up his uniform and cramming on his boots before he stomped out to the communal showers.

There was a painful lump in the back of his throat. He chose not to think about it.

Of course, getting through the day was only half his problem. The biggest, most dangerous hurdle was training with Zack later and returning the jacket. He worried about it all day, barely managing to keep a grip on masking his anxiety. The impulse to text Zack and cancel was nearly overwhelming, but he was certain it would backfire. If he canceled for any reason, Zack would hunt him down. His best option was to just go and pretend everything was okay.

But that begged the question of how the hell he was going to keep Zack from either 1) accidentally making skin contact with him, or 2) noticing something was wrong. Zack knew him a lot better than he really wanted to admit. He was going to pick up on it quick no matter what Cloud tried to do to cover it up.

Unless—

Cloud would have stopped in his track if he hadn’t been on patrol. Zack was going to pick up on it unless he had a good excuse to be acting a little bit weird. All he needed was an excuse. Something. Anything! He wasn’t picky, as long as it might work. But what? Anxiety about the SOLDIER exams? A sudden chronic disease? Being haunted by a ghost? Hitting his head a little too hard on patrol? Falling in love?

He hastily discarded the last thought.

Cloud already knew he was going to have to start dressing a little differently. He’d replaced his normal undershirt with a long-sleeved, high-necked shirt, and he was determined not to take his gloves off either. What about something related to that?

Then, a sudden stroke of genius: a few days ago he and Salim had been ambushed on patrol. It wasn’t serious, more of a mean prank than anything, but they’d returned to the Tower covered in foul-smelling sludge. What if he told Zack he’d developed some kind of skin sensitivity from that? A mild skin problem wouldn’t be worth going to Medical for, and even Zack couldn’t demand that Cloud let him personally take a look.

It might work. No, it would work.

It had to work.

He showed up to the training room ten minutes early, covered from neck to fingertip. Zack was teaching him swordsmanship and helping with materia drills, so he would be relatively safe. He’d have to carefully refuse any offers of hand-to-hand or grappling, but he could get away with that. Everyone knew that when he got into SOLDIER it would be by his materia proficiency, not his muscles.

Zack was already there, sitting on a bench against the wall, smiling as he chatted with…Commander Hewley. Cloud’s stomach dropped. He had to pause and take a deep breath to calm himself. This was unusual, but okay. It made sense. He was Zack’s packmate and he probably just wanted his jacket back. There was no way they knew.

Cloud pushed the door all the way open, catching their attention. Zack beamed and waved. 

“Cloud!” he called. “Hey! Sorry, I should have warned you. Geal just wanted to stop by for a second.”

“It’s fine,” Cloud said as he approached, a little softer than he’d intended. He cleared his throat before trying again. “Here’s your jacket, Commander.”

“No need for titles when we’re both off duty,” Angeal said kindly, taking the jacket and setting it aside. “I just wanted to make sure you were doing alright after last night.”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“Are you sure?” Zack interjected, looking at him strangely. “What’s with the getup?”

“Oh, uh,” Cloud said, stumbling over his words slightly. “I…my skin’s started to feel a little sensitive since, um, Specialist Moore and I were assaulted on patrol a few days ago. It’s nothing serious, though,” he hastily interjected.

“Assaulted? With what?” Zack asked, alarmed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Something that smelled like rotten eggs, I don’t know,” Cloud said, trying not to seem as uncomfortable with the discussion as he was. His heart was in his throat, but he buried the feeling beneath irritation so that it wouldn’t come out in his scent. “I guess I was just a little bit allergic to it. It’s really not a big deal, it won’t affect my training or my work.”

“If you’re having an allergic reaction, you should really go to Medical,” Angeal said, frowning. “It might get worse.”

Cloud took a deep breath, then regretted it when the mingled scents of Angeal and Zack flooded his lungs. They were so painfully earnest. “I’ll definitely keep that in mind,” he said.

Angeal huffed, but it was amused. “Which means ‘I’d never go to Medical unless someone dragged me there, but I’m not going to say it to your face,’ hmm?”

The Commander's humor was infectious. Cloud was unable to keep the small smile off his face as he ducked his head. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s none of my business anyway, you’re not my packmate.” He paused, considering. “If you’d like,” he said slowly, “I can stay for a little while and help Zack with your training.”

Just twenty-four hours ago, Cloud would have been delirious with joy over the offer. The Angeal Hewley, offering to help him with his swordsmanship? It was an unbelievable opportunity.

Too bad it was happening now.

“Oh, uh,” he stuttered, scrambling to come up with a good answer. “You don’t—that’s not necessary, I’m sure you’re busy.”

“It’s no trouble,” Angeal said, a strange stilt to his smile. “I always appreciate more time with Zack, and I wouldn’t mind getting to know—to see your progress.”

“Geal’s a great teacher! I’m sure he can pick up on some things I’ve missed,” Zack added, reaching for Cloud’s shoulder the same way he had a thousand times before. He yanked his hand back when Cloud flinched hard enough to stumble back a step. “Shit, sorry,” he said, with a tinge of something in his scent that Cloud couldn’t quite read.

“It’s fine,” Cloud said. He took a deep breath and swallowed hard. As long as he kept them from getting too close, it would still be fine, right? He couldn’t pass up on this opportunity just because the gods hated him. If he just…pretended that destiny wasn’t hanging over his head, he could enjoy being around them, right?  “If you want to, you can stay, Com—I mean, Angeal.”

He didn’t understand why Angeal and Zack smiled the way they did. He was too occupied with his own giddy excitement to even try.

Chapter Text

Cloud was in a downright good mood by the time he finished training with Zack and Comma—and Angeal. He was sweaty and exhausted and he was sure he was going to hurt everywhere tomorrow but he’d learned so much. Angeal picked out subtleties Zack missed, correcting his form and advising him to change his strategies a little to suit his strengths. He’d even mentioned asking Genesis to help Cloud in the future, since a fellow sword-wielding omega would likely have even better insight.

There was no way that would ever happen, but Cloud felt awed and flustered that Angeal had even bothered to think about it. He’d have to study some footage of Genesis fighting, maybe that would give him similar insights.

“Hey, good work, bud!” Zack said, reaching out to clap his shoulder. Cloud dodged backward, managing to turn the gesture into a mutual hand clasp instead. Zack smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head with his free hand. “Oh right, sorry. A-anyway, let’s go get cleaned up in the bathhouse! I can at least groom your hair, right?” He tugged gently on their still-joined hands.

Cloud panicked for a split second. Angeal was looking at him expectantly too, and it would have been normal to say yes. In fact, it was kind of rude to refuse mutual grooming from someone who’d helped him so much. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a choice.

“Oh—ah,” he said, stumbling over himself. “Sorry Zack, I ah, I can’t. Because…you know. Sorry.” He pulled his hand free.

“Oh.” Zack and Angeal both looked disappointed, but not surprised. “But why—”

“Zack, don’t push him,” the Commander chided. “It must be a difficult problem to deal with.”

Cloud ignored the discomfort of lying to them. “It’s—yeah. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Angeal said, his expression soft in a strange way. If Cloud didn’t know better, he would have said it was almost sad. “It’s not like you’re doing this on purpose.”

“Thanks,” Cloud said, feeling guilt like a physical blow but burying it under his relief at getting away. “I’ll, uh, I’ll see you later, Zack. Thanks for the help, Comm—Angeal.”

“It was my pleasure, really. I’ll see you around.”

Cloud ducked his head and turned away, offering a wave over his shoulder. As soon as he got out of the gym and the door shut behind him, he stopped to blow out a shuddering breath. Relief warred with disappointment, guilt, and joy. He shook his head and continued on, wrestling himself back under control. People would ask questions if they caught a whiff of his true emotional state.

He grimaced to himself. He’d successfully dodged sharing grooming time with Zack and Angeal—now to figure out how to do the same with his squadmates.

Genesis was impatiently waiting for them on the couch when they came home to Seph’s apartment. They’d barely gotten their boots off before he was dragging them to the bathroom, where he’d already prepared a bath and everything else they needed for grooming.

“Well?” he asked, helping them get their clothes off and step into the steaming water. “What happened? Obviously not enough, since he didn’t come back with you, but surely you must have discovered something.”

“Genesis,” Angeal sighed, but Zack smiled a wavering smile and said, “Well, uh, he’s got a mysterious skin condition and doesn’t want anyone to touch him. Not even…me.”

“Surely he knows that excuse won’t last,” Genesis said, eyes narrowed. He squeezed Zack’s shoulder and pressed a reassuring kiss to his temple, balking only a little at the accumulated sweat.

“Desperation,” Angeal said, lathering up shampoo to tackle Zack’s wild mane. “I’m sure it will be something else once he runs out of time on that one. He’s…determined, I think.”

“Any clue as to why?” Genesis asked, critically evaluating Angeal’s hair. He pulled out a fine-toothed comb with a flourish of his hand.

“It’s only been one day, Gen,” Angeal chided. “But…I can say that he seems to like us just fine, enough to ‘risk’ us finding out, even. It must be something else. Something he takes very seriously.”

Genesis hummed, eyes fluttering shut in thought. “Perhaps he needs a little pressure, then.”

“Genesis,” Angeal said warningly.

“Relax. I don’t want to scare him off any more than you do, just…incentivize some honesty. With himself, if not with us.”

Zack pulled away from Angeal to scowl at Genesis. “You are not allowed to scare my best friend off!”

“I won’t! Zack—” he took both of his packmate’s hands and raised them to his mouth. “I promise, I will only make his wildest dreams come true.” He kissed Zack’s knuckles, placating. “Surely he would welcome another tutor?”

Zack scoffed, only a little appeased by the gesture. “Uh, no, he wouldn’t, actually. I practically had to strong-arm him into taking lessons from me, and I think he’d put up a fight if Angeal started showing up regularly.”

“Prideful little thing, isn’t he,” Genesis said consideringly. “Well, everything is worth a try once, no?”

“Certainly not when you are involved, Genesis,” Sephiroth said, arriving to join them for the grooming session.

“I didn’t think you’d make it!” the redhead said, delighted. He abandoned Angeal’s hair to push himself halfway out of the pool-sized bathtub and exchange a kiss with Sephiroth, who had to lean down quite a ways to accommodate him. “And anyway, I simply have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh don’t you,” Sephiroth said dryly, peeling off his armor and coat.

“Of course not, everything I do always ends perfectly.” He sighed dramatically, holding out a hand for Sephiroth to take as he stepped into the water. “But, if you insist, then how about this: if Cloud is so determined, then he’s likely to do something stupid like, say…not sleep at all? So, allow me to intervene if he chooses the fool’s errand.”

Zack froze in place at the suggestion. “Oh, he—he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t do something that stupid. Right? That’s…” He seemed to know the answer, based on his horrified expression.

“You see?” Genesis said. “I will only intervene in the worst case scenario.”

Sephiroth, Angeal, and Zack exchanged glances, but it was Zack who had the final say. He exhaled slowly through his nose, leaning into Seph for comfort as he did the unthinkable. “Fine. Worst case only.”

Genesis’s answering smile made him want to revoke his permission immediately.

What if I just…don’t sleep? Cloud pondered, staring in trepidation at his bunk. It had taken some smooth-talking and a lot more physical avoidance, but he had managed to weasel his way out of mutual grooming with his squadmates…or anyone else for that matter. Based on the odd and pitying looks he’d gotten scrubbing himself down as fast as humanly possible alone in the corner of the bathhouse, that wouldn’t last very long. He’d have to pick a different strategy.

If I don’t sleep, they won’t even see me in the Dreamscape, he reasoned, gingerly plucking the edge of the blanket and sitting down. Around him, his squadmates were working out the last of their boisterousness for the night and settling down to sleep. Neither Dev nor Salim were back yet, which was odd, but also not his top priority. If I don’t sleep, I don’t even have to think about it. Maybe…just for one night?

That would work out, right? One night of no sleep wasn’t that bad. He could handle it.

“Lights out!” someone declared, and off went the lights. Cloud laid down on top of his covers and laced his hands over his chest, staring into the darkness at the bunk above him. Obviously he’d have to sleep eventually, but one night of not dealing with them and their inevitable attempts to coax him into reciprocating would be okay. Just one night. He exhaled slowly through his nose and settled in for a long few hours.

What was the worst that could happen?

Genesis hummed, lounging with his head in Sephiroth’s lap. The dream construct of his grand and opulent theater-library hadn’t once wavered in the indeterminate hours they’d been there. “I do believe the dawn is almost upon us, my loves,” he said, partly disappointed but mostly anticipatory.

“Oh Cloud,” Zack groaned, putting his head in his hands. Angeal patted his back. “Buddyyyyyyyy, what are you doing?”

“Don’t fret, Zack,” said Genesis, waving his hand through the air as he prepared to dismiss their shared dream. “I promise I’ll be gentle with the little lamb.”

“He will be sleep-deprived,” Sephiroth warned. “If you are incautious, we will all suffer the consequences.”

Genesis made a noise in the back of his throat. “Honestly, it’s as if none of you have any faith in me!”

Angeal gave him a look. “Your only proposed plan so far has been to, and I quote, ‘kiss him senseless.’ You’re right, I don’t have any faith in you.”

“A joke! It was a joke! Goddess, I promise that I will be gentle. It’s not as if my tutelage in swordplay is the worst thing that could happen to him!”

Cloud was willing to admit he’d made a stupid decision. It was unbelievably difficult to pretend he was cogent on patrol, and he was absolutely miserable the whole day. Coffee didn’t help. Not even seven cups of it. Eight? Actually, he’d lost count somewhere along the way.

His squadmates noticed. He knew they did. They kept giving him looks. He probably smelled like a mess, even though he was doing his best to keep it under wraps. He’d accidentally run face-first into a door, and he was pretty sure that also contributed to giving him away.

Just make it through the day, Strife, he told himself, rubbing his aching nose.

Cloud didn’t have to train with Zack today, but he did have one of the small gyms booked to practice his forms. No matter how miserable he felt, he couldn’t skip on training. He dropped his armor off in his locker after he clocked out and then trudged over to the gyms, shotgunning an energy drink as he went. He deliberately ignored the way his hands were shaking as he tossed the can into a receptacle.

“Hello, Cloud.”

It really said something about what he’d done to himself that he grunted in response and got all the way over to the sword racks before it actually registered in his brain who was speaking. He gasped in delayed surprise and whipped around, suddenly wide awake. Genesis fucking Rhapsodos raised an eyebrow from where he was leaning against the wall, obviously waiting for Cloud to arrive.

“Oh dear,” he said, standing upright and prowling forward. “You don’t seem well at all. Is everything alright?”

“Ah—ah, um,” Cloud stuttered, his sleep-deprived mind completely incapable of figuring out how he was supposed to react to this.

The Commander tsk’d, reaching for his hands. “You’re shaking.”

Cloud yanked his hands away, leaping out of range, only to trip over his own shaking feet. He would have fallen hard on his side had Genesis not blurred forward to catch him with an arm around the waist, as if they’d been dancing. Time froze for a moment as they looked at each other—Cloud with wide eyes at the sudden proximity, Genesis with something considering the curve of his lips. Neither of them moved.

The SOLDIER smelled like a sweet mountain wind blowing over a bonfire, sending sparks up to speckle the sky like crimson stars. He smelled like comfort, and power, and a safe warm home. As tired as he was, Cloud almost leaned into the man and breathe it in. Almost. But the reflexive fear the warm brace of his arm around Cloud’s waist brought was more than enough for him to keep his head. He scrambled to get his feet under him and pull away.

“Steady,” Genesis whispered, hand sliding along Cloud’s lower back and hip as he helped him stand. He seemed almost disappointed when he finally drew away entirely.

“Ah—I—training! I need to—I’m—sword katas…” Cloud said, dizzy. He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d said, but he suspected it hadn’t been coherent. The energy drink hadn’t helped at all.

Genesis was still standing close, hands partially raised as if he expected Cloud to drop at any moment. “You know,” he said, “I came here to help you with your swordsmanship, and yet somehow I suspect that you would be a danger to both of us if I allowed it.”

“I’m—I’m fine,” Cloud said, rallying himself. “You just startled…why are you even here?”

“Oh dear. Cloud, I just told you. Why don’t you come sit down—” the SOLDIER reached for his shoulder, following when Cloud hastily backed away. A startled noise tore from his throat when his back hit the wall and his knees went out from under him. He sat down hard.

“There!” said Genesis, settling down beside him. “Perfect. How many cups of coffee did you drink today, exactly?”

“Uhh…maybe ten? I lost count,” Cloud admitted, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. The startled adrenaline was ebbing, leaving him even more tired than before. Belatedly, he realized he probably shouldn’t have said that out loud.

“Darling.”

“I know,” Cloud mumbled, forgetting for a moment who he was speaking to.

Genesis sighed. “Not sleeping well? You seemed fine the last time I saw you.”

“...no. I mean, yeah. Not sleeping well.” It was getting increasingly tempting to put his head down on his knees and rest his eyes for a little bit, especially with Genesis’s warmth and scent so close. It was hard to remember why that was a bad thing. Why he didn’t want it. Shouldn’t. Couldn’t want it.

“Bad dreams?” the commander said, voice dropped down to an almost hypnotizing softness.

“Yeah.” His voice cracked. Why, why did it have to be them? Of everyone? Why did it have to be people he actually liked? “Terrifying.”

“Oh? What about them frightens you?”

Cloud’s forehead finally met his knees, the world turning fuzzy around him as he lost the fight to stay awake. Genesis’s warmth was tangible against his side, and his nose was full of the scent of family, pack, safety. It never even registered in his mind that he shouldn’t answer. “Don’t want…”

“You don’t want…what?” 

“Can’t risk…risk…can’t…”

Can’t.

Can’t risk it.

Don’t want to risk it.

Not even for them.

Especially not from them.

Genesis had never really thought about how short and slight Cloud was compared to him. He always looked taller with his infantry helmet on, and usually Genesis was focused on other things. But right now, Cloud’s posture was so crumpled that his head rested down on Genesis’s chest, breaths evening out into sleep. He seemed so small, tucked up under one of Genesis’s arms, compacted down into a defensive little ball.

Genesis inhaled deeply, drinking in Cloud’s scent. This was definitely their last packmate. He was sure of it. Cloud smelled like home. He smelled the same way Angeal had, back in their childhood before Genesis had known what that little bit of intuition meant. He smelled like…like the night sky—cold air above the orchards and a midnight blue sky speckled with stars. Like a lake, perfectly still, reflecting the moon in its waters. Beautiful.

It took an incredible amount of self-control not to just lean down and place one single chaste kiss against the blond’s temple. Just one kiss. Then they would have a pre-bond, and that wasn’t such a terrible or momentous thing. Not really. It was just the first, shallow level of connection between packmates—proof of their connection, but not much in the way of helping them understand each other on an intuitive level. It wasn’t like a full pack bond, and it certainly wasn’t like a pairbond.

Genesis shivered at the thought of a pairbond with an omega like Cloud. True, his packmates weren’t exactly normal exemplars of the beta and alpha archetypes—SOLDIER enhancements saw to that—but even Hojo’s meddling couldn’t give them omega intuition. What kind of a magnificent dance would it be between the two of them, one day? Would they even need to speak to understand each other? It sounded wonderful.

“I’d best call for backup before I do something you’ll regret,” he whispered to his sleeping enigma, feeling his already tenuous self-control strain closer to the breaking point. He pulled out his PHS with his free hand and dialed Zack’s number.

“What direction did Cloud run, I’ll intercept him,” Zack said in lieu of a greeting.

“Honestly!” Genesis huffed. “I’ll have you know he’s in my arms as we speak!”

“You gave him a concussion? That’s it, I’m on my way.”

“You know, it won’t kill you to have just a little faith in me. You will actually survive the experience,” Genesis informed him, rolling his eyes so hard it hurt. “He’s fine. Just tired enough to fall asleep sitting up. I need your help getting him back to his barracks.”

He’d barely finished the words before Zack burst in the door at full speed. Genesis regarded him with outrage. “Were—were you waiting?” he sputtered.

“No,” Zack lied, quieting his steps as he approached. “‘Course not, we all had complete faith in you and made no backup plans whatsoever.”

“You’re horrible,” Genesis said. “You’re all so horrible to me. What have I ever done to deserve this.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Zack said, echoing Genesis’s words from earlier. He crouched in front of them, lips twisted in a silent coo. “Wow, he’s really out.”

“Caffeine crash,” Genesis said, absently rubbing Cloud’s upper arm. “He didn’t say much before he went down for the count.”

“Anything important?”

“Maybe. I asked him why his dreams were so terrifying. He said the phrase “can’t risk,” though he never specified anything.” Genesis took another deep breath, enjoying the tranquility in Cloud’s sleeping scent. “He really is ours, you know. I’m sure of it.”

Zack blinked rapidly, his eyes suddenly bright. “We’d—” he laughed a little, joy creeping into his scent. “We’d better figure out what he’s afraid of risking, then. I don’t know how long I can restrain myself here.”

Genesis sighed. “Yes, you and me both.”

Chapter Text

Waking alone in the Dreamscape was a relief, despite Cloud’s realization that he must have fallen asleep in the training room in front of Genesis. He was still safe. Somehow, the commander hadn’t come directly in contact with him—he would have felt it here more than anywhere if they’d set the foundation for a bond.

“How do you dismiss this stupid thing,” he muttered to himself, looking around at the formless gray void. It wanted to take shape but he didn’t let it. As an omega, this was his domain. He could form it or dismiss it as he liked…once he knew how. Even when Genesis was there, he would still be able to dismiss his half of the dream.

The grayness of the dream rippled, welcoming another omega as Genesis arrived like he’d been summoned by Cloud’s thoughts. Cloud flinched, dropping down into a defensive posture and compacting his presence as much as he could.

What the fuck, he thought, why is he already asleep!

“Oh, marvelous,” said Genesis. Cloud didn’t look—that would have allowed Genesis to see him in return—but he felt as the SOLDIER molded his area into a deliberate and well-practiced form. “I was hoping to catch you here before anyone else arrived.”

Dread twisted in Cloud’s stomach. That sounded incredibly ominous.

“Relax, precious,” Genesis said, his amusement coiling around him, tinged by just a hint of sadness. “It’s nothing so frightening. Just a little bit of time between us, omega to omega.”

Cloud projected his disinterest in the idea as hard as he could. No.

“Don’t be rude. And anyway, I’d wager you don’t have much of a choice right now. It took me a long time indeed to learn how to dismiss dreams on command, and I’m one of the foremost magic experts in the world. You… well, I have no idea how skilled you are, but if you could do the impossible, you’d already be gone, no?”

Why did the planet have to saddle me with you? Cloud thought, his unspoken crush on the SOLDIER soured by irritation. Zack was right: Genesis really was one of the most smug, obnoxious assholes in the world.

Genesis laughed. “Even your irritation with me is precious. But come now, why are you hiding? At least speak with me. I would like to know why we frighten you so terribly. If your reasons are compelling, perhaps I will even agree to leave you alone forever.”

The tiniest spike of gut-wrenching panic preceded both relief at the idea and intense skepticism. Sounded great! Definitely wasn’t going to happen. And besides, Genesis would recognize Cloud’s voice immediately.

Genesis hummed, consideration rippling through the air. “I see,” he said in a tone that made Cloud very, very nervous. “I see…alright, precious. Perhaps that’s enough for one day.” Something like gleeful anticipation lit up the dream. “Well, since you’re not keen to talk, shall I? Perhaps some poetry to soothe the savage temper?”

Oh no, Cloud thought with a different kind of dread, clamping his hands tighter over his ears.

“Have you heard of LOVELESS?” the commander asked with a mischievous emotional cocktail that told Cloud he knew exactly what he was doing.

No! Cloud thought, then quickly changed his mind. I mean, yes! Yes I’ve heard LOVELESS more than enough!

“Oh, your anticipatory silence must mean the answer is no,” Genesis said. “Very well! I’ll recite for you: When the war of the beasts brings about the world’s end…”

Cloud strenuously attempted to wake himself up for the next several verses of recitation, but to no avail. It became increasingly tempting to give in and yell at Genesis to shut up, but of course that would immediately give Cloud away. Neither could he conjure up a rock and lob it in Genesis’s general direction—that would enable the man to reciprocate touch, and Cloud had no doubt he would, swiftly and without mercy.

The dream rippled a second time. “Gen?”

Relief flooded Cloud at Zack’s voice. Oh thank fuck, Zack make him STOP.

“Zack! Hello, love. Come listen, I was just reciting for our reticent packmate here.”

“You mean you’re annoying him with LOVELESS,” Zack said, unimpressed. “I thought we were trying not to drive him off?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Abruptly, Genesis yelped, outrage sparking like flint into tinder. There was a thud. “Ah! Get off me you great lug!”

“Nah. Anyway, uh—” Zack tentatively extended a sort of emotional ‘invitation’ to Cloud. “Hey, bud. It’s good to see you. We were worried about you yesterday.”

A smidgen of guilt leaked into the air before Cloud could even hope to smother it. Zack responded with an equal smidgen of hopefulness.

“I’m sorry if we scared you. There’s nothing to be scared of, you know. All we want is the chance to love you. I mean, in whatever way you want. Genesis is a romantic, but you don’t have to be. Just…give us a chance. Please?”

Wake up, Cloud thought, a truly indescribable form of misery blooming in his aching heart. He couldn’t bear this torment. He wanted , but more than that he didn’t want. It felt like he was being torn between two equal forces. 

Why did it have to be people he knew? People he almost would have considered taking a risk for? Why couldn’t he have known in advance? Then he at least would have had time to think about what he was willing to risk. Maybe… but it was far too late now. He couldn’t tell them even if he wanted to. As soon as they realized who had rejected them, they would hate him. He couldn’t bear that. It might really kill him to see that kind of look on Zack’s face.

The gods were so cruel—first to his mother, and now to him. Wake up. Please let me wake up.

“Precious—”

Cloud came awake with a gasp, chest aching like a physical wound. When he rolled over and curled up around it, he found his cheeks were wet. No one else was awake to witness as he allowed them to become a little wetter.

That morning, Cloud tried to see if he could somehow get moved to a night shift rotation. But of course, that would have been too easy. The officer brusquely informed him that he could only change rotations by leaving his current squad, and he could only do that once his contract ran out. Short of a reshuffling of squad patrols and route, it just wasn’t going to happen.

“You never know,” the officer said, though she was doubtful. “Some of the routes are getting changed to compensate for all the—well, some of the routes and rotations are getting changed. Dunno why you’d want a worse one, but keep praying.”

It was a bad start to the day and didn’t get much better from there. He had a three-man patrol with Salim and Dev, despite the fact that he was sure it was supposed to be with Cay and Beckett for this patrol. His suspicion that they’d swapped on purpose was confirmed when they stopped and cornered him as soon as they were out of sight of any possible eavesdroppers.

“Okay, spill, Strife,” James said (because he only got to be “Dev” when Cloud wasn’t irritated with him), knocking their shoulders together. “You’re acting weird.”

Cloud flinched away, which only made James and Salim frown worriedly. It made his hackles go up in defensiveness. “As if you’re one to talk,” he snapped, squeezing the stock of his rifle until his glove creaked. “Where were you two at lights out, huh?”

“Hey, don’t be like that,” Salim said, as unflinchingly calm as he usually was. “We were just…making sure Zack and his packmates weren’t, um…harassing you.”

The answer made Cloud’s anger dissipate at once, replaced by regret and a quiet, fragile warmth. They’d cared enough to check that he wasn’t being truly harassed by their superiors? Then his eyes narrowed a little. “And how exactly were you making sure of that?”

Salim smiled, quietly pleased. “You’re not the only one with SOLDIER friends.”

“Oh.” Cloud’s shoulders slumped. “I’m—I’m fine. I just…”

“You are not fine,” Dev argued. “You keep grooming yourself alone!”

“It’s not that big a—”

“You’ve started to flinch a lot,” Salim added. “Like you’re afraid to be touched. You didn’t sleep last night. Fair and Rhapsodos had to carry you in unconscious, and I heard you wake up at the ass-crack of dawn.” Mercifully, he didn’t mention anything else he might have heard at the asscrack of dawn. He reached out, telegraphing his movement, and put his hand gently on Cloud’s arm. The blond allowed it because he didn’t know what to do that wouldn’t make the situation worse.

“Cloud,” Salim said, nothing but earnestness in his scent, “what’s really going on?”

“I just…don’t want to be touched for a while,” Cloud croaked, feeling shitty about the fact that he’d made them worry like this, and even shittier that he couldn’t tell them why . “That’s not…it’s not like washing my own hair for a while will kill me.”

Dev snorted. “You absolutely need human contact to live, Strife. Don’t bullshit me.”

“It’s—I just—” he growled in frustration. “Just…let me figure it out. I’ll figure it out.”

“Figure what out?” Salim insisted. “Cloud, we’re your squadmates. We’ve got your back. Just let us help.”

Cloud inhaled and blew it out slowly. “You can’t help. Not with this,” he said. “It’s…a me problem. No one can help.”

“Did Rhapsodos or Hewley do something to you? Because we can—“

“No!” Cloud said hastily, interrupting Dev. “No, no one’s done anything to me. I know I’m being weird. They’re probably just reacting to that, they’ll stop.” He didn’t quite know if he was trying to convince his friends or himself, but it didn’t seem to work either way.

“...okay,” Salim said reluctantly. “Promise you’ll let us help if it gets worse?”

If it got worse, Cloud probably wouldn’t have any option but to run back home with his tail between his legs. If it got worse, it would be because they knew. And he couldn’t do his job with superior officers and—hopefully—fellow SOLDIERs who hated him, even if he did follow through on annulling his responsibility to them. Nevertheless, he took one final deep breath, squared his shoulders, and nodded.

“I will,” he promised. He would at least say goodbye to his squadmates if he left. That would count as telling them.

Salim and Dev both smelled somewhat dubious, but they gently knocked elbows with him and nodded back. He allowed it. Flinching would only make them more determined to ‘help’ him.

“Good,” said Dev. “C’mon, we’ve gotta keep patrolling before someone notices and reprimands us.”

Kunsel roped Zack into helping him clear out some monsters in the slums that afternoon. It was absurdly easy—just a few doomrats between sectors, definitely nothing Kunsel would need help with, which meant this was actually an excuse to talk to him somewhere free from surveillance.

“Alright, what’s this really about?” Zack asked, feeling a lot more tired and a lot less optimistic than usual. He sat down on a piece of rotting abandoned crate and started cleaning his sword.

“Brace yourself,” Kunsel said, crossing his arms over his chest. “But…I’m pretty sure Cloud is one of your packmates and doesn’t want you to know it.”

“Yeah, we know,” Zack said.

“You know?” Kunsel sputtered, for once taken off guard. “What? Before me?”

“Yeah.” Zack looked up, brows coming together. “Wait a minute, how do you know?”

“Well first off, two of his squadmates came to me because they were worried either Angeal or Genesis might be sexually harassing Cloud,” Kunsel said, which made Zack wince. “Yeah, you all need to tone it down. I told them there was no way that was the case, but I’d keep an eye on it and go to bat for him if things got worse.”

“You would?” Zack asked, touched on Cloud’s behalf.

“I’m pretty sure I won’t need to. I know you. Anyway, that made me look into everything just to be sure, and once you look it’s pretty obvious. He’s covering all his skin, he flinches whenever anyone tries to touch him, his behavior is especially extreme around you, he put in a request to be shifted to overnight work, and all of this started after he bolted from the barracks in a blind panic in the middle of the night.” Kunsel paused after rattling off all the clues he’d put together. “Plus, Genesis looked up information on non-reciprocation in dreams.”

“I’m really glad you’re not a Turk, Kuns,” Zack said, huffing a laugh. “But…yeah. We know. We’re figuring it out.”

His friend looked at him critically for a long moment before he nodded. “Alright. If everyone’s in on it, I guess you probably are.”

Zack sighed and stood up. “I hope so. That it?”

“No,” said Kunsel, and he got even more serious. “Actually, we also have a different problem. I think something escaped from the labs recently. Something big and smart. It’s been killing people left, right, and center.”

“What?” Zack asked sharply. “Who? Where?”

Kunsel sketched out a rough outline of Midgar in the dirt. “Along these patrol routes,” he said, making a wide box over the area in question. “Five squads have disappeared so far. No survivors.”

“That’s where they’ve been sending SOLDIER patrols recently,” Zack observed, frowning. “But no one’s been finding anything. I thought it was just time-out rotations.”

“No.” Kunsel shook his head. “They’re trying to cover it up, but the pattern is consistent. If you can get anyone, but especially Sephiroth, out to take a look, then do it. Whatever this is needs to be killed fast.”

“Yeah,” Zack agreed. “Alright. We’ll get on it.”

“Good.” Kunsel held out an arm and Zack stepped forward to crash into a rough hug with him. They both squeezed tight—Zack in a silent thank you, and Kunsel in reassurance.

“Let’s get out of here,” Zack said, leaving one arm over his friend’s shoulders. He felt just a little more optimistic as they left to return to the Tower. It was so nice to be reminded his friends had his back.

Chapter Text

Sephiroth was on a mission. Two missions, really, and both required subtlety. There was one specific squad he needed to ‘happen’ to come across, so he timed his prowl through the halls very carefully. True to his prediction, he emerged into one of the larger hallways between the barracks and the mess hall at the perfect moment to intercept his quarry.

“Specialist,” he said, catching the attention of the omega trooper and his companion.

“Sir!” the trooper said, saluting. Sephiroth caught the name on his uniform as he did so.

“At ease. Specialist Moore, is it? What squad are you a part of?”

“Yessir! Squad Epsilon One, sir!” Specialist Moore’s companion stood silent and far too still beside him, but that was only to be expected. It was, after all, the very reason Sephiroth had chosen to address his squadmate and not him.

“How many materia specialists are in Epsilon One?” He already knew the answer, of course, but the whole point of this farce was pretending he didn’t. He couldn’t tip his hand to anyone.

“Three, sir,” said Specialist Moore.

Sephiroth nodded. “Good. You are all released from your scheduled duties to accompany me on a mission today. Meet me in the SOLDIER garage in one hour.” He strode off, pleased with himself.

It was his turn to have a little bit of quality time with Cloud. If he was lucky, maybe he’d even manage to coax the young man a little closer to the pack.

Salim crowed victoriously as soon as he was certain Sephiroth was out of hearing range. “Ha! Lucky break, huh Cloud—Cloud?”

Cloud stood frozen beside him in the exact same position he’d been in from the moment Sephiroth approached. His thoughts circled and circled, making it hard to keep himself composed. Why now? he thought. It was getting hard to breathe. Why now, why is all of this happening NOW when I don’t want it? Why couldn’t it have happened before I knew who they were? Why couldn’t it have happened when I would have been happy about it? Why NOW?

A terrified chill made every hair on his body stand on end. Did they know? That would explain why the three who had been distant were only now circling him like vultures. But if they knew, then…why hadn’t they touched him? They’d had so many opportunities, and all it would take was the simplest gesture to confirm who he was.

Unless…they already knew they didn’t want him?

Salim grabbed his wrist and yanked with all his might, startling Cloud out of his spiraling panic. He dragged Cloud behind him away from the crowded hallways, until he found an empty meeting room and slammed the door shut behind them.

“Sit down,” Salim said, pushing him into a chair. He sat down with an astonished thump. “Great, now breathe.”

Cloud drew in a deeper breath and realized he’d been quietly hyperventilating. He forced himself to calm down, gripping his left wrist with his right hand and taking measured breaths. As his mind cleared a little, he realized his thoughts didn’t make any sense. If they knew who he was but didn’t want him, then why would they be hanging around? If anything, they probably would have told Zack to start avoiding him.

It was just a coincidence. Or…maybe it was deliberate, but only because Angeal had caught him freaking out? That made sense, didn’t it? Zack probably asked them to help, and this was their way of…helping.

“You back, Cloud?” Salim asked. He was sitting close, one hand wrapped around Cloud’s elbow like he was worried the blond would run off at any moment. He squeezed briefly when Cloud looked up. “You okay?”

“Yes,” Cloud said, making sure his voice didn’t waver. “I’m okay.”

“Great.” Conspicuously, Salim didn’t let go of his arm. “So what the hell was that, Strife?”

Cloud winced and bit the inside of his cheek. “Um…” How could he weasel his way out of explaining here?

“Cloud.” Salim’s voice dropped and he leaned in until their helmets nearly knocked together. “Is…is Sephiroth the one harassing you? Because that won't stop us from—”

“What! No!” he blurt out, shocked that his friend would jump to that conclusion. “No, Sephiroth isn’t—he hasn’t—erm, it’s not…him.”

Even with the helmet, Cloud could feel the skepticism radiating off of Salim. “Cloud. You just had a panic attack. In the middle of the hallway. Because Sephiroth talked near you.”

“That’s…not why,” Cloud protested weakly.

“No? Then why?”

Well, he’d walked right into that one. “I’m just, um…nervous?”

The skepticism deepened. “Yeah, I’d buy that if I’d only known you for five minutes, Strife. But unfortunately for you, we’ve been squadmates for three years now. You should be over the moon about this. So why aren’t you?”

He bit his lip and looked away. The silence stretched between them, growing more and more strained. As the tension reached its peak, he bit down hard enough to taste the first coppery tang of blood.

“...Cloud?”

“I can’t tell you,” he managed, trying to surreptitiously lick the blood from his lips.

“Can’t or won’t?” It wasn’t an accusation, but it still stung.

“I—” The very thought of trying to explain that he didn’t want or need what most people spent their whole lives waiting for made his throat close with panic. “Can’t,” he said, and it was true. He couldn’t tell Salim, or anyone else for that matter. Even if it had been his mother in front of him, he still couldn’t have managed it.

Salim sighed. “Just—is anyone hurting you or threatening you, Cloud?”

“No.” He looked down at where his hand was still gripping his opposite wrist. “It’s not—it’s no one’s fault. It’s just…me.”

“I’ll give you three weeks to tell me.”

Cloud’s head snapped up, shocked by the boldness of his friend’s ultimatum. Salim wasn’t like Dev or Beckett, pushing relentlessly until he got what he wanted. He respected boundaries…unless he thought it would hurt more not to push. “You—”

“You are going to get yourself hurt if you keep reacting like this,” Salim snapped with unusual harshness. “You’re a materia specialist, and a damn good one at that. If you lose focus and panic because someone tries to touch you, you’re going to get hurt. Hell, I should be pushing now considering we’re about to be on a mission with Sephiroth, but we don’t have time for that! So. Three weeks, Strife, then I tell the rest of the squad.”

Panic threatened again, but Cloud wrestled it down. He could come up with a reasonable cover in three weeks. That was plenty of time. It had to be plenty of time. “Fine, Moore,” he said shortly, shaking Salim’s hand off his arm. “Three weeks.” He stood up and shoulder-checked him as he went, a little angry. “I’ll go get Cay. Alone.”

“Cloud—”

Cloud slammed the door behind him before his… friend could finish. He didn’t want to hear it.

They didn’t need a large troop transport for the mission Sephiroth had in mind. Instead, the four men piled into a small jeep. Cay, the only one of them licensed to drive anything other than motorcycles, took the wheel. Sephiroth rode shotgun. Cloud and Salim shared the back bench in tense silence.

“Keep your Sense up,” Sephiroth told them, half standing in his seat as they got out into the Wastes proper. “Our target is an unknown, but it is fast, smart, and likely highly magical.”

“Sir!” the three of them said as one, nodding sharply. Cloud and Salim both shifted to positions similar to Sephiroth, ready to act at any moment.

“We will begin with a sweep of the area in this vehicle, then move to a closer patrol on foot. Specialist Shaw,” he said to Cay, “begin a search pattern.”

“Yessir!” Cay said.

Cloud forgot his irritation as the mission began in earnest. He kept his eyes peeled and magic up, searching his quadrant of the landscape as they went. He was also hyper-aware of Sephiroth’s every move in his peripheral, but that wasn’t a conscious decision on his part. It was lucky he wasn’t the one driving.

The minutes stretched into nearly an hour until something glinted white in the corner of his eye. He frowned, turning toward it, and cast his senses out further. “Sir!” he said, once he was certain there really was something. “I saw something! On our 4 o’clock, maybe two hundred yards!”

“The car won’t manage it,” Sephiroth observed, standing all the way upright and bracing one hand on the rollbar. “Specialist Shaw, stop here. We will go on foot and climb up.”

“Sir!” Cay said, and the jeep came to a stop.

Sephiroth leapt gracefully down without bothering to open the door. The three troopers followed with much less poise, falling into a triangular formation behind the SOLDIER. They gripped their rifles and kept their mana right at the tips of their fingers, ready for a monster to jump out at any moment.

The glint of white Cloud had spotted turned out to be a discarded trooper pauldron, wedged between two rocks. Sephiroth crouched beside it, observing the surrounding ground closely before he pulled it free. One of the securing straps had been torn in two. When he turned it over, the inside was stained by a very distinctive splatter of long-dried blood. Cloud felt a chill wash down his spine.

“We are close,” Sephiroth said quietly. “Search the area.”

They fanned out but kept within sight of each other. Cloud concentrated hard as he paced, almost to the point of ignoring sight entirely. He searched for metal and biological remains, taking deep breaths of the air in the hopes he might smell something. There was dirt, dust, dried and dying land…small hardy plants, small reptiles. A distant low-level pest.

Metal buckle. Bones.

He stopped abruptly, kneeling down. He dug with one hand, pushing aside the dirt until he spotted a glint of metal, shortly followed by a bone that hadn’t yet been bleached white by the sun. It was cracked down the middle, marrow sucked dry, but bits of reddish muscle and white tendon still clung to it. He gently set it down and dug more.

The next bone he found bore very clear claw marks. Every hair stood on end.

“Sir!”

Paranoid, he stood upright and held his rifle tightly, casting his magic out in a much wider net. This time he searched far deeper down as well. Sephiroth turned toward him, closer than the others. He was standing near the edge of a deep crevice. Cloud caught a jolt of something behind the SOLDIER . Instinct kicked in, even before he fully registered the glint of reddish hair emerging into the sun.

His rifle was already against his shoulder and firing as he shouted, “BEHIND YOU!”

Sephiroth reacted quickly, Masamune blurring as he automatically protected his back. The creature snarled, flinching enough at Cloud’s suppressing fire that its surprise attack clanged harmlessly across the sword.

All three troopers ran toward the monster, pausing to lay down fire as they went, but Cloud was by far the closest. He didn’t know what the monster was. He wasn’t sure he ever wanted to know as its intelligent tawny eyes locked on him. It was angry. More than that, it was malicious, and it knew exactly who had thwarted it.

Cloud reflexively threw a barrier up over himself, but it proved unnecessary. The creature shrieked angrily, looking away as Sephiroth caught its attention with a sharp cut to the face. Cloud wasn’t close enough to hear clearly what the SOLDIER said to it. He thought it might have been something like “eyes on me, creature. You touch him only over my dead body,” which…didn’t make much sense, but he didn’t have time to contemplate it.

Normally Cloud would have coordinated with Cay and Salim to test the monster’s resistance to different types of magic, then hone in on a strategy and kill it. This time, there was no need. They had the top SOLDIER with them, and for as fierce and smart as the beast was, it was no match for Sephiroth. The fight was over in just a few moves. Cloud thought that Sephiroth seemed unusually brutal, especially after the beast tried to feint around him and go for Cloud, but he wasn’t about to overthink it.

The troopers approached once the thing was dead, rifles held in a downward ready position. There could be more of the creatures. “Poison breath,” Sephiroth told them. He’d killed it efficiently enough that its body was already dissolving away. “Intelligent. Fast, stealthy.” He turned toward Cloud. “What did you find…Specialist Strife?”

“Bones,” Cloud said. “And more trooper gear.” He narrowed his eyes at the creature’s claws before it had entirely disappeared, barely managing to get a picture from his helmet’s camera. “I’ll show you.”

He led them over to where he’d found the bones. Sephiroth examined them as Cay and Salim kept watch on their surroundings. Cloud frowned at the claw marks on the bones, looking between them and the image on his helmet’s HUD. An uneasy shiver went down his spine.

They didn’t look like they matched at all.

“Specialist Moore, gather up the remains in a tarp,” Sephiroth said eventually. “We’ll be taking them back to headquarters.”

“Sir!” Salim said, jogging off to go get a tarp from the jeep.

Sephiroth turned toward Cloud. “Excellent work, Specialist Strife.” He reached out and clapped Cloud’s upper back, which was so unexpected that Cloud’s flinch was noticeably delayed. He stumbled away from the hand, cursing himself. Cay looked at him oddly, but Sephiroth’s expression was inscrutable. He didn’t comment. Instead, he asked, “do you have any observations, Specialists?”

“No, sir,” Cay said quietly.

Cloud hesitated for long enough that Sephiroth repeated the question directly to him. “Um. Yes,” Cloud admitted. “The damage on the bones…I didn’t get long to see, but it doesn’t seem like they quite match with the monster’s claws and teeth.”

He was downright floored to look up and see what seemed to be a tiny, approving smile on Sephiroth’s face. It was there and gone in a flash. He wondered if he’d imagined it. “An astute observation, Strife,” Sephiroth said just as Salim returned with the tarp. “Those were my thoughts exactly.”

Genesis threw a pillow at Sephiroth’s head before the front door had even closed.

“You cheater!” he accused. “You took Cloud on a mission without me?” He paused. “I mean, without us?”

“Is Cloud okay?” Zack asked nervously. “I mean, he’s good at his job but…did you find the thing killing the patrol groups?”

Sephiroth lobbed the pillow back at Genesis, who caught it easily. “I saw an opportunity and I took it without overwhelming Cloud. And he is fine. He comported himself very well. In fact, he saved me from a nasty injury.”

“So you did find the monster?” Genesis asked, beckoning him over to the couch. When Sephiroth got close enough, he snagged the crossed straps over his chest and pulled him down for a searing kiss.

“Mmm. No. I do not believe we did.”

Angeal emerged from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. “No?”

“No. We found a monster and we found remains. I must say, Cloud is quite intelligent. He observed what I did in a much narrower timeframe. The damage to the bones did not match the monster’s claws and teeth.”

“Cloudy is super smart,” Zack agreed, beaming. “So there’s a different monster to hunt down?”

“Yes and no.” Sephiroth swept around their quarters, checking for bugs. His packmates watched silently until he was satisfied that no one unwelcome was listening in and took a seat.

“Then what are you saying?” Angeal asked seriously.

“Cloud was right in saying that the damage did not match the monster. Whatever ate the remains was not what I killed. But what he seems to have inadequate experience to recognize is that what killed the trooper and what ate his remains are two different things.” He looked at each of his packmates. “A human killed that man and left his body to be consumed. It’s no beast taking out our patrol squads, and it’s no mere lab leak that ShinRa is trying to cover up. We have a much bigger problem on our hands than Kunsel assumed.”

Chapter Text

Cloud felt okay to face the dreams tonight. Not good, but at least prepared. This time when he appeared, Genesis wasn’t there. Angeal was though, and it was Cloud’s influence alone that brought them into the shared space. Cloud sighed inaudibly, pulling his knees to his chest and tucking his chin down into them.

“Oh. Hello,” Angeal said once he fully woke. He took a deep breath, radiating mild uneasiness. “This is…disorienting. Are you sure you don’t want to make a landscape for us, sunshine?”

Cloud balked. Sunshine? He mouthed in disbelief.

Angeal laughed. A little frisson of his fondness speared through Cloud. “Well, I don’t really have anything better to call you, do I? You could always tell me your name…?”

No. Cloud put his head back down and covered his ears, but it didn’t block as much of Angeal’s voice as he wanted. It didn’t do anything at all to block the feelings, either.

“That’s alright,” Angeal said, only a little sad. “I can wait.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, allowing the silence between them to stretch for a little while. “...I wonder what you like to do?” he murmured at length.

Sleep without dreams, Cloud thought.

“I like gardening. It’s a bit hard to grow things in Midgar, though. Nothing like my home. Banora? It’s a tiny place, but fairly well-known for its apples. I wonder if you’ve ever heard of it.” Wistfulness curled through the dreamscape like cool fog. “I wish I could take you there to see it.”

Cloud’s heart ached sharply. Give up, he thought desperately. Just give up on me, stop it. I can’t give you what you want. I’m not who you’re imagining I might be. You won’t…want me.

“Sunshine…are you in trouble?”

Trouble?

“With anyone, I mean. Even ShinRa. I hope you know we would protect you, no matter what. And we—well, we don’t lack for resources. If your natal pack or your parents are in trouble we could…we could help. I grew up poor, you know. If you or your parents need help I would be so happy to give you whatever you needed. No strings attached.”

That was the first genuinely tempting thing anyone had said to him so far, and it made him freeze uncertainly. They could help Ma a lot more than he could with his modest trooper salary. They could afford to move her anywhere in the world she wanted, away from the town and the worthless packmates who hadn’t seen how amazing she was. She could live in luxury, even. If he just…told them…

The image of Zack’s face, twisted with disgust, filled his mind. He shrank away from the idea, shaking his head rapidly. No, they wouldn’t help once they knew. He’d rejected them. Lied to them. He couldn’t even make it into SOLDIER. Why would you give up so much to help the mother of someone you hated?

“Okay,” Angeal said softly, no doubt feeling the complex tsunami of negative emotion pouring from Cloud despite his efforts to rein it in. “That’s okay. We can wait and talk about it again later.”

Never, Cloud vowed, and hunkered down to wait out the rest of the dream.

“AUGH,” Dev complained loudly in the morning as he returned from his grooming time with Beckett and Avi. “How did all three of you sync up again? Shit, it was that mission wasn’t it! Damn high stress scenarios.”

Cloud shot him a bewildered and slightly grumpy look. “The hell are you whining about this time, James?”

“You’re all in pre-heat,” the alpha said in a no duh voice, glancing between Cloud, Salim, and Cay. 

Avi nodded in agreement. “Must have come on overnight,” he said, nose wrinkling a little. “Looks like our patrols are gonna be disrupted with all three of you out. Can’t exactly do the normal routes without a materia specialist.”

Cloud sniffed his wrist where the skin was thinnest and his blood was close to the surface. “Are you sure?” he asked dubiously. True, he really wanted to go home and hug his mom, but that was probably just because he was still actively avoiding touch.

“Trust me, if you left and came back into the room it would be really strong.” Dev waved a hand. “You three go to the hot house. I’ll tell admin.”

Cloud exchanged a glance with his omega squadmates. Cay just shrugged and started taking off his armor. Salim sighed and did the same, tossing his heat bag out of his locker. 

Of all the times, Cloud thought irritably, following their lead. It was going to be a bitch to avoid touching anyone for a few days. He already felt like he was going through some kind of social withdrawal. Especially without Zack’s hugs. Those were addictive. He could really go for one right now.

Ah. There’s the heat symptoms, Cloud thought, picking up his pace. With his luck, Zack would accidentally come across him as they walked over to quarantine, and that would be…bad. He remembered how disarming Angeal’s scent was just from the jacket, and he hadn’t been anywhere close to heat at the time. Seeing Zack right now would be really bad. Secret-spilling-immediately bad.

The three squadmates went to quarantine together, rushed only by Cloud’s anxiousness. There really was no need to rush, considering it was just pre-heat, but Salim and Cay both kept up with his quick pace without commenting. Cloud exhaled with relief when they passed through the guarded front doors and into the quarantine atrium.

“You feelin’ it already, Spikes?” Cay asked, puzzled.

“Oh, uh. Yeah. C’mon, let’s get checked in.” He ducked his head and hurried over to the front desk.

The process was fast: a brief verbal survey (no, none of them had found their pack yet), a rapid test of hormone levels in their saliva (yes, they were all in pre-heat), and the assignment of their rooms and keycards. Keycards and bags in hand, they were let in past the sealed security door. Even with the advanced filtration systems the smell of heat hit like a pillow to the face.

Cloud hustled for his room, knowing full damn well the airy, highly soothing omega pheromones in the air would send him into proper heat within the day—maybe faster, considering all his stress. The sooner he hunkered down, the less tempted he would be to give in and go out to the communal room.

Yeah…that definitely wasn’t how it worked out.

He set up his nest as fast as he could, not caring about the specifics, and kicked off all his clothes but boxers and a tank. As he crawled into the nest, he really wished he was at home with his mom. He wished he could steal her nest for the few days of his heat and breathe in her scent. There was nowhere on the planet he felt safer and more loved than with his mom. He really, really wanted to be able to hug her.

Or Zack. It would be so nice to invite Zack into his nest so they could bond more. There really was nothing like hormone-induced bonding time. He wondered how safe and loved Zack would make him feel and—

Cloud groaned miserably, burrowing deeper into his pillows and blankets. This was one of his fastest heat onsets to date. Maybe he’d been the one about to hit his cycle and Salim and Cay synced to him on the mission. Or maybe he was just really really stressed and susceptible to the atmosphere.

“Cloud?”

He popped his head out over the top of his nest, startled. No one ever bothered him when he was in his nest (apparently he was “unusually territorial”), yet as he watched both Cay and Salim came barging in with extra bedding material in their arms.

“What?” Cloud snapped, growling deep in his chest. Ah, yes, there were his Nibel-bred territorial instincts.

Cay hesitated, but Salim just said, “stop that,” not fazed at all. He walked over, tossed his bedding on top of Cloud’s nest, and climbed right in. Cay rallied himself and followed.

Cloud was genuinely taken aback. “Wha—what are you doing? Salim!” This was not in the plan. How was he supposed to keep himself physically isolated if his friends were right there? “Get your own damn nest!”

Neither of them so much as bothered to offer an excuse. They just ignored his halfhearted growling and made themselves at home. He held out for all of about thirty seconds after Salim put a hand on his bare arm before he curled up against his friend’s warmth. The relief was tremendous, like putting down a heavy weight after holding it for so long his arms had gone numb. Cay joined in on his other side, purring quietly.

“You…planned this, didn’t you?” Cloud accused, unable to pry himself away from the comfort and companionship he craved all the way down to the level of his cells.

“Yep. You’re so stressed it hurts to look at you,” Cay said without a hint of shame.

Cloud grumbled, burying his face in Salim’s shoulder. They had the good grace not to push it. Cay sat up enough to retrieve the remote for the tiny TV, flicking it on to some mindless action flick before he settled back down and started playing with Cloud’s hair.

No one said anything for the length of about two movies. Cloud’s heat deepened, which influenced Cay and Salim in turn, until a kind of gentle euphoria settled between them. Every touch was a gift, a reassurance. They were his friends and he was theirs. They valued him, they would protect him, and he would do the same. High on social bonding hormones, his fear was quiet and his trust bordered on overwhelming.

It was exactly the right state for him to admit to things he was trying so hard to hide.

“Hey, Cloud,” Salim asked eventually, his own barriers relaxed enough to let him purr quietly. “Why won’t you let anyone touch you anymore?”

“You’re touching me,” he pointed out sleepily, basking in the relaxation. Maybe this heat was actually exactly what he needed right now.

“Yeah, but why did I have to wait for your heat to hug you? You didn’t used to be like this.”

He trusted Salim and Cay. He really did. They were his friends, and they’d promised to have his back. Hell, they’d even been ready to go toe-to-toe with First Class SOLDIERs on his behalf. He could tell them part of it, at least.

“It’s not you,” he assured his friend. “I just can’t let anyone touch me because I can’t…let certain other people touch me.”

“Oh.” Salim paused, lacing his fingers through Cloud’s. It felt oddly like a preemptive reassurance. “Who?”

“Za—I can’t tell you.” Cloud didn’t like purring in front of people if he could manage it. It felt…undignified. Or maybe vulnerable. But he was purring now.

“...Zack? Did—did Zack do something to you?” Cay said behind him, suddenly smelling like sharp horror instead of warm contentment.

Cloud turned to look at him with wide eyes. “Zack wouldn’t do anything to me!” The deep, primal feeling of trust in his friends began to battle with his rising alarm. He should shut his mouth. He should definitely shut his mouth right now.

“You…can’t let Zack touch you,” Salim said slowly, thinking out loud. “Or his packmates? Because—” He cut off. When Cloud looked at him, unnerved, he had a very peculiar expression on his face. “Cloud, is the reason you’ve never talked about finding your packmates because you don’t…want any?”

“N-no,” Cloud lied, reeling. Salim was smart, but how…?

Cay made a wounded noise. “What? Spikes, why?”

“I don’t—” He grunted a little when Salim pulled him back into a tight hug with his free arm. He still hadn’t let go of his hand.

“Don’t lie to me. Please. You’re as good as a brother to me, Cloud.”

That speared straight through Cloud’s heart. “I’m not—I wouldn’t—”

“Please. Just…okay, sometimes packs don't work out right. But why would you hurt yourself like this?” Salim sounded dangerously close to begging, and he was unmistakably distraught. “Cloud, how long did you know? Did they do something to you?”

“Nothing,” Cloud whispered, closing his eyes and accepting defeat. The jig was up. “They didn’t do anything to me. They don’t know at all. I just…” He couldn’t finish his statement.

“Just what?” Cay asked when the silence stretched.

The words hurt as they dragged out of him. “Just…decided a long time ago I don’t need them.”

He could practically feel the look that his friends exchanged over his head. Like a child, he hid his face in Salim’s shirt. Don’t ask. Don’t ask. Don’t make me think about it. They knew the truth now. They didn’t need to know anything else. He wasn’t going to change his mind.

“But Zack is head-over-heels for you?” Cay said, bewildered.

“Don’t,” Cloud snapped. That hurt more than anything else he could have said. “Don’t even—” His throat closed painfully. “I r—I rejected them. If they found out they would—” They would hate me. All of them. Even Zack.

There was no way Zack loved him. No way Zack wanted him. Not the whole ‘him’ at least. It wasn’t possible. Especially since if he had wanted Cloud all this time, and then found out who he really was, and then didn’t want him anymore , Cloud would probably…break. 

He would break. Into a million tiny pieces that no one could ever put back together again. He didn’t quite understand why, but he knew that would be the end. That was why Zack just couldn’t be in love with him. “Stop. Stop talking about it. Just drop it.”

Cay started to protest again, but Salim shushed him. “Okay. We’ll drop it. I’m sorry we’re ruining your heat.”

“It’s fine,” Cloud grumbled, relieved they agreed at all. At least his slip-up meant that Salim’s well-meaning ultimatum was resolved.

His friends didn’t leave him alone to brood for the rest of the shared heat, but they did have the good sense not to bring the topic up again. It was nice, even though he had to ignore the pit of dread in his stomach while they played games and razzed on stupid shows together. He knew that conversation had been far from the end of the issue.

He just hoped they wouldn’t do something as stupid as tattling on him.

Chapter Text

Zack was waiting eagerly by the door for the earliest possible moment he could head out to the gyms. It was his training day with Cloud again and he was looking forward to having another chance to try and win his friend over. Or back over, depending on how he looked at it. Cloud had been responding to his texts mostly like normal, with the exception of diligently avoiding any extra face-to-face contact. It was enough that Zack swore he was getting Cloud-quality-time withdrawal. He had no idea how Cloud himself was managing to avoid social withdrawal.

Behind him, Gen and ‘Geal were having a heated argument about whether or not Cloud would be overwhelmed by having a second teacher show up unannounced. Angeal insisted that neither of them should go, but if anyone went it would have to be him. Genesis, predictably, insisted that he could win Cloud over with the allure of omega-specific training. Zack was getting ready to fend both of them off from invading his buddy’s space when his PHS chimed.

Hey, Zack, the text read. Forgot to text earlier. I’m in the hot house, can’t come to training today, sorry. See you in a week.

“Oh,” he said, disappointed. “Hey, uh, guys? You can stop arguing. Cloud’s in heat anyway, he’s in quarantine.”

Angeal sighed. Genesis tsk’d in disappointment. “You see, you should have allowed me to kiss him senseless the first night. Then he would be here, luxuriating in his heat with us.”

Angeal viciously rolled his eyes. “That’s bullshit and you know it. He would have run away.”

“Oh, I know,” Genesis said, unrepentant. “But it is quite a lovely mental tableau, no?”

Zack found himself flushing a little bit at the thought: Cloud, warm and affectionate, radiating the inviting social pheromones of heat. Of course he wouldn’t want lovers this soon, but he would want friends to share his nest. He would be so sweet in a way Zack knew he was usually too shy for. They would play video games while wrapped up in each other, forgetting where one person started and the other ended.

Genesis turned a sly smile on him, noticing the rosy blush. “Just think of it,” he purred, slinking up to Zack and wrapping arms around his waist. He pressed his lips to the base of Zack’s neck, teasing. “I know you are. Mmm. He’s so prickly normally. I bet heat turns him into a cuddler. How lovely would he be contrasted against Angeal’s frame? He could just curl right up and have room to spare.” 

Genesis laughed, the warmth of his breath made goosebumps race down Zack’s skin. “Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he handles heat more like a rut, and he guards his nest so very fiercely… until you win him over. I bet he’d happily wrestle you for hours, Zack. I bet he’d pin you and you’d let him, just in case he might reward you with a kiss.”

“He might not…even want any of us that way,” Zack said thickly, trying to get ahold of himself. Genesis was just too good at spinning up vivid mental images with a few words.

“Of course he will,” Genesis said. “I’ve seen how he looks at you like you hung the stars. He has such a pretty blush. Besides, who could resist me?”

Zack scoffed and shoved his packmate away. “Keep talking like that and you really will scare him away,” he said, frowning. “He’s shy about this stuff.”

“About heat?” Genesis asked, eyebrows high.

“About…everything… personal, I guess,” Zack said, struggling to find the right words. “Heat included. That’s why I’m trying to figure out how to get him to just talk to me. Even before this he was really good at dodging personal conversations, but now he…runs away from me.” Saying it out loud made it so much more depressing. He didn’t want Cloud to run away from him—he wanted Cloud to run to him. 

He just didn’t know how to get Cloud to trust him again.

Angeal, obviously sensing his sudden depressive thoughts, walked over and guided him back to sit on the couch. “We’ll figure it out, Zack,” he said, taking a moment to press their foreheads together before hugging him.

“I don’t know how,” Zack mumbled. Then he took a deep breath and deliberately exhaled out the negativity. “No, we’ll figure it out. Maybe I just need to corner him a tiny bit and make sure he knows how much I…how good of a friend he is.”

“Excellent idea,” Genesis said on the other end of the couch. “I would be happy to help in cornering him.”

Angeal huffed at him before turning his attention back to Zack. “If you think that would help. You know him best.”

A plan started to form in Zack’s head. He adjusted his position a little, letting himself enjoy Angeal’s warmth. “Maybe. I’ll just…a tiny bit guilt him into playing video games or something, and then try to talk to him.” The worst Cloud would do in response to that was start running away again, and—well, he was already doing that. Zack thought he could make it work. 

And then maybe Zack could at least figure out why his best friend kept running away. Wouldn’t that be something?

Salim and Cay were in on the secret, which meant that Cloud now had some co-conspirators to help him navigate this whole mess. Maybe that was a little dramatic—it wasn’t like they wanted him to keep up the ruse, but he could at least talk to them about it. They were willing to keep the others away too, especially by covering for his new grooming habits. Not needing to groom himself alone anymore was probably the biggest relief, both physically and socially. He’d been paranoid that some well-meaning fellow bather would report his habits out of ‘concern.’

It wasn’t all upsides. Both of his friends kept trying to convince him to “just talk” to the SOLDIERs and “be honest” with “at least Zack, come on Strife he’s your best friend!”

But I’m not his, he wanted to argue, but he settled for shaking his head. How was he even supposed to start a conversation about that with Zack? Hey, so you know the mystery packmate who keeps rejecting you, the one I’m sure you have all these fantasies about being perfect and as strong as you and maybe this is all just a big misunderstanding and he’s actually totally normal and fine with packs? Well, surprise, he’s me! And I’m none of those things, and can we maybe just pretend I’m not your packmate and go back to being friends?

Zack and his packmates deserved literally anyone but Cloud. Salim, for instance—he was smart, and normal, and he actually wanted a pack, and he could have gotten into SOLDIER if he’d tried. Salim should have been their packmate, but for some reason the gods had chosen to inflict Cloud on them instead.

“Cloud—“ Salim had started in a very lost voice after Cloud had incoherently attempted to convey his thoughts on the subject, but he’d just stopped, unable to find the words. Cloud hadn’t been able to see Cay’s face, since he’d been sitting behind his fellow omega and grooming his hair, but he’d been able to see the tightness in his shoulders. “I—okay. You know what, let’s revisit that later,” Salim had settled on.

Or we could not, he’d thought at the time. And, so far, they hadn’t.

Salim and Cay were sitting with him in the barracks common room when his PHS chimed. His stomach dropped when he saw it was from Zack, but he opened it nonetheless. Zack probably just wanted to make sure they were on for training again.

Hey, Cloudy! The text read, accompanied by the emoticons Zack was overly fond of using. All my pkmts r busy n I feel like I haven’t seen u n a long time. Come play video games w/ me? I’m starting to wonder if u even like me anymore, ahaha, jk jk.

A second text followed the first as he read it. I already put in an order for ur favorite pizza! Just drop by after patrols!

Cloud stared at his PHS until the light of the screen had seared itself into his retinas. He looked away. The photo negative of his screen followed him, superimposed over his pant leg. He couldn’t say no to Zack. It would backfire spectacularly, he was sure of it. When Zack felt neglected, his habit was to hunt his friends down and bother them until he felt appeased that everything was okay. Normally, it was an endearing trait.

Normally.

“What’s wrong?” Salim asked, leaning over to look at his PHS.

“Zack…wants to hang out,” Cloud answered, numb. “I think he’s picked up on my…um. New habits.”

Salim looked like he was struggling to find the correct response. Eventually he said, “Well, can’t really avoid Fair. Just don’t freak yourself out, okay? You can handle this.”

“…right,” Cloud said. He took a deep breath and tried to put things into perspective. He still liked Zack. He wanted to hang out with him. He wanted to go play video games and eat pizza. Besides, Zack didn’t know why he was suddenly being weird. All Cloud had to do was go hang out, act normal, and make sure there was no accidental touching. Simple.

“Right,” he repeated, a little more confidently. “Yeah. It’ll be fine.”

He was a lot less sanguine about the whole thing when he knocked on Zack’s door later. In fact, he was viciously suppressing the urge to turn and run. Pure stubborn pride kept his feet in place.

The door burst open with a loud cry of “CLOUDY!” and suddenly he was confronted with Zack’s beaming face. The SOLDIER lunged forward in his usual attack-hug. Cloud dodged, not quite able to completely suppress a spike of terror— what if Zack touched him?— as he quickly thrust his arms out in warning.

“Oh!” Zack said, backpedaling. He inhaled deeply, no doubt catching the flashfire hint of terror in Cloud’s scent. “I’m sorry. I never asked if your skin was still bothering you.”

“Um, y-yeah. Sorry,” Cloud stuttered. 

Zack ushered him in and let the door close behind them. “That’s uh—a long time for skin sensitivity. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Shit. He needed a new excuse. “Yeah, it’s’ uh. It’s not that—I—I mean, I’m handling it,” he said, quickly claiming the corner of the couch.

Zack looked at him a little strangely. “Uh, right. Well, tell me if it gets worse, okay? I don’t like thinking about you being in pain all the time.”

Cloud swallowed past the lump in his throat. “Yeah, ‘course.” He put one arm over the back of the couch in an attempt to look comfortable.

“The pizzas got here before you did,” Zack said, disappearing into the kitchen. “Oh, hey, I know the SOLDIER prelims are coming up, did you get your letter yet?”

The participation letters were a formality to Cloud at this point, considering he’d applied for the exams every year since he’d arrived. The actual finals were a ways away, but he still had to go through tedious preliminaries each time. “Not yet,” he said, relaxing slightly as they shifted to a safer topic. “I hope they didn’t change anything this year.”

Zack laughed, carrying the pizza boxes out to the coffee table and tossing them down. “Nah, I would know if they changed anything big. They’re probably running a little late, as usual.”

Cloud laughed too as he dove eagerly for the pizza. ShinRa was always late.

“Hey, uh,” said Zack, hesitating briefly before he sat about a foot away from Cloud, instead of the way they would usually sit pressed up against each other. “You’re gonna…eat with the gloves on?”

Cloud stopped abruptly. “Oh.” He hadn’t even thought about it. His hand clenched in the air over the pizzas, the leather of his glove creaking. “Um…no. That would be dumb.” He laughed, but he didn’t think Zack was convinced.

“Maybe a little,” Zack said, his voice just a touch too soft. “Kinda gross.”

Cloud thought that Zack seemed oddly fixated on his hands as he took the gloves off and stuffed them into his pocket, trying not to overthink the exchange. Zack didn’t know, he insisted to himself. The SOLDIER was just picking up on how weird Cloud was being. That was all. Cloud picked up a slice of pizza and focused hard on being normal as he ate it.

“So um, how’s everything going?” Cloud asked, projecting normal as hard as he could.

“Oh, it’s…well, things could be better,” Zack admitted, tilting his head back to take a messy bite of his own pizza as it fell apart in his hand. “There’s some uh, pack trouble, you know?”

Cloud tried very, very hard not to let anxiety creep into his scent or his voice. “That sucks,” he said, proud of how steady his voice was.

“Yeah,” Zack agreed, glancing at his face. Cloud studiously kept his eyes on the food. “But, hey, it’ll work out! I think it’s just a really big misunderstanding, and…I can be patient, you know? For people you love, it’s worth it.”

This time, Cloud didn’t trust himself to speak past the tightness in his throat. He settled for nodding instead as he crammed more pizza in his mouth. He should have run. He felt dizzy with the force of it. He should have run.

“Is, uh…everything okay with you?” Zack asked, a strange note to his voice. Cloud still refused to meet his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said, voice rasping more than he wanted it to. He paused to clear his throat. “Everything’s fine. Hey, do you want to watch—”

“Are you sure?” Zack interrupted. “Because you’re not acting like everything is fine.”

He doesn’t know, Cloud reminded himself frantically. There’s no way he knows. “I uh—what, what do you mean?” he asked, wincing at his stutter. It took a tremendous force of will, but he managed to look up and meet Zack’s eyes.

Zack didn’t say anything for long enough that Cloud started to feel disconnected from his body. “You’re my friend, Cloud,” he finally said. “I’ve known you for a long time. I can tell when something is wrong.”

Cloud bit the inside of his lip hard enough to cause pain. Guilt meshed with his intense desire to get up and run. His mind was blank. 

He needed to say something. Zack was still looking at him. His throat was tight. Suddenly he could taste blood on his tongue.

“Talk to me,” Zack said, a soft plea that burned Cloud like a physical wound. “What’s wrong?”

The one thing he couldn’t say was ‘nothing.’ He’d lost his opportunity to play it cool. He knew from the way Zack’s breath deepened that he could smell Cloud’s emotional turmoil. “I—” He stopped. His fingers, greasy from the pizza, twined together anxiously. He had to look away from Zack, too dizzy to continue.

“Cloud?”

The silence stretched. A funny sensation filled Cloud’s chest, crawling up into his throat. He couldn’t move. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Zack slowly shift closer.

“I just want to help you. Please, talk—”

“You can’t.” The words rasped painfully through his tight throat.

“Tell me what’s wrong. Maybe I know something you don’t.” Zack put a hand on his shoulder. It sent a wave of goosebumps racing across his skin. The funny sensation in his chest intensified. He stared down at his hands. His knuckles were white with the force of his grip.

“No one can fix it,” he said numbly. “It’s—I’m handling it.”

“Are you? Because I can see how tired you are. I can smell the stress. I can smell the way you’re biting the inside of your lip hard enough to bleed.” Zack squeezed his shoulder. “Cloud, do you think—no, do you believe I’m your friend?”

You wouldn’t be if you knew, Cloud thought. Aloud, he managed to say, “It’s not because of you Zack. No one can fix it.”

“Answer the question. Please.”

Cloud exhaled sharply, a spike of irritation breaking through his dizziness. “Yeah, you’re my friend, Zack,” he snapped, looking up. “Yes. Happy?”

The earnestness in Zack’s face made his chest feel painfully tight. “Then why don’t you trust me? Even if I can’t fix the problem, I can still help you. I’m here. I just want you to talk to me.”

“What if talking would ruin everything, Zack?” Cloud said, angry with himself at the way his eyes were starting to burn with the urge to cry. “Huh? What if talking is exactly what I don’t want to do?”

Zack refused to back down, but Cloud hated the way he stayed gentle. Anger would have felt so much safer. “What are you scared of?”

“You don’t want to know that, Zack.” He blinked furiously, trying to keep at least a little of his dignity. “If you knew you would—” He choked on his own words. Hate me, you would hate me, you wouldn’t want me, and then I would be just like mom. He’d grown up seeing how Brian Lockheart looked at his mom. The idea of Zack looking at him like that made something in his chest break.

He stood abruptly, shaking Zack’s hand off his shoulder as a blink sent tears rolling down his cheeks. “I have to go,” he managed to get out, all but running for the door.

Of course, Zack was a SOLDIER. Cloud could never hope to outrun him. “I wouldn’t do that to you,” he said, suddenly between Cloud and the door. He grabbed Cloud’s elbows, ignoring the resulting flinch. “Nothing you could possibly say could ever make me mad at you or disappointed or whatever bad thing you’re assuming right now.”

The lower part of his throat burned with some unnamed emotion. “You can’t promise that!” he snapped, suddenly acutely aware that he hadn’t put his gloves back on. If Zack just grabbed his hand, as he had so many times before, it would all be over. He blinked, spilling more tears over. A few got caught in his eyelashes.

“I can,” Zack whispered, so passionately certain that for a second Cloud believed him. For just one second he believed that he could tell Zack what he was trying so hard to hide. The words sprang to the tip of his tongue. We’re packmates, and I love you, and I wish you’d been anyone else because then it would have been easy to run away.

But then he thought about how much Zack would hate him for rejecting the pack, even though Cloud liked them all just fine. It would be the worst kind of insult. He would hate Cloud for rejecting them. It just wouldn't be possible to not hate him at that point.

Cloud hurt.

He gave up on dignity as a strangled sob tore from his throat. With a hard shove, he pushed Zack away and scrambled for the door. Zack cried out in surprise, taking just a second too long to reorient himself. “Cloud, wait—!”

The front door slammed shut, cutting him off, and Cloud fled like the hounds of hell were after him.

Author's Note:

If you don't follow me on Tumblr you're missing out on quality memes making fun of myself

Chapter Text

Cloud hadn’t gotten himself under control by the time he made it back to the barracks, but he didn’t care. Let them smell his frantic upset. Let them see that he’d been crying. It didn’t matter. He was leaving ShinRa, and he was going to do it now.

He was surprised to find everyone there. They were all focused on something, too, and most looked up when he came in. Salim was on his feet in an instant.

“Cloud—” He got a good look at Cloud’s face. “Oh. Someone…told you already?”

Cloud was breathing hard from running all the way back. He looked at Salim in bewilderment, distracted from his determination to pack up and leave. “Told me? Told me what?”

Dev had a letter in his hand that Cloud recognized as the SOLDIER preliminaries letter. Salim also had one in his hand, which surprised him. Only Cloud, Dev, and their beta friend Soren had applied this time around, although the number fluctuated year to year as squadmates came and went. Cloud’s eyes were drawn to the bright red he could see on the letter in Salim’s hand— REJECTED.

Then he noticed his name at the top.

“Lieutenant Fisk dropped by. Cloud—”

Wide-eyed, Cloud quickly snatched the letter out of Salim’s hand and read through it.

We regret to inform you, it said, that you have been rejected from participating in the SOLDIER preliminary exams for the following reason(s):

MAKO HYPERSENSITIVITY - TYPE IV

He had to read over the words a few more times before they registered. Stunned, he looked up. The whole squad was watching him. His eyes went to the letter in Dev’s hand. Even reversed, he could make out the box in the center of the letter that would contain Dev’s testing time and location. He knew exactly what an acceptance letter looked like. After all, he himself had gotten one every year…until now.

“I…” He took a step back, then another, until his knees hit the back of his bunk and he collapsed down onto it. REJECTED. REJECTED. Those few lines of red ink seared themselves into his mind. “What? But…why now? I—they do the blood test every year, why now?”

The sound of crumpling paper made him look back up. Dev had crushed his own letter in his fist, expression conflicted. He met Cloud’s eyes and the conflict quickly turned to pure anger. “This is bullshit!” he declared, throwing his letter down. “If they’re going to do this to you then I’m not taking the damn test!”

“Don’t be a fucking idiot!” Cloud snapped back. His anger was distant, held far away by the numb sensation seeping through his chest. “You want to get into SOLDIER as much as I—wanted to.” He stumbled a little over the last few words. Want to. Wanted to. He had wanted to be in SOLDIER, and now he…couldn’t.

Well. At least this had severed his last tie to ShinRa. Now he had proof that everything he’d known about himself all along was exactly right. Everyone would be better off once he was gone.

Salim reached for his shoulder but Cloud stood, letting the letter fall onto his bunk. He opened his locker as the others started to mutter and argue, turning their attention away from him. Good, he thought. He threw his duffle on the bunk and started piling everything he owned into it. There wasn’t much.

Salim stopped him, grabbing his elbow. “Wait—you didn’t know, but you were already upset,” he observed quietly. “Cloud, did something happen when you went to…?” His voice hushed even further, not quite to a whisper. “Did—did he do something to you?”

Cloud lost control of his temper at the question, well-meaning though it had been. “Zack would never do anything to me, okay!” he snapped, a real, furious growl erupting from his chest. It startled the entire squad badly, cutting off their arguments and conversations. 

He didn’t care about what anyone heard as he turned a vicious glare on his startled, innocent friend. “He wouldn’t! Don’t you get it already?” He shook Salim’s hand off, slashing his arm through the air in a furious gesture. If he’d thought he had no tears left to humiliate himself with, he was wrong. “The problem is me! It’s always me! It will always be me!”

Salim looked stunned, his hand raised halfway toward Cloud, but he couldn’t seem to find any words. Cloud pointed bitterly at the letter on his sheets. “At least SOLDIER figured it out before I fucked that up too.” He turned to finish packing.

The fact that his back was turned meant he was thoroughly startled when one of his squadmates tackled him, sending them both to the ground. He yelped in surprise, just barely saving his own head from cracking painfully against the ground. The smell of furious alpha filled his nose. An arm came across his throat, putting him in a chokehold. Wide-eyed, he looked up to find Dev pinning him to the ground.

“SHUT! UP!” Dev thundered, his chest rumbling with a furious growl. Cloud couldn’t have said anything if he’d wanted to as a warning pressure was applied across his windpipe. Even then, he was just too shocked to have anything to say. “You don’t get to talk about my friend like that!”

…what? Thought Cloud, bewildered by the sharp change in topic. Friend? What friend?

Dev read the bewilderment in his face and just became angrier. “YOU, dumbass!” he snarled. “You’re my friend! And you don’t get to fucking talk about yourself like that! You are not a problem! There’s nothing wrong with you, SOLDIER is just full of fucking morons, got it?”

That was not what Cloud had expected him to say. Dev kept his teeth bared, chest rumbling with a sustained growl as he kept light pressure on Cloud’s throat. It was a challenge, as clear as day. An unexpected one, but a challenge that Cloud found himself automatically trying to meet.

Don’t look away, Cloud told himself, struggling to hold Dev’s burning gaze as he bared his own teeth in response. If he looked away it would be as good as an admission of defeat. But, as little as he wanted to yield, he also found himself confused, because…well he didn’t win either way, did he? Either yield and lose, or win and be right about his own uselessness.

He couldn’t tell which he wanted less.

Maybe he didn’t really get to choose in the end, because his body seemed to be making the decision for him. Slowly, his upper lip lowered from its snarling position. His breathing hitched. He cursed the way his eyes burned.

Dev softened, easing off his throat. He stopped growling. “Dumbass,” he said, releasing his pin and pulling Cloud upright into a hug. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Cloud. You’re not dumb or bad at fighting or anything else you could come up with. Don’t give up.”

Cloud felt unfathomably tired as he leaned his forehead against his friend’s shoulder. Angry pheromones had shifted to something far more soothing—comfort, for a friend. “I have to,” he whispered. “I have to leave.”

“Don’t make that decision now,” said Salim, crouched by the two of them. He reached out to rub Cloud’s back, adding to the attempt at comforting him. “Sleep on it. We have that monster-hunting patrol tomorrow, we need you for that. Make this decision after you’ve had a chance to feel competent again.”

Cloud just didn’t have the energy left to fight them. “...yeah,” he said, slumping into Dev. Finally, he yielded. “Okay. Tomorrow.”

The urge to run had quieted a little by the time they all piled into trucks and set out on the patrol route. Not much, but it had quieted. Now he had the headspace to consider the implications of just running— mainly, that it would make him a deserter and cause a lot of trouble for him with ShinRa. True, it really wouldn’t matter once he got home, but the problem would be getting home. It would be smarter to plan for the long haul, rather than bolting.

The question was, could he pick the smart option fast enough to get out before Zack did something drastic?

He tried to focus on the patrol. They were split into three teams of five, one team to each truck. The teams were evenly balanced by skills, meaning that there was one materia specialist in each truck. Cloud was the specialist for team three, and had Dev, Beckett, Soren, and Shay with him. It wasn’t all that dissimilar to what he’d done with Sephiroth, except that they were hunting all monsters in the area instead of something specific.

Honestly, it was boring. There wasn’t much to hunt, and what was there could generally be taken out with some well-aimed magic or a volley of rifle fire. They didn’t even need to leave the main road until a monster Cloud didn’t recognize ducked out of their line of fire and ran around a sharp jut in one of the cliff’s faces.

“Eyes up!” Beckett shouted as the trucks roared after the monster. With cliff faces on either side, an attack could easily come from above. Cloud kept his head on a swivel, watching their tail especially for any monsters they might have missed.

He should have been looking ahead. 

Several things happened at once. First, Cloud’s team was hit with a powerful blast of electricity before he could even hope to stop it. Shay, who was driving, lost control of the vehicle as he spasmed. Second, the tires were blown out. They swerved badly, but managed to avoid flipping over by sheer dumb luck. Cloud caught a brief glimpse of the team ahead, who hadn’t been so lucky. He didn’t know how the team behind had fared.

He’d barely recovered enough to draw in a full breath, much less raise his weapon or summon his mana, before dark figures descended on them in a wave. He was ripped from the truck by SOLDIER-strong hands and dragged away. He could see the same happening to the others, could hear it. The air smelled profoundly wrong, and he could hear the singing of materia that sounded equally wrong. It was especially strong in the person dragging him off.

With a shout, he finally recovered enough to cast a point-blank Fira at his assailant. They howled in a vaguely inhuman way, dropping him. He scrambled to raise his rifle, which was still safely slung across his body, but he didn’t even have a chance to turn before two bodies slammed into him and crushed him into the dirt. His rifle was torn away, and he watched in horror as it was crumpled like a soda can and tossed aside.

“Don’t damage the omegas!” someone snapped, and the bruising pressure on him eased slightly.

His squad was far outnumbered and outgunned. They never even had a chance to put up a fight as they were all dragged into a loose group, surrounded by dark-clad soldiers with red visors. Cloud quickly did a headcount. His stomach dropped when he realized they were missing one, and when he turned his head he could see a crumpled form laying beside the truck that had flipped.

No!

He couldn’t tell who it was and he didn’t have any time to figure it out. A man in tan walked through the group, catching Cloud’s attention. Forget the soldiers—he was the real threat. The man evaluated them with narrowed eyes, taking deep breaths to scent the air.

“Take the omegas,” he said.

“Who the fuck—!” Dev snarled, fighting to get free of the soldier holding his arms pinned behind his back. His teeth were bared in a full snarl, scent sharp with deadly hostility.

“Kill him,” said the man coldly, barely glancing his way. The soldier holding Dev reacted immediately, releasing his arms to seize his head and twist. There was a soul-rending CRUNCH and suddenly Dev’s head faced the wrong direction. The soldier released his body and it fell with a heavy thud to the dirt.

The swift action almost didn’t register, but Cloud had no time for shellshock. “NO!” he screamed, fighting to free himself. If he acted fast enough, there was a chance—! “DEV!”

He wasn’t the only one fighting. “Kill everyone but the omegas,” the man in tan said coldly as they screamed and struggled. “They are not to be damaged.”

“NO!” Cloud screamed again, hard enough that he broke his own voice. When he blinked, tears streaked down from beneath his helmet. He struggled violently enough to risk breaking his own bones, but it got him nowhere. He couldn’t do anything as more grisly snapping sounds filled the air. He screamed again, this time without words.

He, Salim, and Cay were dragged away toward a boxy truck that was waiting behind a natural bluff. Cay was sobbing openly. Salim was growling, trying to work his arms free, but he wasn’t having any more success than Cloud. They were forced to kneel, held by two soldiers each. More soldiers dragged a cage full of humanoid monsters from the back of the truck. They looked chillingly like the one Cloud’s squad had chased into this trap.

The man in tan approached them. “YOU BASTARD!” Salim yelled, anguished. “I’LL KILL YOU!”

“Quiet,” the man said, almost casually. One of the soldiers put a hand over Salim’s mouth, apparently taking that as an order. “Kanos. Have they presented?”

A soldier at his side seized Cloud’s neck and cast on him with a materia Cloud had never felt before. The song that washed over him was warped in a way that made him want to gag. The soldier released Cloud and did the same with Cay and Salim. “No,” the soldier said in a monotone.

“How rare. Good, perhaps this will be a breakthrough in the procedure.” His cold eyes flicked over each of them individually, but they lingered on Cloud for a moment before he turned away. “Prepare for transport.”

The last thing Cloud saw before he was put under by a Sleep spell was the cage door opening, releasing the humanoid monsters toward his fallen squadmates. He noted, somewhere in the back of his head before darkness took him, that their claws and teeth matched the damage he’d seen on the lost trooper’s bones.

Chapter Text

Zack came slinking into Angeal’s apartment earlier than they’d hoped, but not earlier than they’d anticipated. He didn’t say anything as he closed the door behind him. He just came over to where Angeal and Genesis were sitting together on the couch and flopped down across their laps. Sephiroth was reading in the armchair, most likely to fend off Gen’s pestering, but he set his book aside.

Zack smelled despondent. Angeal patted his butt consolingly. “What happened, love?”

“Well,” said Zack, drawing an unsteady breath. “I successfully made him cry.”

Genesis made a wounded noise. Angeal exhaled slowly through his nose. They all knew that if Cloud had been reduced to tears, it must have been very bad indeed.

“What, exactly, happened?” Genesis asked, carding his fingers soothingly through Zack’s hair. He purred quietly, and Angeal joined him. It made Zack relax, if only a little.

“I just…asked him to tell me what was wrong. And I made sure he knew I was his friend, but he said…he said if he told me it would ‘ruin everything’ and—well he didn’t say it, but he heavily implied I would hate him or something.” Zack paused to sniffle, burying his head in Gen’s hip. “He got up to run away and I tried to tell him I wouldn’t, but then he started really crying and shoved me and bolted.”

“It will be alright, Zack,” Sephiroth said softly.

Zack popped his head up to shoot him a distressed look. “But I scared him! He’s probably running home right now, he said he might when Angeal talked to him!” With a miserable groan, he let his head drop again. “I ruined everything.”

“Don’t talk that way, darling,” Genesis chided. “You didn’t ruin anything. Besides, Cloud is a smart young man. He won’t run immediately. Doing so would make him a deserter and cause all sorts of trouble for him. I guarantee we will have at least some warning before he vanishes.”

Zack didn’t seem convinced, but he didn’t argue either. “Kuns will tell me, at least,” he muttered. The smell of his despondency eased. “I think I’m gonna go to bed early. Maybe I can catch him in the Dreamscape.”

“A good idea,” Sephiroth agreed. “Perhaps we all should.”

And so they did. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Cloud didn’t appear until well toward the end of the night, and even then he immediately jerked awake once he realized where he was. No one had a chance to say anything before he was gone, leaving only an eddy of panic as proof of his arrival.

“He cannot avoid dreams forever,” Genesis said, hugging Zack as he drooped in defeat. “Don’t despair, darling. Perhaps if he has more time to calm down he will fully consider your words. It’s not hopeless.”

“Yeah,” Zack mumbled, clearly not convinced. “I hope so.” He laughed, tinged with sarcasm. “Obviously I was super convincing. Maybe he’ll finally reciprocate tomorrow.”

The sleep spell broke when they tossed him into a cell, skin scraping painfully across uneven stone. He gasped, arms and legs jerking, but encountered painful resistance. Laying helpless on his side, he realized that he’d been stripped down to his undershirt and boxers and tied up ankle to wrist. Salim and Cay, stripped down and trussed up the same way, were tossed in beside him. The cell door slammed shut, but Cloud could see through the narrow window that the soldier didn’t walk away.

He managed to sit up, wincing at the bruising he could feel along his entire body. His heart still felt a little unsteady from the electrocution as well. He shuffled awkwardly over to his squadmates. “Guys,” he said, trying to look them over as best he could. “Guys, wake up.”

Salim groaned and shifted, quickly realizing that he was in the same binds Cloud was. Cay took a while longer to wake, enough for Salim to get upright. Together they helped Cay upright too, and it became clear that one of his elbows was either sprained or broken. Salim had a bloody nose too, and all three of them were peppered with scrapes and bruises of varying severity.

The short length of rope between their ankles and wrists meant that they had to either lay on their sides or sit on their knees with backs perfectly straight. It was especially difficult for Cay, who gritted his teeth against the pain in his arm but didn’t complain. They huddled up together, shoulder to shoulder, and tried to offer what comfort they could.

“They…can’t mean to keep us like this for long,” Cay said tightly. “Not if they want us alive.”

“Wouldn’t have gone to this much trouble if they only needed dead bodies for that ‘procedure’ the bastard mentioned,” Salim agreed grimly. “The cell and wherever we are probably isn’t very secure if they’re taking precautions to make sure we can’t move.”

Cloud nudged him and nodded his chin to the guard standing at the door, just barely visible. Salim nodded back. Cay met his eyes and nodded too. There could be no verbal discussion of sensitive topics. Who knew how acute those soldiers’ senses were? They’d fought like carbon copies of SOLDIER.

“Where are we?” Cloud asked, looking around. It didn’t seem like somewhere tailor-made to house prisoners. If anything, it looked like someone had turned a slums basement into a slapdash prison. Salim was probably right.

Cay took a deep breath, scenting the air. He unquestionably had the keenest sense of smell out of the three of them. “Underground,” he decided. “Nowhere nice. I can smell burning rubber and fresh clay. Kinda smells like the slums, honestly.”

“Doesn’t feel like they cast the Sleepel on us more than once, either,” Cloud muttered. “So…not too far from the patrol route.” Glum silence descended on them. Rescue wasn’t likely—at least not a rescue fast enough to get them out before they were turned into lab rats. Not without being able to signal—

Wait.

Cloud went very still. The man in tan had asked if they’d presented yet, and the soldier had said no. The most likely reason for checking was to make sure they didn’t have packs to call for help during the night. Of course, it was absolutely impossible to tell if someone had presented or not. The soldier had used materia, but no materia could do that. Materia could, however, let people feel bonds, and it was incredibly rare to be presented and not have at least one prebond.

Cloud had no prebonds. They thought he hadn’t presented. He could call for help.

It wasn’t a question of if he did, although he had to swallow hard against the thought of what would happen when he gave up on the ruse and reciprocated. Nothing was more important than making sure Cay and Salim got out alive. Not even Zack hating him.

“It’ll be okay,” he said hoarsely, working past the lump in his throat. “Don’t give up hope. Someone will come find us.” He tried to convey his true thoughts without words, looking at his friends with emotion he couldn’t even hope to describe. “It’ll be okay.”

Salim seemed to grasp what Cloud had after a delay, eyes widening. “You’re—you’re right,” he said, deliberately suppressing his relief. “It’s not over yet.” Cay looked at them quizzically, struggling to understand, but they both shook their heads.

“Chins up,” Cay murmured, looking at the door. He firmed his jaw, apparently willing to trust their optimism blindly. “We’ll get out of this.”

Cloud didn’t dare to sleep before he knew Zack and his packmates were likely to sleep as well. If he woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep, they were doomed. The suspense was agonizing. Soldiers could come and drag them away at any moment. He also had no way to accurately gauge the time and was forced to rely on his own internal clock.

There was also very little to do for the hours he waited except to think about his dead friends and wonder if he would fail to save the living ones too. His despair and self-loathing grew steadily, despite Salim and Cay’s attempts to soothe him. He obsessed over every tiny failure in the past few years that had led to this point. 

The only thing he tried not to let himself think about too much was what he needed to do to save his friends. If there was one consolation, it was that no matter how angry Zack was at him, he wouldn’t leave Cay and Salim to die. Help would come. 

Cloud laid down once the time felt right, head resting on Salim’s leg. It was hard to fall asleep, but he managed, lulled by his friend’s rasping purr. When he woke in the Dreamscape, familiar swirls and eddies of feeling and magic swathing him like a shroud, he took a shaking breath. All four of them were there, orienting to his presence.

He forced himself to open his eyes.

That wasn’t enough, of course. Reciprocity in the Dreamscape meant he had to reach, offering himself up like a lamb to the slaughter. Everything they’d repeatedly tried to coax from him, he finally extended.

He heard four breaths drawn simultaneously, shock and delight blooming through the dreamscape like a field of wildflowers. Numbly, he watched them—the strongest men in the world, his destined pack, dressed in sleeping clothes and staring at him. They stood in a theater crafted by Genesis, the sprawling and ornate setting brushing up against Cloud’s own influence. He himself sat in one of Nibelheim’s valley fields, grass brushing his skin and the sun hot on his neck. Wildflowers began to bloom in Genesis’s theater.

He waited for the moment they would realize who they’d been saddled with: a worthless trooper, never to be a SOLDIER. A boy so weak he couldn’t do a damned thing while most of his squad was executed in front of him. Helpless. Pathetic.

He wasn’t disappointed. The shock and delight soured almost as quickly as it had appeared, stinging his senses—a field of wildflowers, turned to rot. The grass wilted around him under the force of it. Horror crossed each of their faces as he looked up at them in exhaustion and defeat. He, too, had appeared before them exactly as he’d gone to sleep. How pathetic it must have been, to see his hands and ankles tied, stripped and bloody, his face swollen and bruised.

For a moment, he felt a surge of pity so strong that it took his breath away. These poor men. They didn’t deserve this disappointment when they’d expected someone so much better than he could ever hope to be.

“Cloud—” Zack choked out, taking one step forward. If Cloud had been even an iota less numb, he would have flinched.

“Precious,” Genesis started in nearly the same tone, and that puzzled him very briefly.

But there were more pressing matters. They didn’t have much time. Cloud let his eyes skate over the others, tasting their horror and revulsion in the back of his throat, until he met the gaze of Sephiroth.

“General Sephiroth, sir,” he rasped dully. Jade cat’s-eyes widened, head rearing back just subtly, but he couldn’t hide in the dreamscape any more than Cloud could. Sour bewilderment colored the air.

“Cloud, what—”

“I’m sure that’s not—”

Sephiroth raised a hand, his emotions settling into something like revolted anticipation. The others fell silent.

Cloud took a deep breath. “Sir. Squad Epsilon One was ambushed at 1300 hours on patrol route 9C. We’ve been taken captive by unknown hostiles with soldiers that have similar capabilities to yours. They ex—” he almost choked on his grief for a second before he forced himself to continue. The ghosts would just have to wait their turn. “They executed the alphas and betas. The omegas are being held for some kind of experiment.”

A sickly miasma of fear was starting to spread through the dreamscape. Some of it was his, he knew, but things were becoming so intense it was hard to tell where one emotion began and another ended. Maybe all of the fear was his. Why would they be so intensely afraid?

His heart felt like it was trying to shatter itself.

Numb, he continued. “They want us for some kind of ‘procedure.’ It's unclear how long we will be left untouched, but we suspect that it won’t be long.” He chuckled mirthlessly and dropped his voice and his head. “There’s…there’s nothing I can do.” Pathetic. Worthless. Well, maybe not entirely worthless—there was still a chance. Wasn’t that the entire reason he’d finally reciprocated? His friends’ lives were worth everything he could possibly give.

Cloud raised his head again, feeling as if he was dead already. “Please,” he begged, barely able to summon up a whisper as his eyes burned. “Please save them.”

Sephiroth’s voice cracked like a whip. “Where are you? Give me details.”

Cloud shut his eyes, tears spilling over. The field he sat in froze in a flash, turning to a howling winter storm. His voice still carried through the winds. “We don’t know. At most, an hour of vehicular transit time away from the center of the 9C route. Cay said it smelled like somewhere underground. I think it looks a bit like someone repurposed old construction work, but I’ve only seen the inside of one poorly-constructed cell. I—”

He lurched, eyes flying open in alarm as he felt a pull. He’d run out of time. “Please!” he said, even as he was waking up. The storm cleared, snow falling in one great downpour as he lurched. Zack snapped forward and sprinted toward him, followed by the others. Cloud realized in a flash that he’d been holding all of them at bay until this very moment. “Find them!”

He came awake with a choked gasp, breathing in the scent of dirt and fear. The man in tan was standing at the door to the cell. One of the soldiers had woken Cloud with a kick, and his stomach throbbed. Cay and Salim were both growling loudly, but there was very little they could do to protect him.

“Which one of you managed to hit my RAVEN with a fire spell?” the man asked in a strange, clinical kind of tone. When the three of them hesitated, exchanging glances, the soldier took a threatening step forward.

“I did!” Cloud blurt out, clumsily getting onto his knees.

“Cloud!” Salim hissed. Cloud hissed back at him without words, just a sharp push of air between his teeth— be quiet.

The reason for the question wasn’t left in mystery for long. “Impressive,” the man said with a chilling, polite smile directed at Cloud. “We’ll start with you, then.”

Chapter Text

They were pleasantly surprised when Cloud appeared in the Dreamscape the following night and didn’t run away immediately. Still, something was off. Wrong. Sephiroth could taste it in the quality of Cloud’s fear. It made sense that he would be afraid, but it did not make sense that his fear would be so…fatal. Something was wrong.

They heard Cloud blow out a shuddering breath. They felt his resolve. Genesis opened his mouth, walking to the edge of his theater where his influence ended and Cloud’s began, but he never got the chance to speak sweet seduction. Cloud appeared all at once, shocking them into silence and delight. He was reciprocating!

The delight did not last long. Cloud knelt, dead-eyed, in a field of tall grass, mountains at his back. Sephiroth quickly took in his bruises and cuts, the way he’d been stripped down to undershirt and boxers that were stained with dirt and blood, the way he wasn’t kneeling by choice but instead because his arms and legs were bound together in a brutal hobble. Sephiroth’s mind raced—had he been kidnapped? Hazed within the infantry? Where was he and how long would it take them to get there?

A bizarre gale of pity came from Cloud as he looked at them. Sephiroth had no time to understand it.

“Cloud—” Zack said, alarmed and anguished by the sight of his friend. He stood beside Genesis, straining against the barrier Cloud held up to keep them from venturing into his field. He would need to reciprocate trust and a willingness to approach before they could get through.

“Precious,” said Genesis, for once in his life at a loss for words.

Cloud’s dead gaze passed over Zack and Genesis before coming to a stop on Sephiroth. Despite himself, he felt every hair stand on end as he met Cloud’s eyes. He hoped he never had to see an expression like that on anyone’s face again, especially not on the face of someone he was beginning to love.

“General Sephiroth, sir,” Cloud said dully.

“Cloud, what—” Zack started.

Angeal tried to jump in at the same time, eyes wide. “I’m sure that’s not—”

Sephiroth held up a hand, silencing his packmates. He could feel the importance of letting Cloud speak unhindered like a physical weight. There would be time for arguments and gentle chastisement later.

“Sir,” Cloud continued after a deep breath. “Squad Epsilon One was ambushed at 1300 hours on patrol route 9C. We’ve been taken captive by unknown hostiles with soldiers that have similar capabilities to yours. They ex—” he choked. Genesis, Angeal, and Zack all flinched at the black grief that slammed into them. The lights in the theater flickered and dimmed. “They executed the alphas and betas. The omegas are being held for some kind of experiment.”

Cloud’s fear grew as he spoke. So did theirs, until it threatened to drown the entire dream. As much as he wished he was, Sephiroth was not immune. If anything, this terrified him more than the others. He’d spent enough time as an experiment, after all.

“They want us for some kind of ‘procedure,’” Cloud said as Sephiroth struggled to tamp down his fear. “It's unclear how long we will be left untouched, but we suspect that it won’t be long.” He chuckled mirthlessly and dropped his head. His shame and self-loathing burned through the air. “There’s…there’s nothing I can do.”

Under other circumstances, Sephiroth would have been incredulous—who would expect anyone to be able to do something under such circumstances?—but he had no time to spare for it. Cloud looked up again, his expression far worse than dead. “Please,” he rasped quietly. “Please save them.”

Them. Not me or us. But again, they had no time. “Where are you? Give me details,” Sephiroth commanded, leaning on his rank rather than his status as Cloud’s packmate.

Bleak despair slammed into them, reflected in Cloud’s physical presence as his field suddenly became consumed in a blizzard. “We don’t know,” he admitted wretchedly, voice unaffected by the screaming winds. “At most, an hour of vehicular transit time away from the center of the 9C route. Cay said it smelled like somewhere underground. I think it looks like someone repurposed old construction work, but I’ve only seen the inside of one poorly-constructed cell. I—”

He gasped, shock flaring like a supernova. Horror chased close on its heels. The snow cleared abruptly, momentum stopped dead to let it fall in a great blanket, revealing Cloud wide-eyed and terrified. At the same moment, the barrier he’d been keeping up broke, sending Zack lurching forward into Cloud’s field. Zack took the opportunity to sprint forward, and the rest of the pack followed close on his heels.

Cloud’s body flickered. “Please! Find them!” Then he was gone. Zack crashed to his knees in the space where he’d just been.

“CLOUD!”

Genesis ended the dream with the force of a slamming door, expelling them not only from the Dreamscape, but from sleep itself. Sephiroth snapped awake in his bed and lunged to the side immediately. It was good that he did, because Zack—who had crawled into his bed for the night, longing for silent comfort—scrambled up so quickly he almost tangled up in the sheets and fell over the side of the mattress.

“Let go!” Zack said, fighting his restraining arms. “I have to—”

“Stop,” Sephiroth snapped, using his command voice. Zack went still, breathing hard. “We cannot act without thinking. You must calm down.”

Zack’s outrage snapped through the air. “Calm down?” he hissed, the beginnings of a growl rumbling in his chest. “Cloud is—!”

“In mortal danger,” Sephiroth interrupted, resisting the urge to growl back. “But not a danger we can immediately remove him from. We don’t know where he is Zack. We don’t even know if this is ShinRa’s doing or not. We cannot act in haste.”

Zack stilled in his arms. “...what do you mean, if this is ShinRa’s doing?”

“It is unlikely that anyone other than Hojo managed to create supersoldiers. Not impossible, but unlikely. Cloud suspects that they were not taken far, either. If he is somewhere within ShinRa’s grasp, I promise you I will find him.” And perhaps, he thought privately, he would finally have enough of an excuse to kill his ‘father.’

Zack took a shaky breath. “But why would they kill the alphas and betas? ShinRa wanted to make them disappear, they could have made the omegas go anywhere alone.”

“A good point,” Sephiroth admitted, frowning. “It could be that they wanted no possible link back to official sources, but it could also be a completely different group doing this and simply preying on ShinRa troopers. That is what we need to find out.”

“Right.” Zack’s voice shook. “Okay. I’m calm. I’m totally calm.”

Sephiroth let him go, moving his hands up to cradle Zack’s jaw instead. He leaned in and kissed Zack soundly, trying his best to speak in a language his packmate would believe. Zack blinked, and Sephiroth smelled salt. “We will find him,” Sephiroth promised as he pulled away, leaning their foreheads together. “Cloud is smart, and strong, and he has us.”

“Yeah.” This time Zack really did sound calm. “You’re right.” He took a deep breath. “Lets go get Gen and ‘Geal so we can start making a plan.”

The tie linking Cloud’s ankle and wrist binds was cut and he was dragged from the cell between two of the dark-clad soldiers. They didn’t bother to blindfold him, but he still tried not to be too obvious about looking around. Only a few cells lined the narrow, ramshackle hallway he was dragged through, but then they emerged out into a much larger space and his breath caught.

Cages upon cages of mutated humanoid monsters lined the walls. His horror grew as he looked closer. Some of the monsters were very clearly wearing the same dark uniforms as the soldiers, either in tattered remnants or almost completely untouched in one case. When that monster turned toward them, Cloud forgot how to breathe. It wasn’t just humanoid—it was human. Or maybe it had been human, because the look in its partially-mutated face spoke only of animalistic hunger. There was no intelligence or personality left.

His horror didn’t go unnoticed. “Observant, aren’t you?” the man asked as they passed into another narrow hallway. “Yes, I haven’t quite perfected the process yet. My RAVENs all have something of a functional shelf-life before they become… unusable.”

They entered a small room and Cloud’s stomach dropped. Something that looked like a cross between a surgical table and a chair sat in the middle, and in the corner a tank full of mako glowed an eerie green-blue. Blood and fluids stained every surface. There was a drain built into the floor by the chair.

“Ah, but don’t worry. You will be my breakthrough,” said the man. He nodded to the chair and Cloud was dragged over to it. The soldiers untied his wrists. He couldn’t help but fight them as they strapped his arms down, even knowing it would get him nothing but fresh bruises. They did the same with his ankles, then one soldier left and the other took up a position in the corner of the room.

“Who are you?” Cloud snarled in a panic, pulling against the straps and praying for a miracle.

“You may call me Fuhito,” the man said, pulling things out of cabinets just out of Cloud’s sight. “If we’re both fortunate, you will call me that. These half-baked models can barely remember how to say ‘yes’ and ‘no.’” He sighed like it was all a very vexing but mild inconvenience. Somehow, that just made Cloud’s terror grow.

“You’re good with materia, aren’t you?” Fuhito asked, pushing a rolling cart over to Cloud’s side. Cloud felt his face go white when he saw syringes and scalpels. “I once heard spellcasting described as an extension of the Planet’s song. Is that true?”

“Yes,” Cloud answered, almost in a trance. His head felt light. “And whatever you’re doing sounds wrong.”

“Does it?” a delighted smile crossed Fuhito’s face. “Perhaps that’s why they fail me so badly.” He set about filling one syringe from a bottle made of dark brown glass. “There’s a scientist at your former employer. Hojo. A genius, that man, if misguided. He thinks it's the betas who are superior for genetic enhancement. Of course, I don’t have access to his methods, but I assumed it would be the same to make my RAVENs.” 

He set the syringe down and instead picked up scissors. Cloud’s heart jumped when the man brought it close to his chest, but he only cut Cloud’s undershirt off. “Not so,” he continued. “The betas did not work at all. Then I thought alphas, but they seemed to deteriorate even faster. Now I understand. You omegas were the key all along. A functional RAVEN needs to resonate with materia to resonate with the Planet. It is so obvious in hindsight.”

“What are you talking about?” Cloud asked, bewildered.

Fuhito shot him a slightly annoyed look, as if he was irritated with Cloud’s stupidity. “I’m talking about SOLDIER, obviously. They serve ShinRa’s will, but they kill the Planet in the process. What the Planet needs is its own enforcers to fight back. That is what you will be.”

Eco-terrorists, Cloud realized. He remembered several briefings on the growing threat they presented, but the name was escaping him at the moment. Something to do with mountains, he thought. “Enforcing what?” he asked, mind racing.

“Is it not obvious?” Fuhito asked, picking up the syringe again. “Humans are a plague, sapping the Planet of her energy. The disease must be killed so that she can recover in peace. Now hold still.” He grabbed Cloud’s neck and slipped the needle directly into his jugular. Cloud snarled at the sudden intrusion, baring his teeth. His fear spiked. Fuhito barely blinked.

“Oh, don’t worry,” the terrorist said, clicking his tongue. “Pain increases adverse physiological responses.” He smiled. “It’s in my best interest that you don’t feel a thing.”

Cloud was not hidden away anywhere within the official parts of ShinRa. Sephiroth stalked through all of Hojo’s domain to be certain, but he found nothing. Investigation into the unofficial parts of Hojo’s influence would have to be handled with more delicacy. Zack had been sent out to cover the 9C patrol route on a motorcycle. Genesis was searching the area away from Midgar, while Angeal was searching inside it.

Zack found humanoid monsters roaming over an area ideal for an ambush, as well as some scattered fresh remains and bits of gear. The trucks were nowhere to be seen, and the scent wasn’t fresh enough to let Zack track anything. Neither did the monsters lead him anywhere—if anything, they seemed to have been deliberately abandoned, and were already in the process of wiping each other out through infighting. It was an ideal coverup.

Angeal and Genesis didn’t find anything either as the day drew to a close. They returned home, defeated for the moment. Genesis was sent to sleep for as long as he could while the others took shifts, working throughout the night and only briefly sleeping. They prayed that Cloud would greet them again at some point during the long midnight hours, unharmed.

Fuhito had put something small in his chest, burrowed far beneath skin and muscle and bone. He could feel it, even laying semi-lucid on the table. It sang like materia, but his body seemed to warp the song. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The soldier pulled him off the table with surprising care (it’s not smart to damage your weapons) and put him in the mako tank.

The world became searing, burning, shrieking green. He didn’t understand what he was hearing. There was no hope to block it out. It resonated with the unnatural intrusion in his chest, making both louder and more discordant. If he’d had any strength left, he would have screamed his throat bloody.

When artificial unconsciousness claimed him, delivered by a cold line into his veins, it was a relief.

Cloud did not reappear in the Dreamscape.

Chapter Text

Cloud soon understood why they didn’t bother with making highly secure cells for their still-human prisoners. When he was deposited back in a cell to ‘build his strength,’ he couldn’t even sit up. It wasn’t the same cell as before, and it was quite a bit more comfortable. They’d gone as far as to throw together a nest for him, which scared him more than he wanted to admit. But—the nest was far too large for one person, which gave him some hope.

Exhausted, he drifted in and out of a doze as he lay there. It was hard to breathe around the intrusion in his chest, not because it was physically large but because he was already so attuned to the subtle song of materia and now it was literally inside him . His entire body felt wrong. Unmanageable. It occurred to him that the mako exposure likely wasn’t helping.

After an indeterminate period of time, the soldiers returned carrying Salim’s limp form between them. Cloud wasn’t ashamed to admit that a painful, relieved sob tore from his chest. Salim was deposited in the nest next to him, and he was grateful for it. He could barely drag himself the few inches it took to press up against his friend.

“S’lim,” he slurred, “you…okay?”

Salim groaned. “What…the fuck.”

A completely inappropriate laugh escaped Cloud. “Yeah.” He dragged himself up a little more so their heads could rest together. “Tell me…about it.”

“...bastard…opened my chest.”

“Yeah. Rest, man.” They could talk later, if the gods had mercy on them.

He drifted into a doze. The next time he woke up to the sounds of the cell door opening, he actually managed to raise his head and watch as they brought Cay in. He, too, was put in the nest, on Salim’s other side. Cloud huffed, frustrated that he couldn’t move enough to touch his friend and check on him. He tried to make up for it by purring loudly.

“Cloud?” Cay slurred, head lolling across the blankets.

“I’m here. Salim’s here too.” Salim grunted in confirmation. “You okay?”

“...smells awful,” Cay complained.

Cloud snorted. “Yeah.”

“What’d they… put in us?” Salim asked. He was having trouble breathing too. “I can…feel it.”

“I think it’s materia,” Cloud answered, grabbing Salim’s hand. His friend’s eyes were still closed with exhaustion, but Cloud stared up at the rough ceiling above them. “Did Fuhito give you the… evil monologue?”

“Th’ what?” Salim asked, and Cay groaned in confused agreement.

“He wants “enforcers” for the “Planet’s will” because “humanity is a plague,”” Cloud relayed, lip curling in disgust. He had to pause for a moment to catch his breath. “RAVENs, like SOLDIERs, but…to kill everything. Not protect.”

“Does he not know…he’s human…too?” Salim said.

“Motherfucker,” Cay agreed, wheezing.

“Motherfucker.” Cloud squeezed Salim’s hand, exhausted from the effort of speaking. “Just…hold on. We’ll get out of this. Promise.”

For three days, the SOLDIERs kept the situation quiet. Someone was always asleep (when they could manage it), hoping to catch Cloud. Zack and Genesis both left on short missions and were nearly incapable of focusing the entire time. Cloud only appeared once, very briefly, when Sephiroth was asleep. His presence warped in a strange way, the Dreamscape rocking and flickering like a building in an earthquake. Sephiroth was immersed in Cloud’s pain. Then Cloud woke in a snap, and Sephiroth did too.

It did not bode well.

By the fourth day, they told Lazard. Squad Epsilon One had been reported as KIA at that point. Kunsel intercepted the belongings of the squad’s three omega members and dropped them off at Zack's apartment in the hopes that the items could be returned eventually. Lazard was willing to give them some leeway and keep quiet for a little while in case the situation could be quickly resolved. They all knew he would be owed political support for taking the risk.

Four days stretched into a week. Cloud continued to appear in the dreams only briefly and at random times of day—always in pain, always profoundly and disturbingly unstable. Genesis managed to catch one of those moments and bring his magical ability to bear. He stabilized Cloud, enough to see him and even come close to touching him. Cloud was curled up with his hands braced protectively over his chest, shaking like a leaf as Genesis ran toward him. He looked up with hazy eyes, mako-bright, just before he was yanked back into consciousness.

Cloud was not well. They needed to move faster.

He could feel himself slowly losing control of his own body. With each object implanted in his body—materia shards, based on a glimpse he’d gotten before the anesthesia kicked in fully—he became a little more disconnected. Fuhito would test his reflexes, test orders, test his combat responses, and as the number of materia in him grew he found himself responding without consciously deciding to do so. He was even starting to respond without noticing he’d responded.

Time itself began to slip and slide around him. He would blink and suddenly be somewhere else entirely. He had no idea what he did in those lapses. It terrified him. He had no chance to stop it. All any of them could do was hope for rescue.

Every day, at every opportunity, he tried to enter the Dreamscape and talk to Zack. It never worked, no matter how hard he tried. He didn’t know if his connection to stable, healthy magic was being disrupted, or if he just wasn’t dreaming at all thanks to the procedure. Still, he tried to go to sleep each time with clear messages in mind for them. He hoped those could carry through, even if he didn’t.

AVALANCHE. Fuhito. SOLDIER replicas.

It could have been days or weeks. He had no idea. Pain alternated with numbness. He floated above his body, watching it move. Time skipped. He clung to his friends, and they clung back, shivering and purring. The soldiers put him in the tank of mako. Took him out of it. Put him in the cell, took him out again. Fuhito put him in a room to fight one of the monsters. He watched himself tear it apart with his bare hands.

AVALANCHE. Fuhito. SOLDIER replicas.

They put him in a uniform when he had materia shards in every part of his body. They put Cay and Salim in uniforms too. He followed Fuhito around, obeying every order without hesitation. He blinked. He was back in the mako tank. The base of his skull burned, telling him where the final piece of materia had been implanted. Cold fluid seeped into his veins. He blinked.

AVALANCHE. Fuhito. SOLDIER replicas. The slums. Under the slums.

The Planet was singing, warped through his body and up to his mind. He blinked. Fuhito smiled, tinted red by the visor.

He blinked.

Please save me.

It took twenty-three days before the SOLDIERs finally got a lead. Twenty-three days of torment. Cloud’s presence became more and more fractured as the days accumulated. Snatches of words and songs warped through his space. They tried to understand. Genesis, especially, tried so very hard. Nothing worked.

By day fourteen, they had no choice but to make the search public. The Executives were informed that their pack was missing a member, and told that he had presented during the time he’d gone missing. The Silver Elite received ‘leaked’ insider info beforehand, based on a conversation ‘overheard’ within ShinRa. The President had no choice but to give them more resources to search, and there would be consequences for that later. Lazard removed them from every mission roster but the emergency one.

Sephiroth took very careful note of how interested Hojo looked.

With more manpower, the search radius spread from Midgar outward. A dozen illegal operations were upended in the process of scouring the continent, but they didn’t find even a hint of Cloud or the other missing troopers. The sense of desperation became palpable, both waking and asleep.

“Please, Precious,” Genesis whispered into the Dreamscape, standing in the middle of raging, fragmented nothingness. It hurt to keep himself within it for too long. He couldn’t even imagine how much it hurt Cloud to exist in such a state. “Please, I want to understand. Help me understand. Help me find you.”

The storm howled, words warped and echoing, overlapping, filled with static. He smelled fire, tasted dirt on his tongue. The memory of materia in his hand surfaced, triggered by a fragment of memory from Cloud. Then another, this time of a Cure. Blood on his lips, dripping from his nose. Dread. Dread. The promise of cold from an Ice materia.

“Materia?” Genesis asked, fumbling in the dark for any straw he could grasp.

Materia. Materia. He thought he could hear Cloud’s voice very, very faintly, almost drowned out by the chaos. Genesis sunk as much of his power into the storm as he could, urging it to calm, to be cohesive, to quiet. He strained to listen.

Materia. AVALANCHE. Slums.

Words! His heart leapt into his throat. “The eco-terrorists?” He hardly dared to breathe. “You’re in the slums with eco-terrorists?”

Help me, help me, help me help me help me helpmehelpmehelp—

Genesis lost his tenuous control. The storm picked back up, screaming. Pain, and green, and cold numbness and fear. He had to retreat to his own sphere of influence, clutching his head and panting like he’d run across the continent without stopping.

“I’m coming, precious,” he told shakily Cloud, hoping beyond hope that the words got through. Even if he’d misunderstood, it was a better lead than anything they’d gotten so far. On day twenty-four, Genesis finally felt a flicker of hope. “Hold on. Just keep holding on.”

“You,” Fuhito said, turning Cloud’s head this way and that. “You’re important, aren’t you?”

“Am I?” Cloud’s body asked evenly.

“You didn’t even know, did you,” Fuhito mused, letting go of his chin. “The Planet linked you with some of the planet-killers’ top enforcers. She does seem to have a sense of irony. Perhaps she wants to test your loyalty to her.”

“Linked?”

“Your packmates. Have you been dreaming, omega?”

“There are no dreams left. Only the Planet’s voice.”

Fuhito smiled. “Good. They’ll be coming for you soon. It seems they finally caught wind of us. Ah, well. This was never meant to be a permanent base. Too risky. But their attack will be a wonderful test of your strength. Are you ready to surpass even SOLDIER?”

The tiniest tremor ran up Cloud’s spine, unnoticeable to anyone without enhanced sense. “Of course, Fuhito” Cloud said, perfectly even. “They must pay for what they’ve done.”

The SOLDIERs met surprisingly little resistance when they finally located and invaded the terrorists’ hidden base. On day twenty-five, Sephiroth, Zack, Angeal, and Genesis led the way through the cramped and winding underground tunnels, searching for Cloud. 

It was shortly clear what Cloud’s warnings had meant, and what they’d needed to steal troopers for. SOLDIER copycats in dark uniforms, along with the rare unenhanced terrorist, swarmed them and the reinforcements they’d brought along. With no idea how many were their own stolen personnel, the teams did their best to subdue rather than kill. Curiously, many of the soldiers only engaged in brief battles before they retreated, much to the shock of their unenhanced and suddenly outgunned compatriots.

Then the monsters came.

It was impossible to save the formerly-human monsters. They were too ferocious, too animalistic, clad in either the tattered remains of dark uniforms or nothing at all. “Kill them,” Sephiroth commanded, quiet enough that only the SOLDIERs could hear him. “Don’t let the Science Department get any samples.” It was a superficial comfort that none of the monsters smelled like omegas—only alphas and betas.

Zack was the one who emerged first into the largest room, clearly a warehouse for failed experiments. Empty cages lined the walls, and the air reeked of pain and fear. A man stood calmly in the middle of the room, watching them like they were a mild curiosity. Dark-haired and dressed in tan, he held his hands clasped behind his back, expectant. Zack warily slowed down at the obvious bait and held up a signal for caution.

“Planet-killers,” the man greeted, smiling a little. His eyes glittered coldly. “You’re here for the important omega, aren’t you?”

Zack snarled loudly, and he wasn’t the only one. “Where is Cloud?” he bit out, stalking forward with his packmates at his back.

The faint smile widened. “Why don’t you come find him? Come, see my genius.”

Zack lost his temper. “You’ll die for touching him!” he said, springing forward. The man was clearly unenhanced—he would hardly even see his death coming.

But Zack barely even got halfway across the room before a dark figure intercepted him, easily matching his speed. Their swords collided in an ear-splitting CLANG! and a flurry of sparks. Zack’s expression dropped when a familiar scent filled his nose, tainted as it was by mako and suffering.

“Cloud?”

Teeth bared and a quiet growl in his throat, Cloud used Zack’s hesitation to throw him back. He pressed the offensive in a flurry of SOLDIER-fast blows that Zack himself had taught him. The suite of spells he used, however, was entirely his own. Genesis sprang to Zack’s defense, pulling up an impressive ward to shield the entire pack. Cloud leapt back once his spells had failed, retreating to stand protectively in front of the terrorist without taking his eyes from them.

“Cloud?” Genesis called. “Can you hear me?”

The terrorist was outright grinning at them now, baring his teeth in triumph. “Of course he can hear you, planet-killer. I’ve done nothing to him but open his ears to her cries. He acts in her will, now.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? What did you do!” Zack snapped, eyes never leaving Cloud. His grip on his sword tightened until the leather of his glove creaked.

The terrorist sighed, annoyed. “How can someone so stupid do so much damage to the Planet?” He waved a hand dismissively. “Nevermind. I did nothing, but you don’t need to believe me. In fact, you don’t need to do much of anything at all. Your time here has ended.”

The smile returned. “My RAVENs. Send them back to the Planet.”

Chapter Text

Cloud’s body perceived the world in shades of magic: full or devoid, loud or quiet. Everything around him sang, the ground under his feet most of all. But these things in front of him, the planet-killers—they sang wrong, and the Planet remembered. She remembered the whine of interference in her song, the hiss and pop of static. She was too vast to notice such little beings, but he had her song and her memory embedded in him. He noticed.

“Send them back to the Planet,” said Fuhito.

Yes, of course. She could cleanse them, bring them back to harmony. They needed to return to her. He flicked his wrist, spinning his sword into a ready position, and called on the song to cover him in a protective barrier. He called the song again and ice crawled down the length of his blade, ready to freeze anyone it touched.

Cloud’s body stalked forward with deadly intent.

Two more of the bastardized SOLDIER copycats—the RAVENs—jumped down from above to stand by the still-unnamed terrorist as Cloud stalked toward them. The RAVENs that had retreated earlier appeared around the far perimeter of the room, but didn’t approach. The intent was clear: the terrorist ringleader wanted a direct duel between Cloud and his packmates.

They had no choice at the moment but to allow it. Sephiroth directed his SOLDIERs to form a mirrored line along the wall at the front of the room as Zack moved to meet Cloud’s approach. “Cloud, buddy,” he said, reluctantly keeping his sword up in a guard position. “You gotta listen to me.”

Cloud only bared his teeth and growled, low in his throat. He blurred forward and Zack chose to move in kind, meeting halfway. It gave the SOLDIERs behind him more room to work. Their swords clashed with a tremendous noise and a burst of freezing magic. The moves he used were familiar—after all, Zack was the one who taught him. But Zack was very, very fortunate he’d spent so much time sparring with Genesis, since he quickly discovered that Cloud was easily his peer in spellcasting, thanks at least in part to whatever the terrorists had done to him.

“Cloud, c’mon.” It was hard to keep from injuring his lost friend when Cloud was trying so ardently to kill him. Hard, yes, but not negotiable. He would let Cloud kill him before he injured him back. “C’mon, you know who I am. You gotta wake up.”

Cloud snarled at him, striking a flurry of blows that Zack easily countered. The followup combination of rapidly alternating fire and ice, however, was much trickier. He hissed as his glove caught fire, leaping back long enough to be able to pull it off with his teeth. The aftertaste of burning leather lingered across his lips.

“C’mon, Cloud! Where are your friends? Salim? Cay?” Zack tried as they clashed again. Genesis had his back, especially to protect him from the worst of Cloud’s spellwork. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Angeal and Sephiroth crept further out away from the center of the duel, followed by supporting SOLDIERs. Clearly they had no intention of playing by the rules.

The two RAVENs standing beside the terrorist ringleader darted forward, drawing their own swords and intercepting the SOLDIERs. Zack saw glimpses as he continued fighting Cloud, trying desperately to find a way to pin him down without injury. The other RAVENs were not as skilled as Cloud, but they were still powerful and no one wanted them hurt. Zack caught a snatch of their scents— omega. Relief filled him.

“We’re gonna get you all out, buddy,” he promised Cloud, narrowly dodging a Fira that would have put him on his back. “You just gotta wake up. Come on. I’m right here.”

The terrorist ringleader laughed at his words. “His allegiance is to the Planet herself, fool,” the man called scornfully through the din of battle. He was so confident in his soldiers that he hadn’t moved even a step. “What are you compared to that?”

Zack wondered that too. What was he to Cloud? Friend, mentor…threat? Someone who needed to be fled from? Someone who could be trusted with a rescue? 

He knew who Cloud was to him. Maybe Cloud just needed to know that.

Angeal took a cut across his chest in exchange for disarming one of the other RAVENs. The SOLDIER Second who was supporting him tackled the poor omega and he went down hard. Genesis cast a Silence and an overpowered Sleep. More RAVENs darted forward from the back of the room, but Angeal fended them off as the Second hastily rolled the missing trooper into a fireman’s carry and took off running.

The terrorist ringleader tsk’d at the loss, annoyed. “Move faster, omega.”

“Listen to me, Cloud,” Zack said, matching the blond’s increased speed as he obeyed. A plan formed in his head. He allowed himself to become a little more reckless, searching for a split-second opening even if it cost him some blood. “I’m here. You’re not alone. I’m not going to abandon you. Whatever you were scared of, you don’t need to be. Just follow my voice.”

Cloud didn’t falter—but his expression did, just for a split second. Zack found an opening in the same instant. He took a simple step forward, locking their blades together at the crossguards and leaving himself open. He even let go of the blade with one hand. It was suicide.

But when his bare hand touched Cloud’s face, the whole world seemed to stop, and no matter what happened…it was worth it.

“I’m here.” Despite the euphoria of a new prebond, Zack’s throat was tight as he heard Cloud gasp. “I love you.” Cloud faltered, eyes wide behind the red visor. Zack let his thumb stroke over the soft skin of his cheek. “I love you, please come back.”

Cloud’s lips parted, and Zack felt hope. Then pain flared in his arm and he was shoved back hard enough to fall on his ass. His arm was bleeding, the crimson rivulets streaking down his skin. Genesis was at his side in a flash, a hand on his back to help him up. Devastated, Zack watched Cloud stumble backward toward the terrorist ringleader, one hand pressed against his head.

“Cloud?”

Cloud gasped for air like a drowning man. He shook his head, slowly at first and then in fast jerky motions. He kept backing up until he was standing at the terrorist’s side. The man laughed, reaching out to pat Cloud’s arm like he was a favored pet.

“You poor fool,” he mocked Zack. “He follows the Planet’s will, and she wants you dead. What good is your silly declaration of affection? His allegiance is to—”

The man cut off mid-sentence, an expression of almost comical surprise crossing his face. Zack and the other SOLDIERs froze in surprise as well. Slowly, the terrorist looked down at the sword suddenly protruding from his chest. His eyes went to Cloud. So did everyone else’s.

“The Planet,” Cloud hissed, shaking and gasping for breath as he held the blade he’d driven into his tormentor’s body, “can’t have them.”

The terrorist choked, blood spilling over his lips. Cloud yanked the sword out of his body and let him fall. The man did not get up.

“Cloud?” Zack repeated as the hope that had flickered out returned in a wildfire so intense it made his head light.

Cloud did not look over at him. The sword dropped from his hand and he followed after it, knees buckling. He would have hit the ground had Sephiroth not appeared suddenly to catch him. Zack scrambled to his feet with Genesis’s help. “Cloud!”

“Subdue the rest!” Sephiroth barked, easily gathering up Cloud’s trembling body and straightening up. “Minimize injuries!”

The other omega RAVEN, stunned by Cloud’s sudden reversal of allegiance, was quickly and effectively stunned, silenced, and put to sleep. The non-omega RAVENs, however, exploded into chaos at the loss of their creator. Some attacked the SOLDIERs, some each other. Some even turned their weapons on themselves.

Zack couldn’t bring himself to care. He was at Cloud’s side in an instant, looking him over. The omega breathed in rapid, shallow gasps, spasming gently. He wasn’t okay, but he was alive.

“Hold on,” Zack told him, taking one shaking hand and squeezing it tight between his own. Snarls and clashing weapons filled the room, but he didn’t pay it any mind. The backup they’d brought would handle it. He was here for Cloud. “Just keep holding on, Cloud. We’ve got you. We’re going home.”

Cloud wasn't dreaming. Or at least, he didn’t think he was dreaming. This didn’t feel like a dream. It didn’t feel like much of anything at all. Before, everything was painful and loud. There was nothing but warped singing (screaming) all the time, and he couldn’t shut it out, not even when he slept. Now it was…quieter. It still didn’t feel like he was properly tethered to his body, but at least it sounded less like a million conflicting harmonies. There was only one song, and it was always gentle as it faded in and out.

He blinked.

Everything felt distant and floaty. If this was a dream, he would be facing the wrath of his packmates, right? He’d given in and told them the truth to save his friends. They’d seen how weak he was. There was nowhere left to hide in the dreamscape. So…if he was there, he would have been drowning in their anger and disgust, wouldn’t he? All he could feel right now were little wisps of emotion amidst the black and green nothingness. He strained to grasp them and make sense of them.

Hold on. Fear flickered. Hold on, Cloud.

Fear, and more fear, and confusion in a whirlwind of thought. I don’t understand. How did they fragment him this badly?

Disgust and self-recrimination. We should have been faster. They put materia in him, like he was some kind of living weapon!

Calm determination, tinged with fear and anger. Hold on, Cloud. We’re going to get these things out of you and then you’ll stabilize. You’re going to be okay.

It was like...warm hands, all over him, holding him together. He wasn’t sure he liked that. Before, he’d been drifting apart, drifting deeper into numbness, away from the pain and the cold and the emotions he couldn’t parse. Now he was getting warmer, but everything was coming back too.

He blinked.

Cloud could hear steady, high-pitched beeping, and there was a sharp scent that stung his nose, mixed with other, nicer scents. Or at least he thought they would be nice, if they weren’t quite so soured with fear. Everything smelled like fear and pain and...the surgical room.

He felt a surge of fear in his body, though it was distant in a way that just scared him even more. The beeping got louder and faster. He flailed in the darkness, searching for the grounded sensation of his body, but it escaped his grasp like wisps of smoke.

“Cloud?” That was Zack’s voice. He was sure of it. “Are you waking up?” He felt a hand in his hair. Part of him wanted to wake up and ask Zack what he was doing there, even though he was afraid of the answer. It seemed very strange that his friend smelled like fear instead of anger and disgust. Why was he there? Was he waiting to tell Cloud he didn’t want someone who couldn’t even make it into SOLDIER as—

Wait. Cloud had—

He remembered snarling at Zack. He remembered the force of their swords clashing. He remembered feeling Zack’s hand on his face, and then slashing Zack’s arm and pushing him away hard enough to knock him down. He’d hurt Zack. And Zack was there, waiting for him to wake up.

He didn’t want to wake up anymore.

Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to have much of a choice as he drifted in and out of awareness. Every time he neared the surface again, things seemed to be a little closer, the emotions and smells a little clearer. It confused him. He couldn’t tell if it was the waking world or dreams, and each fragment of thought quickly escaped him.

Fear was a constant no matter where he was, though that dimmed as hope gradually replaced it. Anger was peppered in as well, and he recoiled when it appeared. He was still so tired, but as full consciousness loomed closer he became more and more afraid.

He blinked.

They were so close. He was in a medical bay, the sharp smell of antiseptic mingling with their scents. He hadn’t realized how familiar they had become, but he could pick them out easily now, even in the gray-green haze of limbo. Each scent was sweet and distinct— pack, his instincts insisted. His pack was watching over him as he…

What...what was he doing? He remembered everyone dying because he was too weak to even put up a fight, and then the surgeries and the mako tank—

Panic seized him. Was he safe at all? The warped singing had stopped, so maybe… but what if he was just dreaming in the mako, imagining that the strongest men he knew had saved him and his friends? His body still hurt. It hurt more with each passing second, and suddenly he couldn’t breathe—

“Cloud? I’m here.” Lips brushed his forehead. Someone squeezed his hand. He became aware of the persistent beeping again. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

Zack? For the first time in a while, he felt his hand twitch. He wanted to open his eyes—no. No, he didn’t because Zack was there and he’d hurt Zack. He’d tried to kill him! I’m sorry Zack, I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry—

“Hey, woah, don’t cry.” A hand rested on his forehead. “It’s okay. Dunno what you’re dreaming of, but it’s okay. I love you. I’m here. We’re all here.”

Cloud blanked. Love? Why…?

More details of the disastrous fight returned to him as he struggled. Love was what Zack had said while Cloud was trying to kill him. It didn’t—nothing made sense. He didn’t understand. It scared him.

A different voice Cloud didn’t recognize spoke. “SOLDIER Fair? The doctor just approved your request. You’re free to have him discharged.”

He heard Zack blow out a relieved breath. “Oh, that’s great, thank you.” The hand left his forehead. He heard fabric rustle and then something was quickly patted across his cheeks and under his eyes. “I’ll be right back, Cloud. We’re gonna go home, okay?”

Home. Panicked and disoriented, Cloud latched onto that word. Home. Home, I want to go home. He listened to Zack stand up and leave, boots tapping across linoleum. Finally, he managed to force his heavy eyelids up. A hospital room greeted him, and the panic climbed. Home. NOW. I want to go home NOW.

I HAVE TO GET OUT NOW—!

Chapter Text

Days twenty-five through thirty were stressful for the SOLDIERs, though not as stressful as the suspense of trying to find Cloud. First they had the trouble of getting all of the rescued, experimented-on troopers back to base. The first problem was followed immediately after by the trouble of making sure no one… disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Sephiroth coordinated watches to keep an eye on as many of the troopers as they could, and especially on Cloud’s remaining friends.

Next came the stress of getting Cloud and the others the medical attention they needed. Even on the way back to base, Genesis’s scent had sparked with furious outrage when he discovered that materia shards had been surgically embedded in Cloud’s body. After extensive arguments with the doctors, he was finally allowed to assist in the procedure of getting them out— he was, after all, a magic user second to none in ShinRa, and no one was better suited than him to locating the shards.

Sephiroth was mostly occupied with fending off Hojo’s not-so-subtle advances on the rescued troopers and Cloud in particular, often by using the blunt threat of his sword to get his way. Hojo would not be touching any of the troopers under his watch. Genesis, Angeal, and Zack rotated between staying with Cloud and handling the logistics of keeping so many vulnerable people safe—and doing more mundane things necessary to live like ‘sleeping’ and ‘eating’ and ‘grooming.’

Cloud simply couldn’t be woken up, even though the surgery had gone well. The doctors hypothesized it was at least partially because of mako exposure, but they’d never seen anything like it before. Cloud’s friends, Salim and Cay, had also lapsed into coma-like states as soon as the materia had been removed. Once the doctors had admitted (been forced to admit) that the omegas were stable and didn’t require constant medical supervision, Angeal had gone to bat to get them discharged. Zack elected to stay in the room with Cloud.

Like most hospital beds, Cloud’s was wide enough for at least one packmate to comfortably provide the physical touch he needed to recover. Zack sat upright next to him, doing some supporting work for Seph on his laptop. He paused when Cloud’s heart rate and respiration picked up, announced by the monitors, and his scent curdled with fresh anxiety.

“Cloud?” The blond had been drifting closer to and further away from consciousness, but nothing seemed to be able to wake him. Unfortunately, even the coma and his heart-breakingly shattered presence in the Dreamscape didn’t seem to protect him from nightmares. “I’m here.” He leaned over to kiss Cloud’s forehead. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

He was startled when Cloud’s face contorted, lips moving like he was trying to speak. Tears leaked out from under his eyelids, running down into his hairline. “Hey, woah, don’t cry,” Zack said, resting his hand on Cloud’s forehead. He wished they had a deeper bond than just friendship twined with the beginnings of a pack bond. He might have had a better idea of what to do to soothe him. “It’s okay. Dunno what you’re dreaming of, but it’s okay. I love you. I’m here. We’re all here, I promise.”

It seemed to work a little, at least. Cloud settled back down just as his nurse walked in, a sunny smile on her face. “SOLDIER Fair?” she asked, ignoring the way he rolled his eyes at her continued use of titles. “The doctor just approved your request. You’re free to have him discharged.”

Zack perked up. Finally! They would be able to get Cloud and the others discharged and safely away from Doctor Creepy (aka Seph’s worthless father). “Oh, that’s great, thank you,” he said, setting the laptop aside and climbing from the bed. He took a second to dry Cloud’s face using a corner of the blanket. “I’ll be right back, Cloud. We’re gonna go home, okay?”

Predictably, Cloud didn’t respond.

Zack was downright cheerful by the time he finished up the paperwork and went trotting back to Cloud’s room. He’d texted Gen and Seph the good news—Angeal had won, and they would come home to Seph’s apartment that night to find Cloud safely ensconced in the guest bedroom. After so many weeks of struggle and worry, they would finally spend a night together as a complete pack.

So he was a little surprised when Angeal came barreling around the corner, face pale. Zack yelped and caught his shoulders. “Woah! Hey babe, where’s the fire?”

“Where’s Cloud?” Angeal demanded, breathless.

“Huh? In his room, why—“

“No he’s not,” Angeal said, and Zack’s stomach dropped.

“What? Where is—!”

Angeal interrupted again. “You didn’t move him?”

“No!” The discharge papers crumpled in Zack’s hand. Fresh panic set in. Had their victory been intended as a distraction to get them away long enough for Cloud to be stolen? He should have called one of his packmates and waited instead of rushing. “I left for five minutes to get him signed out!”

“Call Seph,” Angeal said urgently, briefly touching the side of his face in reassurance. “I’ll cover this floor, you search up toward Science!” He took off at a run.

Zack cursed passionately as he pulled out his PHS and hit the speed dial for Seph’s number. He gritted his teeth, controlling the fury that boiled in his blood. Hojo was going to die for this, even if Zack had to kill the creep himself.

At some point, Cloud stopped thinking and just started doing— put on clothing, cover his hair, stumble down to the garages and find a bike. Don’t look at anyone too closely. Don’t let anyone look at him. Don’t attract attention. At some point he forgot why he was doing this. Reality narrowed down to the fear that made his throat so tight and the promise of his mother’s protection when he got home.

Protection… Zack. No! Zack couldn’t be safe, even though he felt safe, because Cloud had done everything wrong —he’d rejected him, attacked him, insulted him just by existing. Zack and Angeal and Genesis and Sephiroth…they had to hate him. They had to. Nothing else would make sense.

His body hurt so much. The throbbing grew with each minute, especially once he’d gotten (stolen) a motorcycle and bullshitted his way out of the garages. He didn’t even remember what he’d said to manage it. In the very back of his mind, he noted that the mood of both SOLDIER and PubSec was…frantic. Agitated. That helped him get through unnoticed. He wondered why.

He blinked.

The wind was hot on his face as he drove at a reckless speed down the highway. The sun scorched his neck. He wasn’t the same as before. He’d been turned into something like SOLDIER, but not the same. SOLDIER hadn’t wanted him. Fuhito had commented on that, at one point. Cloud only just now remembered. His sensitivity to mako (to the Planet) was why the procedure had worked so well. Now he could drive down the highway at speed that would have killed him before.

He blinked.

He could smell the ocean, but he didn’t recognize his surroundings. This wasn’t any place he’d been stationed before—no big populated port city. At a guess, it was a tiny fishing village. Half of his gear was gone. He realized he’d torn the insignias off the too-large trooper uniform he’d stolen. Wind crept through the torn holes in the fabric, chilling his fevered skin.

Dazed, he wheeled the motorcycle down the docks, searching for a friendly face. An old man was staring at him, holding the mooring line for a medium-sized boat. It looked big enough to carry the motorcycle.

“‘Scuse me,” Cloud said, wondering at the way words just seemed to come from his mouth without any conscious direction. He smelled blood. When he glanced down at himself, he realized that the bandage (one of many) around his wrist was speckled with red. “Can you get me to the other continent?”

“...where to, son?”

“Home. Anywhere. I mean, home from anywhere. Just…need to cross.”

He blinked.

The old man was helping him lash the motorcycle to the deck. It was covered with a tarp to protect it from the ocean. He accidentally snapped a rope with his bare hands. The old man sent him to lay down inside the cabin and he obeyed, afraid to touch anything. When unconsciousness claimed him, it was a relief.

Sephiroth descended in wrath upon the Science Department. Stealing a packmate—! Even for Hojo this was too far. The President had a fanatical devotion to the concept of packs, one which Hojo decidedly did not share. Disrupting the harmony of ShinRa’s top military pack would be enough to justify Sephiroth’s revenge, even to the President.

“Where is he?” Sephiroth hissed once he had his worthless progenitor at the end of Masamune.

Hojo gave him an incredulous and offended look, but Hojo was also a shockingly good actor. Sephiroth knew that from experience. “I’m certain I have no idea what you’re talking about, you ungrateful boy!” he sneered. “Remove yourself at once! You are disrupting my operations!”

Sephiroth saw red as Hojo’s words conjured the image of Cloud, strapped helplessly to a surgical chair as part of those very operations. “Wrong answer.” Masamune moved in a neat arc—after all, neatness had been ingrained into him by the orders of this very man. Hojo’s head fell to the floor with a thud and a comically offended expression.

Seething internally but keeping it off his face, he turned to the SOLDIERs who’d accompanied him. “Tear this place apart. I want Cloud found within the hour!”

“SIR!” The group split up into small teams and swarmed out across the many levels of the Drum.

Sephiroth himself retrieved Hojo’s passkey from the corpse and stalked toward where he knew the secret projects were kept. His fury stoked hotter as he found missing SOLDIERs, missing troopers, and even some of the ‘dead’ RAVENs—but not Cloud. Had Hojo thought far enough in advance to remove him from the Tower immediately? His death had been too quick.

Sephiroth’s PHS chimed. He retrieved it and flicked it open. “I haven’t found him.”

“Yeah,” Angeal agreed grimly, “because he’s not there.”

Sephiroth paused in the middle of searching through Hojo’s incoherent experimental notes. “What?”

“We finally got the footage of the hallway. No one took Cloud, he got up and walked himself out.”

Disbelief was the first response. “He walked out? Impossible!”

“That’s what we assumed until we saw the proof. He wasn’t well, but he was stumbling around. We’re trying to follow exactly where he went.”

Sephiroth thought about Hojo’s head lying severed from his body in the central room…for a crime he hadn’t technically committed, even though they all knew he would if given the chance. Oops. He hastily left the Drum, imparting instructions for the entire place to be searched for useful and incriminating data. Unfortunately, this revelation meant he would have to build a completely separate case to the President explaining why Hojo’s death was actually a good thing.

“I killed Hojo.”

“What?”

“Nothing of value was lost,” Sephiroth declared. If Genesis could have heard, he likely would have called it defensiveness . 

“Seph,” Angeal groaned, then sighed. “I guess you’re not wrong. Anyway, we think he’s still in the building somewhere considering how hurt he is. He’s pretty clearly out of it in the footage.”

“I see. What is the last location you know of?”

“The infantry laundry room. He hasn’t yet reappeared on camera.”

“I will head in that direction.”

Angeal quickly redirected him. “No, Gen is already over there. Head for the barracks in case he turned that way.”

“Alright.” He stayed on the line as he walked, constantly scenting the air in case he might catch a whiff of Cloud’s distinctive scent. All four of them had formed prebonds with him (for his own protection) but it was entirely too early for anyone except perhaps Zack to use their link to pinpoint an exact location.

Genesis joined the call. “Is there an update? I can’t find his trail anywhere.”

“No—yes,” said Angeal. “I think. We’re still going through the footage. Someone in an infantry uniform just came out of the laundry room. If he stole it on purpose that’s…remarkably lucid of him.” He sounded worried, and Sephiroth agreed. It did not seem like a reassuring sign. “Can you speed up the footage—ah. Yes, keep going.”

Zack joined the call. “Guys I have a really bad feeling,” he said, a touch frantic. “I think Hojo took him out of Midgar.”

Sephiroth felt his stomach drop at the implications of Zack’s intuition.

“Hojo didn’t take him,” Angeal informed Zack, his voice suddenly much more grim than before. “He walked out on his own.”

“What? But he was—”

“We know, but we’re watching the footage of him walking out. He managed it somehow. Are you sure you’re not feeling him somewhere in the Tower?”

“I—uh…”

“Genesis, head toward the infantry garage,” Angeal said as Zacks stuttered uncertainly. 

“The garage?” Genesis echoed in alarm. “Is he going to hitch a ride with one of the freight trucks?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hojo is dead,” Sephiroth said, seeing fit to inform Zack before any more misunderstandings could take place.

“What?”

At nearly the same moment, Angeal drew in a sharp breath. “Oh no.”

Sephiroth stopped in his tracks. “Angeal?”

“This isn’t good. He took a motorcycle.”

Several voices clamored at once, including at least two extras at the end of Angeal’s line. One of them sounded like SOLDIER Kunsel.

“Where?!” Zack cried, cutting through the din. “I don’t understand what he’s thinking! At this rate we’re going to find him collapsed in the middle of the road! Where could he possibly want to go?”

Sephiroth was surprised to find that he knew the answer, or thought he did. “Calm, Zack,” he said, changing course yet again. They would have to quickly suit up and head out. He didn’t doubt that Cloud was fully capable of leaving the city—and perhaps the continent—unimpeded. “Think. Is it not obvious? He’s going home.”

Cloud had no idea how he got home in one piece. He really didn’t. He remembered waking up and getting the motorcycle off the boat. He remembered blinking, and then suddenly he was high in the mountains. Then he blinked again, dazed, and found himself in front of his mother’s house, close to the center of town.

Everything hurt . There were several precise, throbbing points on his body where he remembered the materia being implanted. He didn’t remember how they were removed but they must have been, since he couldn’t hear them screaming anymore. …Right? 

His head, especially, was throbbing badly. When he glanced down at his arm, he realized that the slight speckling of blood he remembered from earlier had turned to a full-on crimson bloom.

The world wobbled as he unsteadily mounted the steps up onto the porch, leaving the motorcycle in the street behind him. One of his knees almost gave out, but he made it to the front door using sheer stubborn willpower. He had to lean hard into the frame as he knocked on the door. Even the very faint hint of his mother he could smell almost had him in tears.

Ma opened the door. His eyes burned. Her expression turned from surprise to delight to horror. He didn’t blame her.

There was a heavy lump in his throat. “Ma.” He tried to stand up, tried to be a son she could be proud of, but he couldn’t manage it. “You s-s-said...you said I could...always come home and we’d be pack.” She’d promised. She’d promised and he needed her to say that he could just come home and stay and never move and never think again. He couldn’t bear anything else.

His head felt light and heavy and hot and cold all at the same time. “Ma.” He blinked. Suddenly he was on the floor and Ma was holding him. Everything hurt. He was crying, but he couldn’t help it. “Mama. I can’t— I can’t—”

Her arms were so tight around him. Her skin was so warm. “Baby,” she breathed, “what did they do to you?”

So much, mama, he thought as the darkness rose up to claim him again. He welcomed it. His mother had him. He would be alright. Oh mama, they did so much I’m surprised you recognized me.

I know I don’t.

Chapter Text

The light outside had faded to the warm tones of sunset when there was a second knock on the door. A slow, deep frown crossed Claudia’s face at the noise. Her eyes narrowed slightly. Cloud stayed in his fitful sleep safe in her nest, burning with fever. She ran her fingers through his hair one more time before standing to go answer the door.

She thought very little would surprise her, after Cloud’s unexpected return, but she was wrong. When she opened the front door, Shinra’s great hero, Sephiroth, and three other SOLDIERs stood on her porch like a pack of nervous chocobos. She raised her eyebrows at the General, but he wasn’t the one who stepped forward and spoke. Instead, a younger dark-haired alpha led the way.

“Hi, Mrs. Strife?” he asked, a nervous edge to his mako-sharp scent.

Her eyes narrowed again, just a little. “That’s me. What do you boys want at this hour?” she asked coolly. Under other circumstances they would have gotten a far warmer welcome, but she had a sick child to protect and no assurance that ShinRa hadn’t done this to him.

The boy thrust out a hand, smiling awkwardly. “I’m Zack, hi. I’m uh, friends with Cloud? I don’t...know if he’s ever mentioned me? He was always writing letters to you…”

Claudia softened a little, clasping the boy’s forearm. “So you’re Zack. Yes, he mentioned you.” He had mentioned Zack in almost every letter home. And then he had, distinctly and suddenly, stopped mentioning Zack. She allowed suspicion to simmer in the back of her mind. 

Zack’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Good, good, we...um…” he looked down. Claudia could feel her hackles slowly rising. She looked at the other three, assessing them. They seemed worried and confused, neither of which soothed her in the slightest.

“There’s...kind of no easy way to say this, and I doubt he told you, but...we’re his pack, ma’am,” Zack said, sheepish. “And he—I mean. Is Cloud here? We’re looking for—” He cut off abruptly, rearing back in shock hostility burst between them like a shotgun shell, Claudia’s scent all but burning with it.

Frost-cold magic radiated from her materia pendant as she summoned her mana. Her shotgun was out and leveled at them in a blink, ice crawling slowly up the barrel as she seethed, too angry for words. If they couldn’t smell her intent, then they were hopelessly scent-blind and she’d put them out of their misery.

“Wait, wait!” Zack cried, hands up as he backed away a respectful distance, crowding his packmates onto the street behind him. They were starting to draw attention from the neighbors, but Claudia welcomed it. Let Shinra see what Nibelheim thought of packmates who hurt their own. “We just want to make sure he’s okay! I mean, he’s the one who didn’t reciprocate until his life was in danger, we know he doesn’t want us, but he’s still—he’s—I, just, please? Is he okay? He was still in a coma when medical finally discharged him, he wasn’t supposed to run away and cross continents!”

Zack obviously babbled when he was anxious. Claudia welcomed it. His words gave her far more context than Cloud had been able to—or, likely, would be willing to. Clearly, she was missing several key pieces of the puzzle here.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to scare the whelps off.

“Go,” she said evenly. “I’ll not be trading any more words with you today. Go on, get, before I show you just how good a shot I am.”

“But—” said Zack. He shut his mouth with a click when Sephiroth set a hand on his shoulder.

“Of course, ma’am,” the silver-haired man said. She knew full damn well they could all smell Cloud from there, what with how long the door had been open for her to stand in. They’d likely also investigated the motorcycle sitting up against the porch railing before they’d even knocked. “We won’t trouble you any longer.”

“Good.” She stepped back and slammed the door, taking a long moment to center herself and let the protective fury fade. Her shotgun was covered in a thick layer of frosty crystals. She absentmindedly called the ice back before setting the gun in its place.

Cloud was awake when she turned, cheeks bright with fever heat and smelling like a cornered animal. “Ma,” he whispered, voice rasping.

She crossed the room and forced him to lay back down. “Stormcloud,” she said, gentle but stern, “I think you’ve got some explaining to do.”

But of course, no explanations came that night. Cloud was ill and exhausted to the point of incoherence. His fever was high enough that she doubted he was even fully lucid. She got some fever-reducers down his throat, along with some juice, changed his bandages again, and curled up around him as he slept.

Claudia was no fool. She knew what surgical scars looked like, and she knew that the unnatural light in her baby’s eyes was close to— but not exactly the same as—the light in the SOLDIERs’ eyes. She also knew her boy was maddeningly secretive, and though it broke her heart and she didn’t understand, he certainly had the force of will necessary to hide away from his packmates and only reciprocate when forced. That was the Strife stubbornness he’d inherited.

Clearly, something had gone seriously wrong in that grand city Cloud had dreamed of so much. She didn’t know what had happened, but it must have been bad. An accident? An attack? Likely not anything those four boys had done directly, or she would have gone to hunt them down with her materia and her shotgun right then. She wanted— demanded— answers, but she knew they would be back eventually. There was no need to leave Cloud's side at all.

Claudia was dead on. Zack came knocking again the next morning, shoulders rounded and head down in submission, like a wolf pup with his tail tucked between his legs. He came alone. Claudia let it be a point in his favor, although she still greeted him with rifle in hand.

“What,” she asked, hard but quiet. The medicine had finally allowed Cloud to fall into a deeper sleep than the fitful tossing and turning he’d endured all night. She wanted it to stay that way.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I know I’m not a welcome sight right now, but I—but you have to understand, Cloud is really sick.” He rubbed the back of his head, pain in his eyes even as he looked to the side. “It’s…it’s crazy that he even managed to get here, we thought we were gonna find him collapsed in the middle of the road.”

Claudia felt worry settle deep in her gut. That bad? Likely, worse. Had there been no extra visitors, she would already have borrowed a truck to haul him over the mountains to the nearest hospital. Now she wasn’t sure she trusted anyone at all.

Zack was still talking. “And—I’m sorry, I just…can I please check on him? Please? Or just, just tell me he’s okay, and…if you want us to go, we’ll go.” The smell of defeat was so strong that Claudia simply couldn’t doubt the sincerity of his promise. “I just need to know he’s okay.” Despite the height difference, the boy somehow managed to seem like he was looking up at her with big, pleading blue eyes.

This one loved her son, deeply and honestly. She was sure of it. And while she still wasn’t convinced that the pack hadn’t harmed her Cloud in some way, she believed that Zack, at least, was pure in his intentions.

She stepped back and held the door open. “Do anything stupid and I shoot you.”

He looked a little scared, which was gratifying, though she knew it wasn’t likely to be because he feared her shotgun as much as her ability to keep him from ever seeing Cloud again. “Yes ma’am.” He slipped inside, his movements stuttering a little when he finally got a glimpse of Cloud laying curled up in her nest, bandages peeking out from beneath patchwork blankets. 

Claudia shut the door and swept past him, perching on the edge of the bed with her rifle across her lap and watching Zack closely. The young man seemed to forget she was there as he closed the last of the distance and sank to his knees. He closed his eyes and breathed in deep, scenting the air. A worried frown crossed his face.

“Um—” he looked at her hesitantly and gestured to Cloud. “Is it alright if I check on the incisions?”

So, she’d been right. “You may, if you tell me how he got them in the first place. And don’t bullshit me. I’m omega enough to have figured out how wrong they are.”

She thought she saw a glimpse of the Zack who was hidden beneath worry and grief as he flashed her a fleeting smile. “So that’s where Cloud got all that talent from, huh?” He started peeling back the blankets, being careful not to let the cool air disturb Cloud too much. The first incision he checked was the one at the base of her baby’s skull. It was still oozing blood and clear fluid, the skin around it an angry, hot red. Her Cure hadn’t done a thing to close it.

“Well, it’s…” Zack hesitated a little. “It’s complicated. Cloud was…kidnapped by some terrorists a month ago. His whole squad was killed in front of him, except for the other two omegas. We’re…pretty sure that was deliberate.”

Claudia’s stomach dropped, struck by sheer horror. She’d known her baby went off to be a soldier, of course. He’d gone off to learn the burden of war and death, whether he truly understood that or not. But this— there were few horrors that could match it, and she could tell from Zack’s voice that the story wasn’t over.

“He, um. Well, he presented before that, but he—I guess he didn’t want us to know who he was, so he didn’t reciprocate anything in the Dreamscape.” With equal care, Zack looked at the bandages that ran up and down Cloud’s arms. He continued speaking. “We figured it out pretty quick though, but we didn’t want to push it because we didn’t know why he was hiding. Then, um…”

Zack paused as he became audibly choked up. Claudia appreciated the way he tried to keep his scent from becoming too thick with distress, lest it wake Cloud. “Um. When he finally did reciprocate it was to…to tell us he’d been captured and…that he wanted us to save his friends. I think he thought—” The young man stopped again, blinking rapidly. He touched Cloud’s arm like he was afraid he would vanish. “He thought we would hate him. Enough to—to leave him to die.”

Zack’s voice broke fully. The poor boy had to stop, burying his face in the blankets that smelled of her and Cloud. Perhaps this was the first time he’d said his suspicions aloud. Claudia understood. It made her want to weep, imagining Cloud thinking such things about himself and his friends. She was going to have a very long talk with him indeed once he woke up.

But it wasn’t her place to speak on the matter, not yet. She set one hand on Cloud’s head and waited patiently for Zack to gather himself.

“I don’t know what I could have done better,” Zack mumbled wretchedly into the sheets. “I didn’t want to scare him off but we could have found him faster if I’d just touched him once.” He shuddered, stifling a brokenhearted noise. After a moment he managed to continue the story.

“The—the terrorists,” Zack said unsteadily, raising his head and resuming his careful examination as if nothing had happened and his eyes weren’t rimmed in red. “They experimented on him, tried to turn him into something like SOLDIER but…not. They implanted materia shards and soaked him in mako.”

Claudia couldn’t hold in her horrified gasp. No wonder the wounds felt so wrong and wouldn’t respond to magic-based healing. “Why?” she asked, bewildered. Why would anyone do something so horrific?

Zack finally looked at her again, strangely apologetic. “The terrorist leader, he…he said something about us being Planet-killers, and about Cloud obeying the ‘will of the Planet.’ I think he wanted Cloud to kill all of us. And…we did have to fight for a little bit.” When she blanched dramatically, he hastened to add, “But it’s okay, I formed a prebond with Cloud and it woke him up and he killed the terrorist himself! He was—he was so strong, Mrs. Strife. You should be proud of him.”

“Of course he’s strong,” Claudia said immediately. She knew how strong her Cloud was. “But you had to fight your own packmate! He was almost forced to kill you!” Cloud shifted uneasily, groaning low in his throat, and she had to quickly quiet her scent and voice. “That’s…a nightmare beyond imagining.”

Zack paused, fiddling with the frayed edge of a blanket. “Um…Mrs. Strife, did—did you ever have to fight your packmates? Or watch them fight each other?”

She blinked at him, startled. “Goodness, no! What would make you think such a thing?”

“Oh, well,” Zack said, flushing a little. “I just thought maybe…that might be why Cloud didn’t want a pack?”

She frowned thoughtfully. “Well, it’s true Cloud and I were on our own, but I never told him any specifics. I didn’t want him to think my misfortune was the rule. I have no idea why he decided to…do that.”

Zack was quiet as he tenderly covered Cloud’s torso and moved on to checking the bandages on his legs. Finally, he said, “Well…if you never talked about it, then what did he assume?”

Claudia’s stomach dropped. “Oh.” What had Cloud assumed? He’d never said or done anything to make her think he would reject his pack, but he was a very quiet boy. If he thought it would hurt her, he would have taken that secret to his grave.

“Maybe you should talk to him?” Zack suggested almost shyly, finishing up his examination by putting a hand to Cloud’s forehead and testing his temperature.

“Yes. I think you’re right.” Claudia sighed heavily. “Well, what are your conclusions, young man? I’m not sure I would trust a hospital with him—or him with a hospital, all things considered. “

“He came here because he feels safe with you,” Zack said, head ducking a little. “He’s not okay, but…it wouldn’t help him to be trapped with people he’s scared of.”

“Zack…”

“We’ll bring some medicine and stuff,” Zack said roughly, swiping at his eyes. “It’ll be okay. Can we—can we maybe stop by and help while he’s asleep?”

Claudia considered this earnest young man, and she considered her poor, injured baby, whose thoughts she couldn’t even begin to guess at. “Of course Zack. I’ll get this sorted out, one way or another.”

Chapter Text

Genesis slept. There wasn’t anything else he could do, so he slept, spending yet another night desperately trying to piece Cloud back together. The pack had so much hope now that Cloud had woken from the coma, especially if he hadn’t lapsed back into it once he’d reached Nibelheim. Ideally, Genesis would have been sleeping curled up around him—but of course Mrs. Strife was fully prepared to shoot them on sight, so all Genesis could do was hope he was alright.

So Genesis slept even when the others were awake and working, and he woke into the Dreamscape. Relief made his eyes prickle hotly as he found himself standing in his own domain and looking out into a field of wildflowers covered by dense fog. This was a vast improvement from the fragmented, howling, mind-bending nothingness that had tormented them for weeks.

“Alright,” he whispered, gently touching a hand to the fog. It didn’t lift, even when he tried to coax it away. “Where are you, Precious? May I come find you, please?”

Cloud did not refuse him entrance, although he wasn’t exactly coherent enough at the moment to realize there was someone to refuse. Genesis stepped into the mist, shivering as it swallowed him whole. Cloud’s emotions were still fragmented and warped, coming and going like eddies in the fog: here, a flash of confusion; there, a flash of terror.

“Come now,” Genesis murmured, searching for any defining points in the endless gray, “where is your center? Where are you?”

Genesis almost tripped over the little blond child who appeared in front of him, haloed in golden light. He stumbled to a stop and quickly backed up, eyes wide at the unexpected apparition. It was obviously Cloud, staring up at him with alarmingly blank eyes. One of his arms was raised like he was holding onto the hand of an invisible adult and the ground beneath his feet was cobblestone, flickering like an illusion between itself and the grass of the meadow.

“Cloud?” Genesis asked, hesitating for a moment before he knelt to be at a more even height. But the apparition’s eyes did not move. A feeling of distinct emptiness— the emptiness of a painful realization—came from the child. Confused, Genesis looked over his shoulder and startled badly when he saw the figure of a man standing less than an inch behind him. The dark-haired figure looked vaguely familiar, like a person Genesis had seen exactly once before. 

“Who—!” he gasped.

The man vanished. When Genesis turned around, Cloud was gone too, a forlorn curl of loss the only thing left in his wake. “...alright,” Genesis said slowly, standing upright. “That…wasn’t your core, right Precious? Not all of it, at least. It certainly wasn’t you.”

He paused to listen but there was no answer, so he huffed and continued walking. This time he tried a slightly different strategy and turned in any direction where he could sense a fleeting brush of loneliness or despair. “Let me find you, please. I just want to help.”

Another figure appeared in front of him, but he was better prepared this time and stopped quickly. The apparition was similar—haloed in light, standing on a patch of terrain different from the field, eyes alarmingly blank. This Cloud seemed to be perhaps five or six, dressed in warm nightclothes and holding a tattered stuffed toy. Genesis observed him for a long moment, even waved a hand before his eyes, but the apparition didn’t react. 

Hollow, tired sadness radiated from the child. It was distressing how old he felt. When Genesis turned around to see the (assumed) cause, it was a dark-haired woman, not the man from before. Unlike the man or either of Cloud’s younger selves, she was moving, a pained expression on her face as she rushed to leave. She did not look familiar.

When Genesis turned back, Cloud’s second apparition was gone, leaving just a fading impression of resignation. Genesis inhaled deeply and exhaled. “Well,” he said to the mist. “That was important, was it not? But still, not your core. Not you. Was it a moment that defined you, Precious?”

He got something that felt almost like a response: a shiver of uneasiness. The mist darkened, growing colder. Genesis clicked his tongue and continued walking.

“It must be frightening,” he said when no new apparitions appeared for a little while. Perhaps they were prompted by his voice. “To be like this. To…accept help. I understand the impulse to refuse, Precious, but I won’t think any less of you for it. Please let me help.”

This time something entirely different happened. Raw shame slammed into him, peppered with hot anger and physical pain. He flinched. The fog vanished, a different scene flashing into existence under his feet. Another apparition appeared, this time of a preteen Cloud. Unlike the other two, this one staggered into Genesis with shockingly real weight, pushed forward by the dark-hair man from before. Genesis caught the younger Cloud automatically and held him steady.

“This—!” the man hissed, glaring directly into Genesis’s eyes. His mouth was twisted in fury. He held an injured little girl in his arms. “None of this would have happened if you weren’t—weren’t…you!”

A voice that distinctly belonged to Mrs. Strife came from the same general area where Genesis was standing, but when he turned no one was there. He quickly realized that he was standing in for Claudia in this memory. “Don’t you dare blame—!”

“This is all your fault!” Brian snapped back. His eyes briefly went to Cloud, burning with anger and bright with unshed tears, before they returned to Genesis. “Both of you stay away from Tifa, do you hear me! Better yet, leave! I never want to see you again!”

Pain cracked through the Dreamscape like lightning. The scene shuddered, then fractured like glass. Genesis’s hand jerked as the weight he’d been supporting vanished. But Cloud’s pain didn’t vanish—it only deepened, howling like a storm, until suddenly it hardened into an unspoken, amorphous determination.

“Cloud?” Genesis was puzzled by the determination, lacking the context needed to understand it and reeling from the high intensity of the memory. He received no response. Cloud’s determination ebbed like the tide, leaving howling loneliness in his wake.

Genesis exhaled slowly. “Oh my friend, do you fly away now? I think I understand. These are moments that shaped you, are they not? Bits and pieces of your core…but not all of it. Please, where are you? I won’t hurt you.”

The howling loneliness intensified, joined by protective, almost animalistic fear. The fog darkened until Genesis was lost in a black void, pierced through by the cold. He shivered violently, calling fire up under his skin. When he tried to call it outward to his hands, to offer some to Cloud, it was extinguished. The unspoken refusal wounded Genesis to a degree that surprised him. He wasn’t usually the one whose heart ached to see a friend in pain. Perhaps it was just different when standing in the middle of that friend’s shattered mind.

Or, perhaps, it was just different because it was Cloud.

“Cloud,” he whispered, searching through the endless black despair. “Please, darling, I love you. Not as much as Zack, not yet, but I do. Let me help. Where are you?”

For a moment, nothing seemed to change. Then the darkness lightened, slowly, revealing Cloud’s mountain meadow in all its breathtaking glory. The fog was gone. Cloud—or a part of Cloud—stood perhaps a dozen yards away from him, staring in his direction. He was hunched, clutching his own arms. Occasionally his form would flicker, revealing one of the younger apparitions Genesis had seen earlier. The fear and loneliness had not in any way lessened.

“Cloud—” Genesis stepped forward, but a flash of black in the corner of his eye caused him to turn. Zack, Sephiroth, and Angeal stood in a line. When Genesis backed away a little more he realized he’d been standing in the shoes of his own copy. The four of them flickered like Cloud, but only in their expressions—neutrality (or a smile, in Zack’s case) to hate and back again.

Genesis decided he didn’t much care to see that expression on his own face. Not when it was directed at Cloud. He exhaled sharply and turned, closing the distance between himself and his last packmate.

“No,” he said, blocking the sight of those false apparitions with his body and taking hold of Cloud’s shoulders. He thought he understood what this meant, at least a little. “No, Precious. The fear you feel may be at your core, but it is not you. I promise, it is not you. Please. Show me where you are.”

It almost seemed like the entire Dreamscape paused in anticipation—a breath, drawn in and held. The apparition beneath his hands vanished like smoke. The fear became distant, though no less potent. All was still. Genesis stood alone in a mountain meadow.

By some instinct or intuition, he didn’t speak. Instead, he turned in the direction of the radiant fear and found, as he did so, that the meadow was gone. Now he stood in the humble interior of the Strife home, enveloped in the scent of the Strife pack. Cloud sat on a rug in front of the fire, dressed in a full infantry uniform. Blood stained the dark fabric in the same places where he was injured in the waking world. It was almost the real Cloud, but not quite. He should have been identical to himself in the waking world.

This almost-Cloud rocked back and forth in place, hunched protectively over a small figure that was nearly hidden by his arms and drawn-up legs. As Genesis very carefully moved closer, a little pair of blue eyes peeked out at him—Cloud as a toddler, even younger than the first apparition Genesis had seen. But this was different: the younger Cloud’s expression lit up when he saw him, and he wormed his little arms from the protective embrace of his older self to reach eagerly for Genesis.

“Alright,” Genesis murmured, baffled. “Hello, Precious.” The older Cloud didn’t react to his presence as he slowly knelt on the rug beside him. The blond’s grip on his younger self remained both protective and unbreakable. It was only when Genesis reached out to allow the little one’s eager hand to grasp his fingers that the older one finally reacted, flinching and bundling his toddler self closer.

Away from danger.

“Oh.” Genesis took a deep breath as he finally understood what he was seeing. It hurt, in an odd way. Perhaps it struck a little too close to home in his own heart, nevermind how much it hurt just to see a dear one suffer like this.

“Cloud.” He reached out, hesitantly setting one hand on the elder Cloud’s head. Cloud didn’t react to it. Genesis suspected that he wouldn’t have responded to even a full-force blow, except to curl up tighter around what he was trying so desperately to protect. He had such a self-sacrificial streak, this man. “It’s alright,” Genesis said. “You don’t have to protect him anymore. I’m here. I’ll keep him safe.”

The older Cloud frantically shook his head while the younger squirmed, still eagerly attempting to reach Genesis.

“Aren’t you tired?” Genesis asked sadly, carding his fingers through Cloud’s hair. “You’ve been protecting him for so long.”

That got another frantic shake of the head, and the anxious rocking picked up speed. A flash of motion caught Genesis’s eye. He raised his head to see figures flickering in and out of sight around the room—Cloud’s mother, with her back turned. The dark-haired man and woman, one glaring and one distraught. A dark-haired girl with no expression at all. Genesis himself, and his packmates, faces twisted with hate. He thought he even made out a few of Cloud’s squadmates, laying dead or dying on the floor.

“Isn’t this too much to bear alone?” Genesis asked, throat tight. He shifted up off his heels, kneeling to shelter both Clouds with his own body with a hug. “You know it is. I came all this way to find you, Precious. And you let me in, remember?”

Cloud had stopped rocking in place as soon as Genesis embraced him. Instead, fine tremors ran through his body. Intense fear stung Genesis’s nose, but he could smell desperate longing and exhaustion too. He hugged tighter, trying to communicate his promise through the strength of his grip.

“I’m here. I have you. Both of you. And I’ll protect him, Cloud, I promise.” The little Cloud was still making eager, happy noises, and his hands gripped clumsy fistfuls of Genesis’s sleeping shirt. How could he not protect this precious, hidden part of Cloud, who was so willing to trust him? “I love you,” he tried, almost pleading. “Give me the chance to prove it. Give me the chance to love you so much more.”

The longing intensified, but it still wasn’t enough. Genesis desperately tried to think. If he couldn’t make progress now, there was no guarantee Cloud would let him get this close again. What would get through to the deepest, most emotionally-driven parts of a prideful young man like Cloud? He really didn’t know his newest packmate enough to know, but he had to try anyway. 

“I—“ he stumbled, for once in his life uncertain of the words he spoke. “I wonder if I could have protected myself even half as long as you have, all alone. You are…incredibly strong, Cloud.” 

Genesis felt something shift, just a little, at his words—some emotion he couldn’t name. The fear subsided slightly. Hope rose in his chest and he eagerly continued. “You are! And I know…you must think we—you must think SOLDIERs are stronger than you, but that’s just not true. Our strength comes not from ourselves, but from having each other’s backs. It comes from trading watch, from asking for help, from sharing our troubles.”

It wasn't his imagination that the room was growing warmer around them. When he glanced up, most of the flickering shades were gone, leaving only Cloud’s mother, the dark-haired girl, and Cloud’s two living squadmates. All of them were looking at Cloud with soft and encouraging expressions.

Genesis hardly dared to breathe lest he ruin his progress, but he had to keep speaking. “Share my strength,” he said. “Trust me, just for a little while. I will protect him so you can rest.” Please, he silently prayed. I don't know how else to help you. If only Zack were there! He wouldn’t have been fumbling foolishly in the dark like Genesis.

Cloud took a shuddering breath. Slowly, his arms relaxed. Almost disbelieving, Genesis sat back on his heels, still holding Cloud’s shoulders. The younger Cloud squirmed free with a delighted squeal, scrambling over to latch fully onto Genesis.

“Thank you,” Genesis choked out. Cloud was obviously still afraid, but he was willing to trust despite it, even though it was Genesis and not Zack. Perhaps there was hope for their pack after all.

He cradled the child with one hand and shifted, using his other to pull the elder Cloud’s head to rest against his shoulder. “I have you. Rest, Precious.”

The feeling of the dream shifted, fragmented pieces pulling themselves at least into alignment if not into a full and cohesive unit. The small, trusting aspect of Cloud dissolved away, melding into the larger whole. The Strife home faded, revealing the mountain meadow again, and when Genesis glanced down at the head against his shoulder it was the real Cloud, as he appeared in the waking world: bandaged, dressed in sleeping clothes, a fever blush to his cheeks.

“There you are,” Genesis said, unable to summon up any shame as relieved tears spilled over. After weeks of worry and struggle, Cloud really was going to be alright. He was here—whole, if not healed. Genesis sniffled, quickly dashing away his tears with his wrist before he shamelessly bundled Cloud into his lap. If Cloud wanted to wake up and protest, he would welcome it. He was unable to resist kissing the blond’s forehead, at least once.

Genesis wasn’t sure how long he sat there, just holding Cloud. He only looked up when he felt someone join the dream, appearing beside them. It was Angeal, and his expression went from worried to relieved as soon as he saw Cloud.

“I didn’t want to wake you up,” he said quietly, sinking down to his knees and reaching out to cup the side of Cloud’s face. “But you were taking so long. It’s almost noon.”

Genesis laughed a little, blinking back fresh tears. “Well, it took some doing, but you can see why. He shouldn’t be quite so unresponsive, but at least he’s whole.”

As if prompted by Genesis’s statement, Cloud’s expression scrunched up and he shifted weakly, a quiet grunt in the back of his throat. 

Angeal carefully patted the side of his face. “Cloud?”

“Mmh.” Blond eyelashes fluttered, but he was so obviously exhausted that he couldn’t get his eyes more than half open. He looked blearily up at them, vague confusion surrounding him like a cloud. “Who…?”

“Oh, only the best to keep watch over you, Cloud,” Genesis said with amusement. “There’s Angeal, and I of course am Genesis. Remember?”

But the confusion did not clear, and Cloud did not become any more cogent. Instead, his brow furrowed slightly. “Who…?”

Genesis exchanged a glance with Angeal, trying not to be too worried. It was miraculous that Cloud was even able to be confused. He would recover in time. Genesis opened his mouth to repeat himself, but Angeal quickly shook his head.

“Don’t worry about it, Cloud,” Angeal said quietly, stroking a thumb across his cheek. “We’re just people who love you, and we've got your back. You can rest."

Chapter Text

Cloud was…confused. When he woke up, he didn’t remember where he was, or how he’d gotten there. All he felt was a vague, lingering uneasiness, but it quickly faded when he breathed in and the unmistakable smell of home filled his lungs. He was home with Ma. He was safe. There was nothing to worry about—not the distant haze of drugs, and not the far more distant warning of pain beneath it. Ma would protect him.

He went back to sleep.

Claudia sat on the bed next to her baby and narrowed her eyes at the four boys sitting and standing awkwardly around her kitchen table. They were allowed inside since Cloud was still dead to the world with no sign of waking—and because they’d brought enough medicine and supplies to make her sturdy old table groan under the weight. They were still on thin ice with her, but she was willing to talk.

The four of them mostly seemed to be grateful that she only had her rifle within arm’s reach instead of actively pointed at them.

“Alright,” Claudia said. “So Cloud’s your packmate, and he’s been acting…” She searched for the right word. “...Avoidant. Not everyone would work this hard to win over a packmate who doesn’t seem to want them. In fact, I think most people would just file the paperwork and be done with it.” She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes. “So. Why didn’t you?”

The boys exchanged nervous looks and seemed to universally decide that Zack should be the one to answer. “How could we give up on him like that?” Zack asked, a little helplessly. “It wasn’t like—I mean, he didn’t…he didn’t run away from us. He just…seemed…scared.” Zack winced at his fumbling explanation.

Claudia hummed. “Well, he did run away,” she pointed out, curious to see how they would answer.

“Yeah,” Zack agreed shakily. His redheaded packmate reached over and took his hand, trying to comfort him. Claudia took keen note of it. “But he—he tried not to. He tried to hide it so he could keep hanging out with me. He didn’t run away until now, when we finally…knew. I don’t want to give up on Cloud, Ma’am. Not unless he wakes up and tells me right to my face that he never wants to see me again.”

That was a good response. She liked it. But it wasn’t time to let them out of the hot seat yet, and her eyes fell to where Zack’s hand was joined with his packmate’s. She hadn’t missed the subtle nature of their interactions—not that they were trying to be subtle, but simply that there was no reason to be overtly romantic.

“Mhm. And what, exactly, are you all expecting from him, Zack Fair? Another pairbond?” she asked pointedly.

“No!” Zack blurt out, flushing, and was hastily echoed by his packmates. “No, no I would never expect— I mean, Cloud might not want…”

Angeal Hewley quickly jumped in to save his floundering packmate. “We would never force him into any kind of romance,” he said firmly. “Yes, the four of us all share pairbonds, but we don’t automatically expect Cloud to.” He paused and then coughed discreetly. “That being said, it’s uh—it isn’t exactly a secret that your son has…crushes on Zack and Genesis, at least.”

Claudia’s attention didn’t shift away from Zack. “His feelings might have changed after all of this. Are you sure you’re not expecting something that just isn’t there anymore?”

Zack looked down at his lap. “I know,” he said softly. “And, if he doesn’t want me as his friend anymore…okay.” He raised his head and met Claudia’s eyes again, fierce hope and determination on his face. “But I won’t give up on him that easily.” The other three nodded as well, their own expressions similar.

Good boys. Claudia let herself soften toward them. “Alright,” she said, turning her attention to Cloud for a moment. His temperature was still high. She brushed his bangs away from his face. “You can stay. But you’ll have to find your own place to sleep. I’m afraid my poor house just isn’t big enough.”

The next time Cloud woke up, he was confused in a different way. The lingering fragments of a dream chased after him, leaving impressions of soft words and familiar, worried eyes. It struck him as wrong in some way, but then he dragged his heavy eyelids up and lost his train of thought.

The familiar worn, handmade blankets and pillows of his mother’s bed stretched beyond his nose in an appealing, nest-shaped curve. He realized he was curled up and tucked in just like he had been so many times before, either during his own heat or a bout of the flu when he was miserable and wanted comfort.

Good. He let his eyes close again. They were heavy, and he felt cold. He wanted more blankets—or, better yet, the comforting weight of his mother curled up around him. Or Zack. Zack made a wonderful soothing weight, and he was always warm. Cloud would even be happy if Salim or Dev were—

Salim and Dev.

His eyes flew open as adrenaline surged. He tried to struggle upright, gasping. Everything was dulled and hazy. He had to help Salim! And Dev was—

Dev was—

“Cloud!”

He managed to get his unbearably heavy head to turn and saw Ma rushing over, hastily setting down a tray before she reached for him. There was a flash of someone else ducking out of sight, and he saw it but it didn’t truly register. All that mattered was Ma. He tried to reach for her, but that was too much and he collapsed onto his side. His vision swam as his eyes burned.

“Ma,” he croaked. Everything felt bad and confusing, but one thought pounded through him like the staccato beat of a drum. “They’re dead.” It came out so strangled he wondered if she even understood.

“Shh, my baby,” Ma said, gently but firmly maneuvering him into a comfortable position and curling up around him. Her chest vibrated with a purr that could have soothed a wrathful Odin to sleep. “You’re alright. It’s okay.”

“They’re dead.” It was hard to get enough air. He felt like he was drowning on dry land. He’d watched Dev and the others die. Salim must have been dead too, and Cay. They were all dead because he was so weak. The agonizing pain in his chest as he choked on a sob was too much for even the haze of drugs to suppress. “They’re dead. Ma, they’re dead.”

Ma shushed him again, cradling the back of his head. His hands shook as he clumsily grasped at her shirt. “It’s all my fault,” he sobbed, muffled into her chest.

“No, Stormcloud,” Ma said fiercely. “None of that. It’s not your fault.”

“They’re all dead!” The force of his wail made him cough, and he tasted blood in the back of his throat.

“I know, baby.” Ma sounded worried. “Honey, you’re still sick. Just put your head down and focus on breathing. I’m here.”

He barely heard her. Memories were flooding back, not in any kind of chronological order but instead in random, agonizing bursts. The full horror of it hadn’t hit him until now. There hadn’t been time or safety for it to hit, but there was now.

“I'm sorry.” It was hard to breathe. He heard the sound of Dev’s neck snapping, over and over. He remembered Salim and Cay’s intensely pained scents, burning with mako. His own body seared with phantom pain from the tank. “I tried, I’m sorry!”

“Shhh, baby.” One of her hands left him as she made some kind of gesture. “Nothing to be sorry for.”

She didn't know. She didn't understand. There was so much to be sorry for. “SOLDIER didn't want me!” he sobbed wretchedly. He’d promised her he would go make her proud as a SOLDIER, but instead he’d failed, watched helplessly as his comrades died, and crawled back home with his tail between his legs. “I failed everything!”

“Oh my Cloud.” Ma hugged him tight and kissed the top of his head as he cried, burning with shame and despair. “You didn't, but you’re still too out of it to listen to me, aren’t you?”

He was, although he couldn’t fully comprehend it. The taste of copper had spread all the way to the front of his mouth. “I'm sorry! I'm sorry!”

“It’s okay. Lean back a little, I need you to drink something alright?” There was another scent close by and Ma was leaning to grab something. She moved Cloud and he cooperated, of course he cooperated, what kind of son would he be if he caused her more trouble? Her face was dramatically blurred, but he still saw the way she glanced down at his mouth and became even more worried.

“Oh honey. Okay, drink slow.” She held a cup to his mouth and he obeyed, even though he had to stop and breathe through his mouth every other sip. It tasted like one of the expensive sports recovery drinks that Zack liked, mixed with something bitter. He had a strange, lucid moment where he wondered how Ma had gotten any of those up here, but he quickly lost it.

Ma kissed his head as he drank, as if he was a little boy again. “My poor baby, you’ve been through so much. It’s gonna be okay. We’ll get you back to feeling alright, you just need to rest a while longer.”

There were definitely more painkillers mixed into the drink. He hadn’t quite finished it before his eyelids were dragging downward and the pain in his chest and head had been thoroughly numbed. He blinked and suddenly the cup was gone.

He thought maybe he caught a flash of silver hair in the corner of his eye, but consciousness slipped away from him in the same instant. He went back to sleep.

Cloud’s half of the Dreamscape remained open to them after the night where he’d returned to a cohesive whole. At times, Genesis could even blend it with his own, conjuring up comfortable lounge chairs within the grassy mountain meadow.

It was Sephiroth’s turn to hold Cloud at the moment. They’d all made a habit of speaking to him, even though he seemed to be ‘asleep’ within the dream most of the time, and completely out of it the rest.

“I do not understand you,” Sephiroth admitted. Unlike Genesis, he was just as comfortable sitting on the ground in Cloud’s grassy meadow as he was in a proper chair, and had Cloud reclined against his torso, legs stretched out between his own. The blond’s eyes moved beneath his lids, as if he was dreaming within the dream.

“How can you not see your own incredible nature?” Sephiroth continued. “You withstood more and performed better than I would expect of any of my SOLDIERs. I remain unsure if even I could have done as well in your place. And yet you…apologize. For what? Not being akin to a god? I don’t understand.”

“Not everyone is the undisputed top of their class all their lives, Seph,” Angeal pointed out, laying in the grass next to them. “Even amazing people can seriously doubt themselves if they get beaten down at every turn.”

“Yes, I wonder about that too.” Sephiroth sighed. “I apologize, Cloud. Many things came to light only recently that even I was not aware of. You never failed the SOLDIER exam in the first place. Science had hidden rejection criteria for candidates with certain levels of mako sensitivity, and the system allowed you to retake the test every year until you aged out, after which point it was assumed your sensitivity levels would not change.”

Zack, Genesis, and Angeal all stopped and looked at him. “…what?” Zack asked.

“I received the report today. Veld is sifting through Hojo’s computers, and has discovered…several similarly interesting hidden programs interfering with ShinRa’s operations. I imagine some were greenlit by the President and some decidedly were not.”

“I—“ Zack had to stop and shake his head. “Well. Hojo’s dead now anyway. And, hey!” He took Cloud’s hand and squeezed it. “Did you hear that, bud? I knew you were good enough to be in SOLDIER!”

Cloud groaned quietly and shifted. Zack inhaled sharply as his hand was squeezed back, and he hardly dared to breathe as Cloud’s eyes slowly inched open. The blond groaned again, his confusion hanging around him like a faintly bitter fog.

“Hey, Cloud,” Zack said softly, desperately hoping he wouldn’t scare his friend. “You in there, bud?”

After a few groggy, confused, blinks, Cloud rasped “Zack?”

“Yeah! Hi, Cloud. Hi. I missed you.” Zack quickly swiped at his burning eyes, laughing. His sudden hope—and that of his packmates, too—radiated like sunlight on the grass.

It was, perhaps, premature.

“Don’t…” Cloud’s voice wavered, and his confusion turned to fear. “Don’t find out. Don’t find out.”

Zack bit his lip, heart plummeting, but before he could say anything Sephiroth beat him to it.

“Don’t find out what? That you are a highly capable and admirable man, whom we would cherish the privilege to love?” He smoothed a hand over Cloud’s forehead before returning his arms to the blond’s waist.

Cloud paused, baffled by what must have seemed to be a sharp turn of events to him. He managed to roll his obviously heavy head to the side, enough to at least see the underside of Seph’s jaw. Sephiroth accommodated him, shifting his grip so they could look at each other properly.

“...huh?” said Cloud, fear forgotten in favor of bafflement.

“I admire you, Cloud. You saved as many of your comrades as you could and ultimately killed the man who’d wronged you despite being under quasi mind-control. You endured through trials that extended long before even that point. Your strength of will is nothing short of astounding.”

“Seph, darling, are you sure this is helping?” Genesis asked. Cloud looked like he’d short-circuited, on top of being completely out of it. He just stared at Sephiroth with no comprehension.

“I prefer it to the alternative,” Sephiroth said, maintaining calm eye contact with Cloud. “And I hope repetition might be helpful in convincing him to believe it.”

It certainly seemed to be better than the alternative of Cloud remembering that he was terrified of meeting them here. They all watched him carefully, but he did not exit his bafflement that night, instead blinking heavier and heavier until his eyes shut and he slipped into peaceful blankness again.

“Well,” Angeal said, scratching the back of his head. “That’s…progress? At least?”

“Guess so,” Zack said, playing with Cloud’s fingers. “Now if we can just keep him calm in the waking world too.”

Ma was grooming his hair. It felt nice, and it was Ma, so he wasn’t embarrassed by the quiet, rumbling purr that escaped him in response. He thought he could smell something else nice too—a warm green orchard, maybe, the kind of place where he could happily lay down in the shade and sleep.

Ma inhaled sharply, and her hands paused in his hair. “Uh oh. You waking up, baby?” 

He grunted. No. His tongue tasted really fuzzy.

Ma laughed a little, but there was a tinge of concern. “Yeah, good. Go back to sleep or we might be in a pickle.”

Cloud wondered why they would be ‘in a pickle’ as Ma picked up her pace, quickly finishing with his hair. Then, slowly, he started to wonder how…if Ma’s hands were in his hair…then whose hands were on his chest and back?

“Mmm?” He tried to say Ma, but his jaw didn't quite cooperate with him. Neither did his eyes when he tried to open them and look around.

“Shhh, back to sleep,” Ma almost sang, forcing him to close his eyes again as she poured water over his head. “No tears, no fears, only sweet dreams.” She purred back at him, bright and soothing and safe. “We can try this silly waking thing again later when it won’t put us in a predicament, hmm?”

Who could say no to Ma? He sank down into the supporting hands and went back to sleep.

Chapter Text

Someone was humming. There were hands on his arm, unwinding bandages and smoothing something cold over a point that ached sharply. Cloud thought that maybe they’d been talking before this point. They continued talking as he transitioned from sleep to wakefulness.

“Well, your fever broke, and now it looks like the incisions are finally closing too. They must have shared a root cause.”

That deep voice sounded familiar, and…and it was a man, and he smelled familiar too—like the warm green earth of an orchard. Cloud’s brow furrowed a little. Why did he feel both safe and uneasy at the same time?

“I’d bet it was the same thing with how fractured you were in the Dreamscape. That’s what Gen said, at least, and it sounds right.” The bandages on Cloud’s arms were wound snug again as he struggled on the knife’s edge of understanding. “Now if you could just wake up, maybe your mother will forgive us and we can finally fix this whole misunderstanding.”

Angeal. Cloud’s eyes flew open as full realization hit him, chasing away the last shreds of grogginess. Memory of where he was and how he’d gotten there returned in full. He felt clear-headed for the first time in ages, which is why it was so shocking to open his eyes and see, right in front of him, that Commander Hewley was in Ma’s house.

While Cloud stared, mute with surprise, Angeal moved to tend the bandages on his legs. The SOLDIER opened his mouth, inhaling in preparation for some comment, and glanced up. Their eyes met. The Commander froze too, just as surprised as Cloud. Since neither quite seemed to know what to do, they stared in mutual silence for a very long minute.

“Commander?” Cloud finally asked, his voice rasping terribly. “Wh-what are you doing in my mom’s house?”

“Uh.” Angeal’s eyes darted briefly down to where he was holding the half-unraveled end of a bandage wrap before returning to Cloud’s face. He inhaled deeply and his expression turned thoughtful. “Well. Do you…remember how you got here?” he asked cautiously. His hands continued to move, slower than before, as he gauged Cloud’s reaction.

“Y-yes,” Cloud said, brows drawing together. He felt a brief, intense stab of grief as he thought about what had preceded his…break from reality. “But what are you…” He paused, remembering hazy fragments of dreams. They were difficult to differentiate from his nightmares in Fuhito’s lab, but he didn’t think he’d hallucinated Angeal while he was there. He remembered watching from very far away as his p—as the SOLDIERs spoke to him within the Dreamscape. And he remembered moments within the haze of fever when he’d woken to the sound of Ma talking with them. 

He realized the house smelled like all four of the SOLDIERs, along with Ma.

“You…followed me here?” Horror crashed down on him, stealing the air from his lungs. “Why?”

“It’s okay,” Angeal said, going completely still and ducking his head a little, as if he was trying to look less threatening. “You’ve been really out of it for a while. We just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

But he’d—he’d hurt Zack. He’d rejected them. He’d failed in every conceivable way. He was pathetic, broken, ruined. Part of him was shocked Ma hadn’t slammed the door in his face. Why would they care enough to follow him here? What did they get out of spending enough time in Ma’s house that their scents lingered?

He didn’t get it, and his breathing was starting to become unsteady. Angeal seemed to give up on tending to his leg and stood, quickly backing away. “Okay,” he said softly, raising his hands. “Your mom went out to make a delivery, but she’ll be back in a minute. I’m going to go outside, okay? Just wait for her. Don’t try to get up yet, you’re still pretty weak.”

Cloud flinched at the phrasing. Angeal beat a hasty retreat out the front door, shutting it behind him with a gentle click. Cloud listened to him walk over to the rocking chair Ma kept out front and sit down in it. He wasn’t leaving. Why wasn’t he leaving?

Cloud tried to sit up properly, but his arms shook even from that small amount of effort and he collapsed back down onto the pillows. He felt out of breath from the exertion and panic. And yet, for as weak as he felt, his body also seemed strangely…strong. Too strong. With some effort, he pulled his leg up high enough to inspect the half-undone bandage. There was a small, inflamed incision beneath. He remembered Fuhito implanting materia shards there, but he couldn’t feel them anymore. Whatever ShinRa had done to remove the shards didn’t seem to have erased the changes they made. He’d been permanently turned into a SOLDIER knockoff.

Eyes burning, he let his head fall back and stared up at the ceiling, breathing raggedly. Salim and Cay would have been the same, if they’d been alive. The fragmented memory of his final fight as a RAVEN, when he’d seen both Cay and Salim fall to the SOLDIERs, replayed over and over in his head. He’d tried so hard to protect them, but in the end he hadn’t been able to do much of anything.

Was that why the SOLDIERs had followed him? Maybe ShinRa wanted him alive for a court-martial. He blinked, sending moisture rolling down into his hairline.

There was a tiny part of himself, miraculously intact despite the way the rest of him had been chewed up and spat out, that insisted Zack would never do that. He closed his eyes and remembered fleeting, phantom sensations of Zack’s arms around him, Zack’s hand in his hair, Zack kissing his forehead in that hospital room. No matter what Cloud did wrong, Zack would never abandon him like that.

“I don’t get it,” Cloud whispered to the ceiling, confused, hurting, and afraid. He’d just wanted to run away from everything, go back to a place he understood, a safe place, but trouble and confusion had followed him anyway. And he still didn’t understand why they would have bothered.

He was just starting to contemplate how badly an attempt to get up might go when he heard the sound of his mother’s boot heels on the porch deck. She stopped, but he didn’t hear any words exchanged between her and Angeal. After the pause lengthened, he heard Angeal get up and leave, walking away into the town square where Cloud lost track of him. Ma opened the front door. He rolled his head to the side and looked at her.

“Hi, baby,” she said, closing the door behind her. Her smile wavered a little and she blinked rapidly. “You had me scared for a while there.”

“Sorry,” he rasped. He watched as she went to the table and put down her delivery satchel. “What…happened? After—after I got here?”

“You collapsed,” she said, kicking off her boots by the edge of the bed and then crawling in to curl up around him. Her chest rumbled with a purr, and he only hesitated a little before he melted into it like a child. He’d missed her. His arm trembled when he raised it to hug her tightly. She kissed the top of his head in response. “Had a pretty bad fever for about a week because you exhausted yourself. Those terrorists tore up your soul and it took a bit before it started to mend. I think now that the fever’s broken and the incisions are closing you’ll be just fine.”

“Okay,” he said, breathing in his mother’s scent to try and stay calm. “But why…w-why are…SOLDIERs here?”

Ma didn’t answer for a minute. “ Just SOLDIERs, are they?” she finally asked, and his stomach dropped at the implications of her unimpressed tone.

“...what do you—”

“If you lie to me Cloud Strife I swear I will put you over my knee and tan your hide,” she interrupted fiercely. He didn’t doubt she would, despite his age, size, and strength. He swallowed hard.

“Oh, um. Well, I-I guess they’re also uh,” he stuttered. “Th-they’re…packmates, but it uh…doesn’t…” His mind was completely blank. He trailed off into awkward silence.

Ma exhaled slowly through her nose, but she never stopped purring or hugging him like she was afraid he would disappear. “Cloud, what in Odin’s name is going on in your head? You didn’t reciprocate? Until your life was in danger? I don’t understand where this came from!”

Cloud’s throat felt tight as he bit down on the inside of his cheek. “It—it doesn’t…You promised i-if my pack didn’t work out I could come home.”

“I did promise, and I meant it. But baby, I don’t understand. You like Zack. Why didn’t you even give him a chance? It sounded like you’d already decided you didn’t want any of them!” Tell me I’m wrong, her tone begged.

He couldn’t tell her that, because she was exactly right. He had already decided. He’d decided before he even knew what SOLDIER was. The lump in his throat grew larger. “Sometimes… packs just… don’t work,” he defended weakly.

“Bullshit,” Ma countered. “You didn’t give it a chance to work. Tell me why, Stormcloud.”

“I—Why does it matter? I didn’t need…we didn’t need a full pack when I was growing up. I don’t need one now. I only want you as my pack, Ma.” He was starting to panic again as she pressed him for an answer. He didn’t want to think about it, and he especially didn’t want to talk about it.

Ma took another deep breath and her grip on him tightened. “Oh, Cloud,” she said, something almost pitying in her voice. “Is this about my pack? Look, I know we…didn’t quite have the good luck to make things work out, but—”

“Make things work out?” Cloud echoed incredulously, interrupting her. He shifted his head so he could look her in the face. “Ma, I’m not a kid anymore. You don’t have to pretend, I know what happened.”

She blinked in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“I grew up watching how Mr. Lockhart looked at you!” Cloud said. “I grew up watching how Auntie Thea practically ran out of the house every time you got home and she could stop babysitting! Like you were something to escape! I—don’t you remember when Tifa and I fell off the bridge, and Mr. Lockheart dragged us back? He said—he said Auntie Thea died because you were you, and—” he was starting to get choked up thinking about it. “But you’re amazing, and he didn’t want you anyway and I don’t want that! I don’t want that, Ma!”

He couldn’t help the way his breath shuddered and his eyes burned. He’d never said it out loud before—never even thought about it so directly—but this was the entire core of his resolve. He didn’t want to be in his mother’s shoes. Ever. So he’d decided a long time ago never to give his pack even a chance to look at him and find him wanting.

Fat lot of good that had done him.

His mother’s eyes were wide as saucers at his outburst. Her mouth opened and shut as she searched for words, too surprised to find them quickly. “Is that what you’ve been thinking all these years?” she asked, soft with horror. To his horror, her eyes started to glisten with the threat of tears. “Just because I didn’t tell you? Oh, Cloud. I’m sorry, baby.”

It took him a minute to process her words, and then he was the one blinking at her in surprise. “What?”

She freed one hand to wipe the moisture from his cheeks, expression terribly sad. “Cloud, Brian and Thea only rejected me as much as I rejected them. It really was just…unlucky. I was madly in love with your daddy, but he and Brian didn’t get along. We tried, but in the end it was better for everyone if we lived as two separate pairbonds. Thea didn’t have a problem with that, but Brian’s feelings were hurt. To him, it was me choosing your daddy over the pack.” She shook her head and sighed regretfully. 

Cloud’s mouth felt dry. His head spun. He couldn’t believe it. Ma was the one who’d rejected them—or, at least done just as much rejecting as anyone else? It…it didn’t seem right. “But—” he stuttered, “but Mr. Lockhart was…he was always so mad. Doesn’t he hate you?”

“Well,” Ma said slowly, “I can’t say we have the best relationship, but he doesn’t really hate me. Hell, he’s done more than his fair share making sure we always had enough to eat when work was scarce, even if he pretended it wasn’t him. He’s—well, he’s a proud ass of a man, I won’t lie, but he doesn’t hate me. Or you for that matter.”

Cloud opened his mouth and then shut it again, reeling. Everything he’d thought was wrong? Everything he’d been scared of just hadn’t been real in the first place? He’d worked so hard to make sure he would never be put in the situation he’d assumed Ma had endured, but she hadn’t even…and everything he’d done to run away had just ruined…

He’d…he’d ruined everything. For nothing. He’d created the exact situation he was terrified of just by trying to run away from it. A horrible sob burst from his chest like an explosion, tearing at his throat. It hurt. He hurt.

He’d ruined everything.

“I’m sorry, Stormcloud,” Ma said, tucking his head in close to her rumbling chest and hugging tight. “I’m so sorry. I should have told you everything instead of trying to gloss over the problems we had. I was just worried it would bias you against packs.” She made a little mournful noise in the back of her throat. “But I just made it worse, didn’t I? I’m sorry, baby.”

“N-no,” he managed to choke out. He could never blame Ma for anything. She’d only wanted to protect him from exactly what he’d done to himself. “Not…your fault. I-I-I ruined… everything!”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, brushing fingers through his hair. “Nothing’s ruined.”

Y-yes it i-is!” he hiccuped, overwhelmed by despair. “I rejected th-them and insulted them a-and hurt Zack! They hate me, I ruined everything!”

“Hate you?” Ma echoed. “What in the gods’ names makes you think that?”

He was bewildered by the question. “I-I did e-everything wrong! I failed at everything! They have to hate me!” They had to. It was the only thing that made sense, even if a small part of himself insisted he was wrong and Zack could never hate him.

“Cloud,” said Ma, and her tone was so very strange: disbelieving and heartbroken and desperate all at once. “Oh gods, first off, you didn’t fail at anything, but I know you won’t believe me yet. Second off and far more importantly, why do you think that young man was here taking care of you when you woke up? Didn’t he say anything to you?”

We just wanted to make sure you were okay. That was what Angeal said. And he remembered Genesis talking to him too, and Zack, and even Sephiroth, all of them saying things about… love. And in Fuhito’s lab, when he’d been completely under the terrorist’s control, hadn’t Zack said…?

But that couldn’t be right. It didn’t make sense! He had to be wrong. It felt a lot more dangerous to give up his certainty than it did to resign himself to failure and misery. If he tried to hope, only to be wrong, wouldn’t it kill him? Wouldn’t he break apart?

His throat was painfully tight as he tilted his head back again so he could look Ma in the face. “I don’t get it,” he croaked, desperate. “They—they have to hate me. I did everything wrong, how could they…?”

She didn’t try to argue with him again about whether or not he’d done anything wrong. “You’re allowed to make mistakes, Stormcloud,” she said firmly. “Bonds—all types of bonds—aren’t about being ‘good enough’ or earning them. It’s just…reciprocity. Love.” She cradled the side of his face. “They do love you, Cloud. I’ve seen it for myself. And they love you despite seeing what you consider to be your absolute worst. Can’t you give them a chance?”

That sounded terrifying. It also made something small in his chest ache with longing. He bit hard on the inside of his lip and drew in a shuddering breath. “But…I don’t get it, Ma. I—I really don’t get it.”

“You don’t have to get it before you try,” she told him gently, kissing the top of his head. “Just talk to them. I’ll be here the whole time.”

Cloud shut his eyes and leaned into his Ma’s hand. His eyelashes were sticky with unshed tears. “...okay,” he finally conceded hoarsely. It felt like he was agreeing to his own execution, but he did it anyway. A tiny, dangerous spark of hope flickered in his chest.

“It’s gonna be okay, baby,” Ma said, pulling him in for one more tight, soothing hug. “I promise.” She hummed. “But first, you’re going to eat, and you’re going to take a bath, and we’re gonna get you into some clean clothes. Then we’ll see about talking to those boys.”

Chapter Text

It was probably a good thing the SOLDIERs were close by in Nibelheim, Cloud thought. It meant he didn’t have too much time to get worked up waiting for them to arrive.

They’d taken over the old Shinra Mansion, clearing it out of monsters in the process, and the walk over wouldn’t be long. Ma had gone to get them as soon as she’d finished helping Cloud eat, groom himself, and get dressed. He was humiliatingly weak, but the food was already starting to make him feel stronger. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to rely on Ma half-carrying him everywhere for very long.

His newly-enhanced senses were startling, but not overwhelming as long as he didn’t think about it too much. Apparently his time as a RAVEN had ingrained the deeper instincts he needed to subconsciously control them. He couldn’t hear anything past the outer bounds of the Town Square, but that was more than enough to know the SOLDIERs weren’t here yet. He bit his cheek and fidgeted anxiously in the rocking chair Ma had dragged in and put by the fireplace for him.

Compulsively, he once again summoned up his mana and reached for the metaphysical place where his bonds were anchored. He hadn’t done it in years—why would he, when he thought the only thing there was his mother’s bond to him?—but when he’d checked earlier he’d been floored to discover several more beside hers. 

There were thin, strong friendship bonds with his squadmates, now floating untethered in the void after their deaths. When he brushed against the ones to Cay and Salim, it conjured up flashes of them laying still in hospital beds. He hastily moved away from them. There were also ephemeral prebonds, one each to Sephiroth, Angeal, and Genesis. Those, too, he hastily turned his attention from. Most surprisingly of all, though, was a deep and rich friendship bond threaded through with the ephemeral magic of a prebond, connecting him to Zack.

How had he missed that? It felt like it had been there for years without him noticing.

He heard boots on the porch steps and startled badly. He’d been so distracted he’d missed the SOLDIERs crossing the square. The front door handle rattled and he anxiously wiped his palms on the blanket across his lap. The wild impulse to get up and bolt out the back door reared its head, but that wouldn’t work even if he tried, considering how weak he was. There was nothing left to do but face his fears.

Ma came in first, offering him a little smile before she turned around to look at the men following her. “You all go sit at the table,” she said, and held the door open for them. Cloud’s heart rate skyrocketed as they came into view, one after the other. Each offered him a sort of reassuring glance, in their own ways, but seemed careful not to stare at him for too long. Zack came in last, and his tiny, painful smile made Cloud hastily look down at his lap.

Ma came and sat down close to him, on the edge of her bed. He couldn’t bring himself to look up, instead keeping his eyes fixed on where he was holding tight fistfuls of the blanket as he listened to them sit down. He didn’t dare to look up. What if Zack had changed his mind and suddenly hated him?

The awkward silence stretched. Cloud glanced at his mother from the corner of his eye, wondering if she would break it. She caught his glance and raised her eyebrows. There would be no help from that corner, then. He looked back down and fidgeted with the blanket, chewing on his lip. The longer they sat there, the more he could smell his p—the more he could smell the SOLDIERs. They smelled like home, different from Ma, but still holding the promise of warmth and safety. It made that small (but increasingly loud) part of himself want to look up.

Eventually, though, Zack took an unsteady breath and broke the silence. “H-hey,” he said, just a little too softly. “We’re…so happy that you’re okay, Cloud. You really… scared us.”

Had he? Why? He still didn’t get it, but there was a lump in his throat. Unable to look up, he nodded jerkily.

“Can you—” Zack’s voice cracked. He paused to swallow. “Can you, um, look at me? Please?”

Cloud’s knuckles turned white with the force of his grip on the blanket. A funny tingling sensation crawled from his chest all the way up his neck. The lump in his throat got bigger. He’d never felt like more of a coward in his life, but the simple act of looking up seemed so much more terrifying than anything he’d ever done before. Whatever he saw when he looked up—it would be his fault. His doing. His eyes burned as he shook his head rapidly from side to side. No. No, I can’t, Zack.

“Please?” Zack’s voice sounded thick, like he was fighting back tears too. Why? Why would he be crying? His tone came dangerously close to begging. “Please look at me. Just for a second.”

He didn’t want to, but this was Zack. He’d hurt Zack. He couldn’t say no to Zack after everything he’d done wrong. So he took a shaky breath, bracing himself, and raised his head just enough to peek out from under his spiky bangs.

Miraculously, Zack didn’t look like he hated him. He just looked like he was about to cry. “Thanks,” he said when their eyes met, laughing unsteadily. He blinked, sending two tears spilling over that he hastily dashed away with the back of his hand. “Hey, you didn’t do anything wrong, okay? I just want you to know that. Even—even keeping it a secret. It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Cloud’s head rose a little more as he stared in utter disbelief. “How can—” It was his turn to choke on his words as he tried to get them past the lump in his throat. “How can you say that? I-I-I lied to you, I insulted you, I hurt you—!”

“What are you talking about?” Zack interrupted, shaking his head. “Insulted? Hurt? When?”

“Zack I literally stabbed your arm,” Cloud said, shaken out of his spiraling thoughts by sheer disbelief. There was no way Zack had forgotten that. He probably still had a scar from it.

“Wha—oh! You mean when you were being mind-controlled?” Zack laughed again, this time with just as much disbelief as Cloud felt. “Cloud, you broke mind control by force of will. You killed the terrorist ringleader! How could I possibly be mad about that? I’m damn impressed is what I am!”

“...I…did?” Cloud didn’t remember that part. He just remembered the fight, and then searing pain in his head after. Although—there was a flash of something now that Zack had prompted it: his sword, drenched in blood, and Fuhito’s shocked face.

“Yeah, you did.” Zack’s expression turned uncomfortably tender, like he could see straight through Cloud and it made him sad. “You’re incredible, Cloud.”

No—what? This wasn’t how this was supposed to go, even in the wildly-optimistic best-case scenario he’d had in his head. At best they’d accept his apology, tell him to do better. Why was Zack praising him? Bewildered, he looked at the others, but they just nodded in agreement—even Sephiroth.

“But…” Cloud objected weakly, looking back to Zack. “But—weren’t you mad when you found out I’d been lying to you?”

“Um.” Zack bit his lip and then smiled awkwardly. “Well…the truth is, we…kinda knew it was you from the beginning. Because, um…Angeal figured it out. When you saw him the first night?”

Cloud’s breath caught and his eyes went wide. What? They’d known the whole time? But—but they hadn’t said anything, even when he lied right to their faces! They hadn’t pushed for answers, or called him out. They’d been nice to him all that time, never angry or impatient. Even though they…knew he was lying?

He’d lied to them for no reason?

Slowly, Cloud’s head turned down and he raised his shaking hands to press against his temples. He stared sightlessly at his lap as Zack’s voice turned desperate again. “But—see! It’s okay! You didn’t do anything wrong, you didn’t have to tell us, I would have waited for you to trust m—I mean, to be ready. It’s okay!”

It wasn’t okay. None of this was okay. Zack was right, even though he probably hadn’t meant to let his real thoughts slip. Cloud hadn’t trusted him. In fact, this probably more than counted as Cloud breaking Zack’s trust. He’d…betrayed his friend. For no reason (because he’d been afraid of something that had never happened in the first place) and to no end (because they’d known from the start).

The pattern of the blanket blurred dramatically as his eyes burned. The next breath he took rasped like his throat was closing.

“Cloud!” The quiet, desperate noise Zack made was almost enough to shake him out of his emotional spiral. “Cloud, it’s not—you don’t—I—” He cut off with another helpless noise. “Cloud, can I hug you? Please? Please let me hug you? I-I don’t know how else to help.”

Cloud didn’t think before he nodded. In fact, he didn’t even process the actual request. He just said yes because…how could he ever say no to anything Zack wanted again? After everything he’d done? He would have nodded even if Zack told him to go jump in a fire.

Zack was quite literally across the room in a flash, using every ounce of his SOLDIER enhancements. He wasn’t delicate or cautious. He slammed down on his knees between Cloud’s legs and snatched him close with the force of a bear trap snapping shut, one arm curled around his back and the other on the back of his head. Cloud’s hands jerked to the side, hovering awkwardly. The entire rocking chair tipped forward as Zack somehow managed to enfold Cloud entirely, despite being so much lower from his position on his knees.

“I’m sorry,” Zack said into his hair, squeezing with pressure that was just shy of being uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, Cloud. I didn’t know how to tell you better.”

Why was he apologizing? Cloud was the one who needed to grovel on his knees. “I’m sorry,” Cloud gasped in response, out of breath from what seemed to be an endless series of rugs being pulled out from under him. His head hurt. “I’m sorry Zack. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“No, please stop,” Zack begged, tucking his head closer into his shoulder. “It’s really okay. I’m not mad. I’m not disappointed. I—whatever you think you did wrong, you’re forgiven. Is that better? I forgive you.”

“You shouldn’t—”

“Too bad! I do! Because I love you and it’s too late to make me stop!” Zack’s breath hitched with a sob of his own. Cloud’s arms finally dropped to settle on Zack’s back, hugging him in return. Don’t cry Zack. I’m sorry.

“I—I get it, why you felt like you had to hide,” Zack continued. ”I get it. And if it’s—if it’s too much to be around us, okay. Tell me to get out and I’ll go. But please don’t believe I hate you or anything like that. I couldn’t bear it.”

“Don’t go.” The truthful answer slipped out without Cloud’s permission. Slowly, his grip tightened. He didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t want his mistakes to drive them away. He—he wanted his pack to stay. Somehow. Despite everything. “I don’t… I don’t want you to go.”

Zack didn’t have to say anything. His relief was so potent Cloud could smell it immediately. “Okay. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” He petted the back of Cloud’s head and squeezed tight one more time before slowly pulling back—not all the way, but enough that they could see each other. Zack looked like a wreck, and Cloud was sure he didn’t look any better.

Zack moved one hand to the side of Cloud’s face. “Hey,” he said, “I know there’s…a lot more we could talk about.” He smiled sadly when Cloud flinched. “But you’ve been through a lot, and I can smell the exhaustion. Can we—would it be okay if we stopped talking for a while and just…shared a nest, maybe?”

Cloud’s eyes automatically turned to Genesis, Angeal, and Sephiroth. For some reason they looked hopeful when he did. He realized, suddenly, that being with them without the pressure of doing or talking was exactly what he wanted. He wanted to rest and recover in the middle of a shared nest, protected on all sides.

“Um.” He glanced at Ma’s bed, which had definitely been big enough for the two of them, but certainly wouldn’t be for five grown men. “Sure, but…I don’t think we’ll fit?”

Ma snorted at him, and he heard Angeal laugh. When he glanced up, the Commander smiled at him too, soft and relieved. “It might have to be on the floor, but we can go get bedding from our own… accommodations. If your mother permits?”

Ma sighed in a sort of fake put-upon way. “I suppose if you must take up my floor, you may.” She looked directly at Cloud again. “Baby, I need to go have a conversation with Brian. Do you need me here?”

“It’s okay, Ma.” With his terrified adrenaline fading, exhaustion pulled his eyelids down like lead weights. He only hesitated for a moment before he let his head fall to rest against Zack’s shoulder. “You can go.”

“Alright.” He heard her stand and brush off her skirts. “Can I trust you boys to look after him all on your lonesome?”

“Of course, ma’am,” Sephiroth said, voice becoming a little fuzzy in Cloud’s ears as the last of his stress was soothed away by Zack’s bright, earthy scent. “He’ll be safe with us.”

The Dreamscape didn’t feel the same as the last time he’d consciously been there. Cloud blinked, disoriented as it took shape around him. His meadow stretched out beneath an endless blue sky, rimmed all around by mountains. The colors of the wildflowers were a little strange, especially where he could feel lingering bits of the others’ influence. A mere fleeting thought was enough to recall the form and feel of a plush velvet lounge chair that he’d never seen before, and it appeared behind him. He sat down, for a lack of anything better to do. It smelled strongly of Genesis.

He wasn’t alone for very long. The dream rippled and Genesis’s unmistakable aura bloomed like fireworks, summoning up an opulent theater as he arrived. Cloud flinched, fingers plucking at the material of his pants. Now that he’d reciprocated, he couldn’t take it back. If he wanted to hide, he would have to create a construct to shield him and forcibly deny them entry. He didn’t think he really had the strength of will to do either of those things.

Of course, Genesis had eyes on him at once. It was the middle of the day in the waking world, so the only reason he’d be asleep was to chase after him. Cloud hastily ducked his head, unsure of what he should—or even could—do.

The grass rustled as Genesis approached, crossing from his domain into Cloud’s. “You have nothing to worry about, darling,” he said softly. “I’m not here to harass you.”

Cloud swallowed. He didn’t quite have the courage to look up as he stuttered, “Then, what…what are you here for?”

“Company.” He took Cloud’s fidgeting hands in his own and tugged, gently, until Cloud stood and glanced at him from under his bangs. His smile was enough to make Cloud dizzy. He’d never thought the hot-tempered SOLDIER had it in him to be so… warm.

Genesis didn’t say anything after that. Instead, he changed the form of the velvet lounge chair to something better suited for two and guided Cloud down onto it. They sat next to each other, pressed together from thigh to knee. Genesis let go of one hand to wrap his arm around Cloud’s shoulders. His profound relief and contentment hung in the air around them like perfume.

It was a little bewildering, and more than a little flustering. “Why are you…?” Cloud tried to ask. “I mean, is…because Zack…?”

Genesis scoffed, but somehow even that was gentle. “Hardly. No, precious. This is all me.”

Oh. A bright blush crawled up his cheeks. From the amusement that radiated off of Genesis, his flustered feelings didn’t go unnoticed. Maybe Salim and Dev had been right about—

“What is it?” Genesis asked when Cloud’s fierce stab of grief made the skies above them darken.

“Sorry,” Cloud whispered, scrubbing hastily at his face with his free hand. “Just. Remembering something my s…my squadmates said.”

Genesis’s empathy felt like a balm on an aching wound. “It will get easier to bear,” he promised, understanding immediately. Of course he did. He’d lost comrades too. “You never forget them, but they become part of you.”

“Yeah.” He had lost one or two acquaintances before, but never anything this serious, never people who were so close to him, and certainly never in such a brutal way.

“I haven’t checked in on their status, but your two omega friends are likely awake now since you are as well. They weren’t quite as badly off as you. We can arrange a PHS call between the three of you, at least.”

Cloud’s mind ground to a halt. He turned wide eyes on Genesis, who was surprised by the reaction. “My…omega friends?”

“Yes?” Genesis’s brow furrowed. “Forgive me, I’ve forgotten their names, but they were treated just the same as you. Their recoveries were well under way when you… absconded.”

“They’re alive?” He blinked back tears, hardly daring to hope.

“Yes. Did you think them dead?”

“I thought—” his voice cracked. “I thought I saw them fall to some of your SOLDIERs…”

Genesis bundled him close much in the same way Zack had. The sky above spat little flecks of cool rain. “Oh, oh darling, we would never have killed them. We saved as many as we could. They were merely put to sleep and evacuated during the fight.”

“Oh.” He hiccuped pathetically, but he couldn’t help it. Cay and Salim had survived after all. He hadn’t failed them, at least.

“It’s just been one thing after the other with no stopping for you, has it not?” Genesis asked rhetorically, his sadness a practically mellow counterpoint to Cloud’s emotional turmoil. “It’s alright. We have you, I promise.”

“I’m sorry,” Cloud said as he was reminded of why they needed to support him in the first place. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was—”

Genesis shushed him. “Please, there truly is no need for apologies. We understand. Even I understand, and I am not well-known for my empathy.”

“I—” Cloud stopped and shut his mouth. He didn’t know what he’d been trying to say, only that it had involved an objection that would get him nowhere. “Sorry. I’m just…really tired.”

“I think you are allowed to be fatigued, after everything you’ve endured and accomplished.”

Cloud jolted at Sephiroth’s voice, having somehow missed his entrance. He didn’t have time to look up before the General sat down on his other side, sandwiching him between the two SOLDIERs. Sephiroth’s steady, imperturbable calm felt like being wrapped in a heavy blanket, and he found himself calming in response.

“Cheater,” Genesis grumbled, releasing Cloud from the hug and reluctantly sitting back. Sephiroth ignored him, so Cloud decided he should probably follow suit.

He kept his eyes on where  his hand was still joined with Genesis’s, unable to look directly at the General. There was so much he needed to say. So much to apologize for, even if they would probably insist that he didn’t need to. At the very least, there was so much to discuss. He barely knew where to start. “I—”

“Cloud,” Sephiroth interrupted. To Cloud’s surprise, he reached over to take his free hand. “You are exhausted, grieving, and shell-shocked. Don’t try to talk now. We have plenty of time to take things slowly.”

They were so bewildering. He managed to look up for a very brief second before hastily turning his head down again. “But—”

“Would you believe that we truly do not need to settle all things at once?” Sephiroth asked, squeezing his hand reassuringly. “It is enough that you are here, whole and awake. More than enough—it is a gift. I wish to enjoy it, if you will allow me.”

Cloud did not get it. Neither of them seemed like they were inclined to try and explain, though. Maybe they knew he would be overwhelmed. “Um. Okay,” he conceded, a little quieter than he’d intended.

“Thank you.”

They lapsed into silence—even Genesis, miraculous as it was. He radiated a faint aura of smugness, but for what reason, Cloud didn’t know. Slowly, as he looked out over the swaying field of mountain grasses, it dawned on him that he was holding hands with two of his crushes while sandwiched between them. In the waking world, his other two crushes (minus his very minor crush on Director Tuesti, of course) were no doubt curled up in a nest with him.

Oh, he thought, wondering if his blush was strong enough to translate to the waking world. Right. I guess this is a gift for me too.

Chapter Text

Zack waited three more days before he finally asked Cloud about the future.

In that time, Cloud steadily recovered. The incisions finally responded to a Cure and were safely closed, allowing him to remove all of the wraps and bandages. The strength in his legs mostly returned, although his balance was poor. Despite that, he was obviously relieved that they didn’t need to half-carry (or outright carry) him around the house. He still got tired easily and slept a lot, but he was getting better.

Zack tried not to smother him, but it was hard after being on edge for so long. Sephiroth, Genesis, and Angeal didn’t seem to struggle as much as Zack did, since they hadn’t been as close to Cloud as he was before this whole mess. The blond flinched if they moved too quickly and ducked his head if they stared for too long. It made it easy to find the appropriate boundaries to push. 

Zack, on the other hand, was allowed much closer, even if he wasn’t sure he should have been. He suspected Cloud’s obsessive fixation on ‘hurting’ him in the lab had translated into some unspoken resolve to never say ‘no.’ He didn’t like it, but it wasn’t as if he could break the habit in a day. With time and patience, Cloud would understand that he really hadn’t done anything wrong. In the meantime, Zack was just careful to maintain his newest packmate’s boundaries for him.

Day two had been particularly draining for Cloud, and tangentially distressing for the rest of them as they tried to soothe him. He’d finally gotten to call Salim and Cay, which had ended up mostly being the three of them grieving their lost friends together. Cloud had offered many apologies, but thankfully both his friends were quick to lovingly beat him over the head that it wasn’t his fault. Zack and Angeal had been the ones sitting with him during the call (Seph and Gen were dealing with other matters related to the vampire they’d accidentally dug up from beneath the mansion), and neither of them got the impression he actually believed it.

Either way, after the call was over he’d insisted on finally giving them a firsthand account of what had happened the day he was captured. Angeal tried to insist back that it could wait, but conceded when Cloud pointed out that he was already upset and might as well use the opportunity to tell them, rather than upset himself again later.

It was a harrowing story. Even Angeal, who had been witness to his fair share of horrors on the battlefield, was pale by the end. Cloud, understandably, had then drunk a full glass of water that Angeal brought him and slipped into an exhausted doze in Zack’s arms. At least he wouldn’t wake up dehydrated.

On day three, Zack was alone with Cloud for the afternoon. Mama Strife had gone out to make another delivery, and his other three packmates had gone to hike up the mountain and investigate the reactor on the vampire’s—Vincent’s—recommendation. Apparently there was an excess of evidence up there for them to use in justifying Hojo’s death.

Cloud was sitting curled up against Zack’s side in their makeshift floor nest, regaining his fine motor control by helping with his Ma’s leatherworking orders. Zack had been writing up a report on his PHS for a while, but he’d stopped in favor of watching Cloud work. It was mesmerizing, and he was definitely good at it. In fact, he seemed to be good at everything he did, even if he didn’t believe it.

“Hey…Cloud?” he asked suddenly.

“Mmh?” Cloud hummed inquisitively, not taking his eyes off of his work.

“Are you gonna go back to Midgar with us?”

Cloud’s hands stopped abruptly. He turned enough to look Zack in the face, brow furrowed. “I… thought I had to?”

Zack frowned. “No, hey, I told you we didn’t want to force anything. If you don’t want to go back with us, you don’t have to.”

“No, I mean—” Cloud hesitated. “I thought… maybe ShinRa wanted me for a court-martial? Or something?”

“A court-martial?” Zack echoed, surprised. “What? No way!”

“Oh.” The blond fidgeted a little, ducking his head. “I just…you know, since almost everyone died, I thought maybe…”

Zack tried not to let his sadness leak through in his scent, but he didn’t think he was successful. Cloud flinched minutely and pressed into his side, a low purr rumbling faintly in his chest. It was nice, but Zack didn’t want Cloud to comfort him—he wanted Cloud to think more highly of himself for once. He took a deep breath.

“If anything, they’re gonna owe you accolades after this,” Zack said. “Especially after what you managed to do. I’d say you’d totally get a promotion, but if you come back with us you’ll be part of SOLDIER.” When Cloud went stiff, he hastily clarified, “I mean, if you want! You can do something else. Or stay in the infantry as some kind of…new specialist. I think Kunsel told me both your friends were already inducted though?”

“I—” Cloud’s voice sounded odd, and he smelled strange too. Without thinking, Zack pulled him into a snug embrace and purred reassuringly. “I would…be in SOLDIER? But I—I failed the tests. A lot.”

“Oh!” Zack brightened as he realized that this was an insecurity he could actually do something about. “That’s right, Seph told you when you were still out of it. But you didn’t! You didn’t even fail the first time, it was just that Hojo had this hidden program in place to auto-reject you if you had a certain level of mako sensitivity, then it would let you re-test until you aged out and auto-reject you. So you’re totally qualified, Cloudy!”

That, at least, got Cloud to look at him again, eyes wide. They were so pretty, sparkling blue and lit up with a mako glow. “...what?”

“You passed! Like, a dozen times! If it wasn’t for Hojo you’d have been in SOLDIER a long time ago.” He paused and then added, “Don’t worry, Seph offed Dr. Creepy.”

“I passed?” Cloud echoed, disbelieving. “I—no. Really?”

“Really.” Zack decided to push things a little bit, putting a hand on the back of Cloud’s head and pressing their foreheads together. “I told you, Cloudy, you’re really skilled. You work so hard all the time. It's one of the things I lo—” He cut himself off, hesitating, before he decided fuck it. There was no reason not to be open. “It’s one of the things I love about you.”

Cloud’s eyes were still wide, but now a slow, bright pink blush crawled across his face. “Um,” he squeaked, clearly at a loss for how to respond, but Zack was pleased that he didn’t try to pull away. Their foreheads remained pressed together.

“You don’t have to feel the same way,” Zack said softly. “I just… wanted to make sure you knew. I love you. For a lot of reasons.”

Cloud’s face turned from pink to crimson, and his eyes darted to the side. “Oh, well… um.” Embarrassment and the faintest hint of excitement crept into his scent. “Um… I, uh… maybe… might… feel the same way…”

“Yeah?” Zack asked, delighted. It was extremely hard not to tease Cloud more and see just how red his face could get. “Maybe this is a little fast, but… do you think you could love Seph n’ ‘Geal n’ Gen too?”

Cloud blushed so hard Zack could feel the heat on his own cheeks. Since he seemed to have been rendered incapable of speech, the blond nodded in response and determinedly avoided eye contact. The smell of his embarrassment increased.

“Good!” said Zack, and his self-control finally failed him. He moved his hands to cradle Cloud’s jaw and swooped in to soundly kiss his blush-warmed cheek.

“But,” Cloud managed to squeak, holding on to Zack’s shoulders for dear life, “they don’t… know me, would they feel—?”

“They don’t know all of you yet,” Zack agreed, pulling back to consider his best friend. “Neither do I. But they know a lot because I talk about you and because they were with me looking after you this whole time. Trust me, Cloudy. They already love you too, at least a little.”

Cloud looked half-terrified and half-excited by the prospect. He’d lost the ability to speak again, so he just made a little noise of acknowledgment in the back of his throat. He squeaked when Zack thought to himself, fuck it, I’ve been waiting so long! and soundly kissed his other cheek too.

If he was very, very blessed, there would be a million more kisses to follow.

The SOLDIERs had to leave Nibelheim sooner than they liked, especially since it was clearly too soon for Cloud to travel. He still needed a supporting hand to walk around without stumbling, much to his chagrin. After some debate, Angeal was left behind to stay with Cloud and finish clearing out the mansion, though Cloud took unspoken priority. They would call a helicopter once Cloud said he was ready.

Zack wasn’t the only one who was obviously reluctant to leave, a fact which seemed to shock Cloud. He shyly reassured them that he’d be fine, Angeal would be fine, and they would all see each other in Midgar soon enough. Sephiroth and Genesis seemed both surprised and pleased by his confident assertion. Under Mama Strife’s watchful and knowing eye, the pack exchanged tight farewell embraces before Angeal helped Cloud back inside and the others departed.

It was a lot quieter, with them gone. Their scents still lingered, and would for a while, but without them physically present there was a distinct lack of rich, fresh warmth. Cloud was surprised to find that he felt lonely , sitting there with only his mother since Angeal had left to do some work. Had he really gotten that attached so quickly? The thought scared him a little. More than that, the fact that it scared him scared him even more. He wasn’t supposed to be afraid of feeling like this. It wasn’t normal. Right?

“Ma,” he asked quietly later, as she was preparing dinner and he was helping chop vegetables. “Do you think I… ruined myself?”

She looked over her shoulder inquisitively before the stovetop demanded her attention again. “Ruined yourself? What makes you say a thing like that?”

“Most people are… really happy to meet their pack. And happy to spend time with them. And lonely when they’re gone. But I— when I feel… the normal things, it kind of… scares me.” He kept his eyes on the cutting board as he talked.

Ma took a deep breath and thought for a moment before she answered. “Well, Stormcloud, let’s set one thing straight first: this isn’t your fault. It’s mine and Brian’s.”

He quickly objected. “But I—“

“No,” she said firmly, cutting him off. “You were little, and every conclusion you came to had a reason behind it. If I had explained what happened instead of avoiding it, and if Brian had handled our conflict with more maturity instead of being careless around you and Tifa, then this wouldn’t have happened. It’s not your fault.”

“But it feels like I at least made it worse, Ma. I never asked or said anything, I just assumed. I mean, I knew you wouldn’t like what I was thinking so I kept it a secret from you on purpose. And then I-I didn’t trust Zack…”

Ma finally reached a point where she could cover the pot on the stove and turn around to properly face him. “You were terrified, baby,” she said sadly. “That kind of fear would test even the oldest and deepest friendship.”

Uncomfortable, he looked away again. “S-still,” he said, “I made it worse.”

Ma sighed. “Alright, for the sake of argument let’s say you contributed a little, but responsibility is still on me and Brian. Now—are you ruined? Of course you’re not ruined! Stormcloud, you only learned the truth a few days ago after years of being afraid. Frankly, I’m amazed you had the strength to let those boys be as close to you as you did. I think it says a lot about how brave you are and how much they care about you.”

Cloud knew his face was crimson, both at her praise and at the reminder of the impossible affection he’d been offered. “But it… still scares me even though I know it shouldn’t,” he objected weakly. “I still feel like I want to run away. What if I never—what if it never stops?”

“Oh, Cloud.” Ma left the stove to come and stand behind his chair, hugging around his shoulders and kissing the top of his head. Some of the anxious tension eased when he felt her quiet, comforting purr. “It won’t last forever, especially if you learn from my mistakes. Talk to them, baby. Tell them what you’re feeling. Especially if you think you ‘shouldn’t’ be feeling it.”

Talk to them. Right. Simple. Just continue making the same leap of faith every day forever, freefalling with the hope that his packmates would catch him. He huffed and leaned back into his mother. “Ma. That sounds terrifying.”

“Trust often is. But after what I’ve seen, I can’t think of a better pack for you to at least try.” She kissed the top of his head again. “And if they turn out to be real Brian-level jerks then you just call me and I’ll come to Midgar with my trusty shotgun. Deal?”

Cloud laughed genuinely this time, taken by surprise. “You’re gonna shoot the General, Ma?”

“For you I’d shoot the President. So, deal?”

“Okay. Deal.”

Angeal was a steady, solid warmth against Cloud’s side as they shared the nest on the floor that night. Ma had gone out—something about talking to Tifa—and wouldn’t be back until moonrise, which meant Cloud had a perfect opportunity to try out the whole ‘talking’ thing. Angeal, even though he wasn’t nearly as attuned to Cloud’s scent and body language as Zack, seemed to know something was making him nervous. He kept pausing his reading to subtly check on him.

Cloud watched the firelight flicker across the floor and gathered his courage. “Hey… Angeal?”

“Yes?” The SOLDIER sounded like he was trying not to be too attentive and scare Cloud off, which was oddly endearing.

“Did you… really know it was me, in the solarium? The first night?”

“Well I’m no omega, but I was pretty sure, yes.” There was a thoughtful frown in his voice. “What brought this on?”

Cloud kept his eyes fixed on the floor. “Why didn’t you push? Or touch me? Why’d you just… let me go?”

The unseen frown deepened. “You obviously didn’t want me to, to put it lightly. The last thing I wanted to do was scare you. Cloud, are you okay?”

Cloud bit the inside of his lip as his eyes burned. “Wh-what—what if I’m… still kind of scared? Even though I—don’t… want to be.”

Angeal, like everyone around him recently, seemed to take a long moment to carefully consider his response before he spoke. “You’re allowed to be scared, Cloud. Something like this… you don’t overcome it in a day. In fact, I would be a lot more worried if you tried to tell me you weren’t scared.”

“But—” He had to pause and take a shuddering breath to clear the lump from his throat. “But there’s… a part of me that still wants to run away. What if it gets too loud and—and I do run away?” What will you do then? was what he really wanted to ask, but he wasn’t quite brave enough for it.

“I would follow you,” Angeal said without hesitation. “Maybe after a little time, if I thought you needed space. But I would find you and I would ask if… what you were feeling and what you wanted were the same. And if it was I would… let you go.” He both smelled and sounded sad, which was more effective in reassuring Cloud than it had any right to be.

Angeal tentatively looped an arm over Cloud’s shoulders, then pulled their heads to rest against each other when he wasn’t rebuffed. “But,” he continued, “if you told me you wanted to stop running, but the feeling was just too strong, then I would do everything I could to lead you back home. Whatever you needed, and however long it took, I would follow you. I know Zack and Seph would do the same. Even Genesis would, and his patience is atrocious.”

Cloud had to blink rapidly to keep the tears from spilling over. He didn’t want to admit the conversation was affecting him, and he was tired of crying. “Isn’t that—” he choked out, “—too much trouble?” 

Aren’t I too much trouble?

“No. Not at all, Cloud.” Angeal was so broad that when he shifted, throwing one of his legs to Cloud’s other side and drawing him into a hug, Cloud felt like he could have tucked his head down and vanished entirely from view. “For you, it would be worth it.”

Cloud remembered that night in the solarium, walking back with Angeal’s jacket around his shoulders. If it had been compelling then, it was overwhelming now—but, somehow, overwhelming in a very good way. He calmed, the budding panic fading into nothing. There was just one more question he had to ask. “Why?”

“Because we love you. Really. It’s only the beginning of love, yes, but it’s still there. Cloud, do you remember what you said in that lab, right after you broke the mind control and killed the terrorist ringleader?”

“I said something?”

Angeal hummed. “You did. The terrorist said that the Planet wanted us dead, and you said, in the midst of all that suffering and fear, ‘the Planet can’t have them.’” Cloud felt lips brush very lightly across his hair. “You protected us, all the way up until your body and mind gave out under you. Even before all of that, you put yourself through tremendous difficulty so that you could stay around Zack. Maybe one-sided love wouldn’t be enough of a foundation for us to build on, but this isn’t one sided, is it?”

Somehow, it was less flustering to hear Angeal talking about it than Zack, but Cloud still felt his cheeks heating up a little. “No,” he admitted. He let his eyes close and breathed in deeply. “Zack talked about all of you. A lot. I don’t think anyone could listen to him talk about you and not fall a little bit in love.” Oops. That was maybe too honest, he thought, and his blush deepened to crimson.

“Oh yeah?” Cloud could feel the smile pressed against the top of his head. “Zack talked about you too, you know. How do you think Genesis got his little crush on you?”

Cloud’s embarrassment climbed high enough that he turned his face into Angeal’s shoulder and refused to say anything. The commander could probably feel his burning face through his t-shirt with how hard he was blushing. He could very easily imagine Zack gushing about him to his packmates the same way he gushed about his packmates to Cloud.

Angeal laughed, shaking them both. “You see? You’re endearing. Cloud, I can’t promise things will automatically work, but I can promise we’ll help you as much as we can. We want to try. Do you?”

Did he? He turned his head back again, making himself comfortable against Angeal. It would hurt, and it would be hard. There was no guarantee they would get along long-term. It might be easier to turn tail and run now, before he got even more involved.

“Yeah,” he said, thinking of Zack’s hugs and Genesis’s hand in his and Sephiroth’s quiet confidence that filled in the gaps where Cloud couldn’t be confident in himself. Love was about effort, not worthiness. Action, even when his feelings were messed up. Trust. He didn’t want to let that slip by him, even if it required effort. If he was worth the effort, then they were too. “Yeah. I’ll try.”

And more than that, he decided, he would succeed. For them. And for himself.

Bonus

Angeal will probably get the first kiss, and if Cloud is blushing just from hand-holding...

Chapter Text

Of course, Zack was a SOLDIER. Cloud could never hope to outrun him. “I wouldn’t do that to you,” he said, suddenly between Cloud and the door. He grabbed Cloud’s elbows, ignoring the resulting flinch. “Nothing you could possibly say could ever make me mad at you or disappointed or whatever bad thing you’re assuming right now.”

The lower part of his throat burned with some unnamed emotion. “You can’t promise that!” he snapped. He blinked, spilling more tears over. A few got caught in his eyelashes.

And then—

Zack’s hands slid down in a single quick motion, twisting to lace their bare fingers together. Cloud suddenly understood why he’d always heard bonding described as ‘pleasant lightning:’ the sensation swept across his skin, raising every hair on end and tingling like mint. Euphoria followed, turning the world to perfect golden harmony for a moment. There was nothing more important in the world than the person holding his hands.

“I can promise, ” Zack whispered.

The euphoria was extinguished all at once. It felt like someone had dumped a bucket of icewater over him. His breath punched from his throat and he couldn’t inhale. Zack wasn’t surprised. In fact, Zack looked almost…apologetic.

Had he known the whole time?

The fragile hope in Zack’s face turned to worry when Cloud started to shake. “Cloud?”

He’d known the whole time.

Suddenly, the pizza Cloud had eaten just a few minutes ago was trying to make a reappearance. He wrenched his hands free of Zack’s, clapping one over his mouth, and scrambled for the bathroom. It felt like he blacked out for a moment. When he came back to awareness he was on his knees, leaning over the toilet and panting. His throat hurt. His heart hurt. Everything hurt.

“Cloud, hey, it’s okay—”

Zack was on his knees too, reaching for him as the sobs started to come hard and fast. He lashed out, uncoordinated and weak. Zack caught his fist. It shook badly. He had to lean over and dry heave again. Truly humiliating noises—distressed keening, outright whimpering, the kind of noises that said I’m in pain, I need help, I’m scared— kept coming from his throat. He didn’t even want to know how pathetic he smelled right now.

“I’m sorry,” Zack said, taking it across the chest without flinching when Cloud struck at him again. He crowded in close, rumbling with a brokenhearted purr. “I’m sorry. Cloud, I’m so sorry.”

“You— knew?” Cloud managed to choke out. It was hard to breathe. Impossible, really. He was falling apart.

“I’m sorry,” Zack whispered, bundling him into a tight hug. Did he know Cloud was falling apart? Was he trying to hold his pieces together? “Breathe, Cloudy. Deep breaths.”

“You knew?” He couldn’t get unstuck from that point. He’d known? How long had he known? Why had—why…?

“We knew from the beginning, Cloud,” Zack admitted, amping up his purring in response to Cloud’s escalating distress.

From the beginning? His head felt light. The funny tingling sensation in his chest shot up his neck and all the way to the back of his jaw. He couldn’t—he was breathing too much, quick shallow pants that filled his nose with the scent of Zack. It didn’t work to calm him down the way it maybe should have.

They’d known from the beginnin g.

“It’s okay!” Zack said desperately, pressing his jaw against the top of Cloud’s head. “Look, see, whatever you’re afraid of, you don’t need to be! We already knew, we’re not mad at you or anything. I—Cloud, I love you. I don’t—I don’t understand why you don’t want us but—”

Too much. Cloud wasn’t hearing Zack anymore. He wasn’t hearing anything at all except ringing in his ears.

Zack—love? But no, that wasn’t… None of this was—It didn’t make sense. 

He knew how to handle pain. He was ready for it. But he wasn’t ready for the rug to be pulled out from under his perception of reality like this. It scared him a lot more than the promise of pain did. He couldn’t handle it.

So he didn’t handle it.

Cloud drifted, disconnected from his body. Numbness covered him like a blanket. He observed from a distance as Zack tried to get him to calm down, tried to get him to listen, tried to get him to breathe deeply. Poor Zack started to panic too when nothing worked, but how could it? Whatever he was saying just slid right over Cloud like water off a tarp. 

Gray accumulated on the edges of his vision the longer he drifted. Zack stood, taking Cloud with him. The front door opened. Cloud noted with utter detachment that Zack’s other packmates entered. They seemed excited, then almost immediately horrified. Zack dragged Cloud over to the sofa. His body just sort of flopped onto it like a doll. He could tell he was maybe a minute away from passing out, if that.

Good, he thought. Unconsciousness would be a mercy.

“Cloud?”

Hands cradled his jaw, sending another lightning strike skittering across his skin. He gasped in a deep breath at the sensation, eyes flying wide. Genesis. The looming gray receded as he reconnected with his body. A violent shiver made his shoulders spasm.

“Okay good, don’t panic. Focus on me,” Genesis said, keeping ahold of his face.

But— Genesis! That was the second prebond, and now he knew that Cloud had rejected—

“I said don’t panic!” Genesis snapped, which made Cloud jump. Part of him wanted to snap back. What else was there to do but panic! Did the man expect him to be thrilled about this? He raised one badly-shaking hand and tried to bat Genesis’s away. It worked about as well as slapping a steel pylon.

“No, look at me. Breathe. Everything is fine.”

Against his will, a high-pitched whine escaped Cloud’s throat— no, it’s not fine! He shook his head jerkily as his breathing picked back up into rapid pants.

"Precious, it's alright. There's nothing to be afraid of. Keep your eyes on me and breathe deep."

Genesis knew. Zack had known the whole time. Commander Hewley and Sephiroth knew. They knew he'd lied to them! They knew he was their packmate! There was everything to be afraid of!

This time when he tried to push Genesis away it was a lot more frantic. His efforts didn't make sense—he couldn't even outrun Zack, much less the three top SOLDIERs in all of ShinRa. But that didn't quash the impulse, or his driving fear. Get away get away get get away get away!

"Gen, I don't think alphas are the problem here," Angeal said as Cloud started to seriously deteriorate again.

"Perhaps not. You try, then." Genesis let go. Cloud saw an opening, slim as it was, and bolted. Or— tried to bolt, because he was dizzy and shaking and getting up so quickly was enough to earn him a one-way ticket to the floor. It would have hurt, had someone not caught him.

“Cloud, stop.” Angeal. He smelled a lot like his jacket. “You’re going to hurt yourself. Just…it’s okay. Focus on breathing. Nothing else.” 

Cloud realized they were on the floor, probably from when he’d fallen. He was sitting between the Commander’s legs, slumped awkwardly into his torso. Angeal hadn’t touched him directly. There was no prebond. Even when the burly man rested his jaw on top of Cloud’s head, it wasn’t direct enough to bond them.

The inescapable strength of his arms made it clear that Cloud wasn’t going to have a second chance to get up and run. He seemed to be willing to wait patiently as Cloud panted shallowly into his shirt. He even shushed the others when they tried to talk.

The minutes stretched and all Angeal did was occasionally rub Cloud’s back or the top of his arm. Cloud thought, after a while, that he maybe understood why. He could only sustain his panic for so long. The longer they sat without giving him anything new to panic about, the more his shaking died down. His breathing evened out. He still felt like he was floating above his body, but the calmer he became the more Angeal’s scent started to work.

And the purring. He hadn’t even registered that Angeal was purring for him, but it was working.

I’m tired, Cloud thought suddenly. He had no pride left to balk at the way silent tears began to soak into Angeal’s shirt. I’m tired. It hurts.

A prebond was just too shallow to let packmates feel each other’s emotions. He didn’t have one with Angeal in the first place, but somehow Angeal seemed to know anyway. “I don’t know who hurt you so badly to make you this afraid of us,” he said quietly, “but it’s okay. I’ve got you. No matter what.”

Why? He’d lied to them. He’d rejected them before they’d ever had a chance to reject him. Why were they sitting with him on the floor, trying to calm him down? He didn’t understand. They should have been spitting at him for the insult. Chasing him out of ShinRa. Glaring, the same way Brian Lockheart glared at his mom.

He didn’t understand. It scared him, especially as the quiet tears came faster and his breath started to hitch in his throat again.

“I’m sorry, Cloud,” Zack said from somewhere to the side, voice thick with guilt. Cloud flinched. Angeal shushed Zack before he could say anything else.

“Don’t. Go get him some water.” Zack shuffled off. “Cloud, if I sent Genesis to go make you a proper nest out of Zack’s bed, would that help?”

Everyone loved a good nest. That was extra true for Cloud right now, still close to the tail end of his heat and incredibly stressed. And it would smell like Zack. He found himself nodding without thinking about the implications.

“Okay,” said Angeal. Cloud heard Genesis quietly pad off. Despite the fact that he’d been the one to nod, Cloud blinked through another wave of tears. Why were they doing any of this? He didn’t get it.

Angeal didn’t say anything. He just rubbed the space between Cloud’s shoulders and kept purring, quiet and steady.

Zack returned with water, crouching beside them. “Here,” he said in almost a whisper, as if he was afraid to speak too loudly. Cloud turned his face enough to see the cup because he wasn’t a fucking coward. His head hurt. When he drank the cold water, more tears trailed down his face. He narrowly avoided choking on a mouthful as a sob tried to force its way free. Why were they taking care of him?

Zack took the cup back when Cloud almost dropped it. “May I carry you?” Angeal asked. Since Cloud was all too aware that he would probably fall over if he tried to stand, he nodded. He was too tired to feel defensive and ashamed about it.

“Thank you.” Angeal stood, lifting him as if he weighed nothing at all. Cloud rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, but he couldn’t make the tears stop their slow, steady pace, and quickly gave up.

He’d only been in Zack’s room a few times, and he’d only been in Zack’s bed-turned-nest once. Just once, when his heart was breaking and he’d wondered if he would break too. Angeal set him down on the edge. He had the good manners to kick his shoes off before he rolled gracelessly into the center and curled up. It smelled so strongly of Zack that the tears finally slowed to a stop.

Zack smelled like safety and comfort. Home. Family. It was even richer now with the prebond linking them. He checked on it automatically, feeling for the same metaphysical space that connected him to his mother. He was rusty—it wasn’t like he had an abundance of friends or family. To his tremendous surprise, he found a bond much deeper than just a prebond, although it was wavering. 

Had they already had a proper friendship bond and he just… hadn’t noticed?

“Cloud,” Angeal said a little awkwardly, distracting him. “Do you—would it help you to be alone right now?”

Yes. No. Maybe, I don’t know. He was tired, confused, scared, and in pain. He didn’t know what he wanted, much less what he actually needed. His mom, maybe, but that wasn’t an option.

When he didn’t respond, there was some shuffling and rustling of cloth, as if they were shoving each other. “Um,” Zack said. The mattress shifted as he sat down. “Can I stay with you, Cloud?” It sounded like he desperately wanted to say more but restrained himself.

Did Cloud want Zack to stay? Of course. That was what he wanted more than anything. He nodded without thinking about it.

“Oh.” Zack sounded relieved. “Okay.”

The others left as Zack crawled into the nest, both of which made Cloud’s chest feel a little less tights. Zack hesitated, laying down at Cloud’s back with a good foot of distance between them. For a few minutes they both just laid there, listening to each other breathing. Cloud turned his face into the pillow beneath his head. He didn’t know what he wanted anymore, much less what he should do.

Then Zack tentatively reached out to put a hand on his side. Suddenly, he did know. He rolled over abruptly, startling Zack, and tucked himself into the curve of Zack’s body. He buried his face in Zack’s chest, gripping a handful of his shirt. It felt like home and he realized, desperately, that he didn’t want to give this up. It was impossible to keep, but he didn’t want to give it up.

“Oh.” Zack sounded on the verge of tears himself, returning Cloud’s embrace with enthusiasm. He took a deep breath. When he exhaled, it shuddered. “Hey. I’ve gotcha.”

“Zack,” Cloud said, voice cracking.

“Hey, we don’t have to talk right now,” he said, moving his arm so that Cloud’s head was laying on it. The other was wrapped tight over his ribs and across his back. “It’s okay.”

They would have to talk at some point. It wouldn’t get any easier by delaying. “I’m sorry,” he said, muffled. He kept his face in Zack’s chest. With his eyes closed, speaking didn’t seem as impossible as before.

“Woah, I uh, I think I’m the one who needs to apologize,” Zack said with an uneasy laugh. “I’m sorry, Cloud. I—I shouldn’t have touched you. I’m sure there was a better way to…handle that.”

“You already knew,” Cloud said despondently. “You—I don’t even get why you didn’t do it earlier.”

“That’s easy.” Zack’s hand moved to card through the short hair on the back of Cloud’s head. “It scared you. We didn’t want to scare you.”

It made sense, but at the same time it deeply confused him. “I—but I rejected you,” he said, unable to raise his voice above a whisper. “Why did—you must have been mad?”

Zack was quiet for a moment. “I mean, we were upset , but we were never mad. And, um…I don’t really get what you’re saying. You didn’t reject us at all?”

What? Cloud opened his eyes enough to squint at the knit of Zack’s shirt. “But I did? I f—I felt how you all reacted. The first night. When I rejected… all of you.”

“Cloud, you obviously have something against packs, but you didn’t reject us. I mean, you put so much effort into pretending you weren’t uh… our packmate, specifically so you wouldn’t reject us. Or at least me, I guess, but you’ve never put off vibes like you hate ‘Geal or Gen or Seph?” He paused anxiously. “Right?”

“I—no? They’re fine?”

“Oh. Yeah, good. But anyway, why would I be mad if you kept hanging out even after I…turned into something that scared you?”

It was such a bizarre line of logic that Cloud could barely understand it. “But…I still rejected you? I don’t—how can you not be upset?”

Zack exhaled slowly. “Okay, well…why did you?”

Oh. Now for the painful part. Cloud took a breath and braced himself for Zack’s reaction. “I-I don’t want a pack. I’m fine on my own. That’s why.”

Zack’s scent didn’t change at all—no anger, no incredulity. If anything, it might have become slightly tinged with worry. “Oh. Well… why don’t you want your pack? Because of your mom?”

Cloud was startled enough by the question to pull away from Zack’s chest and look him in the face. “Huh? I never told you anything about that,” he said.

“Well, not directly, but you said enough that I kinda put the pieces together. Something bad happened with her pack and that’s why it was just you two when you were growing up, right?”

Cloud hesitated, wondering how much he wanted to tell Zack. It… could only help, right? If Zack knew why? Then maybe he’d let it go— let the idea of Cloud as his packmate go.

“I—yeah. She… um, her pack didn’t want her. I… had to see it every day when I was growing up. The way they looked at her. So I don’t need—I’m fine on my own.” He looked to the side as he talked, unable to meet Zack’s eyes.

A hand found its way to Cloud’s hair again, surprising him. He couldn’t help but lean into it, a reflexive purr rumbling in his chest. He quickly smothered it, then wondered why bother? It wasn’t like he had any pride left to protect.

Zack was quiet for a very long time as he petted Cloud’s hair. It was especially surprising given that Zack was hardly ever quiet, but he seemed to be taking great care with what he wanted to say before he said it. And when he did speak, Cloud understood why. His words landed like a punch.

“You think we would end up looking at you the same way?”

Cloud flinched. He wasn’t even sure why. Was it because Zack sounded so devastated, or because he was right? He opened his mouth, then shut it. There was nothing he could say.

“Cloud, I—I don’t understand.” He flinched again at Zack’s tone. “What did I do to make you think that could ever happen?”

“Nothing,” Cloud choked out, scrambling to reassure Zack. “N-nothing, Zack, you… you’ve never done anything wrong.” How could you ever do anything wrong?

“But you’re still scared.”

“I-I’m not scared of you!” Cloud felt dizzy, confused by his own line of logic. “I mean—I’m not… scared. I just… don’t need a pack.”

Zack’s hand moved to rest lightly on the side of his face. “Bud, if you’re not scared then why didn’t you just tell us that the first night? You could have. ‘Hey guys, sorry but I don’t really vibe with the normal pack stuff. Let’s just stay friends.’”

The very thought of it sent Cloud’s pulse racing. He felt the blood drain from his face. Zack didn’t understand. He absolutely couldn’t have done that then. He couldn’t even do it now, even though he was trapped and he probably had to do it anyway. They… already knew. How were they going to look at him when he finally stood up and walked out, rejecting them again?

Mr. Lockheart and Auntie Thea’s faces filled his mind, one full of hate and the other pain.

Zack was quick to hug him again. “Shit, I’m sorry. I should have realized how you’d react to that. I don’t want you to be scared of me—or us.”

“I’m not scared,” Cloud objected weakly.

“Then what are you feeling right now?”

Terror, that was what. Cloud bit his lip and didn’t answer.

“You know it’s okay to be scared, right? Especially after what you saw as a kid? It’s—you can even be scared of me. It’s okay.”

“I’m not scared of you. ” He repeated, curling one hand into the fabric of Zack’s shirt. There was no point in lying to himself any more. He was terrified, but not because of Zack. That part was true. “Maybe I’m just… scared of myself.”

“Why?”

“Maybe I just know myself, Zack.” His eyes were burning again. He didn’t quite understand why. All he knew was that it hurt.

“I—I’m sorry, I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

“Maybe I ruin everything I touch.” His chest felt tight. It was getting kind of hard to breathe. “M-maybe… if anyone could ruin this… it would be me.”

The breath that Zack drew in shuddered. “What if I promised I wouldn’t let you?” he asked unsteadily.

“…what?”

“I promise. I won’t let you ruin it.” Zack somehow managed to curl around him even more than he already was. “You think you’d ruin it? Fine, I just won’t let you. If you don’t trust yourself, then trust me.”

Cloud didn’t get it. He didn’t understand. How could Zack just keep… being this good? How could he keep finding ways to make Cloud want to risk this? It hurt so much, but he wanted it so much. He felt like it was going to tear him apart.

“Zack.” He sounded tormented even to his own ears.

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Cloud. I won’t let you run away. If you want to walk away later, when you’re calm and thinking clearly, okay. Fine. But I won’t let you fail yourself. You don’t have to be scared of that.”

“I—I don’t know what I want, Zack.” That was a lie, actually. He did know. He was just too scared to hope he could have it and not lose it immediately because he wasn’t good enough. And he wasn’t. He really wasn’t. He failed everything he tried, ruined everything he touched.

“I think you do know,” Zack said, gentle but unyielding. “I think if you didn’t know, you wouldn’t be lying here with me, would you?”

Cloud squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his face even harder into his friend’s chest. Don’t make me say it. I can’t say it, don’t make me. If I say it out loud I can’t pretend any more.

“Cloud? What do you want?”

His breath was starting to pick up again, growing ragged. “I w-want to go home.”

Zack didn’t let his misdirection slide. “Yeah. I bet. We can help you get leave to go visit your mom in a day or two, after we finish working everything out. What else do you want?”

He wasn’t connected to his body any more. His hands shook where they gripped Zack’s shirt. His throat burned. He didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want to say anything ever again, he just wanted to get up and run—

“Cloud, I love you. You’re safe. I’ve got you. Just tell me what you want.”

Don’t say that. A muffled, tortured keen clawed from his throat. Don’t say that, don’t make me believe you. His head spun. There were words stuck at the back of his tongue, screaming to be released, but there was an equal terror keeping them stuck. He… wanted to say them. He wanted. He did. He couldn’t.

Just say it. Say it and it’s over. Say it. Say it, say it, why can’t you say it, just SAY IT.

“Please? For me? Just once.”

The dam finally broke. “I… want… you,” he burst out, stilted and panting and painful. Zack’s shirt was getting steadily soaked with tears again. “I w-want to s-stay with you all, but I don’t want a p—!” He choked. Wasn’t saying it out loud supposed to make it better? Why was it still hurting?

“Don’t want a pack.” Zack finished his statement for him. It wasn’t a question. “Because it’s the ‘pack’ part that scares you.” Cloud nodded into his chest. “If it’s… if it’s not me, or us… then… all I can ask you to do is stay even though you’re still scared. Can I ask you to stay? Please?” He sounded a lot more desperate than Cloud deserved.

Stay? After everything he’d done to them? “Zack, I’m too much trouble,” Cloud said wretchedly. “I must be. I—why would you… what if I’m always scared? What if it never gets better?”

Why was he trying to convince Zack to reject him? What was he doing? He took a shuddering breath, dizzy and tormented. What he was doing was stupid, but when he thought about Zack and the others trying to accept him, only to realize that he just wasn’t worth it, he felt like he was about to throw up. That would be so much worse than getting it over with now, before he could start hoping.

Zack laughed a little, heartbroken in a way that made Cloud flinch again. “Do you think we have some kind of list of criteria our last packmate has to meet to earn our love, Cloud?”

Well… yeah. Everyone had criteria. Everyone had a threshold beyond which they would leave you. That was just how life worked. Even in the most optimistic scenarios, he had to be at least close to that line, with everything he’d done and everything he just wasn’t.

“I—okay, look at it like this,” said Zack, tucking his nose down into Cloud’s hair. “I already know you, Cloud. Really well. And you think you did everything wrong, okay, fine, but I still want you. Even now, when all the secrets are out in the open. Don’t you think that means something?”

It did mean something. His heart lurched, and a sob clawed its way from his throat. A fragile, terrifying hope flickered in his chest, right where it hurt the most. “But—”

“I love you!” Zack interrupted, making Cloud’s heart lurch again. “Didn’t you hear me? I mean it! I love you! A lot! There are no buts, Cloud. I knew from the beginning. I watched you try and push us away so hard that you hurt yourself.” He pulled back so they could look each other in the eye. He was crying too. “And guess what? It didn’t make me love you any less.”

Another humiliating, pathetic noise hiccuped in Cloud’s throat. His eyes darted around, trying to find… something. He didn’t know what. Something. “I—but—but I don’t know if I love you like that. I don’t know anything anymore!”

“You don’t have to love me the same way. Really.” Zack moved a hand to the side of his face, brushing his thumb over Cloud’s sticky cheek. “I just want you to be okay. And I don’t think you’d be okay if I let you run away right now. Do you?”

“...no.” It didn’t matter what he did, he wasn’t going to be okay. He wasn’t going to be okay if he ran away, all the way back home where he wanted to go and hide in his mother’s arms. He wasn’t going to be okay if he stayed, either. He choked on a sob, coughing. Zack pulled them both upright and pounded on his back until he could breathe again.

“I’m not okay,” he managed to get out, letting go of Zack to bury his face in his hands. “Zack, I’m not okay. I don’t know how to fix me.” Despair overwhelmed him for a moment. Could he even be fixed? Or was he just too damaged?

“I don’t know how to fix this either,” Zack admitted, gently knocking his forehead against Cloud’s temple. “But I don’t think it’s about fixing you. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Isn’t there?” Cloud looked up, tipping from despair into a quiet resignation. “Normal people want their packs. Normal people don’t act like this.”

“It’s not because of you,” Zack repeated firmly. “If it was you, then you would still react like this even if all that stuff hadn’t happened to your mom, right? But that’s the whole reason. Cloud, I get it. I don’t know how to help you right now, but I get it, and I want to be there for you while you figure out what you want. Isn’t that worth something?”

Cloud searched his friend’s face, desperately trying to understand. Zack wasn’t going to reject him? Zack wanted to be with him even when he wasn’t okay? Even when he was obviously little more than a pathetic, wrecked burden of a man?

His fingers wound together tightly in his lap. He gripped until it hurt. “What if,” he blurt out unsteadily, breath becoming uneven again, “what if I… still don’t want a pack? In the end?”

Zack bit his lip, but he smiled too. “Then… okay. I mean, it’ll hurt, but okay. It’s not like you belong to us, Cloud. With us, yeah, I think so, but… it’s still your choice. I’ll still love you.”

Even if it hurts. Zack wanted to try even if it hurt him. He knew it was possible. He was okay with that risk. For… Cloud?

“Zack.” His voice broke. He wasn’t even sure what he’d intended to say. Zack seemed to understand anyway.

“I love you,” he repeated again, hands sliding over to cradle Cloud’s face. “A lot more than you believe, I think. I love you.” When Cloud blinked, spilling over a few more tears, Zack brushed them away and leaned in to rest their foreheads together. “Please, trust me. Just for a little while.”

Cloud shut his eyes and reached up to rest his hands over Zack’s. He took another unsteady breath and swallowed hard, gathering his courage.

“…Okay.”