Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cloud wasn’t supposed to succeed.

He wasn’t supposed to win against the self-styled god who’d unwritten his whole world and taken him back to his most vulnerable moments. He wasn’t supposed to win against the monster who wanted to mold him into the perfect eternal counterpart. His body was just six years old, though he had already been inflicted with the enhancements of a full SOLDIER. He still wasn’t meant to win a head-on battle. Not yet.

But then, by sheer accident, he’d dragged the two of them through the very fabric of reality. Sephiroth’s power waned while Cloud’s waxed as he grasped desperately for an understanding beyond mortal ken. When they fought, it was no longer just on the physical plane.

Universes tore around them as they tumbled, Cloud unraveling himself in a bid for just enough power to win while Sephiroth tried to tangle the threads of his soul under his ironclad grip. Time smeared and compressed. Meaning did too. Cloud grasped an understanding of what had been done to him—and how to undo it in a way that would kill its architect.

You belong to me! Sephiroth howled in terrified fury, tearing chunks out of Cloud’s soul with ethereal claws. Mine, my Perfect Storm! You are mine! Memories warped and fragmented and disappeared altogether as he damaged them: Tifa’s smile; a sword through his torso; the smell of Zack’s uniform; torturous hours in the mako tanks; Sephiroth’s youthful face twisted in a parody of adoration.

No, Cloud whispered, his hands finding purchase in the source of the great darkness that had once threatened to consume him. I don’t belong to anyone.  

He pulled.

The demon came apart.

Angeal took on a low priority mission the day their whole world got turned upside down. It was a minor disturbance in the slums, something to do with a non-hostile escaped experiment and a kid. He’d called Seph too, just in case it was worse than had been reported…and for more selfish reasons. If they were lucky it would be a very simple mission to put down the monster and then they would be able to sneak in a little quality time.

Everything seemed normal as he searched through the sector—no screams, no wreckage outside of the usual. It was almost pleasant to patrol in the relative quiet. But things rapidly became more serious when he came upon a smeared trail of blood. He stopped, crouching next to it. A pale gold feather lay in one of the crimson puddles, hissing away into smoke like a volatile chemical. He frowned and pulled his sword out.

Following the trail wasn’t hard. It got thicker as it went, fresher, glistening even in the dim light of the slums. The smell intensified—hot metal, burned flesh, and something that made his hackles go up. It reminded him of Seph, but wrong. And there was something else, buried under the smell of suffering and hate. Even with his senses, he couldn’t quite parse it.

The mystery resolved itself when he found the source of the blood: a small blond child, breathing hard as he sat curled up in the tiny space beneath some wreckage that might once have been a house. The scent of a child in intense pain finally managed to cut through everything else. Angeal dropped his sword and immediately crouched.

“Holy—kid? Hey, buddy, are you okay? Are you hurt? Where are you hurt?”

The kid hummed a dazed response, opening his eyes with obvious effort to reveal bright, mako-blue irises and cat-slit pupils.

Angeal completely forgot how to breathe.

The kid squinted at him, panting unsteadily. He didn’t seem unduly alarmed, which was strange considering he was covered in blood and obviously injured. After a short staring contest, the kid weakly rolled his eyes and moved, shuffling forward to place clammy hands on Angeal’s and bring them up toward his chest.

“Breathe,” the kid said, voice rasping.

And Angeal stared in disbelief, because…what? He was the adult—why did this kid think it was his job to calm Angeal down? How did he even think to do that?

Still, he had a point. Angeal forced himself to take a deep breath. The smell of an exhausted omega child in pain hit him again, and this time he couldn’t help it—he started purring. Was it an appropriate reaction, purring for a strange child like it was his own? Probably not. But where were the people who should have been purring for this kid?

Maybe he didn’t have any, because within seconds the kid was starting to go limp, soothed like a newborn in its mother’s arms. A tiny noise escaped him as he swayed and there was a brief, bright note of alarm in his scent before it was soothed away—as if he’d never experienced anything like this before.

“Okay, I’ve got you,” Angeal said, making a decision. He’d take the little omega back to the Tower for some medical attention, then try to find his parents and their pack, if it existed. He gently pulled the kid out from his hiding space, searching for broken bones before he dared to pick him up.

“What’s—?” the kid slurred, fighting to stay awake. His head lolled backward over Angeal’s arm, exposing yellowed bruises in the shape of fingers around his neck.

Angeal kept a right rein on his fury at the sight. “Shhh, just go to sleep,” he said, voice as gentle as he could make it. His head tilted when he heard Seph’s distinctive footfalls. Relief flooded him. At least he wasn’t alone in figuring this out. “We’re gonna get you somewhere safe, okay sweetheart?”

“Angeal?” Seph asked when he came within earshot, nostrils flared as he breathed in the awful, mingled smells. “What—“

He never got to finish his question. The kid jumped like he’d been electrocuted, twisting out of Angeal’s arms to dart in front of him with a speed even the most naturally talented omega shouldn't have had. He crouched protectively in front of Angeal, twinned knives in his little hands, and rumbled with one of the angriest snarls they’d ever heard.

Sephiroth stopped in his tracks immediately, eyes wide with a rare moment of true surprise. The smell of raw hostility and fear stung both their noses. It was especially unpleasant coming from such a little child.

“Okay,” Angeal said, voice dropping down to an instinctive softness. “It’s okay, kid. I know he must smell all big and scary, but he’s not gonna hurt you. How about you hand me those knives, huh?”

“I—“ Confusion warred with the little omega’s anger. His head dipped and jerked as he fought to not be comforted. “I—go! Get out of here, before he kills you! I’ll hold him off!”

There was a lot to unpack there. Angeal took a deep breath, wincing at the metallic sting of hostility, and reached out to very carefully put his hands on the kid’s shoulders. He started purring as loudly and soothingly as he could manage. “No one needs to hold anyone off, sweetheart. Seph isn’t going to hurt you. He’s certainly not going to hurt me. He’s my packmate.”

Blank confusion met his words. The kid shook himself, trying to stay balanced as the purring took the fight right out of him. “What is—the—stop it! Stop making that noise!”

“Have you been on your own this whole time?” Angeal asked sadly. “No one’s ever purred for you?”

The kid made a noise of muffled bewilderment as his legs crumpled underneath him. Angeal pulled him back to lay against his side, gently pulling the knives out of his little hands and tossing them in Seph’s direction to be picked up and safely put away.

The small, terrified noise the kid made when he was disarmed just about broke his heart. “You’re okay,” he murmured, picking the little omega up for the second time. “No one’s gonna hurt you. Just go to sleep for a little bit, okay?”

The kid didn’t really have much of a choice in the matter, head dipping and breath easing as he was soothed into unconsciousness. Angeal let out a slow breath, looking over to Seph. They shared a bewildered glance.

“Who enhanced him?” Sephiroth asked, moving toward his packmate now that he wouldn’t frighten the small child. Angeal jolted at the question because—well, honestly, he’d been so distracted it hadn’t really sunk in that the kid was enhanced. But he was. His child-sweet scent was tinged with the unmistakable metallic spark of mako.

“I don’t think he has a natal pack at all,” Angeal blurt out. “Whoever made him…”

“It can’t have been ShinRa,” Sephiroth murmured. 

Often, when they were working to complete a mission, normal rules of propriety didn’t apply to them. This was one of those times as Sephiroth picked up the boy’s arm and inhaled deeply at his wrist where the blood ran hot under a thin layer of skin. His brow furrowed. “He smells like me. That…if it was Hojo, he would not have let a specimen get away so easily. But he smells like he is mine.”

“Well he’s certainly not going back to Hojo,” Angeal snarled, then stopped, surprised by the intensity of his own response.

Sephiroth’s eyebrows were high. He didn’t even have to say anything.

“We should uh,” Angeal said, coughing sheepishly, “get him to a doctor.”

They did their best to avoid using anything and anyone that might report back to Science. First Class privileges made it easy to call two doctors up to Angeal’s apartment, where things could be kept more-or-less discreet. One, an omega materia specialist, made short work of the child’s physical injuries. All of them had come from sword combat, spell damage, and blunt-force trauma, much to her audible horror. Neither did anyone miss the fact that she’d had to cut a small—but still much too large—SOLDIER uniform off of him to get to his injuries.

The other doctor, an elderly beta generalist, looked the little one over for anything materia couldn’t make quick work of. “He’s a very strong kid,” the doctor said, snow-white brows drawn together in concern, “but the chronic stress is going to be obvious in his scent for a while, never mind the acute stress. I’m afraid I can’t even begin to guess how this is going to interact with his enhancements. He needs rest and fluids for the blood loss. I’ll give him one of the SOLDIER-graded IV bags for now, but once he wakes up he’ll need food and water. As much as you can get into him.”

When all was said and done, they were left with a dirty, stressed, mysteriously enhanced omega baby sleeping in Angeal’s bed. What the hell they were supposed to do with him, they didn’t know. They also didn’t think about it, hiding behind the weak pretense that they needed to ask the child about his birth pack before they could make any other plans.

Nevermind that they both knew any natal pack that had let this happen to a child wasn’t worth returning to.

Genesis came home when Angeal was sitting with the kid and Seph was ordering takeout. He didn’t stop to greet Seph. He didn’t even stop to greet Angeal. Instead, he went straight to the child, sitting down on the edge of the bed and taking one small hand in his own.

“Genesis?” Angeal asked, baffled. Genesis didn’t like children, as a rule.

“I knew it,” the grown omega said, inhaling the scents in the room deeply. An utterly serene look came over his face. “The Goddess sent us a child.”

“Excuse me?” Angeal choked out.

Genesis barely took any notice as he clicked his tongue and set about fussing with the linens. “What is this? Ridiculous, he needs a proper nest. This bed is practically bare!”

“What? No, back up, what the hell are you talking about? The goddess?”

Genesis sighed at him impatiently, sculpting the bed into a proper nest around the still-nameless child. “Last night, I had a dream that the Goddess appeared to me, holding a beautiful sword covered in black rot. She cleansed it with a great light and entrusted it to me. Us. The moment my hands closed around its hilt, it took the form of a child with radiant golden hair.” He paused and looked down his nose at Angeal. “I’m sure you can see the connections.”

Sephiroth appeared in the doorway. “Genesis, you have never once gotten a dream ‘from the goddess’ before. Why are you so certain that it means an unexpected addition to the pack?”

“Well,” Genesis said consideringly, putting the finishing touches on the nest and summarily crawling into it without a hint of shame. “To put it very simply—“ he wrapped himself around the boy, eyes glittering like a dragon guarding its hoard “— mine now.”

“That is not how adoption works!” Angeal said, exasperated.

“It is when the goddess hands you a son.”

“You don’t even like children!”

“This one smells like he has enough mana to smoke you in a materia fight and he’s what, five? Of course I like him, he’s special. And, more importantly, mine. ”

Angel growled wordlessly and tossed up his hands. “Fine. You get to watch him then, Genesis. We’ll see how he reacts to his Goddess-appointed parent when he wakes up.”

When Cloud woke up again, he wasn’t happy about it. Everything hurt. Everything. He’d only managed to kill the bastard by tearing himself apart, and he was definitely suffering the consequences now. Sephiroth’s remains had scattered across dimensions, and Cloud had fallen through others until he finally came to a violent stop in the current one.

Everything hurt.

His memory was fuzzy, but he vaguely recalled seeing Hewley. And…another Sephiroth? Had that one been malicious? He couldn’t remember anything past that point. Stupid dumbass SOLDIERs, always putting themselves in danger. At least his stupid dumbass SOLDIERs were safe now.

He groaned quietly and curled up into a ball, even though there was no way to ease the pain that made every nerve throb. Well—no, there was. He could try to do something about his wings. But he wasn’t going to. He wasn’t ever going to, if he could help it.

“Oh dear,” someone he belatedly identified as Rhapsodos said. A hand ran through his hair, and he realized that, while everything immaterial hurt, his body was actually in a much better state than he last remembered. He was warm, too, and curled up against…Rhapsodos? “What’s hurting, precious?”

Cloud didn’t make a conscious decision to punch Rhapsodos, that fucking moron. It just kind of happened. And he deserved it. Probably. Even though this wasn’t Cloud’s idiot.

The SOLDIER burst out laughing, which shook Cloud where he was curled up into the man’s side. “Ooh, ow! What a fierce bear cub the Goddess has given us. So grumpy. Tell me what’s hurting, little cub.”

No. And why the hell was he even curled up next to Rhapsodos? He forced himself upright, kicking at the blankets over him so he could get off the bed or couch or whatever he was on. His eyes opened to a dimly lit bedroom as he tried to get free, and a familiar tug on one arm sent him straight into reflexive panic: somebody had put an IV in him.

“Easy, little cub—no!” Whatever Rhapsodos had intended to say was cut off as he scrambled to stop Cloud from removing the IV, once he realized why Cloud had put his thumb over the needle’s base and sunk his teeth into the flashback chamber.

“No, no, we don’t do that, we let either the doctors or Angeal do that,” Rhapsodos said, trapping Cloud’s hand and putting pressure under his chin until he had no choice but to yield. “I really don’t like how you knew an acceptable way to do that on your own,’ he added under his breath.

Cloud snarled, and with that one noise his memories of the day before came flooding back in technicolor. His snarl was off— deeper and more resonant, using muscles he couldn’t remember ever feeling in his throat—just like it had been yesterday when he’d snarled at Sephiroth. It startled him enough that the sound only lasted a brief second. Fear and frustration threatened to choke him.

Why did everything keep happening to him? Why couldn’t it just stop?

“Oookay, okay, shhhh,” Rhapsodos cooed, and then the thing happened again. The SOLDIER’s chest rumbled soothingly. A pleasant but freakishly compelling smell filled the air. Cloud found himself going limp like he’d been tranquilized, his unsettled emotions ebbing into a strange quietness. He was drawn back down to lay snug against Rhapsodos’s side, where the sound and smell were most overwhelming.

“There we go. It’s alright. Angeal?”

The door to the bedroom opened, letting light spill in from the illuminated hallway. “Is he okay? What happened?” The dark-haired SOLDIER appeared at the side of the bed. Cloud blinked at him hazily.

“Well. Infinite in mystery is the gift of the Goddess. He knows how to take IVs out with one hand and his teeth.” Angeal inhaled sharply at that, and Genesis said wryly, “Quite. So if you would be so kind as to spare him the trouble, perhaps he’ll be a little more willing to use his words.”

Angeal retrieved a box from the bedside and set about removing Cloud’s IV the proper way (with both hands), which was…tolerable. He was a dumbass, but a dumbass Cloud was vaguely willing to trust. It probably helped that the… purring from Genesis was keeping him calm.

“I know you don’t like it,” Angeal said to him as he worked. “I’m sorry. I promise it was just fluids. We would never hurt you.”

“Never,” Genesis cooed, which was honestly starting to freak Cloud out, because he’d only ever heard that tone from the SOLDIER when he was obsessing over something LOVELESS -related. Not over Cloud. Never over Cloud. So what the hell…?

Then Genesis added, “you’re our precious little gift from the goddess herself.”

“What?” Cloud managed, punching Genesis again because he deserved it.

Again, he winced and laughed. “Ow! No more hitting, my goodness what a terrible habit for such a little cub.”

“‘m not a gift,” Cloud growled, working himself back up into a real lather. Curse was more like it, but also irrelevant. Were these two massive idiots trying to adopt him again? For fuck sake, they’d just met!

“Don’t upset him, Gen,” Angeal said, holding pressure on Cloud’s arm long enough for his enhanced healing to seal up the puncture in his vein. There was no need for gauze or tape with SOLDIERs. “We haven’t even asked him about his parents.”

“Oh fine,” Genesis huffed, running his fingers soothingly through Cloud’s hair and changing the pitch of his purr. Instantly, Cloud relaxed back down, his upset dissipating like fog in the sun. “Do you know where your parents are, precious? Or any other part of your pack?”

…his what?

“My what?”

Over his head, Genesis and Angeal exchanged a glance. The strange smell that kept going to his head shifted in a way that made him uneasy, even though he didn’t understand why.

“Where were you raised, kiddo?” Angeal asked with a level of gentleness that told Cloud everything he needed to know about what the man assumed the answer would be.

Cloud narrowed his eyes. Telling the truth was right out, but to what degree was he supposed to lie? He could tell them to fuck off, but he knew from experience that was an exercise in futility. Maybe the best option was to play to their assumptions. If they saw what they were expecting to see, they wouldn’t look any deeper. Right?

“The Lab,” he said flatly. “And I’m not going back.”

They smelled really sad. He suddenly realized he could smell their sadness. What the hell was happening to him?

Genesis bundled him close and dragged Angeal down to join them. “You poor little cub. There is no hate, only joy. I won’t let any of those nasty scientists touch you ever again, precious.”

These two seemed soft, compared to the Genesis and Angeal he knew. Maybe he could put the fear of the gods in them? Then they might back off, like sensible idiots.

“I killed all of them,” he said coldly. “I don’t need your help.”

Yeah…that was a bad decision. They just got sadder, and now both Genesis and Angeal were purring at him. He went completely limp.

“Oh, precious,” Genesis said mournfully, rocking him back and forth in a tight hug.

Angeal sighed. “Alright Gen, you win,” he said cryptically.

“Told you,” the redhead returned smugly. “An omega’s intuition is never wrong.”

Cloud hadn’t meant to echo the word out loud, but he did anyway. “Omega?” Like…the same Omega Vincent had dealt with?

“You don’t even know what…?” Angeal trailed off. His hand found the side of Cloud’s face, one thumb stroking over his brow. “You, kiddo. You’re an omega. So is Genesis. Bet you’re really good with materia, huh?”

You know what? I don’t want to know, Cloud decided, struggling not to doze off as Angeal continued to trace hypnotic lines across his face. I really do not want to know.

He must have lost the fight, because the next time he blinked they were out in a living room, and Angeal was holding him. He wondered, vaguely, why he was so exhausted. Even during the worst moments of the war, he was stronger than this.

Then he caught sight of silver hair and the exhaustion was replaced by adrenaline. He held absolutely still, trying not to draw attention to himself, which worked for maybe three seconds before Angeal inhaled sharply and looked down at him.

“Woah! Hey, kiddo, it’s okay. What’s wrong?” He hefted Cloud higher up against his chest, rocking in place. It did not soothe Cloud even a little bit.

“Now who’s upsetting the baby!” Genesis mocked from another room.

Angeal rolled his eyes before looking at Cloud again. “No one’s gonna hurt you.”

Yeah, sure, no one was going to hurt him, just like how Sephiroth was completely sane all the way up until he wasn’t. They locked eyes from across the room and engaged in a staring contest. Cloud won.

“He is reacting to my presence,” Sephiroth sighed, looking away.

“Oh. That’s right,” Angeal said, an audible frown in his voice. “Hey, what do you have against Seph, kiddo? He’s not so scary once you get to know him.”

“What! A child who doesn’t swoon over the Great Silver Dragon? Perish the thought!” Genesis called.

“Not the time, Gen,” Angeal snapped with a hint of a growl. Cloud still hadn’t taken his eyes off Sephiroth. Angeal’s frown deepened—he could feel it. “We’re going to have to deal with this quickly. You’re just as much a part of this pack as anyone else.”

The SOLDIER marched over to where Sephiroth was sitting, much to Cloud’s alarm. The rational part of him pointed out that if Sephiroth snapped and tried to skewer anyone, a foot or two of extra distance really wouldn’t make that much of a difference. Did it matter how close he was?

…yeah, who was he kidding. He just didn’t want to be anywhere near that face ever again.

“We’re going to sit right here for a little while,” Angeal told him calmly, settling down close enough that Sephiroth could have reached out to touch Cloud if he’d wanted. “There’s nothing to be scared of.” The purring started up again, a soft rumble against his side. He relaxed into it, despite his best efforts not to, until he was looking at Sephiroth with sleepy eyes and only the faintest glimmers of wariness.

Genesis came into the living room with a host of dishes and silverware, as well as two pitchers. He set them down on the coffee table, then took a moment to stroke the curve of Cloud’s cheek before he sat down on Sephiroth’s other side. “The Puppy is picking up our order from the front desk,” he said. “He should be here soon.”

“When was the last time you ate, little one?” Sephiroth asked tentatively, testing the waters.

Cloud narrowed his eyes, exhaling hard as a sweet…hopeful (?) scent tickled his nose. Alright, maybe this one wasn’t crazy. Yet. Didn’t mean he had to like being near the guy though. Or answer him.

Genesis huffed a laugh. “We haven’t even asked his name yet, and we are interrogating his eating habits. No wonder he’s so cross with us. What is your name, little cub?”

Cloud transferred his glare to Genesis and pointedly didn’t answer. Then Angeal carded fingers through his hair, purring a touch louder, and his irritation was soothed away. He still didn’t answer though.

“Do you have a name?” Angeal asked, sadness creeping into his voice.

Cloud nodded reflexively. Of course he had a name. In fact, he had a lot of names, some much more hated than others. Little General. Perfect Storm. Archangel. Chickabo. Tempest. Cloud Strife. He didn’t know what he was doing in this place, he didn’t have a goal, but he knew he didn’t want to give them any of his names. 

“I don’t think he’s going to tell you, love,” Genesis said with amusement as the silence stretched.

Angeal gently squished his cheek. “Stubborn, aren’t you?” he said.

He said it with enough fondness that Cloud suddenly thought he did have a goal, actually: get the hell out of here. What was with these idiots always getting attached to him so quickly? He didn’t know what kind of curse nipped at his heels even with the monster dead, but he wasn’t about to risk anyone else. Nothing, no one, was worth staying—

The front door burst open. “I’m home!” one Zack Fair said, unloading about six bags of takeout onto the floor before he was over by the couch in a flash, stealing Cloud from Angeal before anyone could stop him. “Hello, baby! Welcome to the pack!” he enthused, holding Cloud up above his head and tapping their noses together.

“Zack, hold on, he’s kind of—” Angeal started, and Genesis also half rose out of his seat with words of warning on his lips, but—

Uh oh, Cloud thought as a strange sensation pulled at his upper chest and he abruptly burst into loud purring.

The clamor stopped. Cloud, mortified, felt his face heat up. Zack looked up at him with surprised blue eyes, which only made Cloud purr harder and flush a deeper crimson. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the damned sound to stop.

“I think Zack wins,” Angeal finally managed, laughing.

“I don’t know what you did to cheat, but you certainly cheated,” Genesis pouted.

“Oh, it’s Cloud,” Zack realized abruptly, head tilting to the side as he searched Cloud’s face. “Why is—where? What?”

UH OH, Cloud thought, squirming. He still couldn’t stop purring.

“What do you mean, ‘it’s Cloud?’” Sephiroth asked, puzzled.

“I mean it’s Cloud. Lookit him blush. Aww now he’s doing the grumpy pout too! Cutie.” He pressed a dramatic kiss to one of Cloud’s cheeks before tucking him into one arm. Immediately, Cloud put his hands over his face and did his level best to curl up and die of embarrassment. “What happened? Did something blow up in the materia research department while he was on patrol?”

“Zack, that’s not Cloud,” Genesis said, although there was now a considering note to his voice. “We passed your friend on the way in, it can’t be him.”

“Huh,” said Zack. Cloud could feel all eyes on him as he continued to rumble like Fenrir’s engines, despite his best efforts. “That’s uh…it’s not his kid, right? He’s a little too young…for…” He trailed off, then bent over a little to press his nose against Cloud’s hair and inhale deeply.

Mortified a second time, Cloud stopped trying to hide his face in favor of slapping insistently at Zack’s cheeks.

“Where did you say you got him from?” Zack asked. He smiled, confusion and affection mixed together.

The other three exchanged glances before Angeal answered. “The slums. I went out on a mission—some monster I never found—and he was bleeding out all alone. He doesn’t have a natal pack, he said he was raised in “the lab,” so…well, he’s ours now.”

SO THEY HAD ADOPTED HIM! Cloud’s head snapped up to glare at them. Or, rather, it would have, had Zack not crushed him to his chest in a protective embrace. The SOLDIER growled, deep in the barrel of his chest. Cloud went limp, but unlike with the purring, anxiety pricked at him as his battle instincts flared.

“What lab,” Zack said dangerously, his voice just on the edge of a snarl.

Genesis hummed. “He didn’t say. Actually, why don’t you ask him? He liked you right away. And ease up on the growling, you’re making him nervous.”

Zack relaxed immediately, which made Cloud relax too. “Oh, shi—I mean, shoot, sorry buddy.” He moved over to an empty armchair, setting Cloud down and crouching so that they were near eye level with each other. He smiled, cupping the side of Cloud’s face, which—

On one hand, why were they all so touchy, but on the other, Zack. He leaned into it without thinking and the purring started up again. He hadn’t even noticed it had stopped.

“You are such a sweetie, aren’t you?” Zack cooed, and Cloud couldn’t even summon up the will to glare at him. “Can you tell me about the lab you were in, honeybun? What did it look like? Who was there?”

“No,” Cloud grumbled, holding Zack’s hand to his face and pressing into it. He knew something in his body had seriously changed to adapt to this world, but there was a weird nostalgia to Zack’s scent. He wondered if it was the same between the Zack who had died for him and this one, and he was just more sensitive to it now. Either way, it made him feel safe in a way he hadn’t for years and years and years.

His eyes were starting to burn a little bit. Godsdammit.

“No? Why not?” Zack pouted dramatically. “Don’t you like me?”

Cloud scowled at him. “‘Cause it doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

“No it doesn’t. They’re all dead.”

Zack took a deep breath. He used his other hand to stroke Cloud’s hair away from his face. “Did they ever tell you why you were there? Did they want something from you?”

He knew what Sephiroth had wanted from him. “Weapon,” he mumbled without thinking. Zack made him feel so damn safe that it was messing with his judgment. “All he did was make a monster, though.”

“What kind of monster? Is that what hurt you?”

And Cloud had, of course, meant himself, so it took him a confused second to understand the question. By the time he realized he should probably lie and say yes, Zack had caught on.

“Oh—oh, baby, no, you’re not a monster,” Zack said, distress leaking into his voice and scent. “Why would you think that?”

Cloud stared hard at Zack for a second. He knew he was cute, but had the SOLDIER just completely missed the part where he said he’d slaughtered—oh. No, that’s what he’d told Genesis and Angeal. He’d only said they were dead to Zack. So he clarified, “I killed them. And my eyes are like his sometimes.” He pointed to Sephiroth.

Was that just a little bit mean? Yes.

“That doesn’t mean you’re a monster,” Zack said. “Seph’s not a monster, he’s very nice. You’re both just special.”

Cloud couldn’t help but snort disbelievingly. He considered bringing out the wings to really drive the point home, but the mere thought filled him with such revulsion that he discarded it immediately. Besides, it would make everything hurt more, and he was barely managing to ignore the constant throbbing as it was.

“We’ll work on it,” Zack decided with a sigh. “Can you tell me your name, then?”

Well he definitely couldn’t say “Cloud” now, and nothing else he’d ever been called was a good option. They seemed to be making the assumptions about his upbringing that he wanted, at least. He could reinforce it by giving them the code ShinRa had used to designate him as a Science Department Asset in Wutai.

“NE-SH-02,” he said, leaving off the part of the code that specified ‘ShinRa Science Department,’ and braced for a wave of sadness from them.

Sure enough, it hit like a truck. “...okay,” Zack warbled after a moment, eyes suspiciously shiny. “Well, that’s not going to work. Let’s come up with a new one, huh?”

“How about we all think about it while we eat,” Angeal suggested, taking deep, calming breaths. “I’m sure he’s hungry.”

Fine by him. He didn’t intend to stick around long enough for it to matter anyway, and he was definitely starving. Everyone else seemed to agree, so Zack picked him up and sat down on the chair himself, putting Cloud in his lap while the others started distributing the takeout.

That was fine too. Zack started purring against his back and he melted into it, exhaustion catching up to him again. Being a spectator to their discussion was at least amusing, as he waited for food. The suggestions ranged from ‘ridiculous’ to ‘I will break your kneecaps if you even think about it,’ and no one seemed to be able to agree on anything.

“Well, wherever he came from he’s definitely a tiny Cloud. He could just be Cloud Jr,” Zack suggested as Cloud was finally handed a plate piled high with rice and vegetables. He set upon it like a starving wolf.

“Don’t you think we should ask Cloud first?” Angeal said skeptically.

“Isn’t that a little—buddy, slow down, you’re gonna choke—weird though? If we ask? I guess he could be Seph Junior, since he smells like you too.”

Revolted by the suggestion, Cloud snapped “NO!” It might have lacked a bit of the force he’d been intending since he said it through a mouthful of food.

Zack tweaked his nose. “What’ve you got against Seph, huh? He’s very nice, and he’s definitely not a monster.”

Yet, Cloud thought uncharitably. He deliberately didn’t look in the silver-haired man’s direction, because his kicked-puppy look actually made him feel a twinge of remorse.

“He’ll come around,” Angeal told the General, rubbing his shoulder.

At that point, Cloud consciously tuned them out. No, he wouldn’t ‘come around.’ He wouldn’t even be around long enough for it to be an issue. So he focused on his food, devouring one plate, then two, then three, until finally even his SOLDIER metabolism was satisfied and he was ready to sleep for a week straight.

Zack took the plate from his lap and passed him to someone else as he drowsed, halfheartedly trying to stay awake. Something about the chest he ended up resting against made him uneasy, but the purring was overwhelming and it smelled so safe that he couldn’t bring himself to care. His fingers wound around a long strand of hair as he slipped into a proper doze.

“There, see?” Zack said when putting the sleepy kid in Seph’s lap didn’t end in a spectacular fit—or, worse, a terrified baby omega. “He’s not even really scared of you. He’s just, uh…a little weird because of the labs, maybe. He’ll come around.”

“I do not understand why it is limited to me,” Sephiroth murmured. Like the rest of them, he was completely unable to resist the urge to pet tiny-not-Cloud’s fluffy blond spikes. “Children are usually just as frightened of Angeal and Genesis.”

“You might have been a focus to whoever made him,” Angeal observed. “His eyes…they might have been trying to replicate you, or even train him to fight you directly. What I really don’t get is why he tried to protect me.” 

Zack’s eyebrows arched high at that. “That tiny kid did what?” he asked.

“Stood in front of me with his knives and promised to ‘hold him off,’” Angeal said, gesturing to Seph.

No one liked that. The air spiked with anger, only to be hastily covered with purring when the kid shifted, expression scrunching. He relaxed back into Sephiroth’s chest with a sigh.

“I plan to call in a personal favor from Tseng to find whatever lab he came from,” Sephiroth murmured. “There is a…non-zero chance that it was Hojo’s doing, though I am puzzled as to how and when it would even be possible.”

“I hope he really did kill them all,” Genesis said viciously, “because I’ll do much worse if I find a single one alive.”

“I just want to know how Cloudy is involved,” Zack said, frowning. “You guys don’t know him well enough to see, but trust me, the resemblance is uncanny. They pout the exact same way.”

“If there’s anything left to be found, Tseng will find it,” Angeal said. He stood, dusting his hands off. “Zack, Genesis, why don’t you two see if you can’t get the kid cleaned up? I doubt he’s been groomed by anyone before, so he might not take it well, but you two probably have the best chance.”

“Of course,” Genesis said, taking the boy from a very reluctant Sephiroth. “Come, little cub. Let’s get that nasty smell of blood off you.”

Zack followed, after giving both Seph and Geal quick pecks. Seph’s apartment was the best for a bit of social grooming when all of them were involved, what with its huge bathroom, but Angeal’s apartment would be just fine for half the pack and a baby.

Genesis ran the bath while Zack gathered up everything they would need and set it on the bench against the wall next to the tub. The kid stirred as Genesis was dropping in his (extremely picky) mix of salts and oils and soaps, bleary blue eyes peering at Zack from over the readhead’s shoulder. 

“Hey, sleepy boy,” Zack said, tapping his nose and grinning at the way it scrunched up in response. He wished he could get away with doing that to the big Cloud. “Are you ready for a nice warm bath?”

Instantly the little omega was much more awake, raising his head to look round the bathroom. His eyebrows came together in puzzlement and he sniffed the air. Zack started pulling off his pauldrons and stomach guard while the boy was occupied, dumping them on the counter. Next went the belts and boots, and when he shucked his shirt off he found the kid staring at him, trying to figure out what he was doing. 

“Never been groomed before, huh?” Zack asked with a resigned sigh. “Yeah. That’s okay, there’s nothing to worry about.” As he always did, he kicked his pants and boxers off and then wrapped a towel around his waist.

“I’ll take him,” he said to Gen, trying to ignore how the kid was staring at him like he was nuts.

“Thank you, love,” Genesis said, more amused than anything else at the kid’s open bafflement. When Zack took him, he was a lot stiffer than before and turned around to watch what Genesis was doing.

Zack tugged playfully on the sleeve of the oversized shirt Angeal had put the boy in. “Arms up,” he sang, hooking one finger in the collar and pulling upward. The kid looked at him like he was crazy for a second time, but slowly raised his arms when Zack just smiled patiently and purred. Off came the shirt, exposing his pale, scarred torso and all its lingering blood and dirt stains. Zack picked up a towel and bundled him in it, hoping it would make him more comfortable.

Genesis didn’t bother with his own towel. As soon as his clothes were off and neatly set aside, he stepped down into the tub and sat on the built-in ledge, holding his hands out to take the kid back. “Come here precious,” he said, letting a deep purr rumble in his chest. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Between the two of them, the bathroom was completely full of soothing sounds, sights, and smells. The kid relaxed as he was handed over, then relaxed even more when he felt the warmth of the water. He looked about ready to pass out again, curled up into Gen’s chest.

Zack laughed. “Does that feel good?” he cooed, getting into the water himself and bringing the bucket of grooming supplies with him.

“Mmm,” the kid hummed as Genesis combed fingers through his hair. To their delight he started purring again.

“Good boy,” Zack said, rifling around for a comb.

Immediately, a sharp spike of distress soured the air. Zack froze, looking back over his shoulder to see what had happened. Nothing in the kid’s expression told him what was wrong, though he didn’t look quite as sleepy anymore. Genesis had to dispel the mystery.

“Perhaps no more of that endearment,” he said, a furrow between his brows. “He flinched.”

“Oh,” Zack said, working hard to make sure his sadness didn’t leak into the air. He took a breath and dug deep for nothing but calm and affection. “I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t know you didn’t like that one.”

“‘M not a baby,” the kid said grumpily, yawning in the middle of his sentence, which really didn’t help his case. He sounded like a kitten.

Zack held back a laugh, wading over to sit next to Gen. “Oh of course, my mistake, little man.” Gen had already wet the kid’s hair thoroughly using just his hands. He took the shampoo bottle Zack offered and lathered up a good amount, ready to tackle the absolute mess in front of him.

“I am not little,” the kid fired back, rubbing at his eyes with his fists. “You’re all just freakishly tall.”

“You are definitely little,” Zack said, delighted by the conversation. He took a washcloth and loaded it up with some of Gen’s fancy nourishing body wash, something something good for your skin blah blah blah. Though he seemed confused as to why it was happening, the kid let Zack pull one tiny fist away from his eye and he set to work meticulously cleaning each little finger.

“What’re you doing?” little-not-Cloud asked, a bewildered twist to his lips as he looked between the two SOLDIERs.

“Grooming you, silly,” Genesis said lightly, scratching his nails across the boy’s scalp as he worked all the grime and tangles free.

“I can do it,” he protested, trying to squirm loose. He stopped when Zack amped his purring up, slumping back into Gen’s chest and blinking heavily.

“We know you can,” said Genesis. “But how about you just let someone else do the work for a little while, hmm? You can rest.”

“But—”

Genesis shushed him and pulled out the big guns: he started to hum. His fingers drew long, slow strokes through the little omega’s hair as he hummed his way through a slow rendition of his favorite theater song. Within just a few verses, the kid’s eyelids were fluttering closed. All objections seemed to be forgotten.

Honestly, Zack was getting a little sleepy too as he finished cleaning the kid’s hand and moved on up his arm. Gen had such a nice voice, and he knew how to use it to get what he wanted. Sometimes it was about getting a concession from one of his packmates, and sometimes it was about lulling a mystery baby into a doze so they could take care of him without a fight.

Eventually Genesis finished with the kid’s hair and carefully leaned him to the side, holding his head up in the crook of his arm as he poured cupfuls of warm water to rinse the suds away. Zack moved from the kid’s arms to his face, smoothing the pads of his thumbs over pale skin until the grime came free. The little omega looked so different without a veil of dried blood and ash and sweat. Younger. Less hardened. More fragile. The circles beneath his eyes stood out starkly.

There was no need to linger except for the enjoyment of it. They took their time with the kid. He deserved, for once in his life, to know what it felt like to be loved. He deserved it every day after too.

Of course, there was no need for them to indulge each other nearly as much. The kid was thoroughly asleep by the time he was clean. They traded off holding him as they groomed each other, and then got out of the tub, leaving the water for Sephiroth and Angeal. It was designed to stay warm, and there was no need to waste the oils and salts Genesis had used.

“Gah!” Zack said as his foot almost slipped on the tile. “Gods, did you use enough oil in that one, Gen? I think there’s a square inch of me somewhere that isn’t greased like a pig.”

Genesis whacked him on the shoulder. “You are so uncouth. Don’t go teaching my child your terrible habits.”

“I’m pretty sure I wasn’t consulted on this—actually I’m pretty sure no one was consulted on this—but he’s mine too!” Pointedly, he nuzzled the towel-wrapped bundle of sleeping child in his arms. A faint, contented purr drifted up in response and he grinned.

“Oh, very well,” Genesis sighed, pressing close to him and leaning in for a kiss. “Ours.” His lips quirked against Zack’s. “But mostly mine. So don’t corrupt him or I’ll make you regret it.”

Zack just rolled his eyes.

They quickly helped each other get dressed while the kid snoozed in his towel on the bed. With no appropriately-sized clothes on hand, they put him in another of Gen’s smallest shirts. It was more like a nightgown on his tiny frame, but that was fine. Genesis also took an extra moment to run his thumbs along the kid’s muscles.

“I can see why he still smells like he’s in pain. I’ve never felt anyone this tense,” he muttered, digging his knuckles into the base of the boy’s neck. “Goddess.” He stopped. “No, I can’t fix this in one day. I’ll have to do it in pieces.”

“I’ll go tell Seph and Geal to come bathe,” Zack said, scratching at the back of his head. He wasn’t so good with all the muscle stuff, not yet. Gen was teaching him.

“Go ahead,” Genesis said, waving him off as he climbed into the nest and put their little omega on his chest.

The kitchen and living room were spotless when Zack walked out. Seph and Geal were snuggled up together on the couch, completely silent as they enjoyed each other’s company in a way only the two of them could really get away with—Zack was too fidgety, and Genesis too prone to violence when he was bored. They both looked up when he approached.

“We’re done,” he said, perching on the arm of the couch, “and the kid’s asleep. You can go ahead.”

“I believe we also have a temporary solution to the name problem,” Sephiroth said as he untangled his limbs from Angeal’s. “Jay. It can be short for Junior, if we so choose, or it can be a name on its own.”

“Hey, that’s a good one,” Zack said, grinning. “Jay. Little JayJay. I bet he’ll like it.” He nudged Angeal along with his foot. “Now hurry up. The sooner you’re done, the sooner we get to share a nest and make sure Gen doesn’t hog the baby.”

Cloud was fucking miffed when he woke up. He’d been in sight of these SOLDIERs for what, less than a day? And they’d already fucking adopted him? Genesis and Zack had gone so far as to bathe him. He wasn’t body shy—not by a long shot, after being in the infantry, then the lab, then a coma, then the lab again, then an active battlefield—but it was still weird. He got the sense that things were very different in this world, probably for the same reasons his body had changed upon landing in it.

So he was miffed. And even though he couldn’t help but love Zack to the depths of his being, he still wanted out.

It was lucky he woke up first, buried in the middle of three ginormous SOLDIER bodies. He was sleeping on top of Rhapsodos’s chest, held in a blatantly possessive grip (and yeah, that checked out, even if it didn’t quite check out that the idiot was being possessive of him) . That possessiveness was exactly what saved him: if he’d been caged in by everyone at once, it would have been much harder to slowly and carefully sneak out of the oddly-arranged bed.

He exhaled a slow, relieved breath when his bare toes touched the floor and no one had woken up. Summoning up every ounce of control he had, he snuck out of the room and hoped his luck would hold all the way to the front door. If he could manage it, he’d get out of the building on his own two feet. If not, he’d grit his teeth and use his wings to bail out the nearest window. He pointedly did not think about the possibility that they were so damaged they couldn’t hold him up.

Cloud should, of course, have considered one other vital factor as he made his attempt:

When had he ever been lucky?

As usual, Sephiroth was awake before the rest of his packmates. He slipped free from the nest without earning more than a sleepy murmur from Zack and paused to gently trace the curve of Jay’s cheek. The little one sighed, nuzzling into Genesis.

It was a high note to start the day on, even if he sensed a dozen incoming headaches to deal with. There was a lot of work to be done, not just for ShinRa, but to make sure their legal claim over Jay was rock-solid. If he played his cards right, they could do it quickly, quietly, and without Hojo noticing until it was too late.

He set up in the living room, laptop perched on one leg as he read through document after document. It was quiet. If he focused, he could hear peaceful breathing and occasional murmurs from the bedroom. Angeal’s apartment was full of plants, lending the air an earthy scent and humidity he found soothing. It was easier to focus here than in his office.

Perhaps a little too easy.

It took him far longer than it should have to realize that soft footsteps were creeping down the hallway toward the living room. Once he did, he looked up just in time to make eye contact with Jay as he came around the corner. They both froze.

The setup of the living room was such that Sephiroth, on the couch, was farther from the front door than Jay was at the end of the short hallway that led to the guest and master bedrooms. As soon as Sephiroth realized where Jay was, he started to set aside his laptop and rise from the couch, ready to herd the little boy back toward the bedroom. Jay paled with reflexive terror and tensed up like a coiled spring before he’d even moved. The smell of his fear stung Sephiroth’s nose a second later.

Then Jay’s eyes went to the front door, and Sephiroth instantly understood what was about to happen.

He was a SOLDIER. In fact, he was the most enhanced, most powerful, most thoroughly trained of all the SOLDIERs. He wasn’t quite the fastest, but he was certainly close. By all rights, he should have been able to get to the door before a small child could. 

But Jay wasn’t normal either, and unlike Sephiroth he was fueled by an intense burst of terror. He made it to the door first, getting it open with a little hop-slap to the control panel that would have been cute under other circumstances.

“Wait—!” Sephiroth shouted, fingertips brushing fabric as he just barely missed snagging the oversized collar of Jay’s shirt. He hoped the noise woke the others, because he didn’t have any time to stop as he pounded down the hall after his fleeing child, making up for the slight delay of opening the door wide enough for him to fit through.

They approached the end of the hallway, where it dead-ended with the elevator and a single window. If Jay stopped to wait for the elevator, he’d be caught, and yet he wasn’t slowing down or trying to turn around and bolt back past Sephiroth. He didn’t even seem to notice there was nowhere to run. In fact, it almost seemed like he was speeding up to—

Now it was Sephiroth’s turn to feel his chest constrict with terror. The burst of adrenaline-fueled speed that terror gave him was exactly what he needed to push himself forward just in time to snatch Jay up and keep him from throwing himself out the window, a breathless shout on his lips. He couldn’t stop himself from slamming his shoulder into the wall, but he kept Jay safe from the impact and that was all that mattered.

There was a moment of stunned silence, broken only by their heavy breathing. Suddenly lightheaded, Sephiroth let his legs fold under him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt such potent fear. Jay struggled against him as he sank down, an angry, frightened snarl rumbling in his little chest, and Sephiroth answered it without thinking. His purr was so deeply relieved that Jay almost immediately went quiet and relaxed against him. He couldn’t help it—not after he’d barely stopped the little one from jumping to his death.

The door to Angeal’s apartment burst open. “Seph! Seph!” Zack scrambled down the hall in sleep pants and mussed hair, followed closely by Angeal and Genesis. “What happened!” He went for Jay immediately, nostrils flaring as he drank in the lingering spice of terror in the air. And even though Sephiroth didn’t want to let go, he did. Jay was scared enough of him to try and jump out of a building. He needed to be with someone who didn’t scare him.

“He—” His voice was a little unsteady. He paused until he was certain it would not shake. “He was awake and walking the apartment. When he saw me, he ran out and…I believe he was attempting to break through that window.” He nodded his chin toward it as Angeal came to his side and put a hand on his shoulder.

Zack pressed his pale face to the child’s hair, breathing in deeply, looking for the concrete reassurance that Jay was alright. Genesis came along his other side, peering at where Jay was hiding his face against Zack’s shoulder. When the redhead traced the curve of his ear, trying to coax him into looking up, an angry growl rumbled from Jay’s little chest.

“Precious, what was all that about?” Genesis asked. “I don’t think Seph is so scary you need to hurt yourself.”

Stubborn silence met him. Angeal got up after pressing his hand to Sephiroth’s face in brief reassurance and reached out to take Jay. The little omega refused to let go of Zack until he started purring softly, jaw pressed against the side of his head. Only then did his grip loosen enough for Angeal to take him and set him down on the floor, crouching so they were at eye level.

“Hey,” he said, keeping a grip on Jay’s arms. The boy glared tiredly down at the floor. Angeal used one hand to tip his chin up. “What happened? Where were you trying to go?”

Jay pressed his lips into a tight line and said nothing.

“No one is mad at you. You’re not going to be hurt, or punished, or yelled at, no matter what you say. I just want to know if you were trying to jump out that window. You could have hurt yourself very badly.”

That, finally, got a response, even if it wasn’t the one anyone expected. “I woulda been fine,” Jay said flatly.

And the reflex was, of course, to say no you wouldn't have been. But Angeal just took a deep breath and asked, "what makes you think that? We're very very high up right now. Even with materia, I know I would have a very hard time landing safely, and I’ve been trained to do things like that."

"I've landed from higher."

That was an utterly horrifying thought, if it was true. Sephiroth thought it was as likely to be true as it was to be untrue. He just couldn't tell with any certainty, but there was a look on Jay's face. Even if it was untrue, the little one believed it. Was it reassuring, to know Jay hadn't been intentionally aiming to hurt himself? Maybe. But the tradeoff was that they had no reassurance he wouldn't try again in the future.

"Have you?" Angeal asked with a false calm. "I think I would need wings for that."

Jay's face didn't change—but his scent did. He smelled, briefly, like he'd been cornered. When they reacted, orienting attentively his response, a spike of panic flickered in his eyes, too. He smothered it, but strangely he didn't even try to bury the smell of his fear.

Sephiroth wondered, not for the first time, if Jay even knew how. He could easily imagine why: if, in the Labs, Jay had been raised more by surveillance than by any kind of hand-rearing, he might have learned to cover visual expressions of weakness, while scent markers were far less relevant. It might also explain why he was so affected by basic soothing behaviors, like purring. At his age he shouldn’t have been responding like a newborn— yet he was.

Angeal had a strange expression on his face, as if he was on the verge of solving a puzzle but just couldn’t get the pieces to line up. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, even though they all knew Jay wasn’t going to answer. When they were proven correct, he sighed and let it go.

“No more trying to jump out windows, Jay,” Zack said, crouching to join them. “Okay? Even if you think—even if you would be fine.”

“Okay,” the little omega agreed, blatantly lying. 

They would just have to keep a better eye on him, at least for a while. Genesis plucked Jay from the floor and into his arms once Angeal let go. Zack moved to help Sephiroth up.

“Wait,” Jay said, growing sleepy again as Genesis purred to soothe away the last of his stress, “what did you call me?”

“Oh.” Zack offered him a beaming smile. “Jay. How do you like it?”

“‘s fine,” the boy muttered. He let Genesis guide his head down to rest against his shoulder. “Better than…”

He never elaborated.

It took barely a few minutes of soft purring for Genesis to get Jay to go back to sleep. He didn’t even have to put him back in the nest. The poor thing was exhausted—from the shenanigans of the morning, from the stress of whatever had brought him to the slums, from growing up in the lab. It was embedded in his skin, just as deeply as the spice of his magical power was.

“He’s going to need clothes,” Genesis said, stroking one hand up and down his new child’s side in lazy strokes. “Toys, furniture, bedding…We’ll need to decide where his room is.”

Angeal sighed. “Let’s start small. Clothes. Wait until he’s actually ours before anything else.”

“He already is ours, my love,” Genesis said, amused. “Can’t you tell? He’s imprinted on us.”

“What?” Zack squawked, crowding close to Jay and peering at his face where it was squished against Genesis’s shoulder.

“The Goddess made him for us, of course he imprinted. You have the strongest thread so far, Zack.”

Sephiroth looked down and Angeal pulled him closer, firmly including him in the group. Genesis clicked his tongue. “Oh, don’t fret dearest. You already have a thread, even if it’s small. We’re a pack—you could never be left out. Jay will come around thoroughly, and sooner than you think.”

“There…is?” Sephiroth asked, bordering on disbelief.

“Would I lie to you?” Genesis asked, brushing his lips against Jay’s temple.

“Yes.” “Yeah.” “Oh, definitely.”

He scowled mightily at all his packmates. “Oh Goddess, you traitors! Fine, would I lie to you about this?”

“No,” Sephiroth admitted, and some invisible line of tension left his body. When Genesis offered, he took Jay, burying his face in the little omega’s hair and breathing in deeply.

“There, you see? It’s going to be alright.”

“He was so scared of me he tried to jump out of a window, Genesis,” he said sadly.

“I don’t think it was, ah, that simple,” Zack said, scratching the back of his head. “He snuck out of the nest. I think he was already trying to make a run for it, and just decided to…take the fastest route?”

The other three stared at him. “Why in the Goddess’s name would he try and run away from me—I mean, us?” Genesis asked.

Zack shrugged. “Well, it’s still Cloud. That’s the first thing Cloud would do.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. He’s uh…shy?”

Sephiroth sighed. “In hindsight, Zack may be right. He was sneaking.”

“He probably doesn’t think he’s safe yet,” Angeal said, reaching out to run the backs of his fingers across Jay’s cheek. “Why would he, if he’s never been safe before?”

“Well, he certainly won’t be running away from me,” Genesis huffed. “He’ll realize that he’s safe eventually.”

“Don’t overdo it,” Angeal chided. “This is all new to him.”

“Me?” said Genesis, splaying a hand over his chest. “Overdo it? Never. Who do you take me for, Angeal.”

“The packmate I’ve known for over two decades,” Angeal said dryly.

“I have no idea what you could mean,” he sniffed. “Now, who’s on mission today and who isn’t? I won’t be able to keep an eye on the little cub until this evening, and someone needs to go get clothes for him.”

“I’m out,” Zack said. “I probably won’t be back until tomorrow, maybe the day after.”

“I will have time to go out and get supplies,” Sephiroth offered.

“I’ll stay with Jay, then,” Angeal said.

They exchanged nods. Sephiroth added, “once our claim to him is official, we can arrange something a bit more stable. If I work fast enough, that should be in a day or two.”

“And that favor from Tseng?” Genesis asked, amusing himself by playing with Jay’s little ponytail.

“I could not say,” Sephiroth replied, smacking his packmate’s hand away and curling protectively around Jay. “It depends on what there is left to find.”

Angeal frowned at both of them. “We’ll see. Genesis, Zack, you two need to get ready to go. Sephiroth, go sit with the kid in the nest while I make breakfast.” He sighed. “We have a lot of work to do.”

At some point, Cloud roused halfway to consciousness. He was warm, curled into someone’s chest with his nose tucked up under a sharp jaw. They smelled like a cold kind of warm—mint tea in front of a fireplace. His eyes just barely started to flutter open before the pad of a finger traced down the bridge of his nose. The rumbling beneath his ear got louder and deeper.

His eyes shut. He went back to sleep.

The next time Cloud woke up, he was drooling into Zack’s shoulder as the man gently shook him awake. 

“Hey, JayJay, come on, you ready for some breakfast?” he cooed.

Cloud grumbled and turned his face away from the light. No. He didn’t know what it was about this world, or this new body, or these people, but he felt like lukewarm shit. No he didn’t want to eat. Although, if Angeal was the one cooking…

“Grumpy,” Zack laughed, nuzzling the side of his head. “I can see why Gen’s determined to call you bear cub.”

“He’s just the sweetest little grizzly,” Genesis agreed, which was almost— almost— enough to get Cloud to raise his head and glare. Almost. He scowled into Zack’s shoulder.

“You two,” Angeal sighed, but it was fond. “Don’t antagonize him.”

Cloud felt familiar hands close around his ribs and lift, pulling him away from Zack. He wasn’t given a chance to put his head back down. Instead, he was settled on Angeal’s lap, facing forward. The smell of breakfast hit like a truck as he frowned and rubbed his eyes. It was almost nauseating how intense and nuanced it was, compared to what he was used to smelling.

“I made some food for you, Jay,” Angeal said softly, running fingers through his undoubtedly messy hair. “Have you ever had waffles and fruit before?”

Dammit. Cloud couldn’t resist Angeal’s cooking. Especially not after the past few weeks of back-to-back MREs. Begrudging, he opened his eyes and squinted at the table. Angeal pushed a plate toward him, and a glass full of milk.

He ignored the milk.

Everyone else was eating quickly, demolishing the SOLDIER-sized dishes of food. Cloud contented himself with slowly chipping away at the waffles, savoring the fresh fruit and listening halfheartedly to the men as they talked.

Zack was going to be gone for a bit, which might work out in Cloud’s favor, actually. Not seeing his dead best friend would give him a clarity of mind he needed to plot his… departure. Genesis was going to be gone for the day. Sephiroth was going out. That just left Cloud and Angeal in the apartment, or so he assumed. They didn’t seem quite dumb enough to leave him on his own.

Genesis leaned over while Zack and Sephiroth were getting up and moving dishes to the sink. He frowned, brushing his fingertips across Cloud’s forehead. “Little cub, are you feeling alright?”

“‘M fine,” Cloud said, surprised by the question. Yeah, he definitely felt like Sephiroth had chewed him up and spat him back out, but he wasn’t about to let them see that. He consistently fooled his Genesis, Angeal, and assorted SOLDIERs—how were these people figuring it out when they didn’t even know him?

“You sure?” Zack asked, abandoning the dishes to come kneel by Angeal’s chair. “Because you smell like you’re really tired and hurting.”

Cloud’s eyes widened in realization. Oh. Scent. Was that why his own sense of smell had become so overwhelming? Was it a more important avenue of communication to these people than it had been in his worlds? Enough that they could smell feelings?

Zack’s expression became sad, but he smiled. “Yeah. You can learn a lot when you’re allowed to scent the air, huh? It’s a really important sense.” He tapped his nose demonstrably. “You wanna tell me where you’re hurting?”

And this left Cloud with something of a conundrum. Because he definitely wasn’t going to tell any of them about the reason his nerves throbbed with not-quite-physical pain, but they also knew something was wrong, and would continue to know. Could they smell lies the same way you could read lies in body language? How far did this new sense go?

It definitely went far enough for Zack to pick up on his rising anxiety. “Hey, it’s okay,” he soothed, pressing one hand to Cloud’s cheek. “Nothing to be scared of. You can tell me anything, and I’ll do my best to make it better, I promise.”

Cloud looked down and shut his eyes, leaning into the hand without thinking. Against his better judgment, he whispered, “You can’t fix it.”

“Fix what?” Zack whispered back, stroking his thumb back and forth in a soothing arc.

“What hurts. You can’t fix it.”

The breath Zack drew in was a little sharp. A little unsteady. “How ‘bout you tell me what’s wrong and we’ll see what we can do, huh? We might have things you didn’t…before.”

He was never going to tell them. Not in a million years. In fact, he was going to do his level best to go to his grave without anyone here ever knowing about his wings, so he just shook his head and repeated himself. “No one can fix it.”

“Is it your muscles, precious?” Genesis asked, pressing his thumb against one of the perpetual knots in Cloud’s trapezius. “We can fix that. We will fix that, I promise.”

Cloud debated lying, but lying was really something that needed to happen immediately and confidently if it was going to be believed. He stayed quiet, shivering a little bit when Genesis pressed harder into his aching shoulder. It wasn’t the problem, but he certainly wasn’t going to object to a massage either.

Zack sighed. “We’ll talk about it again later, but I’ve got to go. Rest. No jumping out of windows, okay?”

“Okay,” Cloud agreed. That was a last resort anyway. He’d much prefer taking the stairs down.

Zack gave him a somewhat dubious look, but stood and drew his hand away. Then he and Genesis started—

Oh.

Oh.

Oh this was very different. They were fuc —no, that felt rude. They were… romantically involved, he was starting to think. Because they were kissing and exchanging pet names, and while they were all unusually touchy compared to what he was used to, he didn’t think that would explain full-on liplock.

“What’s wrong, Jay?” Angeal asked when Cloud started to have a minor existential crisis on his lap. Angeal and Sephiroth had just kissed. On the lips. Right over his head. The very concept of his Angeal—a sixteen-year-old idiot—and Sephiroth doing that was sending him into a tailspin, and he wasn’t doing a very good job at suppressing it.

Cloud definitely did not answer the question.

Angeal sighed, recognizing a battle not worth fighting, and just smoothed a hand over the top of Cloud’s head. He started to purr, which had Cloud slumping backward and feeling the tension drain away from his limbs. Together, they watched the other three leave.

“Now for some peace and quiet, huh?” Angeal asked when the front door had shut and silence descended. For a few minutes they just sat in silence as Angeal finished his coffee and Cloud ignored the sweating glass of milk. Then Angeal hummed and stood, holding Cloud in one arm and gathering up the remaining dishes with his free hand.

He put Cloud down on the counter and dumped the dirty dishes in the sink. Pointedly, he handed Cloud the glass of milk before he started rinsing everything and loading up the dishwasher. Cloud looked at the glass with distaste before he leaned over and dumped it into the sink when Angeal was turned away.

Not quite fast enough apparently. Angeal laughed, surprised. “You’re quite the character, aren’t you?” he asked, tapping Cloud’s nose. “Did you even try the milk?”

And Cloud, who didn’t feel like talking any more, stuck his tongue out and made a face.

“Maybe another time. But you do need to drink something. Is there anything you like to drink?”

Cloud bit back the urge to say coffee. He was sure it wouldn’t go over well, so he just pointed at the water faucet instead, stifling a yawn with his other hand.

“Water?” Angeal dried his hands and moved over to the fridge, grabbing a clean plastic cup along the way. He filled it with cold, filtered water and came back. “Here. Drink the whole thing, okay? If you get too dehydrated we’ll have to put another IV in.”

Begrudgingly, Cloud drank, watching Angeal do the dishes all the while.

By the time he was finished, the water was gone and Cloud was falling asleep again. He really didn’t get how he was so tired. Was it just the fact that Sephiroth was dead, and he wasn’t in the war anymore? He still wasn’t clear on how mako kept the body going through intense stress. Did it require stress to work?

Maybe it didn’t matter. Actually, it probably didn’t matter. He didn’t even have a goal anymore, except maybe a vague ‘kill Jenova and Hojo’ type concept: get the SOLDIERs out of the blast radius that was his existence, kill a couple people, maybe deactivate a reactor or two ???? Profit.

Angeal picked him up off the counter with a hum. Even though he was taller and broader than the teenager Cloud knew, it was still familiar enough that he let his head sink down against his shoulder. He was carried back to the bedroom, held in one arm as Angeal rearranged the pillows and blankets. Why, Cloud didn’t know.

He found out quickly, because as soon as he was set down it felt noticeably different from just laying down on a bed. He was surrounded, supported on all sides by pillows and blankets like it had been shaped just for him. The visceral impression of being protected was so surprising that it almost woke him right back up.

But then Angeal tucked a blanket around him, filling his nose with a scent he couldn’t even hope to describe, and he was down for the count.

Sephiroth came home in the early afternoon. Angeal was a little surprised, but rose from where he’d been sitting and working on his laptop in the bedroom. Jay stayed asleep, curled up under the blankets with just his eyes and hair visible.

“Seph, you’re—oh.” He stopped in surprise, eyebrows high at the sight of all the shopping bags Sephiroth had on his arms.

“Clothes,” Sephiroth said, looking just a touch frazzled. He had his sunglasses and slouchy hat on, hair tucked up beneath it. There were enough Sephiroth fanboys with dyed silver hair out in Midgar for such low-effort disguises to be reasonably effective.

“Very…thorough,” Angeal said, moving to help.

“I asked an older woman for some assistance,” he replied, which told Angeal everything he needed to know. “She had five sons, two daughters, and ten grandchildren. Her advice was…comprehensive.”

The great Silver Elite himself, steamrolled by a housewife. He was just lucky Angeal was home instead of Genesis, or he would never have lived it down.

“These look about the right size,” Angeal said, pulling out a pajama onesie and holding it up. “Maybe a little large.”

“She advised to err on the side of too big, since he will grow into it,” Sephiroth relayed as he sat down on the couch and immediately let his head fall backward.

Angeal hummed in agreement. He himself had grown up trying to make sure clothes could be worn until they were worn out, not simply grown out of. “I’ll put some of these in the wash so they’ll be ready after grooming later,” he decided.

“How was Jay?”

“He’s been asleep since I finished the dishes. I was just about to wake him up for lunch.”

Sephiroth considered this for a moment. “Children sleep more than adults, correct?”

“Not this much, but yes. I think this is the first time he’s been safe and his body knows it, so now it’s trying to…make up for everything.”

“I see.”

Angeal rounded the couch and leaned down to kiss the frown off of his packmate’s face. “Hey,” he said softly. “He’s going to be okay. Kids are resilient and he’s a tough little guy.”

“Mmm,” Sephiroth hummed, snaking one hand up to pull him down for another kiss.

They both paused when a low whimper came from the bedroom. It was followed by another, higher-pitched, and the sound of restless twitching.

“Nightmares,” Sephiroth observed, his word a puff of warm air across Angeal’s lips. “I believe I shall be putting these clothes in the wash, while you wake up Jay.”

Angeal stood up with a sigh. “Yeah. Thanks.”

He went back to the bedroom, unsurprised to find Jay curled up into a little ball, expression contorted. He whined again, twitching, as Angeal settled on the edge of the nest and started purring as loudly as his larynx would allow.

“Jay, you’re okay,” he said, pitching his voice to an equally soothing level. “You’re safe. It’s just a dream.” He set a hand on the kid’s head. “Come on, wake up.”

He did wake up, drawing in one sharp breath and then going absolutely still, eyes shut—assessing his surroundings. Searching for danger. Angeal scratched lightly at his scalp, moving closer. The little omega melted into it after a moment, finally taking a deep breath and opening his eyes.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Angeal said softly, brushing his knuckles against the downy, sleep-warm skin of his cheek. “You’re okay. Nightmare?”

It was hard not to smile at the supremely grumpy look he got in return. Jay batted at his hand and sat up like he was one big bruise, rubbing clumsily at his eyes. He smelled like he was in pain again, worse than earlier.

“Jay…if you tell me what hurts, we can at least find something to make it feel a little better,” he tried.

“Can’t fix it,” the boy muttered, rubbing at his chest. Then he seemed to realize what he was saying, and all the outward signs of his misery vanished like he’d flipped a switch—everything but the sour tang in his sweet scent.

“We can’t know unless you tell us,” Angeal said. “Why not let us try?”

The glare he got in return told him far more than Jay was ever going to admit. It was angry, but beneath the anger was a protective kind of fear. He was scared of what hurt, or scared of telling them. No amount of gentle prodding was going to get them the information they needed.

“Okay, little cub,” he said, conceding the battle. He picked Jay up, slightly mollified by the way the kid relaxed against him. “Let’s go get you some lunch.”

He carried Jay out to the living room, not really surprised by the immediate wariness in his body language and scent when he realized who else was there. “Seph is not dangerous to you,” Angeal said firmly, putting the boy down on the opposite end of the couch. It seemed like a reasonable place to start. “Now, I’m going to put something on for you to watch while I’m cooking, and then we’re all going to have lunch together. Okay?”

The look of sheer disdain Jay shot him was almost comedic, but he ignored it as he fished around for the remote and turned on the TV. It was a bit harder than usual to pick something, considering Jay’s age, but eventually he found one of the benign cartoon series that Zack (and, secretly, Genesis) liked to watch.

Not that Jay was going to watch it. When Angeal stood, the little omega and Sephiroth were engaged in a staring contest, and he didn’t think it was going to end in the time it took to make lunch.

He was partially wrong. When he finished setting the table and putting out the food, he came back to find both of them “watching” the TV. He used the term “watching” loosely: both had their heads turned forward, but were clearly focused on staring at each other out of the corners of their eyes. Angeal rolled his own eyes up to the ceiling and prayed for patience.

“Alright, come on you two,” he said, holding a hand out to Jay. “Lunch.”

He wasn’t all that surprised when the boy ignored it and wiggled down off the couch on his own. Sephiroth stood and made Angeal pause with a hand on the arm before they both followed Jay into the kitchen.

“Should we consider general painkillers?” he murmured, too low for even other enhanced ears to hear at a distance.

“Maybe. I want Genesis to try with materia later. Maybe he can pick up on something the specialist missed, if not fix it entirely.” He nudged Seph and nodded toward the kitchen. “Later.”

Jay had already scrambled up onto a chair. He had to kneel to reach easily, which was adorable (they’d have to pick up a booster seat at some point), but he was grumpily heaping food onto his plate as they took their own seats. Honestly, it was impressively balanced for such a little tyke—he had, technically, picked some vegetables.

The look Angeal got when he wordlessly added an extra serving of greens to Jay’s plate had Sephiroth turning his face away and hiding a smile.

Lunch went well, all things considered. Jay ate without any complaint worse than a glare. He didn’t clash with Sephiroth, or radiate hostility. In fact, he seemed completely fine and already adjusted to being adopted into the pack. Angeal wasn’t stupid enough to think it was that easy, but he’d take a win where he could get it and wait patiently for the next outburst.

Sephiroth stood to clear the table and do the dishes without being prompted. Angeal watched curiously as Jay hopped down from his chair and wandered into the living room, equally unprompted. He followed, of course, but resolved not to interfere. What was the kid thinking? What would he do?

Jay poked around the living room, uninterested in the TV that was still playing through Zack’s cartoon series. He inspected the wall of greenery that made up Angeal’s indoor plant collection, displaying equal interest in the plants themselves and the lighting rigs that gave them enough simulated sunlight to thrive. Maybe he liked technology?

He stopped in front of the sword racks and materia cabinet too. Angeal tensed a little where he’d sat on the couch, ready to intervene, but Jay just seemed to be…evaluating? Judging? There was a critical tilt to his mouth that would have been comically adorable under different circumstances. As it was, it just reminded Angeal of everything the little omega had been through. No child his age should know an arsenal well enough to be critical of it.

Jay moved on eventually, meandering over to the bookshelf. He made a face at all the serious literary works Genesis had left there and moved on to the others. Zack’s graphic novels were passed over, and so were Angeal’s cookbooks, gardening books, and guilty-pleasure romance novels. It was, surprisingly, Sephiroth’s books that the little omega lingered on: tactics treatises, monster compendiums, and biology texts.

Angeal’s eyebrows shot up when Jay selected one of the latter. He was so young. Could he even read it? Was he just interested in the diagrams? Or was he like Sephiroth: pushed to both intellectual and physical prowess in the areas that were tactically useful, but never cared for as a human?

Whatever the case was, Jay crouched in place and opened the textbook on the floor, skimming through the table of contents before he flipped to the far back. He wasn’t just interested in the text—he was interested in something specific.

Angeal cleared his throat lightly, just to make sure the little omega remembered he was there before he asked, “Jay, why don’t you come read that on the couch?”

Little blue eyes peered at him from over one shoulder. It suddenly dawned on Angeal that they had round, human pupils, even though he distinctly remembered the jarring cat-slit shape from their first meeting. What happened to his eyes? he wondered as he watched Jay eye the couch and then sigh, resigned, before he heaved the textbook up and tottered over to put it on the cushion.

The kid clambered up, his too-large shirt getting caught under one knee. With an annoyed grunt, he kicked free and settled down with his back to the corner, legs stretched out in front of him. He shot Angeal a look— are you happy now?— before dragging the textbook up over his lap and starting to read.

It was, all in all, extremely cute, and Angeal barely held back an awww. Even Sephiroth, standing in the entryway to the kitchen and drying his hands, looked like he’d melted a little.

When it became apparent that Jay was seriously perusing the text, Angeal picked up the book he’d left on the coffee table. Sephiroth left and came back a moment later with his laptop, sitting in the armchair farthest from Jay. Other than earning a wary glance up from the little omega, his presence was accepted peaceably.

For a good long while, everything was quiet. Sephiroth clicked away at his keyboard. Jay and Angeal turned pages every once in a while. Then Sephiroth stopped typing and looked up. A moment later Angeal took a deeper breath than before and paused as well. They both looked at Jay as the scent of his rising upset finally registered.

The kid wasn’t trying to hide it in his expression either. The curve of his mouth was thunderous, eyes hidden behind his wild blond fringe, shoulders tight up around his ears. Even his toes were curled like angry clenched fists. Angeal’s mouth opened to ask what was wrong, but before he could speak, Jay abruptly threw the textbook off his lap and onto the floor.

“Jay?” Angeal asked, thoroughly startled as the little omega leapt off the couch in a fit of rage that barely masked his fear. “What—”

This time, the eyes that looked up at him were brightly glowing and cat-slit like before. He didn’t have much of a chance to ponder the change as Jay snarled wordlessly and gripped the hair at his temples. His mouth opened like he wanted to say something, but all that came out was another prolonged, guttural snarl. Frustration seeped into his scent and expression. He yanked hard on his hair.

“Stop,” Angeal said, closing the distance in a burst of enhanced speed to gently grab the little omega’s wrists. “No, no hurting yourself.” Jay shot him a supremely fed-up glare, but let go of his hair without too much of a fight. A low, sustained growl rumbled in his chest— don’t push me, don’t test me, I’ll fight you and I’ll do it hard.

Angeal answered with a purr, pushed down to an equally grumbling register in his chest. Sephiroth did too, though quieter, and he didn’t come any closer. “You’re okay,” Angeal told Jay as he relaxed instinctively, keeping a hold of both his hands. “What upset you? Was it something in the textbook?”

Jay bared his little canines, breathing hard, although he didn’t growl again. “It—stupid!” he managed, fists clenching. “I hate this!”

“Hate what?” Angeal asked, glancing at the textbook.

“Destiny!” he howled. “No! I hate it! NO! I’m not doing it!”

Angeal cast a bewildered glance to Sephiroth, but he looked equally confused. For a lack of anything better to do, he just used what had worked well before, picking Jay up and holding him while he purred. Hot, angry puffs of air feathered across his neck, but it didn’t take long for the little omega to calm.

“Okay,” Angeal said when the tension had fully eased from Jay’s muscles. “I’m sorry, honey, I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me. What upset you? Destiny?” Only, now that he was calm, Jay didn’t seem to want to explain. He buried his face in Angeal’s shirt and grumbled wordlessly. Even when the SOLDIER traced the curve of his ears, he didn’t raise his head.

Sephiroth stood and retrieved the textbook, flipping it right side up. After a few seconds of perusing, his eyebrows went up and he held it out for Angeal to see. It was open to a chapter on the basic biology of pack bonding, and Sephiroth tapped at a subheading with his finger: “Destiny” and Pack Formation.

“Packs?” Angeal asked the kid, stroking his hair in the hopes that it would help. “You don’t like packs?” He already knew Jay had never been exposed to the concept before, but he didn’t understand why it would elicit such a violent response.

“Stupid,” Jay hissed into his shirt, which was at least a marginal improvement over silence.

“Packs are stupid? What’s wrong with packs?”

“Not doing it,” he grumbled.

Angeal laughed a little. “Hey, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but packs are really nice. Besides—” he patted the kid’s back “—you’re already in one, honey. Ours.”

“Stupid,” Jay repeated, but suddenly he just sounded tired instead of angry.

“Why?”

The little omega didn’t answer, but his misery grew, too strong for the soothing effect of Angeal’s warmth and calming purr. Neither of the SOLDIERs quite realized what was happening until Jay’s breath hiccuped.

“Are you—oh Jay, are you crying? It’s okay.” Confused, Angeal stood up to pace the floor in the hopes that some motion would help. He shot another bewildered glance at Sephiroth, but his packmate was busy staring down at the textbook, a contemplative furrow in his brow.

Jay radiated a sadness so complex that Angeal couldn’t get a read on it, but as the crying went on it became tinged with frustration. That he did understand, and he stroked the kid’s back. “No, Jay, you’re not doing anything wrong. It’s okay to be sad. You can cry as much as you need to. We’ll protect you.”

For whatever reason, that elicited a louder sob and a sharp thwack on his shoulders from a little fist. He thought Jay might have said stupid again, but it was too strangled to be comprehensible.

“You’re okay,” he promised. Sephiroth got his attention, waving a hand, and retrieved a paper and pen. He scribbled something out before extending the paper so Angeal could read it.

Pack = stupid, unwanted, hated.
Not because of us. Him? Related to “being a monster?”
Evidence: prior protective instincts; unwanted despite liking Zack

Angeal’s eyebrows went up, but he gave Sephiroth a slow nod. That would certainly explain a lot of Jay’s reactions. Something about the idea still hovered in the back of his mind—a puzzle not quite fitting together. He wondered how the kid had gotten to Midgar, and where the monster he’d been sighted with had gone. Presumably, Jay had killed it like he’d killed everyone in the lab. Maybe he’d even hunted it to Midgar, and that was why he was even here in the first place.

Angeal hoped it was dead, at least. The last thing they needed was to fight a monster from the kind of lab that could make someone like Jay.

Angeal continued to pace, doing his best to soothe the kid, but the crying didn’t really peter off so much as be deliberately suppressed by Jay. He hiccuped and clenched tight fistfuls of Angeal’s t-shirt, pressing his face hard into his shoulder. He really was a very determined little guy. Angeal just wished it was for any other reason.

“You’ve really been through the wringer, huh kiddo?” he said softly, once Jay had gone quiet. He was still stiff as a board though, so Angeal focused on stroking his hair and back, keeping up his purring. Sephiroth nudged his calf with one foot from where he was sitting and watching. When Angeal looked up, he nodded toward the bedroom and mouthed ‘nest.’

Angeal nodded back and left the living room. He kicked the bedroom door shut behind him, aiming for as much quiet as possible, before he carefully got into the nest and curled up around Jay. He used his free hand to pull pillows and blankets closer until he was sure even Genesis would have been satisfied with the result.

Everyone loved a good nest, but Genesis was pickier than most.

Maybe Jay was too, because the tension only began to leak out of him once he had a nice, sturdy pillow at his back and a well-scented blanket pulled up to his nose. He sniffled, finally letting go of Angeal’s shirt to rub at his eyes. A tiny hint of embarrassment peppered his scent, but Angeal just pressed his jaw against the top of his little head in reassurance.

“Better?” he asked, letting Jay hide as much as he wanted. 

“...sorry,” the little omega whispered, pulling his hands to his chest and trying to move away.

Angeal didn’t let him. “No, don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Jay gave up, settling back down with a long sigh through his nose. It was far too adult a sound from such a little tyke. Angeal couldn’t resist snuggling him just a little closer. He tried gently prodding Jay for answers again.

“Can you tell me why you got so upset? Why don’t you want a pack?”

Jay was silent for a long moment, face hidden up against Angeal’s chest. Just when the SOLDIER was starting to think he wasn’t going to answer, he drew in a deep breath and spoke: “It’s not safe.”

Oh, kid, Angeal thought, feeling his heart break a little. He tamped down on his reaction just in case it might freak Jay out more. “We’re never going to let anything hurt you, Jay. You’re safe, I promise.”

“No.” Jay squirmed away enough that he could meet Angeal’s eyes directly. His own eyes were human again, and far too solemn for his little face. “Not safe to be around me.”

That was worse. So, so much worse. He’d hoped Sephiroth was wrong, but that sounded an awful lot like Jay thought he was the problem, not anyone else. “I don’t think you’d hurt us, honey. You’re not a monster.”

The smell of self-loathing was so distinct it burned. Jay whispered, “doesn’t matter. Everyone around me always dies. I’m not safe to be around.”

It reminded Angeal, rather painfully, of how Sephiroth had been when their pack first formed. He felt the lump in his throat and the burning in his eyes. It was impossible to keep entirely under control. Jay could see it, smell it. But the little omega didn’t back down beneath the intensity of his sadness. If anything, his eyes just got harder.

“Jay,” he managed, despite the tightness in his throat, “You’ve been in such an awful place until now, but it’s not going to be like that any more. You don’t have to worry about hurting us, or about us hurting you. You’re safe.”

Jay didn’t argue with him any further. Angeal wished he would, because he could see that the little omega didn’t believe it. He didn’t know how to convince the kid, either, other than being patient and showing him there was nothing to worry about.

“Everything’s gonna be okay,” he promised, stroking Jay’s cheek. “You’ll see.” He took a deep breath and smiled. “How about we go back out to the living room and watch a movie together, huh?”

Jay shrugged and looked away, which was good enough for now. When Angeal reached to lift him, he dodged, tumbling over the side of the nest and down to the floor with a grace that was only hindered by his makeshift pajamas, and went straight for the door. Angeal cursed silently and scrambled to follow.

Jay marched into the living room, completely ignoring Sephiroth, and climbed into the empty recliner. He settled into the corner, far too small to fill out the entire chair, and crossed his arms. At that point Angeal finally realized what he was trying to do: establish a deliberate distance between himself and everyone else. His dispassionate glare warned Angeal not to get any closer.

Everyone around me always dies.

There wasn’t a clear solution, at least not in the immediate term. Not yet. Angeal turned the problem over in his mind as he sat down on the couch, waving Sephiroth over to join him, and picked up the remote so he could flip through the movie catalog. If he was patient then Jay would see. Time in a safe environment would eventually prove that what he’d known before wasn’t true here.

Unfortunately, that meant Angeal had to just ignore the fact that his (definitely his—Genesis was right) hurt, distressed omega child was sitting alone with no one to comfort him. He pressed against Sephiroth’s side as a meager consolation.

No one paid attention to the movie. Sephiroth still had work to do, though he shared Angeal’s distraction. They both couldn’t help but glance at Jay and check on him every few seconds. Jay stared blankly at the screen for a while before he curled up into a little ball against the chair’s arm and closed his eyes. His eyebrows were pinched like he was thinking deeply and a tiny moue pulled his lips down.

The faint, steady smell of pain never diminished.

Genesis was very pleased with himself when he burst in the front door of Angeal’s apartment. Not only had he wrapped up the mission easily, but he’d done it early enough to go shopping before he came home and saw his new child again.

“I’ve returned to you, my loves!” he sang, dropping his bags by the door and taking a deep, deep breath. It gave him a flashfire-quick read on the situation: Ange and Seph, stressed but subdued; Jay, still in pain and quite a bit more stressed than either of the adults, with a little undercurrent of simmering annoyance just for flavor.

“Where’s my little gift of the Goddess?” he crooned, completely ignoring simmering annoyance. Jay was curled up in the recliner, head just starting to rise when Genesis swooped him up. “There you are!”

Jay made a startled sound as Genesis kissed his temple before setting him on one hip. Almost immediately, his expression soured with irritation. This, again, Genesis ignored.

“Gen, please,” Angeal said, sounding pained. “Don’t antagonize him.”

Genesis scoffed. “I’m not antagonizing him. In fact, I come bearing gifts!” He nuzzled at Jay’s wild hair, pleased with himself. A little hand pushed at his face, and was ignored. “Don’t be grumpy, little cub. I’ve brought you so many wonderful things.”

“It’s a copy of LOVELESS, isn’t it,” the child deadpanned, squirming.

Genesis, both confused and delighted to have his reputation preceed him to such a degree, walked them back over to the front door. “Oh heavens, no. I’ll read to you from my own personal copy for that.” He knelt, setting Jay on his upturned leg and using one arm to keep him in place while he pulled the bags closer. “Now, go on and have a look! What little cub doesn’t like a present?”

“This one,” Jay grumbled, but once he realized he wasn’t going to be able to squirm free, he sighed and gave up, reaching for the bag.

“Genesis—“ Sephiroth started, warning in his tone.

“Shh, have some faith in me,” Genesis crooned, waving at his packmates without looking back. Jay went absolutely still in his arms when he pulled out the first toy.

Angeal had gotten up to join them, probably thinking he needed to intervene. “What did—oh gods, is that us?” he asked as soon as he saw the one plushie in Jay’s hands and the other three in the bag.

“Yes!” Genesis said gleefully. “Oh, I simply had to, this set included Zack. And look, mine has a copy of LOVELESS sewed to his hand! I would have paid more attention to those merchandising deals if I’d known they were making something this good.”

He watched, gratified, as Jay put the Zack plushie in his lap, fingers tracing over the little details—the sewn-on grin, the miniature SOLDIER uniform, the felt sword. Then Jay reached out and grabbed the Angeal plushie too, giving it the same treatment, if not as long. The Genesis plushie got a scowl and even less attention, which had the real Genesis pouting. It was only with the fourth and final that Jay hesitated, staring.

Plushie Sephiroth stared back at the little omega with green embroidered eyes.

“That’s not all, little mage,” Genesis said, rocking him slightly when the staring went on and on. “I’ve brought you some of my favorite childhood books too, and some lovely lavender-infused oil. We’ll get those aches of your muscles, I promise.” He nuzzled the top of Jay’s head again. “Oh yes, and a proper number of new blankets and pillows for your nest, to be delivered later. I would have pilfered them from our collective hoard, but you need your own.”

“I—“ Jay started, then stopped, jaw shutting with a sharp click. He was still staring at the plushie, holding the others tight to his chest with one arm.

Genesis smiled and prompted him: “I…love it? You’re the best, Genesis?”

Angeal frowned at him. He ignored it.

“I—you’re so stupid,” Jay said, voice suddenly thick with tears. He dropped the Seph plushie and kicked both the Angeal and Genesis ones out of his lap too. Only with Zack did he seem to be unable to toss the toy away. He held it tightly to his chest and scrubbed furiously at his eyes with his free hand.

“Oh, don’t cry, beloved,” Genesis cooed, standing upright so he could more easily hug Jay and rock on the balls of his feet. “You’re alright. I would never let anyone hurt you. You’re mine now.”

“Genesis,” Angeal said warningly, just a moment too late.

Who knew Jay had such a wicked uppercut?

The sudden shock of pain and disorientation was enough for him to drop the little omega, who landed with the grace of a cat. Genesis blinked, tasting copper on his tongue. Angeal steadied him with a slightly-too-firm grip on his shoulder.

“That’s the problem!” Jay shouted, eyes still brimming over with tears despite his pungent anger. “Do you have a death wish, you stupid—!” he snarled, hugging the Zack plushie even harder to his chest, despite his words. “Get away from me before you die too!”

Genesis, who suspected from Angeal’s and Sephiroth’s reactions that this was somehow not a new revelation, could only watch in surprise as the child actually turned to try and run out the front door a second time, plushie and all. It was only Angeal’s lightning-fast intervention, getting between him and the door, that brought him to a halt.

“Jay—“ the burly man started, crouching and holding his hands up. Jay snarled at him again, fury mixing with grief, and changed tack. He spun on his heel, bolting toward the bedroom instead. There was no reason not to let him. Sephiroth followed on quiet feet down the hall just far enough to listen to what the little omega did. After a few tense moments, with Angeal standing back up and Genesis licking the blood from his teeth and lip, he came back.

“I will sit by the door,” their silver-haired packmate said quietly, giving Genesis an unreadable look.

“Well,” Genesis said, looking down at the discarded plushies once Sephiroth had left. “That could have gone better.”

Cloud wanted out. He locked the bedroom door behind him (as if that would stop them), fumbling through the film of stupid tears. He wanted to go straight out the window. He even stared at, walked up to it…put his hand on the latch. There were three. It would take more time to open them than it would for one of the SOLIDERs to stop him. There wasn’t enough space for him to break it down on the first try, and two would be too long.

He had to be strategic.

Unfortunately, he hated being strategic. Especially at times like this, when emotion was getting the better of him. There was no looming darkness of Sephiroth in his mind anymore—no powerful incentive to clamp down on his upset and lock it behind his teeth. Not to mention that just the smell of his new surroundings was making it hard to feel as unsafe as he needed to feel to make good decisions.

He bit down on his free hand as he turned away from the window, stifling the noises that leaked from his throat. There was…a smell, amidst the cacophony. Almost against his will, he drifted toward it. A shirt sat discarded half beneath the bed. Following an impulse he didn’t understand (and so didn’t understand how to suppress), he picked it up and buried his teary face in it.

Zack, the smell told him. Safe. Protected. Zack.

The long, pathetic whine that wrenched out of him had the same not-quite-normal quality as his growls. An extra layer. An extra meaning. He swore he heard someone hum outside the bedroom and start purring, but they were too distant for it to do anything he couldn’t ignore. He looked up, nose still buried in the shirt, and tried to think clearly.

There was a tall wardrobe in the corner next to a floor-length mirror. The space underneath looked appealing, but the SOLDIERs would obviously be able to reach him there. The space on top, however…

He scrambled up, shirt thrown over his shoulder and doll held in his teeth, to curl up into a tiny ball in the corner. Laying on his side, he was as hidden as he would get and free to bury himself under the shirt with his head resting on one arm. It was a good thing Zack wasn’t there, Cloud thought. It was probably the shirt’s fault, but he’d never wanted anything as badly as he’d wanted a hug from Zack just then.

And who knew what stupid decisions he would have made in that case?

They left Jay alone, even though it was hard. Angeal roped Genesis into helping him prep for dinner since he’d sparked the meltdown. Sephiroth remained sitting in the hallway by the door, eyes closed as he kept an ear (and, to a lesser extent, his nose) on the kid. Eventually, Angeal left Genesis to finish setting the table in favor of joining Sephiroth.

“What’s he been doing?” Angeal asked, settling down so they were pressed against each other, backs to the wall.

“Everything in his power not to cry,” Sephiroth murmured. “I believe he’s on top of the wardrobe. He hasn’t moved since he climbed up.”

“Tall is safe,” Angeal observed. “And easier to keep everyone away.”

Sephiroth hummed. “Hojo…often spoke of how useless bonds are,” he said. “That instincts of care and empathy toward loved ones are a dangerous distraction. He emphasized reason and logic, and control.” Cat-slit green eyes opened and turned to Angeal. “I did not think imprinted bonds would be so difficult to compartmentalize.”

Angeal huffed a laugh, letting his head thump back against the wall. “It’s really something, isn’t it? I don’t even think he knows what he’s doing.”

Sephiroth considered this for a moment. “It is…painful to hold myself back from offering comfort.”

“Yeah,” Angeal sighed. “Me too. But we’ll get through to him. He’s just…”

“Like I was.”

“A little.”

Genesis chimed in from the kitchen. “Let us start with the most basic of techniques for winning over skittish kittens then, hmm? Dinner is ready.”

“I’ll see if he’ll come down easily,” Angeal said, kissing Sephiroth’s shoulder before he stood. The door was locked, but he just took the key down from the top of the doorframe and unlocked it. “Jay?”

The smell of distress was a lot stronger inside the room. Skin lightly scraped over wood as Jay’s little face popped up, just enough for him to glare down at them from the top of the wardrobe. His hair was obscured beneath…was that a shirt?

“Hi, Jay,” Angeal said, standing where they could see each other. “Ready for dinner?”

The eyes narrowed, then disappeared behind the wood molding again. No.

“Buddy, you’re enhanced. Eating isn’t really optional.”

“Yes it is. With no active combat, I can go three weeks until my muscles start to deteriorate.”

Angel felt his breath catch at the muttered words. It took a moment for the horror to really sink in. Jay had spoken with a personal kind of intimacy, not the impersonal recitation of a theory. He knew how long he could go without food from experience.  

Someone had starved this kid on purpose.

“It—“ Angeal had to pause until the lump in his throat diminished and the burning in his eyes stopped. “We are…not going to get even close to that point, Jay. You’re going to eat three full meals, every day. That’s not optional.”

The air soured a little with the omega’s petulance. He didn’t emerge from beneath the shirt. “Bring it here if you care so much.”

“The top of a wardrobe isn’t a place for eating, Jay. Come on, no one is going to hurt you and you can’t stay up there forever.”

Stubborn silence met him, which was a fairly clear yes I can. With a sigh, Angeal went over to the footlocker at the end of his bed and dragged it to the wardrobe. Standing on top of it, he was able to reach Jay with ease. He didn’t do what Genesis likely would have done and pull the little boy down immediately. It wasn’t a stretch to think that would end in a bloody nose and an even less cooperative child.

Instead, he put one hand on top of the curled-up little omega and just started to purr. The shirt Jay was hiding under was Zack’s, he noticed, and a dirty one at that. He’d have to text his packmate and make sure he came home as quickly as he could. Between the shirt, the plushie, and their first meeting, it was clear that Zack had the best chance of earning his trust.

Still. Angeal waited, patient, until he could smell Jay calming down. The tension beneath his palm relaxed. He started to move his hand back and forth in soothing passes, encouraging that relaxation until he felt confident he could move the shirt and not get his fingers bitten off.

Jay’s eyes cracked open as cool air touched his face, irises back to a soft mako blue with only a hint of glow. The Zack plushie’s head poked out from the cradle of his arm, tucked up under his chin. Angeal waited a bit longer, drawing fingers through his wild blond hair and scratching at his scalp, before he finally pulled Jay down from his hiding place and into his arms.

The only response he got was a quietly resigned sigh, even when he removed Zack’s shirt and dropped it into the nest.

That resignation carried through the rest of the evening, blending into apathy as they got closer to bedtime. He ate dinner slowly, but he did eat. He let Genesis bundle him up and read to him, although he didn’t react to any of Gen’s needling. His eyes would flicker warily to Sephiroth every time he moved, but there was no dramatic overreaction.

Really, the only thing that gave Jay away was the fact that he never let go of the Zack plushie.

Genesis, who’d stopped reading in favor of reducing Jay to a puddle by massaging the tension out of his neck, glanced at the clock and smiled secretively. “I would say it’s about time for a nice bit of grooming, hmm?” He looked directly at Sephiroth. “Love, why don’t you begin preparing everything for us?”

Sephiroth hesitated visibly. “I—“

“I’m not sure—“ Angeal also started to say, but Genesis waved both of them off and inclined his head toward Jay’s blissed-out-but-trying-to-look-like-he-wasn’t expression. 

“Come now, we can’t be shirking responsibilities in this pack. What kind of example would that set for the little one?”

Sephiroth looked to Angeal, who considered the situation seriously before he nodded. Slowly, he signed using field signals. His packmate didn’t look convinced, but he nodded back anyway and vanished to go start the bath.

“We’ll get all those nasty aches out, won’t we, little cub?” Genesis cooed, fingers still working steadily. Jay sighed into his shoulder, apparently content to let him continue despite everything.

“I’ll get clothes for him,” Angeal murmured, and Genesis smiled.

“Pick something cute.”

Angeal rolled his eyes and went to the dryer, where the freshly-dried clothes were sitting in a laundry basket. He didn’t bother with ‘cute,’ picking the first set of pajamas his hand touched before he went to join Sephiroth in the bathroom.

“Are you sure this is wise?” Sephiroth immediately whispered to him, his usually tightly-controlled scent tinged with nervousness.

“Worst case, we leave Jay with Genesis and finish grooming after they’re done,” Angeal reassured him, setting the clothes down on the counter and pulling out grooming supplies from under the sink. “But as long as you’re just there, I think it’ll be okay.”

“If you are certain,” Sephiroth said dubiously, testing the water with his hand.

“I am. In fact, why don’t we get in now? Maybe that will help.”

They were both in the water by the time Genesis brought Jay, who looked even more zen than before. The redhead took a deep breath of the steaming air. “Mmm, Epsom salts, excellent choice love.” He patted Jay. “Come on, little cub, sit up so we can get your shirt off.”

The little omega sat up groggily, pulling on the collar of his shirt to get it over his head. With some help from Genesis, he got it off and it was tossed in the vague direction of the laundry bin. “Thank you, precious. Let’s go to Angeal for a bit, hmm?”

He handed Jay off to Angeal. The warm water seemed to work just as well today as it had yesterday. While Genesis quickly pulled his clothes off, Jay sighed and let his head tip back to rest against Angeal’s shoulder. He didn’t raise it when Genesis finally stepped in to join them, taking Seph’s hand for balance. It was a little snug for three of them at once, but not uncomfortable.

“Hello again, kitten,” Genesis cooed, taking Jay back. He nodded pointedly to the others— go on, then— before he started grooming the little blond’s wild hair. “Goddess, how do you and Zack manage to have the same rats' nests in opposite colors?”

Jay cracked an eye open to glare in exasperation. Angeal stifled a laugh, hands buried in Sephiroth’s hair and he looked for tangles. Jay’s attention flickered to him and he finally noticed Sephiroth, stiffening like he’d been electrocuted and drawing in a sharp breath.

Genesis intervened immediately. “You’re fine,” he said serenely, purring and scratching carefully at Jay’s scalp. “Relax.”

“What—”

“They’re just grooming, little cub. They won’t even be helping us, just each other. Relax.”

Sephiroth was very, very still, eyes carefully turned away so he wouldn’t spook the child. Jay hesitated, something like bewilderment coloring his expression. “Why—why aren’t they doing it themselves? Why are you trying to help me wash my hair? I can do it on my own.”

Angeal felt his heart ache a little at the implications. He turned away from Sephiroth for just a moment. “Oh, Jay. I’m sorry you spent so long thinking it was normal to be all alone, but having your parents, or your packmates, or even your friends helping you with grooming, and helping them, is one of the most wonderful parts of the day.”

Jay stared at him. “This is…normal for everyone?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yes, sweet boy,” Genesis said, smoothing a hand over his hair. “This is part of what you should have had all along.”

Jay averted his eyes, evidently unable to find a response. After that he seemed to be completely lost in his own thoughts, allowing Genesis to thoroughly groom him without any complaint. He drew his hands back and forth through the hazy warm water, staring sightlessly at the pattern of the ripples he made.

Genesis, feeling daring, allowed both Sephiroth and Angeal to work on grooming him while he kept ahold of Jay. Only at the very end did he hand Jay over to Angeal so he could quickly scrub down the last few untouched places on his arms and torso.

“All done with the bath,” he sang, taking Jay back and rising from the water. He wrapped the child in a fresh towel and set him down on the bench against the wall before he wrapped his own towel around his waist. Angeal and Sephiroth followed.

As Jay blinked from the depths of the fluffy white towel, the adults quickly did each other’s hair and dried off. Genesis pulled on a pair of sleeping pants and sat down to do Jay’s hair while Sephiroth left and Angeal lingered in the bedroom, arranging the nest and the supplies he knew Genesis would shortly need.

“Now,” the redheaded omega said, carrying Jay out of the bathroom. He’d put the pajama onesie on, but kept the top off and tied the arms around Jay’s skinny waist. “I promised we’d get all those nasty aches out, and we will, but we shall start small.” He climbed into the nest and sat upright against the pillows arranged against the headboard, Jay in his lap. Angeal handed him the massage oil, receiving a sweet (well, as sweet as Genesis ever was) smile in return.

“What are you doing now?” Jay asked, far too longsuffering for someone his age.

“Starting small,” Genesis said, and with just a little bit of the lavender-scented oil on his fingers, he took hold of Jay’s tiny hands and began kneading the muscles.

“You—” Jay started, but then he cut off with a long, annoyed sigh, and didn’t continue. Instead, he slumped back and stared at Genesis’s hands through apathetic, half-lidded eyes.

Genesis cooed. “So grumpy, little cub. Not to worry, I’ll have you singing a different tune in no time at all.”

Angeal stayed, sitting on the edge of the bed and watching carefully while Genesis made good on his promise. He started with both hands at once (they were so small that it was easy), then gently put one down and started working on the other wrist and forearm. Jay’s unimpressed expression slowly faded. It wasn’t long until he started blinking heavily.

Genesis, for once in his life, knew better than to start speaking. He hummed instead, long loops of verse that seemed to have no real beginning or end, like a musical meditation. Occasionally his eyes would flicker to Angeal and he would trace the length of a scar on Jay’s skin, or point out some other salient feature—the calluses on his hands, for instance. Their little cub was familiar with swords.

And, worse: every scar was thin and silver, like he’d never spent a single day of his life without mako-enhanced healing.

By the time Genesis had finished with his arms and moved on to his chest and stomach, Jay was out cold, breathing softly against his neck.

“Mmm,” Genesis hummed, “Now that the ferocious little bear is asleep, Seph should join us. There are several things I’ve observed.” 

Sephiroth appeared in the doorway almost immediately and joined them in the nest. “Observations?”

“His physical state. Someone took a lot of care to heal him after each acute injury, but I can still feel where his bones were broken.” He traced a line over Jay’s collarbone. “His joints are painful just to touch, not that he reacts much to it, and his muscles are so tense that it’s a wonder they don’t cramp at the slightest flex.”

Anger spiced the air, but Genesis shushed them, tracing the bridge of Jay’s nose to soothe him when he reacted in his sleep.

“No wonder he always smells so miserable,” Angeal murmured.

“And no wonder he thinks it cannot be fixed,” Sephiroth added.

Genesis finally finished his work and untied the arms of Jay’s pajamas, carefully easing them on and zipping the onesie closed. Angeal snorted when he realized that it was patterned like a miniature SOLDIER Third uniform. Sephiroth looked sheepish.

“I…did not select that one.”

“I’m sure you didn’t, love,” Genesis condescended, bundling Jay up and handing him to his beta packmate. “Now, loathe though I am to share, it will be better for everyone if he stops being afraid of you, so you take him for tonight.”

Cloud woke up long before the sun, as he was accustomed. He guessed that it was approaching 0400, the hour he usually got up to start preparing for the day on an active battlefront. There was no clock in the room for him to know for sure.

Warm arms were wrapped around him, their weight and shape almost familiar. But, like with Angeal and Genesis, they belonged to an adult body, not to a lanky enhanced teenager. When he shifted, slowly and carefully, he wasn’t very surprised to find that he was sleeping on Sephiroth’s chest.

But he was definitely unhappy about it.

Still. He took a deep breath and let it out slow, ignoring the calming quality of the scents around him. It didn’t matter. He just needed to get out.

It took him a nerve-wracking half hour to escape the oddly-arranged bed—“nest,” he vaguely recalled them saying—without waking anyone. It was especially tricky, he knew from experience, to keep from waking the silver-haired demon. Only by moving as slowly as he possibly could did he manage to finally get his feet on the floor.

Belatedly, he noticed they’d put him in footie pajamas. It took a lot of willpower to keep from sighing in exasperation.

He did actually have a plan. It still wasn’t clear to him how much scent played a role in this new world, but he suspected that it was enough for him to get caught even if he stayed out of sight. So he crept into the bathroom and fished around the laundry bin until he found a shirt that positively reeked of Angeal. He tied the long sleeves over his neck, wearing it like a cape.

If Cloud vaguely understood how all this worked, it might be just good enough for him to get out of the Tower. After that point, it wouldn’t matter.

And Cloud did manage to get out of the apartment. He even managed to get into the stairwell and down several floors, counting on speed and his knowledge of the security camera layout to stay undetected. He almost succeeded in getting to the exit point he’d been thinking of, even—a dusty, rarely-used staff elevator near the SOLDIER armory. He almost got there.

Almost.

“—know it’s unexpected, Kuns,” a familiar voice said, just barely within earshot as Cloud padded down the hall toward his salvation. His breath stalled in his throat as he felt a spike of panic. He darted through an open doorway and into a small, dark training room, pressing his back against the wall and crouching in place. He hardly dared to breathe as the voices came closer, accompanied by the stomp of SOLDIER boots.

“What else can you do?” Kunsel murmured.

“Exactly!” Cloud could imagine Zack tossing his hands, then running one through his wild black spikes. “I feel…crazy unprepared, but it’s not like we have any choice.”

“SOLDIER will be behind you,” Kunsel said. “Once this all goes public.”

Zack laughed a little. “Yeah, I know you guys—“ he stopped abruptly and Cloud’s stomach dropped. They couldn’t be more than a few feet away from where he was hiding.

“What?” Asked Kunsel.

“…what’s that…” Zack took a deep breath, then hummed. He moved, footsteps far quieter than before. This time Cloud really felt panic: Zack was standing right in the open doorway. The SOLDIER took another deep breath and stepped into the room.

Cloud’s eyes shut with resignation and his shoulders slumped. He wasn’t surprised when Zack stopped right in front of where he was trying to hide. Slowly, the SOLDIER dropped down into a crouch.

“Zack?” Kunsel asked, confused as he stood in the doorway.

“Are we playing hide and seek today, Jay?” Zack asked softly, putting a warm palm on top of Cloud’s head.

And Cloud, who didn’t have a plan other than “don’t get caught” (which had worked out great, obviously) didn’t choose what happened next. His mind was blank with this unexpected defeat. But when Kunsel inhaled sharply, surprise bursting in his scent as he realized who Zack was talking to, Cloud’s body just… reacted.

Within one blink and the next he was running, then sliding between Kunsel’s legs on his knees, then up and running again. He had one shot. If Zack caught him, it was game over, maybe for a long time. He had to go now.

“JAY!” Zack shouted, scrambling up to chase after him. Kunsel got going quickly too. But Cloud was a lot faster than an unenhanced human. Even tiny, he was still as fast as a Third. Better, he was light and small and could take advantage of footholds and handholds that would break under a grown SOLDIER’s weight. If he could just make it to a stairwell or a window, he had a chance.

An unexpected hand snagged his arm and lifted him clear off the floor. “Gotcha!”

The groan that escaped Cloud when he looked up into Reno’s face was entirely involuntary. The sharp kick to the Turk’s chin, on the other hand, wasn’t.

Reno yelped and dropped him. He scrabbled against the floor for a second, trying to get his footing. Just when he did, Rude grabbed at his scruff and snagged Angeal’s shirt instead. “JAY!” Zack shouted as the loose knot of the sleeves gave and Cloud shot off again, too fast for Reno or Rude to stop him.

“JAY!”

Cloud’s relief barely lasted a few steps. A heavy bit of fabric was thrown over his head, tripping him. He squawked and fell, tangled up in it. Someone grabbed the edges before he could get free, drawing them even tighter, and then he was picked up like an errant cat. He squirmed, an involuntary growl rattling his chest, and managed to get his head free enough to see—

Actually, he had no idea who that was.

The man, who really didn’t look remarkable except for the large scar on his face and the obvious cunning in his eyes, met Cloud’s furious gaze and arched his brows. Zack and Kunsel finally caught up.

“Jay!” Zack gasped, reaching out immediately to take him from the mystery…Turk? Cloud was willing to guess he was a Turk. “Oh gods kid, don’t give me a heart attack like that!”

Cloud realized that the thing used to trip him had been the man’s suit jacket, as he took it back and pulled it on. Oh yeah, that was definitely a Turk. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully, trying to figure out what the guy’s importance might be, but he was shortly distracted from his analysis when Zack started prodding him. “Are you hurt, JayJay?”

Cloud scowled, batting at his hand and trying to squirm away. Of course he wasn’t hurt! Zack apparently realized the same thing, because he stopped and just hugged Cloud tight to his chest.

“Thanks, Director,” he said sincerely to the mystery Turk.

Cloud’s eyes went wide where his face was smushed against Zack’s shoulder. Director? What about Tseng? Then he paused to think. It was (maybe?) early in the timeline of everything that went wrong. He supposed that there must have been a director before Tseng.

“Of course, Fair,” the Director said. “Is this your…?”

“Ehm, yeah” Zack said awkwardly. “It’ll be official…soon.”

“I see.”

Cloud gave up and just went limp. He wasn’t getting out of this. Might as well listen to the conversation.

“Here, Fair,” said Rude, and Zack shifted.

“What is…?” He sniffed. “Angeal’s shirt? Why…” Then he paused, and Cloud got the sense he was looking directly at him. “You’re a real clever little kid, huh?”

Not clever enough, Cloud thought tiredly.

“You should get home, Fair,” the Director said pointedly.

“Right. Of course. Thank you, again.”

“You’re welcome. I’m sure Tseng will keep me updated as the situation progresses.”

Zack laughed, but there wasn’t any humor in it. “Yeah. I’m sure we’ll see you later.”

Kunsel parted ways with them once they’d hit the secure SOLDIER floors, which left Zack with a very grumpy, morose, and also delightfully lavender-smelling Jay for company. The little omega refused to raise his head, even when Zack tried to gently encourage him to sit up as he walked.

“Come on, Jay, talk to me,” he cooed. “Where were you going, huh?”

All he got in return was a muffled, wordless grumbling noise.  Honestly, it wasn’t surprising. He kept his purring up, tracing Jay’s spine with one hand. “Were you coming to greet me?” he asked lightly, even though he knew that wasn’t a possibility.

The tiniest little hint of guilt crept into Jay’s scent. Zack’s eyebrows rose in surprise. Maybe he really was just Cloud-nip, since Jay had latched onto him so quickly despite his prickly demeanor—just like the big Cloud. He continued, pretending like he hadn’t caught onto the guilt: “That’s so nice of you, Jay, but it’s too early for little boys to be awake. You’re gonna be all grouchy tomorrow if you don’t sleep.”

He fished his keycard out of his pocket and unlocked the front door of Angeal’s apartment. He’d been planning on going to sleep in his own apartment so he wouldn’t wake anyone, but obviously that was out of the question now. Lucky he and Kunsel had already cleaned up together before heading for the apartments.

Zack paused once the door had shut behind him, dropping his duffle and listening intently. Sure enough he heard Sephiroth sit up in the bedroom, woken by his arrival. He waited a second longer for the panic to kick in once his packmate inevitably realized Jay was gone.

Sephiroth came sprinting out to the front room, only to skid to a stop when he saw Zack’s rueful smile and Jay still hiding in his arms. “Hi, Seph. Look who came to play hide and seek with me out by the armory.”

“He—what?” Even the great General was a little disoriented after an unexpected 0430 wake-up. He reached for Jay, only to think better of it and retract his hands. 

“Was out by the armory to welcome me home, right bud?” Zack asked, paying half an ear to  Genesis and Angeal waking in the bedroom. He petted Jay’s hair, trying to get him to raise his head. It didn’t work.

“Jay,” Sephiroth breathed.

Genesis and Angeal appeared at the end of the hallway and came to join them, looking grim. They’d heard everything Sephiroth had. Zack tossed Angeal’s shirt to him. “Here.”

The burly alpha just looked baffled. “My shirt?”

“Jay had it.”

The three of them realized immediately why the kid would have bothered to steal it. Genesis huffed a laugh. “Cunning boy.”

“Isn’t he?” Zack said, more tired than he meant to be. Even for him, this was just a little too depressing to handle at the asscrack of dawn. “Let’s uh…let’s just go to bed, huh? We can…talk in the morning.”

Cloud was fucked. Oooooh, he was so fucked. Running off once could maybe be overlooked, but twice? They wouldn’t.

And they didn’t.

Zack passed out almost immediately once he changed into sleeping clothes and crawled into the nest, never once letting go of Cloud. Forcibly not thinking about how safe he felt, Cloud kept his breathing even and his eyes closed, watching and waiting. Genesis and Angeal followed Zack’s lead, quickly falling asleep. 

Sephiroth, however, did not.

It felt like a strange, quiet standoff—both of them knew the other was awake, but they gave no outward signs of it. One thing, however, was abundantly clear to Cloud: he’d lost his chance for a clean escape.

Annoyed with himself, Cloud shifted into a slightly more comfortable position, nose pressed up against Zack’s neck, and went to sleep. There was no point in continuing a useless standoff. He thought he might have heard Sephiroth huff a laugh before he drifted off.

He wanted to stay annoyed when Zack woke him up the next morning. Unfortunately, the mere fact of Zack made that impossible. For whatever reason, everything he did was so much more effective than anyone else’s attempts. Cloud washed up and ate breakfast with no fuss at all, thanks to Zack. It grated on him ( would have grated on him) that this was easily the most pleasant morning he’d had in…ever. Since the last morning he spent with Tifa and the kids.

Or maybe he was just being excessively grumpy about everything. It was unclear.

Despite Genesis’s efforts the night before (his arms and chest did feel a lot less achy), Cloud was still absurdly tired. He drifted off right after breakfast, lulled by some boring conversation the SOLDIERs were having as they cleaned up—something about ‘pack quarters’ and ‘bond verification.’

When he woke up again, the light said it was early afternoon. He was in Sephiroth’s lap this time, much to his immediate annoyance. He had half a mind to punch the guy, but then he realized that Sephiroth was both holding him and working on his laptop, and the ability to see exactly what someone with such high security clearance was working on made up for the annoyance.

Two documents were open, side-by-side: one was some kind of application, the other an unredacted Turk report. He disregarded the application, quickly devouring the visible parts of the report.

Tseng had gone looking for the non-existent lab that had made Cloud and instead had found Nibelheim. It sounded like it was more-or-less the same nightmare hellscape Cloud remembered, and that was fine as far as he was concerned: all the more ease and reason to go set it on fire. Violently. Then he glanced at the application and realized why Sephiroth had the Turk’s report open next to it: the damned thing was an adoption application, or this world’s equivalent. Some of the phrasing was odd. What was a Class C-2 bond?

A sudden chill swept down his spine. It couldn’t be something like what Sephiroth had done to link them…right?

“You,” Sephiroth murmured, bending to lightly brush his jaw against the side of Cloud’s head, “are reading my top-secret files, aren’t you, little one?” He closed the laptop and set it to the side.

That was reason enough for Cloud to squirm free, nearly tripping over the blanket tangled around his legs as he backed away and scowled up at the silver-haired menace. Sephiroth just calmly raised his eyebrows and picked up the Zack doll from where it had fallen on the couch cushions, offering it to Cloud again.

Don’t take it, Cloud told himself, keeping his hands at his side by force of will. It’s stupid, you don’t need it. You’re not actually a kid.

“Well, if you don’t want to look after—” Sephiroth made a very slight movement, like he was about to claim the Zack plushie for himself.

Cloud snatched Zack away before he could stop himself, scowling even deeper. Sephiroth’s expression gave nothing away, but Cloud swore he could smell just a hint of amusement and he glared in response.

“Angeal left us lunch,” Sephiroth said, unaffected by his glare. He stood and dusted his pants off, then folded up the blanket and laid it over the back of the couch. “Shall we go find it?”

Cloud’s scowl relaxed into a frown. He tilted his head, listening, but it sounded like only he and Sephiroth were in the apartment. Where was everyone else? Surely they wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave him alone like this.

“It is just us until this evening,” Sephiroth said, interpreting his reaction easily. He crouched down, put them at eye level. “Are you hungry?”

No, Cloud almost said, except that he definitely was, and this was Angeal’s food. Who could turn down that? Still, he wrinkled his nose at the idea of eating with Sephiroth of all people and stayed silent until the sound of his stomach growling answered for him.

The silver-haired menace smiled a little and stood back up. “How about I prepare it, and you come join me when you’re ready?” he asked.

Immediately, Cloud was suspicious. Sephiroth was giving him free rein of the apartment? After he’d tried to make a break for it twice? There was a catch somewhere—a reason.

But maybe, if he was lucky, that reason was “we are very stupid.” It wasn’t impossible, considering they were very stupid.

So he turned and trotted off toward the bedroom first, listening to see if Sephiroth would follow. He didn’t—in fact, he laughed softly and moved to the kitchen. Cloud frowned. Suspicious.

His first order of business was testing the windows. He hauled himself up onto the windowsill, one-handed, and paused to listen again. When only the faint sounds of clattering dishes and cutlery reached him, he put a hand on the first window lock and pulled.

It didn’t budge. He scowled at it mightily and tried again, exerting SOLDIER strength, but it still didn’t budge. They must have had a way to double-lock it. Electromagnetic, he guessed, inspecting the window’s housing. It was probably controlled by the panel at the front door. He peered at the glass, but like before he knew he wouldn’t be able to break it in time to escape.

Still. He tried all the other windows before giving up entirely.

Defeated, he snuck back out to the front door. Keeping the kitchen’s entrance in the corner of his eye, he inspected the panel’s display. Unlike before, it was locked from the inside. He would need a key—or some brute-force hotwiring—to open it. 

So, they really weren’t stupid, and he was out of luck. Godsdammit. Fueled by pure spite, he crept around and tried all the rest of the windows, but they didn’t budge. Unless he incapacitated Sephiroth, he was well and truly stuck.

“Are you done attempting to sneak out?” the silver-haired menace dared to ask, apparently unafraid to be blunt. “The food is ready.”

Fuck you very much, Cloud thought furiously, but he nonetheless stomped into the kitchen and snatched up the plate meant for him. He intended to retreat somewhere—the top of the wardrobe, maybe—but Sephiroth stopped him. “No, Jay. Food stays in the kitchen.”

I’m going to shred your favorite pair of pants with a cheese grater, Cloud promised silently, glaring. He glanced around, then decided upon an appropriate loophole.

The top of the fridge was, after all, still in the kitchen.

“That is acceptable,” Sephiroth said calmly, which just made Cloud want to throw the plate at his face. He settled for a brief venomous glare before he inhaled the food Angeal had left. It was just as good as always, which was both annoying and comforting.

Cloud heard a PHS shutter click and his head snapped up. “Was that a picture?” he snapped. Except, his mouth was full so it really sounded more like “w’th a p’thr?”

“He speaks!” Sephiroth said with teasing surprise, eyes on his PHS as he no doubt sent the picture to the other SOLDIERs. “I’m afraid I did not understand you, Jay. It helps if you do not speak with your mouth full.”

Cloud swallowed the food in his mouth, not because the silver-haired bastard was right, but because he didn’t want him to have plausible deniability in ignoring Cloud’s demands. “Who did you send it to?” he growled.

“Genesis, Angeal, and Zack,” Sephiroth said. He snapped the PHS shut and put it away, finally looking up. “I am certain they will very much enjoy the picture,” he added with a smile that was as close to a grin as Sephiroth’s face could physically make without cracking like porcelain. Or so Cloud assumed at least.

Cloud glanced down at himself, wondering what exactly the one-winged-overgrown-pigeon-in-training thought his boyfriends would want to see. Slowly—oh so slowly—it dawned on him what kind of picture he objectively made, crouched like a gargoyle on top of the fridge, dressed in SOLDIER footie pajamas, face stuffed with food, hair mussed from sleep, Zack plush still tucked absently in one arm. A mortified crimson blush heated his face.

Oh no. They were going to think he was adorable.

I am a feared SOLDIER operative! he thought in outrage, scowling—did it look like pouting to them? Oh no. Two armies feared me! My kill count is higher than yours!

Sephiroth completely ignored his outraged glare, standing up and putting his dishes in the sink. He held a hand out for Cloud’s too. “Give me your plate, Jay.”

As much as Cloud wanted to smack Sephiroth with it, or maybe throw it into the sink himself just out of spite, that was just a step too far toward actual childishness. He handed the plate over.

“Thank you.” Sephiroth opened the fridge and pulled out a juice box, which he set by Cloud’s leg like some kind of reward for good behavior. On sheer outraged reflex, Cloud smacked it off the side of the fridge. It hit the floor with a satisfying THWACK.

Sephiroth burst out laughing.

“Oh—oh, Jay,” he said with a fondness that was unsettling. “Are you just an angry little kitten in a human body? It’s no wonder Genesis claimed you so quickly.”

“No one can claim me,” Cloud snapped, shoulders curling up defensively.

Sephiroth’s expression softened. “Jay, it is…it’s not the kind of claim you must be used to. It’s the most natural and fundamental bond of all, not a claim of ownership. You are a child, not a weapon. I hope you understand that.”

It was an utterly laughable reversal, hearing that from him. Cloud couldn’t help the spark of old fear that was followed by a much more potent fury. “You don’t know anything about me!” he snapped back, voice underlined by a rumbling growl deep in his chest. His back pressed harder into the cabinet behind him. His wings squirmed restlessly under his skin.

“But if we did, we would be rid of you, is that it?” Sephiroth responded calmly.

“YES!”

“You’re wrong, Jay. Just as I was wrong when I thought the same.”

Cloud growled at him and gripped fistfuls of his hair. What the hell did he know? His mere existence was the reason no one could ever be safe around Cloud again. What did he know about putting everyone who loved him in danger?

Sephiroth sighed and turned away long enough to pull a chair over to the fridge. He stepped up onto it, making Cloud press even harder into the wood behind him, but instead of reaching for Cloud he just folded his arms over fridge and leaned his chin on them. It made him look jarringly human.

“You need not believe me right now,” he said, voice soft. “Time will tell. But I promise you this: there is nothing about you that condemns everyone around you to misery, Jay.”

What the hell do you know? Cloud thought, eyes burning. His breath caught on the unexpected lump in his throat.

Sephiroth stepped down, returning the chair to its place at the table. He picked the juice box up off the floor and placed it back on top of the fridge before he exited the kitchen, leaving Cloud alone with his thoughts.

What the hell do any of these idiots know, Cloud thought, sniffling and scrubbing at his eyes. 

He drank the juice box. It was better than crying.

Zack was officially in love. Again. And probably not for the last time since they still had one more packmate to find (if Genesis’s instincts were right), but this love was special.

Jay was just so cute. It was almost too much to stand. He’d thought he would have a heart attack from the picture Seph texted them of Jay with his little cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk, perched up on the fridge. He’d wanted to just run right home and kiss those little cheeks until he finally got a giggle out of that way-too-serious kid.

And now Zack was home and Jay was laying on his front while Genesis worked his magic massaging the kid’s back. His little face was squished up against Zack’s shoulder, eyes half-lidded as he purred loud enough to wake the dead. He hadn’t started out that way, resisting expressing his contentment with all his grumpy might, but Gen was hard to hold out against.

“You are so precious,” Zack informed Jay, petting his hair. The little omega was too blissed-out to even shoot him a glare. “So sweet.” He dropped a kiss on that head of wild blond hair, enjoying the smell of the conditioner Gen had gotten especially for him.

Jay shivered and arched his back a little as Genesis hit some particularly stubborn knots. The purring amped up a notch as he nuzzled into Zack’s chest and melted even more. The persistent notes of pain in his scent eased, just a little bit.

Yeah. Zack was in love.

“Mmmm!” It was hard to not just smother him in affection, but Zack managed to restrain himself. “I’m never gonna let anyone be mean to you ever again,” he promised. “I’ll beat up anyone who makes you sad or tries to hurt you. I’m gonna make sure you smile every day and have all the good things in the world.”

And then, when he kissed Jay’s head again, overwhelming joy bursting from his scent in a way that was sure to make Genesis roll his eyes and ask him to tone down the “puppy enthusiasm,” the strangest thing happened.

Between one blink and the next, Jay suddenly had two extra limbs—long, gangly wings that stretched straight up from his back, shuddering, before they relaxed and drifted down to lay on the bed. Genesis froze, eyes wide, as his thumbs suddenly brushed up against the base of the wings. Zack froze too, jaw dropping in astonishment. His eyes followed the path of a loose, pale gold feather as it drifted down onto the blankets.

“...oh,” Zack said lamely, watching the feather dissolve. “Uh. Wow.”

Jay shifted, making a curious little noise in the back of his throat at their sudden change of behavior. He stilled, confusion creeping into his scent. The wings flexed, feathers rustling. He finally seemed to realize what had happened.

His terror hit so fast that Zack barely reacted in time, hooking one arm over his shoulders and one across his lower back as he choked on a gasp and tried to scramble away. “Woah!” Zack said, arching his head back slightly as the wings flailed. “No, it’s okay, it’s okay. Don’t panic, everything’s gonna be fine.”

Jay made a wordless noise of terror, struggling wildly. Genesis was leaning back, hands hovering like he wanted to help but couldn’t figure out what to do. Angeal raced into the room from where he’d been reading on the couch. Sephiroth poked his head in from the bathroom but didn’t emerge fully, afraid to accidentally make the situation worse. Zack shook his head at both of them.

“Gen,” he grunted, tightening his grip on Jay. He knew in his gut that things would only get worse if he let Jay run off. “Get him—ow—get him pinned against your chest.”

“What?” Genesis said, but then realization dawned. He nodded seriously and waited until Jay’s flailing wings had extended out to either side before he struck, stealing the little omega from Zack in a blur of movement. With Jay’s back firmly pinned to his chest, the wings were forced to stay extended out to either side, minimizing the chances of him hurting himself—or them—in his panic. His arms, too, were pinned, leaving only his little feet to scrabble against the sheets.

“Shh, you’re okay,” Zack said, sitting up to follow them. He took Jay’s face in hand, purring loudly. Genesis did the same. “It’s okay. No one is going to hurt you.”

Panicked, cat-slit blue eyes met Zack’s. Jay gasped shallowly, little distressed noises cutting through the hyperventilation. When he blinked, tears spilled over to wet Zack’s fingers.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Zack repeated patiently, leaning his forehead against Jay’s. “Breathe with me, come on.”

The kid shook his head as much as he could, expression twisting. His shoulders flexed up like he was straining against something. Brilliant, intense pain flared in his scent as he gritted his teeth and keened.

“Baby it’s okay—”

Genesis inhaled sharply, cutting him off. “Zack, look!”

Zack quickly raised his head, not letting go of Jay’s face. Genesis was looking at the wings—or, more specifically, at where the ends were slowly dissolving away into nothingness, just like the feather had. “What—”

Jay made another noise of intense pain, head tossing in Zack’s hands. His eyes were squeezed shut, teeth bared, heels pushing against the bed like he was fighting against a physical weight. “Nnn, nnn,” he said over and over, which might have been “No, no.”

Zack glanced back and forth between the wings and the kid’s face. Something in his mind clicked. Jay was hurting himself on purpose. “No! Jay, baby, stop it!” He strengthened his grip on the kid’s face, keeping his head still. “Stop!”

Jay didn’t listen, but Zack didn’t think he had a choice about what happened next. He seemed to lose his metaphorical grip with a sharp cry, the tension in his body snapping like a wire. He went abruptly limp, gasping for breath. The wings re-formed in their entirety.

For a moment, the only sound in the room was Jay’s gasping, uneven breaths. Then he hiccuped and burst into tears. The smell of his panic did not in any way abate.

“Oh, Jay,” Zack cooed, taking the kid from Genesis now that he wasn’t flailing wildly. “Oh, baby. It’s okay. You’re okay.” The purring wasn’t doing jack shit to calm him down, but Zack could be patient. He tucked Jay’s head under his chin and rocked in place.

Angeal crept over to the nest, face pale. He knelt down instead of sitting on the mattress, clearly not wanting to shift the bed and startle Jay. Look, he signed using field signals. Injured. He pointed to the wings.

And Zack, who’d been somewhat preoccupied until this point, finally took the time to really look at the wings. The shape of them was off in places—bent where it shouldn’t have been, introducing sharp unnatural angles to what should have been elegant curves. The feathers were ashy and crooked, though they should have been arranged in orderly rows. Now that he was paying more attention, he could even see places where glowing fluid was dripping from them to stain the bed. When he glanced around the room, he saw places where the wild flailing had flung that glowing fluid in splatters against the wall and ceiling.

Injured, Angeal had observed.

You can’t fix it, Jay had told him, just two mornings ago. What hurts, you can’t fix it. No one can fix it.

And Zack remembered their first meeting, when he’d asked what the vile scientists who tormented Jay had wanted: A weapon. All he made was a monster, though.

“Jay.” His voice cracked. He felt damn near crying himself, but that wouldn’t help his kid. “Oh, baby. You don’t have to be afraid. It’s okay. You’re not a monster, and you’re not gonna scare us away.”

The little omega wailed loudly in response, smacking Zack’s shoulder with a weak fist. “STUPID!” he sobbed, muffled into the SOLDIER’s shirt. “G-gonna ge-et y-ou KI-ILLED!”

“No, Jay. No. I promise you, you’re not going to hurt us, and if anyone comes after you we’re gonna beat them up for trying. I’m not gonna let anything hurt you ever again.” He stroked the back of Jay’s head. “I love you.”

Jay’s fear shifted, replaced by something closer to despair which was just as painful, but Zack knew a battle like this wasn’t going to be won in a day. He sighed through his nose and kissed Jay’s temple before looking up at his packmates.

“Gen. Materia?”

Genesis nodded, but it was Sephiroth who crept out of the bathroom to retrieve it from the cabinet in the living room, quiet as a ghost. He came back with a selection, but just handed Genesis a Cure.

Jay, who had not calmed down at all by the time Genesis cast, weakly struck Zack’s shoulder again. “Can’t fix it!” he repeated forcefully. Despite the highest-level spell in Genesis’s arsenal, the damage hadn’t mended in the slightest.

“Why not?” Zack asked. He wasn’t too surprised when he didn’t get an answer.

“The old fashioned way?”  Angeal suggested, a troubled frown on his lips. He stood and retrieved their medical kit from the bathroom. Sephiroth sat down on the floor, leaning against the bed. Genesis put a hand on his head and stroked his bangs soothingly.

Jay flinched the very instant Angeal’s hand came in contact with a feather, whipping around to glare. His face was a reddened, snotty mess. “NO!” he snapped, the wings fluttering jerkily, like a rig on malfunctioning lines. A drop of the glowing ‘blood’ landed on Zack’s shoulder. Unnervingly, it tingled like materia and evaporated in a few seconds.

“Sweetheart, they’re injured,” Angeal said calmly. “We can at least bandage them.”

“No!” He pawed at his face, already on the verge of losing his tenuous control.

“Give me a good reason why and I’ll stop.”

Jay growled at him, though it was wavering and short. “Won’t work! Can’t fix them!”

“I know it won’t fix them, Jay. But will it make them hurt less?”

This brought the little omega up short. He lowered his hands and looked at Angeal like no one had ever asked that before. Maybe no one had. He certainly didn’t seem to know the answer.

“Please, Jay,” Angeal said. “Let me try.”

Slowly, the kid’s eyes turned down, hidden behind his bangs. A few moments of silence passed. He nodded once then turned and hid his face against Zack again, arms tucked up safely between their chests. He smelled anxious.

Angeal took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Thank you,” he said softly, as if he was worried he’d break the fragile calm. He looked at Genesis and inclined his head toward the wing on the opposite side of the bed. Genesis nodded back. Together, they tried to mend what damage they could.

Zack, in direct contact with Jay, noticed something interesting: as soon as his packmates had begun to gently card the feathers back into neat rows, searching for hidden damage as they went, Jay had melted. In fact, he’d melted much faster than he had earlier when Genesis had been massaging the aches out of his muscles. Zack tucked that fact away for later consideration.

By the time they finished, leaving a good portion of each wing bandaged and splinted, Jay was back to his zen purring, knuckles curled into his mouth as he halfheartedly tried to stay awake. He didn’t need to. Zack traced the bridge of his nose in slow, light strokes until his eyes shut.

“Goodnight,” he whispered, and Jay sighed softly before he dropped off to sleep.

The relief in the room was palpable. Genesis hauled Sephiroth up onto the bed (quietly) and they arranged themselves into a sort of awkward pack hug over the bulky wings.

“How in the Goddess’s name are we going to fit around these?” Genesis whispered, forehead pressed against Angeal’s jaw.

Almost as soon as he’d said it, the wings dissolved in a shower of light. For whatever reason that seemed to be the correct way of dispelling them, since it didn’t cause Jay any pain. He just slept on, perfectly comfortable.

“Oh. Convenient.”

Zack took a deep breath. “Seph, how close are we to having full rights?” he asked. “We can’t let… anyone from Science get within a mile of Jay. Not after this.”

“Very close,” Sephiroth murmured. “Tseng has yet to find any other clues, but given the circumstances it is likely that he is, in some way, related to your Cloud. Most likely, something was taken from his mother in Nibelheim. Normally I might say we should speak with Ms. Strife, but…”

“But what is she going to do with an enhanced baby she didn’t even know about?” Angeal finished.

“Yes. It will not impede our claim, given how he has imprinted on you especially, Zack. The last major step we need to complete is bond verification, and we can bring a specialist in tomorrow.”

The others exhaled in relief. “He certainly shouldn't be imprinting at his age,” Genesis said, reaching out to stroke Jay’s cheek, “but I’m glad he did, or we would be in a much more precarious situation.”

“He must have been so alone his whole life,” Angeal whispered. “Raised with a glass wall and a filtration system between himself and every adult in miles.”

Zack huffed a surprisingly cynical laugh. “We’re close to having him legally, but how are we on convincing him not to run away the moment he gets an opportunity?”

“We certainly were not close before,” Sephiroth said. “But after this…I hope we are much closer.”

“No wonder he was so scared,” Angeal said. He shut his eyes, pained. “He was the monster I was called to deal with. What would I have done if…”

Genesis clicked his tongue at the alpha. “No, stop that. No speculation. He’s here, safe in our arms, and we will keep it that way.”

“...you’re right,” Angeal said. “Thank you.”

“Oh, say that again, my love!” Genesis cooed, fanning himself. “It’s my favorite.”

“Anyway,” Zack interrupted before they could really get into it, “I know we’ve been putting off moving to pack quarters until we found our last packmate, but I think with Jay we really need to make the transition now. As long as we leave some extra room, it should work out fine, right?”

“I don’t want to throw a lot of new places at Jay,” Angeal said. “We can arrange to move him directly from here to pack quarters. After he’s safely ours.”

Genesis smiled faintly. “He’ll probably like the extra space. We’ll have to double up on the soundproofing though.”

Sephiroth snorted. “It may be difficult, but at the very least if I cannot hear through it, he should not be able to. We will have to assess his exact degree of enhancement at some point.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Zack immediately, cuddling Jay closer in a protective grip. “He’s never gonna be a SOLDIER if I have anything to say about it.”

“I agree,” Sephiroth soothed, “but it will matter the moment he needs any sort of medication. I can do the calculations myself if I know his base numbers, but we will need to get a blood sample processed at least once.”

Zack relaxed once the horrifying image of a tiny winged child fighting Zoloms left his mind. “Later,” he grumbled, kissing the top of Jay’s head. “All of that later.”

Cloud found out what a ‘bond’ was the next day.

They’d warned him that Genesis would be bringing someone to visit right before dinner. Cloud spent all day working himself up over everything and plotting his escape. He thought he had a pretty solid plan, but that was for later. He had more immediate problems when Zack picked him up, put him in his lap, and wrapped his arms around Cloud in a way that might have been affectionate to some people but was definitely meant to quickly restrain him.

He figured out why when Genesis promptly waltzed in with a lady dressed in fashionable clothing on his heels. So, this was the promised visitor.

Her eyes went to him immediately, though she greeted the others with firm…forearm clasps? Weird, he thought that was more of a Nibel thing than a Midgar thing. Was it just another dimensional difference?

She came to kneel in front of him and Zack. “Hello, little man,” she cooed, offering a hand. After a brief hesitation, he clasped her forearm like the others hand. “What’s your name?”

“…Jay,” he said slowly. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

She swooned. “Well aren’t you just a perfect little gentleman, Jay! You can call me Kia. I’m just here to do a quick little task for the pack here. Do you know what a bond is?”

Cloud stared at her. Slowly, he shook his head, and she smiled.

“That’s alright. A bond is really very simple, it’s just any kind of connection between two people’s spirits.” She touched her fingertips together in demonstration. “Did you know that you and Zack here have a very special bond?”

His anxiety was climbing rapidly, and even though he kept it off his face, they could obviously still smell it. Zack ran a hand through his hair while the woman hastened to clarify, “oh no, honey, it’s nothing to be worried about! Everyone has bonds, it’s not bad. You and Zack just have a special bond called an imprint. It’s a type of caregiver-child bond, and it’ll help Zack find you and help you if you’re ever lost or hurt.”

Now that was really alarming, since he intended to get lost as fast as humanly possible.

The woman shot Zack a confused, somewhat helpless look, asking why such information would be freaking Cloud out. Zack just shook his head and gestured for her to continue.

“Okay, well…I’m going to use this materia—” she tapped a pendant around her neck “—to feel the bond between you and Zack.”

Cloud was half distracted, mind running incessantly over the spot in his psyche where Sephiroth had once been anchored like a pitch-black parasite. Whatever bond he did or didn’t have with Zack, it at least wasn’t in the same place…or anywhere else that Cloud could detect. 

“Why?” He asked.

Kia smiled at him. “I’m a special type of something called a ‘notary.’ That means that I can witness something that’s really hard to see, like a bond, and then sign a document that I witnessed it. Then, if people ask Zack whether or not he really has a bond with you, he can show them the document as proof. All you need to do is hold hands with Zack, and then I’ll put my hand over yours and use my materia. Okay?”

He couldn’t think of a reason to refuse, and he wanted to know if there really was some bond. Zack offered him a hand, palm-up. Cloud set his much smaller one on it, and Zack gently closed his fingers.

“Thank you!” the woman chirped. “Now—” She lightly set her hand over theirs. Cloud shut his eyes to concentrate, trying to feel whatever she was doing. He thought he could feel a very faint brush of magic, but it was distant. If Sephiroth had once curled around the very core of his being, this was a mile away. Not a threat. Part of him that had tensed up unconsciously relaxed.

“And all done,” she said after just a minute or two of very faint scrutiny. Cloud opened his eyes to find everyone smiling at him. He scowled automatically, which just made them smile more. The woman turned, using the coffee table as a desk to write something on a paper Cloud had missed. Then she looked at Genesis. “One bond is enough for—”

Genesis shook his head and cut her off. “We want this to be indisputable, Kia.”

She hummed, eyebrows raised in surprise. At what Cloud didn’t know. “Alright, that’s no trouble. Why don’t you come over here first, then?”

Zack squeezed his hand and released it just as Genesis knelt and offered his own. Cloud eyed him suspiciously and didn’t take it. If they weren’t going to explain, he wasn’t going to cooperate.

“What is it, little cub?” Genesis asked, pouting. “There’s nothing so terrible about holding hands with me.”

“Why?” Cloud asked again, just shy of snapping.

Genesis considered him for a moment with the seriousness Cloud was used to from SOLDIERs in Wutai—the ones who’d seen his deadly abilities, who’d seen his efforts to protect them, and who’d had no choice but to take him seriously.

“Jay,” he said quietly, “this is the best way to protect you from anyone who might want to take you for themselves.” He didn’t say any scientists, but the gravity of his gaze made it clear. “Anyone.”

Cloud exhaled slowly, trying to relax the clench of his jaw. He’d been—he was— so focused on getting away from the SOLDIERs that he’d almost forgotten the very real danger that Hojo would pose to him, if he got wind of…well, if he even got wind that Cloud was near Sephiroth. Genesis was right. As little as he liked it, it was in his best interest to cooperate.

He took Genesis’s hand.

“Thank you, kitten.”

While Cloud scowled fiercely at the nickname, the woman put her hand over theirs and repeated the same process as before. She hummed and wrote on the paper again. Genesis tapped his nose before he let go and stood, allowing Angeal to take his place.

“Thank you for being so patient, Jay,” he said, offering his hand. Cloud took it, stuck somewhere between marvel and outrage at how teeny-tiny his own hand was in comparison. “I know you don’t like any of this.”

“Stupid,” he grumbled, which actually earned a little huff of laughter from the brawny SOLDIER.

It was only when Angeal stood and let go of his hand that Cloud realized he’d neglected to consider something very important. Sephiroth took exactly one step forward before Cloud was vaulting out of Zack’s lap—or at least trying to, because Zack caught him under the arms and brought him right back.

“Woah! Hey, buddy, just one more okay?” Zack said, pinning him with arms wrapped around his waist.

“I don’t have a bond with him,” Cloud snapped, on the verge of panic just thinking about it. Like a tongue mapping out the space of a missing tooth, he again checked the empty void where he’d once been bound. He was safe, still. He was damn well going to keep it that way.

Zack automatically started purring, rumbling against his back, and as much as Cloud was getting better at ignoring it he still relaxed automatically. He shook his head to try and ward off the sleepiness that inevitably accompanied it. Why was he still so damn tired all the time?

“NO!” he snapped when Sephiroth knelt and offered his hand like the others had. But Sephiroth didn’t look distraught at Cloud’s open rebellion. Instead, he looked like he was on the verge of solving a stubborn puzzle.

“Jayjay,” Zack said, pained as Cloud pushed against his confining arms and tried to squirm free again. “It’s not that—”

Sephiroth interrupted. “Then let her witness that there’s nothing here,” he said. “It will be simple. There’s nothing there.”

It was a trick. It was a trick, he knew it was a trick, but the panic was making it hard to think. Part of him wondered if he was actually floating in a mako tank and this was all just a dream spun up to torment him. Would he blink and start seeing green around the edges of his vision? Would he wake up helpless in a mako fever, with Sephiroth humming and wrapping his mind in inescapable darkness?

“Jay—Jay, baby, you need to calm down.”  

Was that Zack talking? He was losing his grip on what was real as he worked himself up into a proper meltdown. He didn’t know what he was going to do if he woke up in a decontamination bath. He might break. If none of this was real then he might really break this time.

“Shit, um…Okay, work fast. Gen, can you get—?”

Someone was holding his hand. He thought it might have been Sephiroth, but it wasn’t familiar. Not again. Not again. Not again, not again, not again—

The hand let go just as something warm was draped over his head. Cloud gasped in a deeper breath, startled out of his hyperventilation. The smell of safety filled his lungs. Sephiroth couldn’t fake that. Not like this. He could only reach into Cloud’s head and twist everything into the shape he wanted. He could only fake it.

Cloud realized that he was in a completely different position now, clinging to Zack’s front with a blanket draped over him. Zack was standing, pacing back and forth with one hand stroking Cloud’s back as he hummed a song that…sounded familiar.

Cloud’s arms were shaking. He felt lightheaded and numb, disconnected from his body. But his breath was starting to come easier, and Zack had him. Zack was safe. Even when he wasn’t real, Zack was safe.

When he curled shaking fingers into Zack’s shirt, the humming stopped. “Oh, hey, you coming back to us? You okay?”

He was. Now that the instinctive panic was dying down, rational thought reasserted itself. There was no way this was just a dream. The things Sephiroth had forced on him always had a particular quality to them, a hazy falseness that was impossible to miss. This just felt too real. It was real.

The top of the blanket was peeled back and Angeal peered in at where his face was squished against Zack’s shoulder. He clicked his tongue and used the blanket’s edge to clean Cloud’s face. Only then did Cloud realize he’d been crying. He sniffled.

“Hey, kiddo,” Angeal said softly. “You’re okay.”

Now that it was over, Cloud was starting to feel embarrassed. That had been a massive overreaction. Whatever these people thought of as ‘bonds’ clearly weren’t the same thing Cloud was afraid of. He still didn’t want Sephiroth—or anyone—to be connected to him on a metaphysical level, but it wasn’t the same. He didn’t need to cry like a child over fucking hand holding.

Zack picked up on his embarrassment as he hid his face in the man’s collar. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said, patting Cloud’s back. “I don’t know what’s freaking you out, but it’s okay. I’ve got ya. Nothing’s gonna scare me off.”

Yeah, Cloud thought tiredly, his escape plan cementing itself in his head. That’s the problem.

Cloud had a plan. It was a pretty good plan, all things considered. It had a decent chance of working. If he failed this time, he was going to be stuck for a good long while, until he managed to lull them into a truly false sense of security. He had to make this work.

The first step was to make them think he was resigned to being stuck. That meant he couldn’t be too passive (they would (rightly) assume he was plotting) or too hostile (they would (rightly) assume he was gunning to run off). Mad but stuck, he told himself, tolerating Genesis’s efforts to tame his hair with a minimum of growling.

The second step was to steal Sephiroth’s keycard. He had to time that carefully, making sure it was a day when he and Sephiroth were the only ones in the apartment. Since that was the most common pattern—Sephiroth seemed to have more leeway to work from home than anyone else—he didn’t have to wait long. He stole it in the morning, as close to when everyone would leave as possible, and stashed it in one of the boots by the door.

The third step was to ‘fall back asleep’ after breakfast. It wasn’t hard to get them to believe he was asleep, since he was still so tired that he did so nearly every morning. He wandered over to the one chair that faced away from both the kitchen and the front door and curled up in it. Angeal came by to put a blanket over him and pat his cheek, completing the disguise.

The hardest part was to not actually succumb to his fatigue and fall asleep as he waited for the fourth step: picking the perfect moment of hubbub to slip right out the front door using his pilfered keycard. This was maybe the most delicate moment. He needed things to be moving so quickly no one would think twice about the door opening, but not so quickly that someone would spot him.

He waited, listening closely. Zack was still getting everything together, but the others were starting to exchange kisses and double-checking itineraries and dodging around each other. Genesis went for the door, only to curse and turn around as he forgot something.

Cloud’s eyes snapped open. As quickly and quietly as he could manage, he got up and ran for the door, snatching the keycard up and swiping it in one smooth movement. The lock clicked. He swung himself out of the door and shut it behind him before taking off as fast as his feet could carry him. This time, he didn’t have a SOLDIER on his heels.

This time, it might work.

Step five: he ran for the stairs, swiping that lock open too, and ran up instead of down. Sephiroth’s floor was just one flight up. They would be expecting him to go right out of the nearest window, since they knew about the wings now. He could if he had to, but what he really needed was a vehicle and he needed to get it without everyone on the damn planet seeing him.

In the stairwell, just before he went through the door to Sephiroth’s floor, he launched his red herring: he pulled the Sephiroth plushie out of his shirt and got as much of his scent on it as he could before he lobbed it with all his might. It landed several floors down, rolling across the stairs.

Step six had him skidding to a stop in front of the elevator and prying the doors open. He stuck his head through, looking down and then twisting to look up. The elevator was above him and he had to hold back a victorious whoop. With no ceremony, he swung into the open shaft, pulled the doors closed behind him, and dropped into a freefall.

The best thing about his wings—and that was a very low bar, since he hated the damn things—was that they weren’t strictly physical. Sure, he had a lot more control if he gave them physical ‘rules,’ but he didn’t technically need to, say, flap them in order to fly. It made navigating the narrow confines of an elevator shaft a hell of a lot easier.

He fell, down and down and down, until he was reasonably sure he was on the floor that he remembered as one of the most deserted in the mornings. Cautiously, he pried open the doors and peered out. No one was there to see him so he stepped out and closed the doors behind him, dispelling the wings as he did so.

Cloud was working against the clock here. Not only would someone notice he was missing soon, but he couldn’t dodge all the cameras and anyone who saw him would probably raise the alarm. There weren’t exactly many six-year-olds who habitually ran around the restricted floors of the Tower, after all, and he didn’t trust that wading through the public ones would actually offer him enough cover.

So he ran, dodging squads of troopers, cadets, and support staff, and took a winding back route through the industrial kitchens until he got to the freight elevator. This one, he knew, led out into the docking bays, which would have what he needed somewhere. Better, they were chaotic and the security wasn’t nearly as strict as it was in, say, the garage reserved for SOLDIER vehicles.

He didn’t go down the elevator shaft for this one. Instead, he called the elevator like normal, waiting for it out of sight in case it was full. When the doors opened to reveal an empty interior, he darted in and hit the button before opening the emergency access hatch and climbing onto the outer roof. He mostly closed the hatch as the elevator dropped, leaving it open just enough to see if anyone got in.

One person—a trooper—did get in with a load of cargo. He sniffed the air curiously, then shrugged. Not my job, Cloud could practically hear him thinking. The trooper got out on the same floor as Cloud, which was a blessing. It would make his own exit a lot easier to cover, as he just waited and listened until he was sure no one was close enough to nab him, then dropped through the hatch without bothering to close it. He darted for the nearest cover, sliding to a stop behind a long line of crates waiting to be loaded into cargo trucks.

He was still racing against the clock—the alarm could be sounded at any second—but he was starting to feel cautiously optimistic not just that this would work, but that it would entirely work. Slowly, he peered out from behind the crates. Trucks, troopers, and cargo were coming and going in an endless stream. His eye caught on exactly what he was hoping to find: three courier bikes in a neat line. They weren’t as fast or powerful as Fenrir, but he didn’t need them to be.

Cloud worked his way around the edges of the huge bay, darting from cover to cover with SOLDIER speed and hoping that the smell of vehicle exhaust would cover his scent. A few of the Troopers had started to alter their movement patterns, clustering together and exchanging words. He even saw two SOLDIER Thirds dart out, commandeer a truck, and go roaring off.

Clearly, his absence had been noticed.

He tried to move faster, but that was a mistake. Just as he was coming up on the bikes he rounded a corner too fast and ran smack into a trooper, who stumbled back a step. They both froze. When the trooper inhaled sharply and opened his mouth, Cloud reacted on impulse, yanking the man back behind the cover he’d burst out from so incautiously. The trooper toppled and would have yelped if Cloud hadn’t covered his mouth.

“Shut up!” Cloud hissed. He thought fast, trying to figure out a way to silence the trooper without killing him. Compressing his jugulars would knock him out, but not for long unless he was willing to risk permanent brain damage.

Then the trooper used his moment of hesitation to reach up and yank his helmet off. Cloud blanched, hands flying back automatically as he fell on his ass. His own face, far older, stared back at him with huge, mako-less blue eyes.

“Holy shit,” the older Cloud breathed.

He hadn’t really thought about it until now, but there was a reason they’d decided to call him Jay: The older him. The other him. The sight of his own face finally made the new name click in his head, but he had other things to worry about.

It took maybe a half second before Jay realized he was going to have to do something about his other self, or he would definitely tell Zack—and by extension, the rest of the SOLDIERs—what he’d seen.

“Who…?” Cloud breathed, still staring at him in dumbfounded shock.

What if he just…took Cloud with him? He might even be able to make Cloud think it was his own idea, taking Jay and running to Nibelheim. What else is there to do but panic and take your unexpected little brother to your Ma?

“Who do you think?” Jay answered, frowning thoughtfully. “You’re Cloud, aren’t you.”

Cloud’s eyes got even wider. “How do you know me?”

Jay deliberately took a second to work himself up, getting emotional enough that he could feel his eyes change to their slit form. Cloud gasped, jaw dropping. One of his hands rose to touch Jay’s face.

“There’s no time to explain now.” The plan was rapidly modifying itself in his mind. This might be a good turn of events, actually. He could use an adult-sized meat shield in his quest to cross continents. “I don’t know what I am, exactly. Maybe some of you, or your parents. Maybe some of Sephiroth. I was made to be a weapon, but your idi—your friend and his…pack found me.”

“You’re the reason he…they knew?” Now Cloud was starting to look somewhere between panicky and upset. Good. Jay needed him to make a stupid impulsive decision. “They knew you—I have—I have a…?”

“I’m taking that bike and getting out of here,” Jay said. “Don’t tell them.”

Cloud stared at him, something indecisive in his eyes, accompanied by a growing anxiety. Jay stared back. Come on, he thought, who do you want to take me to. You know who you want to take me to.

“We’re getting out of here,” Cloud finally said, jamming his helmet back on. “We’re…we’re gonna go find my Ma. She’ll know what to…do…”

Hook, line… Jay tilted his head a little. “Your Ma?”

Sinker. Cloud’s jaw firmed. “In Nibelheim. We’re going to Nibelheim.” Then he actually smiled a little at Jay. “Don’t worry, kid. She’s going to love you.” He got up, peering around the corner to see if anyone had noticed while Jay watched him in surprise. “Wait here.”

Most of Jay’s memories of being a trooper were murky gray sludge, reduced to incomprehensibility by repeated mako poisonings. Had he been that confident as a trooper? Or was this Cloud’s age—he was certainly older than sixteen—making the difference? Either way, it was a surprise.

He waited, eyes closed as he listened to everything going on around them. The general agitation was slowly ramping up. They had to move soon. Luckily, Cloud quickly came back with a leather riding jacket and two pairs of tinted googles in hand. While Jay adjusted one pair to fit on his head, Cloud secured his helmet to his belt and pulled the second pair on.

Jay snorted when Cloud tried to help him put on the too-large riding jacket. “No, you put that on. I’m enhanced.” Cloud opened his mouth to object but Jay ploughed on. “We need to move fast, so I’ll drive, and that means that if we crash you’re going to need it.”

“You are not driving,” Cloud snapped back immediately, only to pause and stutter, “how—how do you even know how to drive a motorcycle?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to,” Jay responded, cautiously peering out from behind their cover. “And I am driving, because I’m the one with reflexes fast enough to get us out of here.” He looked back, pushing his goggles up for a moment to look at Cloud directly. “Forget what I look like for a second and just trust me.”

Cloud was starting to look at him with the same gentle sadness as the SOLDIERs. “Kid…” He took a deep breath. “Okay. But I’m taking over if something happens.”

“If they shoot me you can drive,” Jay agreed, pulling the goggles back down. 

“Don’t joke like that.”

“Who said I was joking? Alright, on three we go to the closest bike. I can see the keys in the ignition.”

“They would never shoot you, you’re a baby.”

“Dartgun, bullet, same difference. Three!”

They bolted out from their cover, Jay leading thanks to his speed. Cloud slammed onto the bike behind him just as he turned the keys. “Get the kickstand!” Jay hissed. They had maybe a few seconds before someone noticed them.

The stand snapped up. “Go!”

Much to Jay’s annoyance, his legs weren’t quite long enough to reach the brake pedal. He kicked one foot back into Cloud’s. As the tires squealed against the floor, he yelled “you’re in charge of braking!” Then they shot off, fast enough that Cloud yelled in surprise and wrapped one arm around Jay while the other gripped the cargo frame above the rear wheel’s housing.

Even with their reckless speed, it wasn’t immediately apparent to the crowd in the bay that something was wrong. They were almost halfway out when someone—a SOLDIER, Jay thought—thundered, “STOP THEM! STOP THEM!”

“Hold on tight!” Jay yelled to Cloud, a wild grin breaking across his face. He’d missed this, the wild reckless thrill of a challenge that didn’t come with the stomach-churning threat of deadly consequences for the people he loved. A few guns fired before the apoplectic SOLDIER screamed for “NONLETHAL ONLY YOU IDIOTS, THAT’S THE GENERAL’S KID!” Jay avoided all of them with ease, zigzagging around obstacles.

“Follow my movement and DUCK!” he yelled to Cloud as they came up on the guard gate. Cloud tightened his grip, inhaling to ask a question, but it was too late. Jay threw his weight to the side, thanking the gods Cloud followed him, and tilted the bike into a perfect angle for them to slide right under the gate. “UP!” he yelled as he righted himself and the bike.

“Holy shit,” Cloud gasped. “What the fuck!”

“Keep an eye on our six!” Jay shouted over the wind as he hit the gas. “If they send a SOLDIER fast enough we’re going to have a rough time!”

“Holy shit,” Cloud breathed again, but this time it sounded less terrified. Jay felt his weight shift as he began to keep an eye on anyone following them. “This was—why did I do this? They’re going to send a squad. A chopper. SOLDIERs. There’s no way we can get out of the city.”

“Sure we can!” Jay said cheerfully as they burst out into the sunlight. “We just need a few shortcuts. Hold on tight!”

It was a good thing he hadn’t been planning on hitting the brakes anyway, because as Jay took his ‘shortcuts,’ Cloud lost much of his ability to think clearly. Jay was almost impressed—he didn’t remember his lungs being that strong when he was twenty. 

They hopped the highway three times, and zipped down more than one not-technically-a-road. Shinra did send a chopper, at some point, although it wasn’t clear if they sent it after the motorcycle or if the chopper had already been out looking for a winged fugitive. Didn’t matter anyway, since Jay quickly lost them.

More problematic was the SOLDIER on his motorcycle, already out on patrol, that did manage to catch up with them.

“Not him ,” Cloud groaned, and Jay glanced in his mirrors to see what the fuss was about. He almost groaned too, but it would have been hard to explain how he knew the guy.

“A SOLDIER,” Jay observed dryly. “Get ready, we’ll probably have to do something stupid, but we’re almost out of the city.”

Roche—for it was Roche—easily pulled up alongside them. Jay eyed the differences between their courier bike and his SOLDIER-built monster bike with jealousy. If he’d had Fenrir, this wouldn’t even have been a contest.

“Well now, what have we here?” the self-proclaimed ‘Speed Demon’ said. “A little one, so versed in the art of the ride that he takes over for the very man who kidnapped him?”

Cloud sputtered. Jay barely spared Roche a side-eye. “Technically,” he said, shouting over the wind, “I probably kidnapped him.”

Roche laughed. “I would challenge you to a race, little daredevil, but I believe it is not overstating things to think your daddies would have me drawn and quartered. Perhaps when you are older. For now…“ He reached for the handlebars—

No. He reached for Jay, which was unexpected enough that Jay let him.

“I hope you know how to drive!” Jay yelled, letting go of the handlebars before he accidentally killed his older counterpart. Cloud yelped and took over as Roche settled Jay in front of him, keeping one arm around his torso.

A thought occurred to Jay. He was on the bike. Roche was only a Third. Roche seriously underestimated him.

He could totally steal Roche’s bike.

“Get some distance!” Jay yelled to Cloud, waving him off as Roche began to radio in about his mission success. To Cloud’s credit, he listened immediately, backing off.

Roche glanced down at Jay curiously just as Sephiroth’s voice came over his earpiece. Jay smiled at him, and something must have been in his eyes to give him away, because even the ever-cocky Roche suddenly looked nervous.

He was right to be nervous. A second later, Jay twisted over onto his back, planted both feet on Roche’s torso, and kicked him off the bike with the strength of a SOLDIER. With a startled yell Roche went flying, and it was only quick thinking and quicker use of his sword that saved him from a nasty tumble. 

His earpiece didn’t survive nearly as well. Sephiroth’s voice crackled from the dashboard. “SOLDIER? Report! What is your status!”

“Uh-oh,” Jay muttered, searching for the disconnect. He wasn’t familiar with the strange UI. Or maybe Roche had just set it up weirdly. Either way, he couldn’t find it quickly between searching and keeping an eye on both the road and Cloud. At least his feet could actually reach the brakes on this bike, even if he had to sprawl like a starfish to touch everything.

Sephiroth inhaled sharply. “Jay?” His voice became a little distant as he shouted ZACK! Before returning to the line.

“Uh-oh,” Jay said with a little more feeling.

“Little one, please, pull over before you’re injured—” Jay snorted audibly at the suggestion “—I promise you, you have nothing to fear. You don’t need to run away.”

Zack came on the line just as Jay hit the disconnect. “Jay, baby please—!”

He exhaled slowly in the silence, steadying his hands on the handlebars. Hanging up on Zack was a lot harder than stealing Roche’s motorcycle. He shook off the reflexive guilt and waved Cloud over. The trooper was positively dazed as he steered the courier bike over.

“Alright, hop on!” Jay called.

Cloud stared at him through the goggles. “What?”

“Jump onto this bike. It’s a hell of a lot faster than that one, we’ll be in the clear in no time.” He dodged an oncoming obstacle and pulled back to flank Cloud. “Come on, it’s not any crazier than anything else we’ve done today.”

The trooper took a deep breath and muttered something that was either a prayer or a curse before he pushed up out of the bike’s seat, carefully judging the distance he’d need to cover, and jumped. He landed a little unsteadily, the motorcycle jerking under them, but Jay braced him with one hand. He swung his leg over and settled comfortably in the seat. Behind them, the courier bike fell and went clattering across the road.

“Keep your head down,” Jay advised his counterpart, hitting the Decline option when an incoming contact popped up. “I’ll be fine if a bug hits me at SOLDIER speeds, but you? Not so much.”

“Do you know what direction we need to go?” Cloud double-checked.

“Away!” Jay answered cheerfully. “Everything else is for later. Let’s mosey!” 

Cloud had no choice but to curse and duck his head down as Jay opened the throttle and really booked it, staring down the gloriously open stretch of highway that promised his freedom.

Angeal was in the middle of kissing Sephiroth when Genesis heard the front door open and shut. He didn’t think much of it at the time. They were all heading out, and he had several things on his mind anyway. When he went back out to the kitchen and Angeal was still there telling Sephiroth one last thing about dinner plans, Genesis didn’t think much of that either.

Zack appeared, looking sheepish. He’d forgotten to tell them his mission had changed, and he wouldn’t be back in time for dinner. Genesis rolled his eyes. Angeal just huffed and promised to put aside leftovers for him. Zack beamed, then kissed Angeal and Sephiroth one more time. As he went to peck Genesis too, a chilling thought suddenly occurred to the redhead.

If Zack and Angeal were still there, who had opened the door?

“Jay!” he gasped against Zack’s mouth, shoving him away and scrambling into the living room.

“Wha—? Don’t wake him up!” Zack said, following in confusion. He gasped sharply when they finally saw the chair he’d curled up in to sleep earlier. The blanket Angeal had tucked over him was there.

Jay was not.

“The door,” Zack breathed, realizing the same thing Genesis had.

It was lucky they were so in tune with each other by now. They didn’t need to talk. Didn’t even need to look at Ange and Seph. Genesis and Zack both went for the door as the other two broke off to sweep the apartment, just in case. The hallway outside was empty, but that didn’t mean much. Jay was as fast as they were.

Zack ran toward the elevator and the window Jay had gone for the first time he’d tried to run away. Genesis went straight for the stairs. He knew he was on the right track when he caught a whiff of Jay’s sweet, determined little scent. Breathing deeply, he followed it down one flight after another.

He didn’t find Jay. Instead, he realized with horror that shaded into amazement that he’d followed a decoy. Jay’s Sephiroth doll was laying on the floor, smelling as strongly of the little omega as anything could. He’d scented it on purpose, which probably meant he’d gone up instead of down, or that he hadn’t used the stairs at all.

“Clever little angel,” he breathed, pressing the doll to his nose as he pulled out his PHS and sprinted back up the stairs.

When he dialed Zack’s number, he was promptly brought into a three-way conference call with Angeal too.

“The window was still locked,” Zack reported.

“So was everything in the apartment,” Angeal said. “He stole Seph’s keycard.”

“He left a decoy a few floors down in the stairwell,” Genesis told them. He went past their floor and toward Sephiroth’s. He could hear Zack as he entered the hall, occupied with searching Seph’s apartment. Genesis turned a different way, toward the elevator. The light caught on smudged fingerprints and he stopped in his tracks.

“Oh no,” he said. “kitten, no.”

“What?” Angeal asked.

Genesis pried open the doors with the same strength Jay must have used, peering down into the yawning chasm of the elevator shaft. When he looked up, he could see the body of the elevator on a higher floor. “He jumped down the elevator shaft,” Genesis told them, much to their audible horror. His own eyes closed in brief grim resignation. “He could be anywhere. Could use any window, any door. My friend, do you fly away now?”

“Not anywhere,” Angeal said, taking a deep breath. “He still has to be close. We have time. Sephiroth is sending the word out and getting access to the security footage.”

“As long as we get him back before anyone disappears him, he’s safe from the Science Department,” Zack said, reassuring himself as much as any of them. “Legally, he’s safe with us. And we’ll find him. Can you feel anything yet?”

Genesis, as both omega and magical expert, had the best chance of using the bond to find Jay. He closed his eyes and tried to feel for that distant intuition that told him where his packmates were. “It’s too soon,” he muttered, “I can’t find him, I’d need to cast with proper materia and concentrate. Even then, I don’t think it would tell me more than if he was in the city.”

Sephiroth joined the call. “I have explained the situation to Lazard, and the Turks are with us. Meet me at the comm hub. We need to contact all SOLDIERs out on patrol and mobilize others.”

Genesis shut the elevator doors. “Of course, my love.”

The Turks had a lead by the time everyone convened in the comms hub. Sephiroth watched the video with an unreadable expression, but confusion bubbled beneath the surface of his mind. At first glance, it seemed like Jay had been kidnapped by Zack’s trooper friend, the one Genesis had an obvious crush on. But the longer he watched the camera footage, the less sense that made.

The others didn’t know what to make of it either, as they discussed in between the hectic task of contacting patrols and coordinating what had turned into a wild vehicular chase. Zack was particularly distraught.

“Cloudy would never put a kid in danger,” he insisted, frantically texting his friend. “I don’t know why he’s helping Jay drive a motorcycle!”

“It is possible,” Sephiroth said slowly, trying to put himself in the trooper’s shoes, “that your friend saw Jay and assumed the worst about his origins. It is also possible that Jay is using him. Perhaps both.”

“But Cloud would—!” Zack stopped and hesitated. “He would…he would let me explain…first…”

“So now we have another serious misunderstanding to smooth over,” Angeal sighed. “Honestly, I can’t blame him for this one. Who knows what Jay told him?”

“Where is he even attempting to go?” Genesis said, frowning fiercely. “Jay would be happy lurking in the wilderness like the wild little cub he is, I think, but what about Cloud?”

Zack’s eyes went wide with realization. “I need to call someone,” he blurt out, rushing off to the side.

Sephiroth didn’t have much time to consider any of this as a call came through from one of the SOLDIERs on a vehicular patrol. He picked it up, barking “report.”

The SOLDIER inhaled to answer, only to yelp loudly. Static burst through the line then stopped as the quality of the audio changed. When Sephiroth checked the status screen the input had gone from the SOLDIER’s earpiece to his bike.

Ice gripped his stomach. Had something happened to Jay?

“SOLDIER? Report! What is your status!” he barked again.

“Uh-oh,” Jay muttered on the other end of the line, and suddenly Sephiroth thought he knew what had happened.

“Jay?” His mind raced. He was the worst choice to talk the little omega down, so he turned away and yelled for Zack. But there was no time to wait for someone better, so he tried anyway.

“Uh-oh,” Jay repeated with more urgency.

“Little one, please,” he said in a tone just shy of begging, “pull over before you are injured, I promise you, you have nothing to fear. You do not need to run away.”

Zack didn’t even bother to take the headset from Sephiroth when he came skidding over. He just pressed their cheeks together and spoke. “Jay, baby please just stop!”

The line went dead halfway through his plea. He stared down at the terminal screen in devastation. “No, kid,” he said.

“Where is he?” Genesis demanded, rushing over. “What happened?”

“He stole SOLDIER Third Roche’s bike,” Sephiroth informed them, pinging the motorcycle’s comm again. He wasn’t surprised when it was declined.

“And now he’s on a SOLDIER-grade vehicle,” Angeal realized in horror. “How are we going to safely stop him?”

“The Turks might be able to corner him with aerial support,” Sephiroth said, trying again—and again, he was denied. “More likely, we will have to track him down to whatever location Zack was thinking of.”

Angeal and Genesis both looked to Zack, who smiled tiredly. “Uh, yeah. I actually thought maybe—well, you remember how Seph said Jay was reading the report about the lab on his laptop? Well…Cloud’s from Nibelheim, and his mom’s still there. I thought maybe Jay did have a location in mind, or at least Cloud did.”

Angeal frowned at Zack while Sephiroth searched for an emergency override that would force his communication to go through. “I’m not following, Zack.”

“Well…if I found out I had an unexpected kid, the first place I’d take him was my mom’s house. And if I was Jay, and I found out there was another lab that hadn’t been blown up, I’d probably go try and blow it up.”

The SOLDIERs exchanged glances. “So…to Nibelheim?” Genesis offered.

“It would be wise to spread out,” Sephiroth said. “Nibelheim, Junon, perhaps Costa Del Sol. We don’t truly know their destination, so caution is warranted. We should also assume one or both of them will think to disable the tracking technology in the motorcycle and in Strife’s PHS.”

Zack ran a hand through his hair. “Do you think we’ll be able to requisition transport fast enough to even catch up with them?”

“Perhaps not to every location,” Sephiroth murmured. “But I can pull rank to get to Junon, at least. The political situation may become more precarious after this, but protecting Jay is paramount.” He closed the comm terminal and looked at his packmates with determination. “There is no time to waste.”

Roche’s motorcycle roared beneath them, pushed to its absolute limit on the smooth stretch of highway. Hot wind whipped across the exposed skin of his face, particles of sand and dust scoring little cuts that healed as rapidly as they were formed. Jay drove as far out as he dared before pulling off the highway and into the wastes, searching for a place that would be reasonably hidden if a helicopter went by.

“What are you doing?” Cloud shouted against the wind, raising his head as Jay slowed down to a much safer speed over the rough terrain.

“We need to strip the bike and get the chip out of your PHS,” he answered, pulling under a rocky overhang. Cloud had to catch the bike with his leg as it tipped to the side, since Jay was too small. He put the kickstand out too and lifted Jay from the seat on apparent reflex. Jay scowled at him.

Surprisingly, Cloud didn’t argue. “I guess we gotta get rid of any GPS elements, huh?” he murmured, quickly checking his messages. After a visible wince (Jay imagined Zack had been blowing it up with a million frantic texts), he flipped his PHS over and slid the back cover off. He pulled the battery and chip out, putting those in a pouch on his belt. The empty shell of the PHS went in another.

Jay left him to it, crouching to examine the chassis on the motorcycle. He found the attachment points and started removing the screws with his fingers, supremely grateful for his SOLDIER strength in the absence of tools. Roche was absolutely going to murder him for stripping down his precious ride, and the thought made Jay grin as he worked. For the few elements he couldn’t safely leave off, he bent a piece of metal into a sharp edge and started scraping off the bright red paint.

“...how do you know all this, kid?” Cloud asked, examining the bike’s electronics.

Jay shot him a guarded look. “I told you, I was made to be a weapon. There’s a lot of things I know that I shouldn’t.”

“Who…made you?” he asked after a pause, pulling out what Jay was reasonably certain was the GPS tracking chip from the onboard computer. He crushed it with a nearby rock. Smart man.

Jay hesitated. He didn’t know how much he wanted to tell his counterpart. He didn’t know how much he wanted him to be involved. For once, could a Cloud Strife just stay out of the eye of the storm? “No one who’s still alive,” he answered.

Cloud huffed softly. “I guess if a group of SOLDIERs rescue you, there’s not gonna be much left, huh?”

Jay was briefly confused before he realized Cloud had misunderstood his earlier words about the pack ‘finding him.’ “Something like that,” he said. He wasn’t sure if he covered for his hesitation fast enough. Cloud was looking at him with a slight furrow to his brows. “Hey, ditch your armor and insignias too,” he added.

“So…why are you trying so hard to leave? I can’t imagine Zack was mean to you,” Cloud asked as he stripped off his pauldrons, greaves, and bracers.

No, Zack wasn’t mean to him. Unconsciously, Jay’s hand went to the front of his ridiculous Genesis-print zip-up hoodie. The plushie he’d anchored there with the hoodie strings as a potential second decoy was still safely attached. “It’s better this way,” he answered vaguely, unwilling to get into it. He couldn’t explain to Cloud that everyone around him inevitably suffered for his presence. The man had no self-preservation, but he might think better of letting someone like that around his mother.

Jay sat back and examined the stripped-down bike, speaking again before Cloud could ask more uncomfortable questions. “I think this is good enough. Let’s go.”

Cloud looked at him and wasn’t fooled. “Sure, kid,” he said.

“I never told you my name, did I?” Jay asked as he boosted himself back up into the seat. “It’s Jay.”

“Jay, huh? Is it short for anything?”

“If Zack has his way it’ll probably be short for Cloud Jr,” Jay muttered, turning the key.

Cloud uttered a surprised laugh. The bike took off, growling louder with the chassis mostly gone, and they resumed their journey.

They drove for hours at full speed, occasionally moving offroad to avoid incoming ShinRa patrols. Cloud slept against his back at one point, lulled by the calm and the endless expanse of road. When evening fell, and then night, Cloud finally tapped Jay’s shoulder and shouted over the roaring winds. “Kid! Don’t you think it’s time to take a break?”

“I’m enhanced,” he shouted back. “I don’t need a break.”

He could feel the incredulity radiating from the man behind him. “Uh, yes, you do,” Cloud countered. “I’ve worked with Zack enough to know that, and he’s a First Class.”

“I know my limits,” Jay said firmly. “We’re going to need a boat to cross. I can sleep then.”

Cloud was silent for a moment. “The second this bike starts to wobble, I’m taking over,” he said. 

Jay rolled his eyes.  “It won’t.”

And it didn’t. He drove them straight to the coast, feeling Cloud’s rising disbelief against his back as the hours stretched and dawn broke. Jay didn’t take them to any big port city like Junon. That was too obvious, and he didn’t doubt ShinRa would be waiting. At minimum they’d probably have to ditch the bike to sneak onto a ship, and that would mean walking to Nibelheim. He didn’t like that option.

Instead, they pulled into a small, sleepy fishing town. Cloud took over as the driver, following Jay’s directions down to the docks. Specifically, he was looking for an old man and a vessel called The Sunflower, which was just big enough and just sturdy enough to carry the motorcycle and them across. If things were reasonably consistent between worlds, the old man would be in need of money and a strong deckhand.

More importantly, he would have no particular love of ShinRa, but plenty of affection for dumb kids down on their luck.

Jay was relieved when he saw the familiar ship and pointed it out. Cloud left the motorcycle sitting on the road and picked Jay up, holding him on one hip as he approached the old man. Jay let him, despite the flash of annoyance he felt. They needed to look sympathetic, so he laid his head down and curled one hand into the collar of Cloud’s riding jacket, listening intently.

“Excuse me, sir,” Cloud said. “Is that your boat?”

The old man regarded him for a moment. “Seein’ as it is, what’ll you be wanting?” he asked gruffly.

“My son and I need to get across with my bike. We don’t have much gil, but I’m willing to work to make up for it.”

Son? Jay held back a scowl and tried to let it go before his irritation leaked into his scent. Now wasn’t the time.

“Do ya’ now?” The old man stepped closer, sturdy boots thudding against the worn planks of the dock. He peered directly at Jay with a suspicious gleam to his eyes. “What’s the littl’un’s name?”

Jay tamped down on his anxiety. This was one part he wasn’t so sure of, and he cursed silently. If the old man saw the mako in his eyes and recognized what it was, would he still be friendly? Would he count them as ShinRa, or worse?

“His name is Jay,” Cloud said, sensing his anxiety and smoothing a hand over his back. “Say hi, Bluejay.”

“Hi,” he whispered, hiding his face a little more, tightly controlling his emotions so that his eyes wouldn’t go slit.

The old man peered closer, recognition flashing in his expression. Jay felt a spike of panic, tensing, but then the man’s face softened in a strange way. He stepped back. “Could always use an extra hand,” he said to Cloud. “You’ll have t’ handle getting that bike on, though.”

Cloud’s relief was as palpable as Jay’s. “Yes, of course,” he said. “What time—?”

The old man glanced up at the sky. A helicopter was going by at a distance, no doubt headed for Junon. “Now seems a good time,” he said blandly.

“Thank you,” Cloud said, trying not to sound too relieved.

Cloud managed to get the bike over and across a gangplank with only the tiniest bit of help from Jay’s SOLDIER strength. Between him and the old man, they covered it with a tarpaulin and lashed it to the deck. Jay was ushered into the cabin and, amusingly, given a snack by the old man before he and Cloud went back out to finish the last bits of preparation and cast off.

As he sat there on the padded bench and waited, silently counting on the fact that this town was too small and quiet for any ShinRa patrols to stop by, Jay made a mistake: he pulled the Zack plushie out of his jacket. The smell hit him immediately and he couldn’t help but press it against his face. The sheer longing that overtook him was bewildering in its intensity. He suddenly felt cold, and small, and alone. He wanted Zack, and Genesis, and Angeal, and even—

Jay didn’t understand. This was what he wanted. He’d been trying for years and years and years to finally be alone, so that everyone else could be safe. He’d chased this for so long, day after day. So why did he feel so hollow and lonely? Why did this feel worse?

A little voice that sounded suspiciously like Aerith whispered in the back of his head. Maybe, it said, you never really wanted to be alone. Maybe all you’ve wanted was for them to be safe when you’re with them. And maybe all you’ve wanted for yourself was to be safe with them too.

His eyes started to burn. Oh for FUCK SAKE, he thought, breath hitching. Put down the doll, he told himself. Put the fucking doll down!  He sniffled and definitely did not put the doll down. Just put it down! Why can’t you put it down?!

By the time Cloud and the old man came back in, he was seething at himself and stifling short whines. “Oh, kiddo,” Cloud said, rushing over and picking him up. Jay didn’t have the presence of mind to figure out if it was just to sell the act or not.

“I know, honey,” the older man whispered, sitting down and pulling him close to his chest with a quiet, soothing purr. “I know you miss them.”

Do fucking not! he wanted to howl, but instead he was fighting his impulses not to burst into tears. The old man brought them a blanket before he took the helm and started moving the boat out to sea.

Fatigue hit like a truck. It was probably Cloud’s fault, since he was purring and that seemed to do all sorts of bullshit to Jay’s new body. Lucky he’d been planning on sleeping anyway, because he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter as his eyelids drifted shut, spilling over the accumulated tears he’d been holding back.

Cloud tucked the blanket around him and smoothed a hand over his hair the exact same way he remembered Ma doing it, which made his chest ache like he’d been stabbed again. “I’ve got you,” Cloud said. “Just rest, alright?”

Fuck, Jay thought passionately, and went to sleep.

“Tell me the truth, boy,” the grizzled old beta asked Cloud once Jay had finally stopped choking on stifled whines and fallen asleep. Cloud looked up and felt instantly pinned by the force of his serious black eyes. “Are you’n your son in more trouble’n a single man could hope to run from?”

Cloud tried not to blanche visibly. “I—what makes you think that, sir?” he hedged, pulling Jay a little closer under his chin.

“Not often that a ShinRa man out of uniform comes runnin’ with one of their prized mako pups in his arms.”

“I-I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Cloud said, trying to cover the alarm in his scent. Jay had steered them into a smaller port town, which was smart, and pointed out the only vessel that seemed sturdy enough to take them across to the other continent. The decision to trust the old man who captained it was a leap of faith—and now he was afraid they’d gambled wrong.

“Don’t bullshit me, boy,” the old man huffed, turning his eyes back out to the calm waters. His scent was never anything but confident. “I was there when ShinRa dared put a pup barely older than my son out on that field.” He spat onto the deck, disgusted. “They called it an advancement in warfare. That’s the day they made an enemy outta me.”

“You were…” It finally dawned on Cloud what the man was saying. “Sephiroth?”

“‘S right,” the old man said. “He might’ve turned out alright, if’n that pack of his is as good as it seems, but I’ll never forgive ShinRa for what they did t’ him.” He turned his head again, looking at Cloud from the corner of his eye. “So I’ll ask again, boy: you in more trouble’n a man can outrun?”

Cloud’s stomach churned uncomfortably. “Maybe,” he admitted, looking down at Jay. “I didn’t…I didn’t really think, I just saw him and…”

The old man harrumphed. “The only wrong decision’d be leaving him there.”

“I—maybe,” he said, his heart sinking a little as he really thought about what he’d done. “He was with…I mean, they’d… they were trying to keep him safe, I’m sure of it, but they just didn’t tell me and I…” His stumbling explanation trailed off.

“‘S not right to keep a young’un from his father,” the old man said. “If they wanted the tyke safe, then they’d be happy he’s away from ShinRa.”

Cloud was silent for a minute. “Jay was trying to run away, you know. That’s how I found him. I didn’t…think he’d miss them, if he was trying to get away from them.”

“...’s a hard one, boy,” the old man admitted slowly. “They yer pack, or you takin’ him to yours?”

“What? No, I don’t have a pack. We’re going to my mother, actually.”

The old man sighed. “A hard one,” he repeated. “Wish it was easier for ya’, but them’s the shakes.” He turned fully and met Cloud’s eyes. “Can’t tell ya what’s right, but I can tell ya’ this: always choose what’s best for the little’un.”

Jay snored softly into his neck. He nodded slowly, thinking of the weight of his disabled PHS in his belt, and Zack’s frantic texts, and Jay trying so hard not to cry over a toy that smelled like its namesake’s pack. He thought of Jay’s evasive answers and the little hints of the same self-destructive tendencies that Cloud himself struggled with. “What’s best for him,” he echoed, nodding slowly. “Yeah. I’ll do what’s best for him.”

Jay woke up warm and in arms he didn’t recognize. The ocean air was cold on the exposed half of his face. He hummed and shifted, fingers flexing around his plushie, and blinked his eyes open to see the weathered face of The Sunflower’s captain above him.

“Yer fine, pup,” the old man said, barely sparing him a glance as he jolted with surprise. “Daddy’s busy gettin’ that monster of a bike off the ship, so you’re with me for just a minute. Go back to sleep.”

Jay wrinkled his nose and decidedly did not go back to sleep, instead squirming around until he could see Cloud painstakingly maneuvering Roche’s stripped bike onto the dock. To his relief, the trooper had it handled even without his help.

“Stubborn aintcha’” the old man said dryly. He set Jay down on the deck, taking the blanket and tossing it toward the cabin, and kept ahold of one of his hands. Jay sighed to himself and allowed it. He did look like a six-year-old, after all.

When Cloud put the kickstand out and came back to the ship, the old man plucked Jay up and set him on the dock. Cloud ruffled his hair a little bit in greeting but didn’t pick him up or take his hand. Instead, he clasped forearms with the old man. “We really can’t thank you enough,” he said.

“Don’t mention it,” said the old man. His eyes flickered to Jay. “I won’t either.”

The Sunflower had docked at what appeared to be a private stretch of cove—basically just a single wooden pier and a dirt road that disappeared up into the treeline. Cloud boosted Jay onto the motorcycle and climbed on after, driving them carefully along the dirt road until they hit pavement. Jay took over after that, speeding up as much as he could on the well-maintained stretches of highway.

As the hours lengthened and they left civilization behind, the road became rougher and rougher, forcing even someone as enhanced as Jay to slow down for fear of a catastrophic wreck. The weather got colder as they climbed in elevation but it was still the height of summer, and so wasn’t too bad. Cloud again tried to insist he take a break as night approached.

Again, Jay ignored him, though this time his reasoning was a bit more sound.

“We can’t stop until we get to Nibelheim,” he said firmly. There was no need to shout, considering how slowly they were going compared to before. “If any monsters get close to us, I doubt your gun will be enough to stop them, and I’m unarmed. I’d prefer not to have to punch a Nibel wolf to death.”

Cloud reluctantly conceded the point.

Without the flat, highly maintained roads of Midgar and its surrounding areas their trip was much slower. It was almost thirty-six hours of effort, with only brief stops, before they finally pulled into Nibelheim. Evening was falling and even Jay could admit he was on the verge of collapsing.

Cloud pulled Jay’s hood up over his head to conceal his distinctive hair and took over driving the short distance to the center of town and Ma’s house. They garnered curious stares as they stopped, Cloud lifting Jay from the bike and to the ground. He yawned, leaning against the bike as Cloud pocketed the keys.

Maybe it was because he was just so tired and still had the plushie poking out of the front of his jacket, but all Jay could think about was Zack. He wished Zack was there, waiting on the porch for them. The mental image of him sitting with Ma at their little kitchen table, talking with her over a cup of tea, was incredibly clear.

Cloud steadied him with a hand on his back and ushered him up onto the porch. Jay realized, distantly, that he could feel a strange pull, or maybe ripple, in his mana. It wasn’t like casting or like Sephiroth’s soul-deep grip on him had been, but it was definitely there. It was there and it was saying Zack.

He rubbed his eyes tiredly as he contemplated it. Cloud knocked on the door, smelling nervous. The mental image of Zack looking up from his seat at Ma’s table was so clear as his mana rippled again, pointing like a compass needle. Zack, it repeated.

The bond will help Zack find you, he remembered that woman saying. If it could let Zack find him…

Could it also let him find Zack?

Adrenaline surged, waking him up in an instant as he realized that Zack had beaten them to Nibelheim. He was sure of it. Zack was inside, talking to Ma. His mind raced as he heard her assured footsteps approaching the door. He only had a few seconds to make a plan.

Ma’s hand closed on the door handle. A beam of warm yellow light spilled across the porch as the door cracked open.

Jay settled on the highly sophisticated plan of RUN.

Just a few hours prior, Claudia was busy with some leatherworking when there was a knock on the front door. She looked up in surprise, grabbing a rag to clean her hands before she went to answer it. No one had mentioned they’d be stopping by any time soon, and she didn’t have any orders waiting to be picked up.

When she opened the door, early afternoon light illuminated the tall, muscular form of a dark-haired young man she’d never seen before. “Well now,” she said, eyebrows rising as she took in the uniform and the sheepish smile. “What can I do for a young SOLDIER like you?”

“Hello, Ma’am,” he said, offering a hand. They clasped forearms, and her eyebrows rose even further at the smell of his increasing sheepishness. “I’m Zack Fair, and uh, Cloud might have mentioned me in his letters?”

He had. In fact, he mentioned Zack so often that she knew he was her baby’s best friend, even if Cloud never came out and said it like that. “He did,” she said neutrally. “I hope you know Cloud isn’t home right now. Unless there’s something about him that you’ve come here to tell me?” He wouldn’t be sheepish if her baby was dead, she was sure of that. It had to be something else.

“It’s…a long story,” he said, ruffling his hair. “Cloud should be getting here at some point, and I’d…I’d like to explain everything before he does.”

Well. This was shaping up to be interesting, and she’d certainly take any reason to see her baby in person. She stepped back and opened the door. “Alright, Zack Fair. Let’s have a bit of tea and chat.”

“Ma,” Cloud said, incredibly relieved to see her. He lurched forward and caught her in a hug, which she returned fiercely. He’d been so unsettled by the past few days, but the smell of home soothed him immediately. He drank it in like a dying man in a desert oasis.

Claudia laughed. “Hi, baby,” she said, cradling the back of his head. “Mmmm, I missed you.”

“Missed you too,” he mumbled into her shoulder. He took one more deep breath and let it out before he pulled away, keeping ahold of her hands. “Ma, I have to tell you—” he stopped, eyes bugging out as he caught sight of Zack sitting at the table. His jaw dropped.

“Yes, you have a lot to tell me, don’t you?” Ma asked dryly. “I’m afraid you’ve been mostly beaten to it.”

“Zack? How—?”

“Sorry, Cloudy,” he said, sounding genuinely sheepish. “But I like to think I know you really well. It wasn’t that hard to guess.”

Cloud sighed. “I should have known you would guess.”

“Yes, yes, you two have a lot of things to talk about and hash out,” Ma said impatiently, squeezing his hands. She peered around him at the porch. “Now where’s my grandbaby?”

“Oh right, Jay—” Cloud let go of her hands and looked for the little omega, who’d been standing right next to him trying not to fall asleep. His brow furrowed when he couldn’t find him, even when he looked back toward the bike. “Uh. Jay? Jay?”

“Kid!” Zack was up and out the door in a flash, gently nudging both Cloud and Claudia out of the way despite his speed. “Jay! Crap, I should have known he’d run for it.”

“Run where?” Cloud asked, bewildered.

“Anywhere, but probably the Shinra Mansion. Come on, I don’t know what he’s gonna find but we’d better stop him! Catch up when you can!”

Unfortunately for Zack, Jay wasn’t actually running for the Mansion. At least not directly. Instead, he sprinted through the town square at a speed too fast for normal humans to catch and continued straight on for the path up through the mountains that led to the Reactor.

Night fell as he ran, pushing himself hard enough that even he was panting for breath by the time he reached the summit. He didn’t stop until he was inside, sheltered from the view of any helicopter that might come past. He leaned his hands on his knees and spared a minute to catch his breath.

None of this was ideal. He was tired, he was mentally unprepared to face the places where he’d been extensively tortured, he had no supplies, and he was in an even worse time crunch than before. But in the end, none of that mattered. He had a job to do, no matter what.

For their sake, he had three goals: first, torch Jenova if she was here. Second, torch the library. Third, wake up Vincent and convince him to murder Hojo. Once his breath was even, he straightened up, stretched, and ignored the ache in his bare feet (he’d left without shoes and they’d never bothered to get any new ones on the journey) as he searched around for a suitable weapon.

He was lucky that there was some leftover gear in a cabinet—an old, hefty wrench nearly the length of his body, an unleveled lightning materia, and an unleveled fire materia. There were decaying boots too, but after attempting to walk in them he realized they’d be more of a liability than an asset. He was better off gritting his teeth and pulling out the wings, which he did.

It was easy to fly right past everything and straight to Jenova, fighting back nausea as he felt her dormant pull on him. That was the kind of bond he never wanted to feel again. Strangely, there was no ornate shrine to her. He wondered if that was a real memory from his first life or if Sephiroth had overlaid his devotion onto the reconstructed pieces, but it didn’t really matter.

“I hope this is all of you,” he muttered, taking the wrench to the tank. He broke down the glass, gritting his teeth against the sting and stench of tainted mako. His head swam, threatening to send him hurtling down into dreams and nightmares he didn’t have the time to claw his way out of. With all his might he held out, gripping the fire materia and casting over and over at her decayed corpse. He cast until he had no mana left, and then he cast again for good measure.

He must have blacked out from the effort, because he came to on the floor with a headache the size of Wutai. Grimacing, he pushed up onto wobbling hands and raised his head. Nothing was left of her. Even the tank had been reduced to molten slag.

Two more tasks, he told himself, fighting off the exhaustion. It wasn’t the worst state he’d ever been in. He dragged his aching body upright to go find the service elevator. Move before they find you.

It was easier to traverse the sewers and tunnels with wings than on foot, but Jay still got hopelessly lost more than he wanted to admit. It was a few hours until he actually managed to find the damned basement. Even with his enhancements, he was still rapidly approaching a hard limit on his stamina. 

He stopped for a minute, head swimming at the sights and sounds of the lab. Phantom flashes of silver and green jumped around in his peripheral vision, but he dismissed them. More pressingly, he could hear voices upstairs. Shit, he thought, staggering into the library. Move faster.

He knocked over the bookshelves, piling everything into a very burnable heap with minimum effort. The sounds upstairs quieted, then got louder as they realized someone was below. He cast with his fire, setting the pile ablaze, and thanked the gods that it all burned eagerly. He didn’t have any extra energy to spare.

Vincent, then get out and go, he thought. The basement wasn’t easy to get into, but it also wouldn’t take them that long. Especially not Zack. He’d probably just break the floor or something.

The sheer gut-level panic of being back in the basement was starting to get to him, threatening to take his knees out from under him as he leaned a hand against the wall and walked slower than he wanted over to Vincent’s crypt. Sephiroth isn’t here, he told himself, sweat dripping down his face as he breathed shallowly. He isn’t here. He’s dead. Just wake up Vincent and go.

Jay kicked the door down, then staggered over and broke the chains on the coffin with brute strength. When he got the lid off, surprised red eyes met his.

“Vincent Valentine,” he said before his once-friend could start monologuing about dreams and nightmares and sins and atonement. He gripped whatever was beneath his hands tightly to ward off the green that threatened the edges of his vision. “I need you to…I need you to kill Hojo.”

“Who…are you?” Vincent asked slowly, voice rough with disuse.

“Doesn’t matter.” The yelling was getting louder and closer, accompanied by the sounds of destruction. “Ask them about Sephiroth. Just…don’t go back to sleep. You’re probably the best option to stop him from killing everyone.”

“JAY!” Zack screamed, desperate. They were finally in the lab.

“Uh-oh,” he muttered, turning to run.

“Wait.” Hands caught him under the arms, brushing his feathers, and he went stiff. A brief flash of terror did away with his exhaustion for a moment before he remembered that his wings were still out. Not Sephiroth, he reminded himself frantically as Vincent changed his grip. Not Sephiroth, not Sephiroth, not Sephiroth.

“Who are you running from, little one?”

Vincent was talking to him, and Zack was yelling, and Sephiroth’s disembodied voice was whispering mine, mine, my Perfect Storm, my Cloud, you belong to me. He struggled to differentiate what was real and what wasn’t. All he could smell was the lab. The tank. Mako filling his lungs and burning them and dissolving his soul into the Lifestream—

Next thing he knew, his face was pressed into a mass of red fabric as he struggled to breathe. His head felt so light it might float away, but whoever was holding him—Vincent? —rumbled beneath his cheek.

And…someone was arguing. Zack was arguing. With Vincent? Sephiroth’s voice finally went quiet as he managed to focus.

“—my kid!”

“I am not going to do anything until you prove your intentions toward this child,” Vincent responded calmly.

“You prove your intentions, Mr. Vampire Man! Why are you holding my baby!”

“Why was he running away from you?”

Jay could feel Zack wince. “I—he thinks he gets everyone around him killed, alright? We haven’t had time to show him he’s wrong.”

The part of him that really wanted a hug from Zack was so strong, and he was so tired. As his breath finally calmed, he whined pathetically. “Zack…” 

Zack was safe. Zack would make Sephiroth’s voice go away.

“There! See!” Zack said, both triumphant and relieved. “So just put down the gun and gimme my kid!”

Caught between the logical part of him that knew he should get the hell out of there, and the part of him that just really wanted a hug right now, all Jay could do was hang limp as Vincent hummed and passed him over. Then his face was pressed up against Zack’s jaw, and the smell of safety filled his lungs, and he cracked like a piece of glass.

“Holy shit, kid,” Zack said as Jay’s eyes burned and he choked on a sob. “You’re burning up. What’d you do to your legs?”

“Zack,” he managed to say more-or-less intelligibly, trying to block out the smell of the labs, “wan’ leave.” He gripped a handful of Zack’s long hair to anchor himself.

“Okay, okay, we’re getting out of here, I promise.” His sword clicked into its harness, freeing up his hand to cradle the back of Jay’s head. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

The smell of mako faded as he moved away from the center of the lab. It only made it marginally easier to differentiate between reality and hallucination, but Jay took what he could get. Trying to do everything all in a row had been a fatal mistake, he realized now. It might have been smarter to take a lengthy break in the sewers.

Or he might have been caught anyway. It was a moot point regardless.

“Hold on to me, Jay. We’re gonna have to jump out of here,” Zack said. Jay managed to nod, moving his grip from hair to harness, and Zack jumped vertically as soon as he had. He caught a splintered beam with one hand and used that arm to pull both of them straight up. Jay blinked away tears enough to see that he must have punched a hole straight through the floor to get down into the basement.

“What happened?” Cloud gasped, helping Zack up. “I couldn’t figure out how to follow you down without breaking my legs.”

“Well…I found Jay,” Zack said with slowly-returning cheer. “And a vampire.”

“A vampi—AHHHHH!” Cloud shrieked in surprise and fumbled for his gun as Vincent followed them up.

“I am only a man atoning for his sins,” Vincent said calmly. “The little one mentioned Sephiroth, and Hojo.”

“He what?” Zack said. “Baby, how do you know about Hojo?” He tried tilting Jay’s head out a little so they could make eye contact, but Jay was having none of it. He clung stubbornly to his position hiding his face in the only place that smelled safe.

“He specifically requested that I kill Hojo,” Vincent clarified. “And get information about Sephiroth from you.”

“He what?”

“Yes, you’ve said that before.”

“I—” Zack stopped and took a deep breath, burying his nose in Jay’s hair. “No, we’re not having this discussion here or now. My kid needs comfort and medical attention and rest, and I need to call my packmates. You can ask Sephiroth yourself.” Vincent must have accepted that nonverbally, because Zack turned and started walking out of the Mansion.

Burn it, Jay thought, struggling to stifle his stupid, stressed-out crying. Burn it, burn the stupid thing down. Of course if he actually said anything out loud it would be almost impossible to explain why. Then again, it was already going to be impossible to explain what he’d done so far. He’d banked on not needing to explain anything at all, but obviously that wasn’t an option anymore.

After the past few days, he’d be lucky if they ever left him alone until he was thirty.

Zack was in a state. He wasn’t showing it on the outside because Jay needed him to be calm, but on the inside? Oh, he was half a crisis away from a heart attack.

First Jay had disappeared (again) and hadn’t been where he expected. Then he also hadn’t been anywhere else they could find evidence of and Zack cursed the fact that he wasn’t born an omega. He was sure Genesis would have been able to find Jay.

Then he and Cloud had gotten into a lengthy argument about what a person was supposed to say when they adopted a maybe-clone and arguably child and/or younger brother of the other person. Then that had devolved into a screaming match about what the other person was supposed to do if not kidnap their maybe-clone-possibly-son and take him home to their mother for advice.

Then they’d hugged and apologized to each other, which was good because they had more important things to worry about—namely the maybe-clone-possibly-son, aka Jay the most heart-attack-inducing little omega on the whole planet.

It was just in time, because as soon as they resumed looking for a way down into the basement that he knew from Tseng’s report definitely existed they’d heard noises coming from below for the first time. Things crashed tremendously, followed by the sound of a roaring fire.

“Jay!”

When he heard the kid talking, voice too muffled to make out, and then someone else answering, he just straight up broke the floor. That turned out to be perfectly workable as he’d dropped straight down into a scene out of a nightmare that he didn’t have time to pay attention to.

“JAY!”

Of course, his boy was hyperventilating in the arms of a freaking vampire, who pointed a gun at him and wouldn’t give Zack his kid, couldn’t the guy see Jay needed him? Honestly it hadn’t been that hard to resolve once Jay said his name, but still. Stressful. And now Jay was hurt and crying and he smelled so much worse than he ever had before, like all the progress they’d made had been undone in just a few hours.

Oh yeah, and the vampire needed to talk to Seph. Zack didn’t know what was going on with that.

“You’re grounded until you’re twenty,” he informed Jay, kissing the top of his head again. “Thirty. Forty!” The wings had gone away while Jay was hyperventilating, which was lucky or he wouldn’t have been able to walk back to town, through the very public square, and into Mama Strife’s house. 

Jay had at least marginally calmed down by the time they got there, even if he was still shaking and exhausted. Mama Strife gasped when she saw them, a hand flying to her mouth. 

“Gods above! What happened? No, don’t tell me until he's tended to. I’ll draw a bath. I think some of Stormcloud’s old clothes should fit him.” She didn’t even let anyone get a word in edgewise before she was bustling about. Zack was grateful for it.

“Thank you,” he said, the full weight of stress settling on his shoulders as he sat down in a kitchen chair and the last of the adrenaline faded away. He looked down at Jay, holding him tight, and finally noticed the plushie peeking out of the front of his jacket, tied in place by hoodie strings. Cloud had mentioned Jay obviously missing them, but if Zack had any lingering worries that they’d made a mistake by adopting him, seeing that doll did away with the last of them.

“I guess we can negotiate an early release for good behavior,” he sighed, kissing Jay’s head again, and again, and again. “If you stop giving me heart attacks.”

He let one hand trail down, looking over Jay’s torn-up legs and feet. The little omega’s healing was definitely on the level of a full SOLDIER. Zack didn’t think any debris had healed under the skin but he’d have to look closer after the layer of muck had been cleaned away. He hoped not. Jay would probably handle reopening wounds like a champ, but Zack thought it might make him cry to do it.

The vampire hovered in the corner of the kitchen area—not literally, but Zack wouldn’t have been surprised if he had. He dug around for his PHS and used one hand to flick it open and hit speed-dial, eyeing the man as he did so. Sephiroth picked up promptly.

“You found him.”

“I found him,” Zack agreed. “We had a bit of a scare getting him, but everything’s fine now. There’s just ah…someone who you should talk to, I think? I don’t know what his deal is, but I think Jay does.”

Sephiroth was silent for a moment, processing. “Then I will speak with him, I suppose.”

Zack held the PHS out to the vampire, who took it in his unarmored hand. He seemed to brace himself before he put it to his ear. “Sephiroth.”

“I am,” the beta agreed. “Who are you?”

“Vincent Valentine. I knew your mother.”

Zack sat straight up, eyes wide as he stared at the dusty basement vampire man. He wasn’t so distracted that he missed how Jay heaved a deep, relieved sigh and finally melted against him, though.

“You…knew Jenova?”

“Jenova was not your mother. The woman who conceived and carried you was Lucretia Crescent, and I knew her well.”

Zack’s jaw dropped. Vincent glanced at him briefly before his eyes dropped to Jay and didn’t move.

Even Sephiroth needed a moment to process that. “Perhaps,” he said slowly, “we should have this conversation in person. Come with Zack to Midgar, Vincent Valentine.”

“I will,” Vincent agreed, still looking at Jay. “I have business to attend to there. Perhaps you will agree to help me, once our conversation is done.”

He asked me to kill Hojo, Zack remembered the mysterious man saying. “I might help too,” Zack muttered, tucking Jay’s head protectively under his chin. If Hojo had been involved in his kid’s suffering in any way, then Zack would make sure he died for the insult.

“Zack,” Claudia said, interrupting him before he could get too murdery. “The bath is ready.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said with a smile, shaking off his dark thoughts and standing.

“Oh don’t you ma’am me,” she scolded. “Call me Ma.”

Zack smiled wider as Cloud blushed crimson. “Thanks, Ma,” he amended. “Come on, Cloud.”

His friend was hesitant as he followed Zack to the tiny bathroom. “Um. Do you need me to get something?” Cloud asked as Zack crouched next to the bathtub and dipped his hand in to test the temperature.

“What? No, I want you to help me groom Jayjay.” The little omega was already more than half asleep against him, and even if Zack had wanted him to help with his own grooming, he was clearly not capable.

Cloud looked a little stunned. “But—you’re here now, and I’m not in the pack, I shouldn’t—”

Zack cut him off. “Cloud. We should have brought you in on all of this right away, and I’m sorry we didn’t. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the pack or not, he’s your kid too.”

The older omega still looked shy. “He could be Ma’s—”

“Still your kid,” Zack insisted. “Even if he’s technically your kid brother. Come on, don’t chicken out now. You took really good care of him all the way here. He likes you.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Cloud said dubiously, but he started stripping off his jacket and gloves.

“He absolutely does,” Zack said as he started getting Jay’s clothes off. “Did he punch you even once?”

“Punch…? Um, no?” He gathered up soap, washcloths, and combs, sitting on his knees next to Zack as the SOLDIER lowered Jay into the warm water.

“There, you see? He let you hug him while he was crying and he didn’t punch you even once! Here, switch with me. You do his hair, I want to check his feet.”

They shuffled around each other, swapping positions without accidentally dunking the sleeping child. “He punches you…a lot?” Cloud asked.

“Mostly Genesis,” Zack said cheerfully, cleaning the dirt off Jay’s foot and running his thumb over all the new scars. To his relief, nothing felt suspiciously lumpy.

“That makes sense,” Cloud said, and Zack laughed.

“Hey, you don’t have your pack yet, right?”

The blond shot him an oddly guarded look. “Um. No. Why?”

Zack couldn’t help the warm, fond feeling in his chest as he took a second to just watch Cloud carefully work the tangles out of Jay’s hair. “Just thinking about how much they’re gonna love you.”

Now he looked really uncomfortable. “S-sure. Can we not talk about that?”

“Why? We should really think about it now, before it happens. They’re gonna have to integrate with us a little bit, because of Jay.” Zack frowned, breathing deep as he caught a hint of outright panic. What had he said?

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” Cloud said, visibly working to appear calm.

“You…think you know who it might be already?” Some of the more magically-sensitive omegas had great intuition about who their future packmates would be, especially if they were in contact with each other for a long time. Childhood friends sometimes just knew. Zack wondered if there was anyone in Nibelheim that Cloud felt that kind of connection to. He ignored the tiny, jealous spark in his chest.

“I’m—“ Cloud cut off abruptly, biting his lip.

“You’re…?”

“I’m not gonna have a pack!” Cloud blurt out, then looked like he regretted it immediately.

Zack blinked at him, taken aback. “Huh? Everyone has a pack, bud.” He glanced between Jay and Cloud, and his eyes narrowed. “Unless thinking you’re some kind of curse is a genetic thing?” He wasn’t about to tolerate either of his little buddies thinking like that.

“Is that what he meant?” Cloud asked, distracted. “Aw, kid…”

“Don’t avoid the question,” Zack said. Cloud’s shoulders immediately pulled up around his ears. He still wouldn’t make eye contact.

“It doesn’t matter,” he muttered, focusing on the kid.

“Now that has got to be genetic,” Zack said dryly. “And anyway, I think it does matter, both for you and for Jay. Even if you don’t like it—“ He paused something in his own words pinging as true in the back of his mind. “Wait. You don’t like the idea of your pack?”

Genuine hostility spiced the air when he said it, though Cloud’s hands were never anything but gentle on Jay. Zack knew he was onto something here. He’d been with Genesis long enough to know what real anger meant. He prodded again when Cloud didn’t answer.

“Buddy, you’re going to have a pack. That’s just what happens.”

“I don’t need one!” Cloud snapped, eyes finally flashing up to glare at Zack. The resemblance to Jay was truly uncanny, even if his eyes didn’t go slit. “Okay? I don’t want one and I don’t need one and I won’t have one so you don’t need to worry about it!”

Jay shifted, nose scrunching up as he responded to the hostility in his sleep. Cloud backed down immediately, soothing the kid with a quiet purr and a gentle scratch on his scalp. Zack watched him with a thoughtful frown as he switched to the kid’s other leg.

“Cloud,” he said softly. “Why do you think you don’t need a pack?”

The blond sighed slowly, shoulders dropping as he realized he wasn’t going to be able to get out of this. “I didn’t need one growing up,” he muttered. “Why would I need one now?”

“Stormcloud.”

Both men jolted at Claudia’s voice. She stood in the doorway of the tiny bathroom, looking at her son with an unreadable expression. Cloud looked up at her with wary defiance. Her brows drew together, just a little bit.

“I think we need to talk.”

Jay woke up in his childhood bed to the sound of his Ma and himself having a spectacular fight. It was a little jarring until he remembered who and where he was. He sat up slowly, wincing at the fever-ache in his joints. He’d overtaxed himself enough in casting that the low-grade fever would probably persist for a day. That was his own fault. The wings hurt too, hastily crammed up underneath his skin during his panic at them being touched. As he rubbed the grit from his eyes, he tuned in to the loud argument happening barely a room away.

“You didn’t need one! Why would I!” Cloud said, just shy of yelling.

“You are not me, Cloud!” Ma shot back. “I wasn’t packless because I didn’t need them!”

“No, you were packless because they were too stupid to know how amazing you are! You were packless because they didn’t want you! And guess what?! Like mother like son, and I’m not INTERESTED IN THAT!”

Woah. Jay blinked, wide awake, as Ma drew in a sharp, wounded breath.

“Is that what you think happened?” she whispered.

“What do you mean ‘is that what I think happened?’” Cloud asked, on the edge of hysterical. “You didn’t have to tell me, I grew up watching the way Mr. Lockhart looked at you!”

“Oh, Cloud. I’m sorry, I should have told you earlier. I just didn’t want to poison you against the idea of packs.”

“Well, you didn’t have to tell me because I saw it, and I’m not interested!”

“No, baby, you’re wrong. They didn’t leave me. I left them.”

This brought Cloud up short. “I—what?”

“I left them to have you. Your daddy and Brian…they didn’t get along. He wasn’t part of the pack, and Brian didn’t like him. Thea tried, but Brian and I thought it would be better for everyone if we were just two separate pairbonds. When your daddy died…Thea supported me, but Brian was still hurt, and when she died too…well. It was easier to just not get along.”

“He…you left?”

“I left, baby. I won’t say there was no conflict, but it was my choice just as much as it was Brian’s, or Thea’s, or your daddy’s.”

“…oh.”

Ma laughed, sounding close to tears. “Yeah, oh.”

“I—I’m sorry Ma. I shouldn’t have said…”

“It’s alright. If I’d known that’s what you thought, I would have told you a lot sooner.”

Jay stealthily got off the bed and crept over to the doorframe, peering out into the rest of the house. Ma was hugging Cloud tightly, pressing kisses to the side of his head as he buried his face in her shoulder. The emotions in the air were almost complex enough to make Jay sneeze.

“Can we come back in now?” Zack asked, voice muffled by the door.

Ma laughed. “Yes, you two can come back in. I apologize for that. It’s not very hospitable to argue when you have guests.”

“Clearly it was an argument that needed to occur,” Vincent said as he came back in with Zack.

“Clearly.” Ma’s eyes landed on Jay, and her expression lit up with delight. He found himself ducking shyly back behind the doorpost, which was ridiculous. Even if he hadn’t seen his Ma in decades there was no reason to act like a baby.

“Well hello, baby boy,” she cooed, approaching. “I’m sorry, did we disturb your nap with all our silly shouting?”

“Um—“ When she knelt down and took his face in her hands, thumbs stroking over the baby-soft skin of his cheeks, it was like Zack all over again. He blushed crimson as a purr burst from his throat.

“Oh, you are a sweetie, aren’t you?” she said with delight, picking him up. He realized to his further embarrassment that he was still holding onto the now dirty Zack doll with one hand, but he couldn’t bring himself to drop it as he wrapped his arms around his Ma’s neck for the first time in years. “Do you know who I am?”

He hummed a confirmation, drinking in her presence greedily and ignoring the way his eyes were starting to burn. Ma. You’re gonna be safe this time, Mama. His breath hiccuped. Goddammit.

“Oh, don’t cry, don’t cry,” she crooned, rocking him. “You’re okay. Poor baby, you’re so tired aren’t you?” She walked somewhere, but he didn’t raise his head to see where. “Zack, Cloud, come here. Take your boots off, come on now.”

Ma crawled into a nest—he knew immediately what it was, because it smelled so strongly of her—followed shortly by Zack and Cloud. Neither of them seemed to have any qualms about cuddling right up to her.

“Mmmm, my boys,” she said, tracing the patch of skin behind Jay’s ear. “You’re gonna have to come visit, you hear?”

“Mama Strife,” Zack said, which earned an amused snort from her. “Would you let me introduce you to my parents?”

“Oh, Zack, that’s very sweet but you don’t need to do anything for me. And besides, I’d have no real connection to your folks. I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“You wouldn’t!” he insisted immediately. “And you do have a connection, now you share a grandbaby!”

“Oh—well, yes, I suppose that’s true…”

“Just say yes, Ma,” Cloud said, sounding almost as sleepy as Jay felt. “No one ever wins against Zack once he’s got a notion in his head.”

“No? Oh, well then.” Her fingers against his scalp were gentle and rhythmic, lulling him right back to sleep. “I suppose you can go right ahead, Zack.”

His answering cheer blended into Jay’s dreams as he fell asleep in his mother’s arms.

The pack was lucky they’d finished Jay’s legal paperwork when they had, considering his rather spectacular introduction to all of ShinRa. There was no covering up his existence or parentage after that. And now that he was safe, Sephiroth was back in Midgar dealing with “political ramifications,” which Zack was pretty sure was code for “the bastards on the Board are trying to use him against us.”

Hojo had vanished in the past day, which fortunately worked out in their favor for the moment. It was very easy to point fingers at Hojo’s innumerable licit and illicit projects as the source of Jay—and therefore the source of his wild behavior and minor destruction of ShinRa property. Angeal was in Midgar too, rapidly organizing SOLDIER into a cohesive front for Jay’s protection.

Genesis was on his way to Nibelheim with a helicopter extract, since no one trusted Jay with anything less than two SOLDIER babysitters on the way back home. That left Zack, in the meantime, to try and get at least some honest answers out of his boy about what exactly he’d been doing while missing.

Yeah…easier said than done.

Jay, sitting on his lap, stared at him with an absolutely unimpressed expression as he tried to think of the kind of threats that would have worked on him as a kid. “Um, no sweets for a week unless you tell me what you were doing,” he tried.

Really? Jay’s expression said.

“A month, then!”

The deadpan intensified.

“Yeah, I guess that really wouldn’t work on you, huh?” he sighed. “Ok…tell me what you were doing or I’ll put you down!”

A downright incredulous look crossed Jay’s face.

Zack squinted. “Or maybe I’ll… never put you down?”

The deadpan returned.

He changed tack, trying to think of the threats that might have worked on Cloud. “Hmm. Tell me what you were doing or I’ll tickle you!” He wiggled his fingers threateningly.

That, finally, got something that at least approached apprehension in his scent, even if his expression was still mostly a deadpan. “I’m not ticklish,” he grumped.

Zack’s eyes sparkled as he sensed weakness. “Oh really? Are you suuuuuure? If you don’t tell me we’re gonna find ouuuuuut!”

Jay looked at him, searching his face for any hint he was bluffing. Apparently he decided Zack was being honest, because he promptly tried to jump ship and scramble off his lap.

“HA!” Zack crowed, scooping him up and wrestling him onto his back in Mama Strife’s nest. “No you don’t!” Merciless, he attacked Jay’s sides with tickles. The kid squealed and tried to squirm free but Zack didn’t let him. Then, to his delight, Jay started to giggle like a normal little kid.

Zack entirely forgot about getting information. It hadn’t quite occurred to him until now, but none of them had ever even seen Jay smile, much less laugh, much less giggle helplessly. He would have teared up just to hear it, but that would have ruined the game.

“I’ve got youuuu!” he sang, dipping down to blow a raspberry against Jay’s tummy.

“NO!” Jay shrieked, kicking. His smile was priceless.

“Yes!” Zack pounced on his chubby cheeks too, blowing another raspberry. He didn’t let up on assaulting Jay’s sides, tickling until the kid had tears of laughter in his eyes and his face was red. Only then did he pause, hands still pressed to that tiny heaving torso. “Are you gonna tell me?”

Jay’s frown returned immediately, although his breath hitched with laughter. He didn’t answer.

“Jayjay,” Zack sang, fingers flexing threateningly.

The little omega squeaked and tried squirming away again, so Zack resumed tickling. “Nooo!” Jay protested, giggling. He kept trying to frown, only to be unable to suppress a smile.

“I can do this all day, baby bluejay,” Zack said, stopping again. “You gonna tell me?”

“Can’t tell you!” Jay blurt out, scowling.

It was more information than he’d managed to get before, at least, so he scooped Jay up and rolled them over, letting the little omega catch his breath while laying on his chest. He hunted around blindly with one hand until he found Jay’s plushie (in dire need of a washing) and returned it to his possessive little grasp.

“Can’t tell me? Why not?”

“Just can’t tell you,” he grumbled, right back to his grouchy bear cub disposition.

“How’d you know about Vincent, huh?” Zack asked, running a hand up his little back.

“...just knew,” Jay said, a little uncertain this time.

Zack hummed, repositioning the kid a little so his head was tucked up under his chin. “Just knew, huh? Jay…were you ever in that lab yourself?”

The uncertainty became more pronounced, and now he smelled anxious too. Zack started purring for him but it didn’t entirely dissipate. “...kind of.”

“Kind of?” When Jay didn’t elaborate, he prodded further. “Were you there some of the time?” 

Jay nodded jerkily into his collar, curling up into a defensive ball.

Zack took a deep breath to calm himself. “Okay. Is that why you tried to burn it down?” Another nod. “And how you knew about Vincent?” Yet another nod, and hey, they were making more progress than Zack had expected, even if it was kind of horrible. “But it’s not the lab you destroyed to escape?”

“No,” Jay muttered, the word almost inaudible.

“Okay.” There was more to the story. A lot more. But Zack didn’t think he’d be getting it today, or maybe ever. Not from Jay at least. If the Turks could actually find the damned place, they might learn some semblance of the truth. “Thank you for telling me.”

And oh yes, that was definitely a hint of guilt he was detecting. He wondered which parts had been lies—or if none of them had been, and Jay was just deliberately withholding the most important parts of the story. Either way, Zack decided he should drop it for now.

Cloud was out visiting people in his hometown. Mama Strife had a delivery to make. Vincent was away doing…vampire things, Zack assumed. It was just them in the quiet house, the sounds from the town square filtering in as a kind of white noise. He heaved a sigh, propping one leg up and resuming a mindless back-and-forth motion of his hand on Jay’s side. It didn’t take too long before the kid uncurled.

“Please stop running away from me,” he whispered. “I love you so much, Jay.”

“You’ve known me for like, a week,” Jay said, muffled and miserable. 

Ouch. Zack smiled, but it was painful, and the kid didn’t see it anyway. “So?”

“So—” Jay stopped, bewildered, like he was so certain the answer was obvious and couldn’t understand why he couldn’t find it.

“So?”

“So you don’t…know me.”

What parent does? Zack thought, but he knew Jay wouldn’t accept that answer. “I know enough. And I want to see what you grow into. I want to be there with you every step of the way. It’s too late to keep me from loving you, baby. Why not stay and try to understand it?”

Why not stay and try to understand it?

Zack’s words echoed in Jay’s head, even hours later.  No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t get rid of them. Zack, of course, didn’t understand what he was asking. He didn’t understand the blood on Jay’s hands, the deaths that followed him in a ghoulish string. He didn’t understand that misery always dogged Jay’s steps.

The first two worlds had been the same—why would the third be any different?

Why not stay and try to understand it?

Jay really didn’t understand it. He hadn’t understood when Genesis and Angeal, his stupid sixteen-year-old SOLDIER comrades, had gotten attached to him despite his best efforts to keep them away. He’d barely understood when Tifa stayed by his side in the first world, before he’d gotten everyone wiped from existence. But these SOLDIERs didn’t even know him. They’d adopted him on sight.

Why? Because he was pathetic? Because he was a project? Because he had potential as a living weapon?

Because they were just that kind?

Kindness was worse than selfishness, in his mind. He didn’t need kindness, or want it. Kindness was just one more burden of guilt on his conscience. One more thing to fail in repaying.

Why not stay and try to understand it?

Well, it wasn’t going to have much say in the ‘staying’ part, anyway. Now they knew what he was capable of, and the fact that they’d chased him down to Nibelheim was a pretty damn good indication that they weren’t going to let up. Hell, Zack still hadn’t let him walk anywhere. He only put Jay down in the nest to sleep, or handed him off to someone else for a little while.

Jay would have scoffed at Zack’s paranoia had he not been fully willing to disappear into the wilderness at the slightest lapse of attention.

Even now, as they waited for their ride out of Nibelheim to land, Zack was still holding him in one arm. He shifted to cover Jay’s ears as the helicopter touched down, muffling the thunderous noise of the rotor blades. Before the helicopter had even stopped moving the side door was flung open and Genesis leaped out, making a beeline for Zack.

Or maybe for Jay. “Little cub!” he exclaimed, stealing Jay from Zack for a tight hug. “Oooh, don’t you ever do that again, do you hear me? I am far too young for gray hairs.” He inhaled deeply and then pulled back, frowning. “What did you do to yourself?

Jay blinked at him and didn’t answer, which didn’t seem to surprise the man. He just clicked his tongue and turned to Zack, who was perfectly happy to get Jay in more trouble.

“He went running all over the place barefoot and cast until he’d overextended his reserves.”

Genesis frowned at him. “Jay, you cannot overextend yourself like that,” he scolded. “You could permanently damage your mana capacity, nevermind the rest of your body.”

Jay blinked at him a little more sarcastically this time.

“Stubborn,” Genesis tsk’d, and Zack laughed.

“He is your son.”

“Our son.”

“Oh, I’m allowed to contribute now?”

Genesis fully ignored his grinning packmate, instead turning his attention to Cloud, who stiffened. They looked at each other for a long moment, Genesis with a dangerous kind of consideration and Cloud with something between defiance and contrition.

“Thank you for looking after him, Cloud,” the SOLDIER finally said.

Cloud relaxed. “You’re welcome,” he said quietly.

“And of course, I hope you’ll continue to look after him. I for one would greatly enjoy seeing you around more.”

Cloud and Jay both blinked in surprise. Cloud looked surprised by the olive branch, but Jay turned an incredulous look on the red headed SOLDIER. Was he seriously flirting? Right now? Over Jay’s head?

“Oh, uh. Y-yeah,” Cloud stuttered, cheeks pinking. “That’s the plan.”

Genesis’s answering smile had Jay squirming and reaching for Zack, a mighty scowl on his face. He was not about to put up with watching anyone flirt at his counterpart.

“What’s gotten into you now, little fawn?” Genesis said, trying to wrangle him back into stillness.

Fawn? Jay mouthed in outrage, squirming even harder. Zack guffawed and stole him back from Genesis.

“I think he doesn’t like your flirting, Gen-Gen,” he said, letting Jay latch onto him like a barnacle and shoot warning glares at everyone else.

“I am not—“ Genesis started, only to stop when Cloud turned big, sad eyes on him.

“You weren’t?” He asked with what Jay knew was fake sadness and a flirty little pout.

“CAN WE JUST LEAVE ALREADY!” Jay burst out, clapping his hands over his ears—well, one hand and the plushie, since he was still holding onto it.

Zack laughed hard, bending slightly at the middle before he got ahold of himself and straightened, kissing the side of Jay’s head. “You are so precious,” he cooed. “If I take you away from all the cooties will I be your favorite?”

“Yes, fine, you’re my favorite,” Jay said, swinging his heels into Zack’s legs like he was spurring a chocobo. “Let’s go.”

“Did everyone hear that?” Zack called over his shoulder, trotting triumphantly toward the helicopter. “I’m his favorite!”

Genesis scoffed. “You were already his favorite!”

They devolved into an argument as everyone boarded the chopper. Well, Jay thought, at least everyone stopped flirting.

By the time they actually got all the way back to Midgar, Jay was ready to never take his feet off the floor ever again. You’d think that being able to fly—and reasonably good at it, after all the forced practice—would have gotten rid of his motion sickness, but apparently not. He hadn’t actually thrown up, but that just meant he spent hours and hours in absolute concentrated misery making sure he didn’t.

Zack still had a hold of him as they landed and the rotors finally shut off. He pushed the ear protectors off, since they were giving him a headache. Bleary and exhausted, he raised his head to lookout the window. His eyes went huge when he saw the amount of people waiting to greet them. Specifically, at the amount of suited-up SOLDIERs standing in formation just off the helipad.

“What is it, Jay?” Zack asked, peering out too. He whistled. “Wow. Angeal really wrangled down the number, huh?”

Zack wasn’t being sarcastic. Did that mean that at some point even more SOLDIERs had intended to be there to greet them? What the hell.

“Alright, let’s go—um.” The dark-haired SOLDIER tried to get up, only to find Jay very firmly attached to the metal frame of the seat. “Jay?”

“No.”

Genesis peered at them as he put his headset aside and retrieved Rapier. “No what?”

“Nope.” He shook his head for good measure. Vincent and Cloud both stilled in their own movements, turning their attention to him.

“What’s freaking you out, baby bluejay?” Zack asked, giving up and sitting back down.

“Not going out there without a sword. Nope.” Even inside the protective shell of the helicopter, that much unrestrained attention from SOLDIERs he didn’t know was setting off every last shred of battle instinct he had. Being unarmed just made it so much worse.

“What?” Genesis looked to see what he was staring at and clicked his tongue. “Is it the crowd? My darling, there’s barely two dozen SOLDIERs, and none of them would dare lay a finger on you, much less get through us.”

That is NOT the issue here, Jay thought. He tightened his grip on the metal frame for good measure. They could try to pry him off, but it would be a lot more effort than any reasonable person would be willing to put in. He could wait them out. The crowd would probably get bored quickly.

The main door opened, revealing Angeal. “You’re taking longer than you usually do,” he said, eyes sweeping around for something wrong. They softened immediately when they landed on Jay. “Hi, sweetheart. I bet you’re ready to get out of here, hmm?”

“He’s not,” Genesis informed his packmate dryly. “He’s attempting to negotiate a sword to face down the ravening hordes.”

“...what?”

“Jay, no one is going to attack you,” Zack said reasonably. “You don’t need a sword.”

“I definitely need a sword,” he answered equally reasonably, keeping his eyes on the crowd.

Angeal climbed all the way in and came over to kneel in front of Zack. “Jay,” he said, “everyone out there is a friend, you don’t need to have your hackles up. They’re excited to see you!”

That was code for ‘everyone is going to be focused on you,’ which just made Jay’s hackles go up even more. As far as he was concerned, there were two ways he could deal with that: he either needed to be armed, or he needed to be able to bolt. Since no one was about to let him do the latter, then he wasn’t going to budge until he had a weapon.

He didn’t even realize he was growling low in the base of his throat until Zack started to purr. It made his shoulders relax, but his grip stayed unmovable.

Angeal searched his face, a serious frown on his lips. He seemed to realize that this wasn’t a battle he was going to win unbloodied, because he sighed. His hand went to the regulation sword on his hip. “If I give you this sword,” he said, earning a surprised noise from almost everyone still in the helicopter, “you have to promise me a few things.”

Jay blinked in surprise. He hadn’t expected to actually win the argument, but he nodded immediately.

“Promise you won’t stab anyone just because they’re looking at you.”

“I won’t stab anyone just cuz they’re looking at me,” he agreed easily. There were plenty of other reasons to stab someone.

“You have to hold my hand the whole time, and as soon as we’re inside you have to give the sword back.”

Jay narrowed his eyes a little. “There’s no one else inside waiting?” he checked.

“Everyone I let in to see you is out there on the roof,” Angeal promised. “No one else.”

He considered for a long moment, then slowly released his death grip on the metal frame. In turn, Angeal took the sword from his belt and offered it hilt-first. Jay felt himself relax as soon as it was in his hand.

“You’re going to be fine,” Angeal said, taking his free hand and helping him down from Zack’s lap. “Everyone in SOLDIER loves you already.”

Jay made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat, following him out of the helicopter. Of course they did. Idiots. The harder he tried to keep them away, the closer they got.

With a sword in his hand, the response to dozens of eyes turning to him was automatic. Shoulders back and chin high, he held his weapon in a loose ready position at his side, defiantly staring down the group of SOLDIERs. It probably didn’t work very well when he was holding hands with Angeal and had a Zack plushie poking out of the front of his jacket, but that wasn’t the point.

Zack bounded over to greet the crowd, universally dressed in First-class blacks, as Angeal escorted him into the building. Genesis flanked his other side, and he could hear Cloud, Vincent, and the Turk who’d piloted the helicopter following. He could just feel that a bunch of people wanted to coo at him, but he kept his back perfectly straight and glared murderously. No one said anything.

Jay exhaled when the door shut behind him. Angeal took the sword back, which he allowed with an unhappy frown, and then Genesis promptly plucked him off the floor.

“There, that wasn’t so bad was it, kitten?”

“I can walk,” he grumbled, squirming, but Genesis didn’t let him budge an inch.

“Yes, a little too well by my estimation,” the SOLDIER responded dryly.

Cloud grinned at him when he gave up and slumped over Genesis’s shoulder, scowling. The urge to flip him off was strong, but Jay restrained himself. He’d probably just dig the hole he was already in even deeper.

It was mildly depressing to end up exactly where he’d started: back in Angeal’s apartment. This time he was surrounded by two extra idiots, even. At least Jenova was mostly if not entirely vaporized and Vincent was awake.

Genesis sat down on the couch, not even bothering to take off his coat or boots. Jay realized that everyone was present, including Sephiroth. Even Cloud and Vincent had followed them in and were taking seats. One by one, all eyes turned to where he was sitting in Genesis’s lap.

“Now, precious,” Genesis said pleasantly, arms locked around his middle like steel girders, “I think we need to have a nice long chat.”

Uh-oh, thought Jay.

Vincent didn’t know what to make of the strange child who’d woken him, and less still of the strange world he’d woken into. Decades had passed in a blink. Lucretia’s child was full-grown, his pack well-established even to the point of adopting the very same strange child who’d woken Vincent.

The child—Jay, a breathtakingly powerful little omega, if Chaos’s rumblings and his own heightened senses were accurate—was obviously a product of the same unethical forces that had produced Sephiroth. It wasn’t difficult to guess why he would want someone to help him kill Hojo. What was more difficult to guess, however, was the manner in which he’d gotten enough information to know not only where Vincent was, but what pressure points to manipulate in order to get him to leave.

Under other circumstances, Vincent would simply have waved an interloper off and gone back to his atoning sleep. But Jay had, in a shockingly concise set of words, delivered every bit of information that he would have required to change his mind. It was as if the child knew him.

In the back of his head, Chaos laughed.

Answers didn’t seem to be forthcoming, either, even with the child’s caretakers all focused on getting them. Jay was stubbornly silent, avoiding eye contact as they prodded and coaxed and threatened. The only real giveaways were his olfactory responses, which he had incongruously little control over compared to his nonverbal cues.

Vincent gathered several facts from those responses that he was reasonably confident in. First, the child was determined to keep everyone at arm’s length, if he could manage it—and it didn’t seem as if he could. This determination was despite his obvious attachment to them, especially to one Zack Fair. Second, the child had not done anything by mistake. His activities in Nibelheim might have been hasty, but he’d known where he was going, and for what.

Third, and perhaps most important: the child knew far more than he’d let on.

Vincent, deciding he’d gotten everything he could for the moment by mere observation, interrupted their unsuccessful attempts to get Jay to explain where he’d been in the hours leading up to his final stunt in the basement. “He was in the reactor.”

Several startled glances came his way. Sephiroth’s was less startled and more sharp. “The reactor? Why?” he asked, not even bothering to direct the question to his child.

Jay glared murderously as Vincent answered. “Destroying something. I’m not sure what. ShinRa built tunnels between the reactor and the basement. Hojo stored many of his samples there.”

“Jay?” Zack asked, worried.

The child crossed his arms over his chest, shoulders hunching up around his ears as he became even more stubbornly silent than before.

“How did you know about all of that, little cub?” Genesis Rhapsodos asked, eyes intent upon his son.

The child finally spoke, and it was an absolutely shameless deflection. “If he’d decided I was a ‘failed specimen,’ I would have gone in one of those pods too.”

Vincent didn’t doubt that the other men thought this was a legitimate answer. It certainly wasn’t a lie—no, it was a Turk Truth. A deflection. He almost admired it. The statement contained enough leading subtext to provide ‘answers’ for the questions he didn’t want to address, and an emotionally charged context to steer them away from probing deeper. And yet, it gave away absolutely nothing.

He decided to be direct. “What are you hiding?”

Had he been anything but an ex-Turk, he might have regretted the panic-tinged anger that rolled off the little one in waves. Jay was determined to keep his secrets and had a remarkable skill to do so. One of the few options available to Vincent in this situation was to back him into a corner and thus discover by omission the very facts—or the general categories of facts—that the little one was attempting to protect.

All this carefully considered strategy was why what Jay blurt out thoroughly startled even him.

“Lucretia is still alive!”

Sephiroth was the one who answered, as Vincent reeled. “My mother is…alive?”

“‘M not telling you anything until Hojo’s dead,” Jay snapped, hugging his toy even tighter and glaring at the floor.

“Jay, that is not…reasonable. Please—”

“No.”

“How do you know this?” Vincent asked, finally getting ahold of himself. “Did you see her yourself?”

Jay didn’t shift at all, mouth set in a stubborn line.

He pressed again. “Does Hojo have her?”

“Go kill him and find out.”

“Child.”

Jay looked up and met his eyes. One look told Vincent he wouldn’t be getting any further than this. “Go kill him and find out.”

The others started speaking, trying to cajole the child into an answer. Their eyes remained locked. Slowly, Vincent nodded. “Very well,” he said, and stood. “I will return.”

The others voiced their objections, but he ignored them. Clearly they didn’t yet understand the nature of the strange child they’d adopted, or the nature of Hojo and his experiments. Vincent suspected that if he didn’t work fast enough, the child would find a way to take care of the issue himself. Even as strange as this child was, it wasn’t his responsibility to correct the mistakes of his elders.

But first there were some people Vincent needed to see again, for the first time in a very long time.

It was beyond frustrating for Jay to know that there were things he needed to do—things he could help with—and yet be stuck doing nothing.

Worse, his own body was betraying him, and he didn’t even think it was because of the way it had been changed by this world. He was so tired. It felt like he would fall asleep at the drop of a fucking hat, and the Idiots kept taking advantage.

He’d wake up feeling like one giant bruise and eat breakfast (in someone’s lap—they really seemed to be following through on the ‘never putting him down’ threat), only to fall back asleep until the afternoon when someone woke him up for lunch. If he managed to stay awake until dinner it was by sheer willpower and no one deliberately putting him to sleep. Then he ate dinner and usually fell asleep again before they’d finished bathtime.

He knew he’d pushed himself hard in those few hours at Nibelheim, and the few days before that, but this seemed like a wild overcompensation on his body’s part. It hadn’t been that bad. He’d pushed through a lot worse.

He steadfastly ignored the little Aerith-sounding voice in the back of his head that whispered, but when have you ever really had the chance to rest before now? When have you ever been safe enough to rest?

Most of the time he wasn’t even sleeping in an actual bed. He kept waking up in Zack’s arms, or Angeal’s, or Genesis’s, or even Sephiroth’s. A lot in Sephiroth’s, actually. He suspected they were trying to get rid of his aversion to the guy. If he’d had even slightly more energy to spare, he would have doubled down on his dislike out of sheer spite. But he didn’t, so most of the time he just accepted his fate and went back to sleep with the smell of warm mint in his nose.

The exhaustion made his restless itching to do something worse. Being unconscious for most of the day was probably a small mercy, all things considered. It was a mercy tempered by persistent nightmares, but he imagined that if he’d had to lay there and ruminate on how useless he was for more than an hour at a time he’d lose his mind.

Vincent hadn’t reappeared since the first day back in the Tower, when they’d tried to interrogate him (and partially succeeded, he would begrudgingly admit). Jay suspected that he communicated regularly with the SOLDIERs, but everyone was careful not to read classified documents while they were holding him. It would have been too maddening to handle, not knowing what was happening, if he’d trusted Vincent even one iota less.

Maybe that was the new theme of his life, as the days accumulated: things that should, by all rights, have driven him absolutely crazy, but somehow didn’t. It should have been intolerable to endure the relentless coddling, but if he was honest he wasn’t even ‘tolerating’ it. He didn’t need to tolerate it. The sense of safety he got was new and a little scary, but…

It should have been equally maddening to have no control or authority any more. He’d gone from being a de facto military commander to…what? A pet? The voice in the back of his head whispered a cherished family member, but he ignored it. Only fools wanted him as part of their family. He should have rebelled in force, claimed back the independence he wanted. This was even his chance to be truly free for the first time since he’d woken up as a prisoner of his worst nightmare.

But.

If he was honest—if someone had forced him to be honest—he would have admitted that it was nice to not need to be in charge for once. It was nice to have other people handling the crises, such as they were. It was nice that he wasn’t the only shield and sword protecting an entire planet full of innocent people.

It was nice.

And if he didn’t get ahold of himself, everyone was going to pay the price for that.

No matter what name he went by, Cloud Strife wasn’t allowed to have nice things.

The pack was rapidly running out of time and excuses to keep Jay from meeting the higher-ups. They weren’t completely out of excuses yet, although that was a problem in itself: Jay was recovering far slower than he should have been. Even after almost two weeks, he still slept about eighteen hours a day.

Unfortunately, the President was getting impatient. In their latest correspondence he’d finally insisted that Jay didn’t even need to be awake for the introduction. Sephiroth sighed to himself, staring down the email. The real reason they didn’t want Jay leaving the apartment just yet was because Hojo still had yet to return from his mysterious and abrupt departure from Midgar, but they couldn’t tell the President that.

It was Angeal’s turn to hold Jay, who was asleep again. He’d wake back up before dinner.

“I may not be able to answer the President with anything but an affirmative,” Sephiroth said out loud.

Angeal looked over with a heavy sigh and a resigned expression. They all knew even two weeks of delay had been pushing it, and Lazard had been very generous in arranging their schedules to keep an eye on Jay. “If worse comes to worst, we can protect him.”

“I would prefer he not need protection at all.”

The little omega stirred, fingers curling and face twitching in the beginnings of another nightmare. Angeal soothed him automatically, well-practiced by now. “I know,” he said. “But even the President can’t take him from us without starting a civil war. Unless someone decides to be stupid, Jay is as protected as he can get.”

“I would not put any regrettable action past Hojo,” Sephiroth said mildly, but he began composing a reluctant affirmative response anyway.

“If a civil war starts in that boardroom, you have full permission to behead the man,” Angeal said with amusement. “Now hurry up and finish. Cloud’s due to arrive in a few minutes.”

Zack and Genesis’s reactions to the news were predictable: neither of them were happy, but they recognized that an introduction was inevitable. Jay’s reaction, on the other hand, was not.

He wrinkled his nose at Zack when the younger alpha had explained the situation. “Why does the Board want to meet me?”

Since that wasn’t exactly the reaction Zack had expected, it took him a moment to come up with a response. “Well,” he said slowly, “our pack is pretty famous. It’s kind of become one of ShinRa’s public faces, and it’s definitely SOLDIER’s. That means the Board has a lot more of an interest in new pack members than they otherwise would have.” Jay opened his mouth and Zack, sensing his objection, hastened to add, “so that’s why they want to meet you, our newest pack member!”

Jay wrinkled his nose again, but didn’t argue. He mulled everything over for a few minutes before he responded. “Okay. I’ll go if you give me a knife.”

“Absolutely not” said Angeal at the exact same moment Genesis said “deal!” They glared at each other.

“Angeal, my love, my heart, I am not letting my son within a mile of those snakes unless he’s armed,” Genesis said sweetly.

“Genesis, darling,” Angeal grit out in response, “if we give him a knife he will stab one of the executives.”

“Good!”

“Genesis.”

“Well, you can’t tell me the world wouldn’t be better off for it if he did away with Heidegger or Scarlet!”

Jay sighed. “I promise I won’t stab anyone unless they try to kill me,” he said in a supremely bored voice.

Angeal looked at Genesis, who raised his eyebrows and inclined his head toward Jay, as if to say see? Angeal looked up toward the heavens to beg for patience.

“...fine,” he conceded. “You can have a knife during the meeting.”

“Great,” Jay said, pushing into Zack’s arms and climbing up to his favorite napping position. “Glad that’s settled.”

Cloud, unfortunately, couldn’t join them to attend the meeting, but he could join them for the preparations. Jay was the easiest to get ready, despite what they predicted. Cloud and Zack teamed up to get him dressed in a cute button-down shirt and khaki pants. With his Zack plushie in one hand and switchblade knife tucked into his pocket, he was perfectly content dozing peacefully in Cloud’s arms. Everyone else, on the other hand, was running around in a near-panic.

Genesis and Angeal were arguing about their own weapons as they checked each other’s uniforms: Genesis wanted to smuggle Rapier in; Angeal thought everyone might just forget the Buster was attached to him since he never used it anyway. Sephiroth was rapidly tapping away on his PHS and pacing, a pensive frown pulling down his lips. Zack dug through the weapons cabinet, fretting over whether or not he could get away with arming Jay with a bigger knife.

Cloud watched them scramble for all of two minutes before he sighed. “All of you, calm down,” he said firmly, waiting until everyone paused and looked over to him. “You’re the strongest SOLDIERs in ShinRa. Jay is going to be just fine, and no matter what happens you’re going to handle it.”

Surprisingly, Angeal was the one who huffed a laugh and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re right. Thank you, Cloud.” The others consciously relaxed too, taking deep breaths.

Cloud, who wasn’t allowed up to the high-security executive floors anyway, was left to wait in the apartment (and enjoy Angeal’s leftovers) while they attended the meeting. They all knew that the little one’s bond to Sephiroth was the main thing protecting him from the power-hungry executives, so he was the one who carried Jay, who’d fallen asleep in Cloud’s arms, up to the board room.

“Do you think we should let him sleep through the whole thing?” Zack wondered, sotto voce , in the elevator up.

“He is less likely to stab anyone that way,” Angeal muttered, rolling his shoulders like he was searching for the missing weight of the Buster.

Apparently Jay wasn’t quite as deeply asleep as they thought. “Who’s—stab?” he slurred, jerking upright. “Stabbing?”

“No stabbing, little cub,” Genesis said, intervening before he could draw his little switchblade. “Yet.”

“Genesis.”

“I said yet!”

The elevator doors opened and everyone quieted down. Even Jay became serious, his little blue eyes intent on the stretch of hallway that led to the meeting room. The Turk standing outside with the elite troopers nodded as they approached and opened the door.

With a deep collective breath, they stepped into the lion’s den.

Jay was reassured by the weight of the switchblade in his pocket. Did he need it to kill any of the soft, unenhanced, mostly untrained board members? No. Did he want it anyway? Yeah. Unlike the SOLDIERs, he had no doubt that things were about to go catastrophically wrong. That was just Strife Luck. 

The President greeted them with a wide, lying smile. “There he is! The little man of the hour. You’ve caused quite a stir, boy.”

Jay barely spared him a glance, eyes instead sweeping around to take in the rest of the board members. Heidegger, Scarlet, and the Turk Director were on one side; Rufus, the SOLDIER Director (Lizard? Something like that), and Reeve on the other. He wondered where Palmer was. Nothing jumped out to him immediately as ‘this is going to try and fuck you up,’ but it was just a matter of time.

“Come, come say hello.” His eyes turned back to the President to see the man beckoning with one hand.

Jay’s nose scrunched. No. Eew. He didn’t want to be anywhere near the old man. Although…it would put him in easy stabbing distance.

“I apologize, Mr. President,” Sephiroth said tonelessly, angling his body away by just a few subtle degrees. “He’s very shy and doesn't talk much.”

“No?” The door had already shut behind them, but all of the enhanced men stiffened as they felt a change in air pressure from a different, hidden door opening. “That’s a shame. Perhaps he’d benefit from the same training you received when you were his age, my boy.”

Jay wasn’t in the least surprised when Hojo came sulking out of the shadows. “Of course he would, Mr. President,” the slimy man agreed. “Little boys need a firm hand in their upbringing, or they become… unruly.” His eyes—as cold and dead as a fish’s—met Jay’s and the hatred in them told Jay everything he needed to know.

Hojo was well aware of who had destroyed Jenova. Now the only question was how much of her had been floating around elsewhere.

If things had been stiff before, they were downright tense now and everyone in the room knew it. Even the Turk Director didn’t seem to have been in on the President’s little trick. Jay could tell—he had an odd blend of Vincent’s tells and Tseng’s, sitting stiff and expressionless at the table.

Jay was the calmest out of everyone. None of the political maneuvering affected him like it did the SOLDIERs or board members. He had no stakes here, no hostages held against him. The only people who could stop him were the same four men who wanted to protect him (and alright, maybe the Turk could shoot him, but that wouldn’t stop him). If they were smart, they’d let him use the blade in his pocket.

“I do not need your advice in raising my own son, Professor,” Sephiroth said frostily, his hold becoming absurdly protective.

Hojo’s laugh was grating. “I think you do, my boy. It only took a few days of being in your care before that magnificent little specimen was destroying ShinRa property, hmm?”

Sephiroth’s chest rumbled with the beginnings of a truly impressive snarl. Genesis put a steadying hand on his back and stepped forward slightly. “Unusual circumstances, Professor,” the thespian said lightly. “Of course, your… advice… is something we can take into consideration, but everyone knows that it’s the ones who have caretaker bonds that best know how to parent their children…no?”

Hojo scoffed, a subtle offended note to it. Jay cocked his head curiously, sensing that he was missing some context. “Ridiculous. Your sentimentality will ruin him. And at what cost to ShinRa? No, you will give him to me.” He leered at Jay, who didn’t bother to disguise his raw disgust. “He already has a great debt to pay to ShinRa. That potential will not be squandered while I’m here.”

Jay gripped the knife in his pocket and smiled. “Okay.”

BANG!

From the very same vents Jay had once used to eavesdrop on a meeting, a loud gunshot fired. The SOLDIERs winced collectively at the noise. A neat hole appeared in the middle of Hojo’s forehead. With an almost comical expression of surprise, he fell back.

BANG!

BANG!

Two more shots fired—not that Jay immediately saw where they hit, since Sephiroth had curled around him protectively. He squirmed, annoyed, until he managed to peek out enough to see Rufus standing with his pistol out and the SOLDIER Director with a gun of his own, face pale and breathing hard. The President was down, and so was Heidegger. The Turk Director had his sidearm drawn, but it was pointed down.

Vincent was standing on top of the table.

The room was almost eerily silent, except for panicked breathing and racing hearts…and the drip of blood onto the floor. Vincent glanced down at Hojo’s corpse, then at the Turk Director, before finally turning to the huddle of stunned SOLDIERs.

Jay gave him a thumbs up.

“Did you— use my baby as bait?” Genesis said into the silence, dripping with outrage.

“Yes,” said Vincent matter-of-factly.

“Shoot him again,” Jay said. When eyes turned to him, he rolled his eyes and pointed. “The corpse is boiling, you’d better shoot him again.”

Hojo’s body was indeed boiling like it was about to burst into the mutated form Jay had once fought. Vincent, Rufus, and the other two armed Directors quickly began shooting it with startled gasps. Sephiroth even summoned up Masamune and handed it over to Genesis so he could go stab the corpse repeatedly for good measure.

It stopped boiling.

“Now burn it,” Jay commanded, proffering a fire materia he definitely wasn’t supposed to have.

“I don’t think—” one of the Directors started, but Genesis didn’t even hesitate, immolating the Jenova-tainted remains until the acrid smell of burning flesh filled the room.

Jay paused, considering the situation in detail. Scarlet started to quietly hyperventilate. No one else really seemed to know what to do next. Rufus, especially, had a look on his face like he hadn’t expected that to work. 

“Well. That was anticlimactic,” Jay decided.

Zack burst into slightly-hysterical laughter. “You,” he said, sneaking over Sephiroth’s shoulder to kiss Jay’s temple, “are such a weird kid.”

Jay seemed to be…kind of lost in the days after the disastrous (or maybe extremely successful?) meeting with the Board. He was still recovering with excruciating slowness and spent most of each day asleep, but when he was awake he looked confused and directionless, holding onto his Zack plushie like it was his compass in the world. The confusion certainly made him easier to handle but that wasn’t really what they wanted.

It didn’t help that they were stretched thin trying to keep ShinRa from descending into a civil war. One of them was always at home with Jay when they could manage it. If not, three of their most trusted SOLDIERs at minimum babysat. Even that wasn’t really enough. The first time they’d left three First Class SOLDIERs to babysit, Jay had gone missing within ten minutes of waking up. It was only a call from Aerith to Zack that had kept all of SOLDIER from descending into chaos—she’d found a little blond child sleeping in her flower bed.

When Zack had raced down to get him, he’d discovered that Jay’s list of People He Really liked (currently composed of Zack and Mama Strife) had gone up by one. Aerith was grinning as a red-faced, purring Jay sat curled up against her side, doing his best to disappear out of embarrassment.

“What a little angel!” she cooed, a knowing gleam in her eye. “You’ll have to bring him by to play with me some more, Zack. We have so much more to talk about, don’t we Petal?”

After that, they put a tracking chip in his Zack plushie. He picked it out and flushed it down the toilet within the day.

Vincent was no help since he was gone. Jay had kept his promise as soon as Hojo was dead, telling the mysterious ex-Turk that Lucretia was inside a crystal in a cave on the other continent, which…actually made a weird amount of sense for Jay to know, all things considered. Vincent had gone off to find the cave and promised to show Sephiroth the way once things had calmed down.

Cloud proved to be a huge help in looking after Jay, even if he couldn’t physically stop the kid from doing whatever the hell he wanted. He understood Jay on a deeper level than even Zack seemed to be able. In fact, he was the first person who got Jay to play a game and shortly after became the first person who got a smile without cheating.

He managed it by enticing Jay into an ‘exercise.’ Specifically, a balance exercise he was using to try and improve chances on the SOLDIER exam. Jay knew a variation of it and they faced off in the living room, competing to see who could do it the best. It wasn’t a one-sided game. Jay was enhanced and knew his body well, but Cloud was no pushover. The more they got into it, the more their expressions matched: narrowed eyes, a determined tilt to their brows, and wide, competitive smiles.

Zack thought they were both so beautiful when he saw it.

Zack also realized he might be in a little bit of trouble, pining over his best friend like that.

It was fitting, then, that Jay was jolted awake in the early hours of the morning by Zack whooping and tumbling out of bed to go sprinting from the apartment. Genesis cursed and followed, shrieking “ZACK, DON’T YOU DARE!” as he chased after. Angeal snorted in amusement and patted Jay’s head before he stood and left at a much more sedate pace.

Sephiroth, however, just pulled Jay close and settled back down to sleep.

“‘S happening?” Jay asked, groggy and confused.

Sephiroth hummed. “You don’t know about presentation dreams yet, do you?” When Jay shook his head, he elaborated. “Omegas are the spiritual core of a pack. When they reach their presentation day, they enter the Dreamscape for the first time and are able to connect to any of their packmates who have also presented. They can share dreams every night, after that point.”

“Oh. Can you and ‘ngeal ‘n Zack share a dream?”

“No. An omega always has to ‘host’ the dream, so to speak.”

Jay hummed, already drifting off. Then he jolted. “Wait! So did you find that last packmate or whatever? Is that why they got up?”

A shockingly sappy smile crossed Sephiroth’s face. “That’s right.”

Jay’s eyes narrowed as an awful suspicion came to him. “It’s Cloud isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Sephiroth said, giving a surprised look that quickly turned thoughtful. “What made you think so?”

Jay sighed and mashed his face into the pillow, determined to go back to sleep without answering. How was he supposed to explain the concept of ‘Strife Luck?’ Of course it had to be Cloud who was their last packmate, despite all his pack-related neuroses. Jay should have seen this coming from the beginning.

Well. At least he wasn’t going to have to make nice with a stranger.

And the weird thing, as far as Jay was concerned, was that…nothing bad happened. Days turned into weeks, and nothing bad happened. Cloud joined the pack. They moved into ‘pack quarters’ which was just a fancy way of saying ‘six bedroom apartment with a big common area and easy access to community amenities.’ Said amenities included childcare, but they weren’t dumb enough to try and leave him there.

Which was kind of a shame. It would have been really easy to sneak out and go do whatever he wanted, including going back home and enjoying an empty apartment. He hadn’t been left alone since they came back from Nibelheim.

But nothing bad happened, even as he waited patiently for the other shoe to drop. No one was in danger because of him. Vincent handled whatever nonsense Hojo had left over, like Deepground. Jay only knew because he remembered a few key terms related to the project and wasn’t afraid to eavesdrop. He never needed to give them more information because…they just handled it.

He didn’t have to do anything. Didn’t have to sacrifice anything. Didn’t have to push himself to the breaking point and beyond. He learned how to cook from Angeal and nothing bad happened. He wrestled with Zack and no one died because he wasn’t on constant alert. When Genesis read to him, he could fall asleep without wondering who wouldn’t return from patrol without him there to save them. 

Cloud taught him the half-forgotten movements of Ma’s leatherworking and he didn’t have to wonder if she was safe. The other SOLDIERs he eventually started sparring with (playing with, if he was honest) weren’t in any more danger than usual just because they paid attention to him. No one tried to kill him. When he fell asleep on Sephiroth, it was because he wanted to and not because he was held hostage in the endless darkness.

Nothing bad happened.

And he didn’t know how to handle that.

Paradoxically, what Angeal termed his ‘panic attacks’ got worse. The better things got and the longer they stayed that way, the more he wanted to run. The nightmares got worse. Everyone was worried about him, which meant everyone was watching him. He tried to keep it under wraps, but the more he did the more it felt like he couldn’t breathe.

Nothing bad happened. By all rights, nothing bad was going to happen. Aerith had alluded to as much with all her mystical talk about ‘the Planet’ and ‘gifts’ and ‘blessings.’ The part of him that was so tired he could cry all the time wanted to believe her. At this point, even his logical side was willing to believe it. But he didn’t know how.

How was he supposed to believe nothing bad was going to happen when his life had always been just a series of bad things happening?

The situation finally came to a head after he had a spectacular meltdown for no reason at all. It was only a bruise. It wasn’t even a serious bruise, just a very mild one from a misplaced elbow when Zack had ambushed him for a wrestling match in the living room. Zack had flinched a little, laughing. Jay should have laughed too and kept going.

Instead, the next thing he knew his head was so light it might as well have not existed, and his eyelashes were sticky with tears, and there was black on the edges of his vision because he couldn’t breathe, and he wasn’t even in the living room any more. Someone had an arm wrapped around his ribs, holding him snug against their torso, while the other arm was keeping a plastic mask over his mouth and nose. Disoriented, he drew in a slightly deeper breath and tried to push the mask away, but his hands shook so badly he had to let them fall. He couldn’t feel his fingertips.

“That’s it, deep breaths. Keep going, baby.”

The air from the mask had a chemical tang to it. He didn’t really want to keep breathing it, but he couldn’t shift his head enough to get away. The deeper and more even his breath became, the clearer his head got. Zack was the one holding him upright. They were in Medical, sitting on a padded exam table. The air smelled chemically because it was delivering some kind of aerosolized medicine.

He pushed more insistently at Zack’s arm once he realized where he was and what was happening, but Zack didn’t budge. “No, not yet, Jay,” he said. “Just keep breathing for a few more minutes.”

His throat hurt like a bitch and his voice rasped horribly when he tried to answer. “Don’ need—” 

“Shh, don’t talk. Just breathe.”

His head hurt. As sensation came back to his toes and fingertips, everything started to feel like lead. He gave up and just gripped Zack’s wrist with both hands to ground himself. By the point that a timer finally beeped and Zack moved the mask away, he’d settled into a state of dazed numbness.

Zack shifted so he could look down at his face as he stared into nothing. “Hey, baby. You okay?” When Jay didn’t answer—couldn’t quite remember how, even if he’d known what to say—his expression became even more worried. He looked up. “Is this, uh, normal?”

Someone Jay didn’t recognize answered. “Disorientation is very normal after an attack that severe.” A woman’s face appeared in his line of sight. She smiled sympathetically. “Hi, buddy. I bet that was no fun at all, huh? Don’t you worry, your daddy told me you don’t like being here, so we’ll get you back home as soon as possible. I just need to check a few things and then you can go, okay?”

He watched with a detached kind of attention as she checked his pulse, listened to his lungs, and took his temperature. Eventually she cleared them to leave with a chirpy “all done!” and Zack stood, picking Jay up in a snug hold. The nurse added, “I’ll send you an update on that prescription after I talk to the doctor. Make sure he rests.”

Zack nodded. They left.

At some point (Jay wasn’t exactly paying much attention) they got into the elevator to return home and Zack glanced down. He seemed surprised to see Jay’s eyes open.

“Oh, hey baby,” he said softly. “You with me again?”

Was he? After a moment, Jay nodded clumsily. His head felt incredibly heavy.

Zack smiled, but the worry didn’t leave his eyes. “Hey, that’s great! Do you remember what happened?” When he shook his head, Zack explained, “You had a bad panic attack, bud. We had to go up to Medical because you stopped breathing for a little bit.”

He didn’t like Medical. The only time he ever went was when he slipped up and Angeal dragged him there. It was an awful place where they made your head feel fuzzy and made all your muscles useless.

“Yeah, I know,” Zack said, reading his expression of distaste. “But I think ‘not breathing’ is a pretty good reason to make a pit stop there. And see? We’re already gone.”

Zack had him there, at least.

“Why don’t you just close your eyes for a little bit, huh?”

Okay.

The next time he opened them, his head was much clearer despite the persistent headache. He took a deep breath in and let it out, feeling a slow wave of shame and frustration sweep over him. Why had he panicked so badly over nothing? It was ridiculous. Pathetic.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, Bluejay, but you’d better stop.”

Jay shifted his head when Cloud spoke, chest rumbling beneath his ear. It must have been close to dinnertime if he was here. Sephiroth and Angeal were busy today, but Genesis either was or would be home soon. A finger tapped his nose, distracting him, and he looked up at Cloud.

“There you are. How are you feeling, little man?”

“‘M fine,” he said, voice rasping.

Cloud huffed a laugh, but there was no humor in it. “Yeah…no you’re not.”

Jay frowned at him, irritated. “What do you know?” he snapped with an unusually short temper. “I’m fine.”

Cloud was one of the few people who couldn’t stop him when he pulled free using all his strength and got his feet onto the living room floor. His legs trembled dangerously, but he stayed upright by sheer force of will. His face hurt.

“Hey, come on Jay, you’re supposed to be resting,” Cloud chided, sitting up and reaching for him. 

He backed up out of reach and glared. “I’m fine,” he insisted, even though his nerves had started to throb again, and he was tired, and his face hurt, and head throbbed in time with his heartbeat. “It was just—I was just being stupid. I’m fine.”

Cloud stopped and looked at him for a moment, lips pressed into a tight line. “Jay, having a panic attack doesn’t make you stupid.”

“There wasn’t any good reason for it,” he shot back. His hands curled into fists at his side. “I was just being stupid.”

“There was a good reason for it.” Jay scoffed, but Cloud shook his head insistently. “There was! We all know you’ve been having a hard time lately. Whenever you ignore stuff like that, it just builds up until you can’t contain it any more. That’s as good a reason as any to have a panic attack.”

Jay’s throat felt tight. “No it’s not,” he croaked. “Nothing bad is happening! I shouldn’t be freaking out like this!”

“Is that the problem?”

The question brought him up short. “Huh?”

“Nothing bad is happening,” Cloud echoed softly. “But it feels like bad things should be happening. Right?”

Jay opened his mouth and abruptly shut it, jaw working for a moment before he managed to speak. “Nothing...is happening. I shouldn’t be—I shouldn’t be like this.” His tone was a lot closer to pleading than he intended.

“Jay,” Zack said, startling him. He’d been too distracted to notice the SOLDIER’s approach, but he turned just in time to see him crouch so they were at eye level. “You learned to be “like this” so you could survive. It’s not your fault. But now you don’t need it anymore, so...we’re going to find a way to help your body catch up to your mind and know it’s safe, okay?”

This whole conversation was making him feel dangerously off-balance. “I…help?”

Zack nodded, carefully reaching out to take Jay’s hands. “Yeah, bud. We’ve been talking to some...some people who know how to help. They think it’ll be good if you talk to one of them, maybe once a week, and when Gen comes home he’s gonna bring some medicine that’ll help with the panic attacks.”

Medicine. Jay immediately yanked his hands away and skittered back a few steps, betrayed. They wanted him to be foggy and numb before they handed him over to a doctor? They wanted to let someone poke and prod at his mind like he was a science department asset again? Getting help for some acute injury was one thing—this was betrayal of the highest order.

“Nononono,” Zack said quickly, trying to grab his hands again. Jay retreated until his back hit the wall. Zack stopped and held his palms up. “Jay, tell me what’s going on in your head right now because I know it’s not right. I would never hurt you, or let anyone else hurt you. Do you think I would?”

He was already wrung out like a dirty dishrag from earlier. Tears threatened when he couldn’t quite get his thoughts to form a logical line. “I am not,” he croaked, “something that can…can be… studied!”

Zack’s expression turned distraught. “No! No, baby that’s not what this is about at all, no one is going to study you!”

“Yes they are!” he snapped back, leaning harder into the wall. “You said the doctors want to talk to me, that’s what they do!”

By this point Cloud felt the need to get up and join Zack where he was crouched, putting a comforting hand on his back. “Jay,” he said softly, taking over for Zack. “No one is going to study you. We just want someone to help you understand why some things make you panic. One of us would always be with you. You don’t have to talk until you want to and no one would be allowed to touch you. Just…trust me? Please?”

He didn’t trust Cloud, actually. Not right now. Not when he was dizzy and tired and betrayed. He suddenly found that he didn’t trust Zack either, and the realization made his heart twist painfully. He hiccuped, the anguish twisting even deeper as he wished he had a sturdy blade between himself and them. “I’m n-never going to—“

The front door beeped and clicked open as Genesis came home. Jay used their momentary lapse in attention to flee to his room and bury himself underneath the million and one plushies the SOLDIERs had collectively given him.

He didn’t know if it hurt more or less that they let him go.

One bad thing about the extensive soundproofing in the apartment was that Jay couldn’t hear them any more than they could hear him. He knew they must have been talking about him, but he didn’t know what they were saying. What they were planning. He dug himself in even deeper as the minutes stretched. Betrayal slowly turned to anger and something he thought might have been grief. The headache worsened.

By the time Genesis knocked briefly before easing the door open, Jay was in no mood for negotiations. The redhead was immediately beaned in the face by a fluffy blue chocobo plushie that one of the Thirds had gifted Jay.

“Go away!” he snarled from beneath the pile.

“Oh.” Genesis reeled slightly, surprised by the assault. “My goodness. Someone is—”

He was promptly beaned in the face by his own lookalike doll. “No! Go AWAY!”

Genesis sighed. “Jay—” He batted away a third plushie aimed at his stupid face. “Jay, stop it.”

“You stop it! Go away!”

Despite the room being Jay’s he didn’t use it very often. He didn’t even sleep there, since no one trusted him to sleep alone yet. The room was a mess, overrun with the excessive amount of gifts he’d been given by the whole SOLDIER department, and Genesis had to wade through it to reach the bed. Jay forced him to bat away fluffy projectiles the entire time. “I am not— ow—going anywhere until we resolve this little misunderstanding,” he said sternly.

Jay was outright growling when Genesis sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling his hiding place apart until he could see his entire face. The SOLDIER was purring despite the frown on his face, but Jay had gotten a lot better at resisting his new biology in the past weeks. It didn’t calm him down. The only thing that saved Genesis from being outright attacked was the fact that he stopped invading Jay’s hiding spot as soon as they were able to look each other in the face.

Then he just sat back against the footboard and waited.

Jay didn’t have the energy to sustain his intense fury for more than a few minutes. Eventually the growling died down and his breath evened back out. The anger dissipated, leaving him even more tired and hurt than before. He hated the way his eyes started to prickle hotly when it did.

“Little cub,” Genesis said softly, “do you really think we would let you be hurt again?”

“I think you’re all stupid and don’t understand,” Jay snapped weakly, swiping at his eyes.

Genesis huffed a laugh. “So blunt. Let us come to an accord, then. We won’t discuss the matter of getting you help any more today, and perhaps not tomorrow either, if you come back out with me and rest.”

Jay glared distrustfully. “I can rest in here without you.”

“Oh?” Genesis’s eyebrows rose. “Are you sure you won’t sit here working yourself up for the next several hours? Because that is the opposite of resting, my darling.”

“...no.”

Genesis laughed softly again, this time with nothing but genuine amusement. “Precious. Come here.”

They engaged in another staring contest until Jay finally lost his battle with himself and crawled out of the plushie mound to Genesis. Everything hurt again and Genesis’s warmth worked far better as a painkiller than it reasonably should have, especially when the purring finally got to Jay’s head.

“My fierce little cub,” Genesis hummed, hands sneakily finding the muscles where Jay always ached the most. “I will never, ever let anything hurt you. There is no hate, only joy, for you are beloved by the goddess.”

Jay melted into him, the headache finally easing, and wondered if he believed that.

Aerith’s heart was heavy when she got a text from Zack, just a few weeks after the first time she’d met his son: Jay was missing again. They didn’t know where he’d gone, and it was still too early in their bond to pin down an exact location. All they knew was that he hadn’t left Midgar yet. She sighed and put away her PHS as she walked up the steps to the church’s door. Poor little kid. Even with the planet’s blessing, he still didn’t know how to accept good things.

She startled badly when she rounded the altar to set down her basket and found the very same missing child curled up in a ball beneath it, staring up at her.

“Oh!” she gasped, putting a hand over her chest. “Jay!”

What was he doing here? He knew she came often, and he knew she would certainly text his parents. It was a terrible choice of hiding place if he didn’t want to be found by anyone.

So…maybe he did want to be found by someone?

She set down the basket and crouched in front of him, head tilted and a smile on her lips. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon, Petal. And especially not alone.”

His head sank a little lower behind his arms. He smelled tired and afraid. “They want to drug me, Aerith.”

She blinked at him in alarm. Had he been chased here? Kidnapped? “Who?”

“Zack and all of them. They want to drug me and let the doctors pick my brain apart.”

Now that didn’t sound right at all. It also didn’t sound like this was going to be a short conversation, so she moved from her crouch to sitting on her knees. “Zack does? What makes you think that?”

A little spark of anger flickered in his eyes, making them go slit for a moment. “Because they all said so! They think something’s wrong with me and it’s gotta be fixed by letting the doctors study me. But nothing like they think is wrong, I’m just…stupid. It’ll go away once I stop being stupid.”

Ah. Aerith thought she was starting to understand what was happening. She hummed. “Well, what are you being silly about, then? Maybe we can find a solution together.”

“It’s not important,” he muttered, turning his eyes away. “I just freak out over nothing sometimes. I can make it stop if I just try hard enough.”

“What do you mean, ‘freak out?’”

“Everyone calls them ‘panic attacks.’ It wouldn’t happen if I could just go fight something like I’m used to. But I’m stuck—” he cut himself off with a frustrated noise and thunked his forehead against his knees. “What am I supposed to do when I can’t do anything?”

“Oh, panic attacks? Those are nasty little beasties, aren’t they, Petal?” Jay looked up, surprised by her knowing tone, and she answered his unspoken question. “I used to get them a lot when I was little. Mom helped me get through them until they went away.”

“How?” he asked, staring at her intently.

“Well…it wasn’t easy, or fast. We talked a lot every time they happened. It took me a long time to understand what my mind was trying to tell me. I know it would have been a lot easier if I could have talked to a therapist, since they’re trained to help, but…” she shrugged and smiled. “It worked out in the end.”

“A…therapist?”

Oh, baby. “Someone who’s trained to help people who are anxious, or depressed, or having panic attacks. They talk to you and help you understand your thoughts and emotions.”

Immediately his expression shuttered distrustfully. “Like a psych eval? That the scientists do?”

“I don’t think so,” she said honestly. “That’s what they do with all the fighting people, right? Besides, most therapists aren’t scientists. They’re just…good at helping people understand themselves.”

Jay went quiet for a moment, thinking. “Why…why does anyone need them? If you just…try hard enough…”

“Well, Petal, it’s not that easy for most people. They need someone on the outside to look in and point out that what they’re thinking isn’t right. Or they need some support to confront their fears. Or they just need some special knowledge, like breathing exercises. My mom wasn’t trained, but the fact that she listened to me and pointed out when my brain was being silly helped me a lot. I couldn’t have fixed everything on my own.”

The breath he took trembled. “But…but if that’s what they want then why are they trying to drug me?”

“I don’t know. Did something happen that made them think you needed some medicine? Zack said you had some chronic pain, is that why?”

“I don’t need painkillers,” he said firmly. His head sank back down to rest where his arms still crossed over his legs. “But…I was stupid over nothing and…Zack said I stopped breathing…so he dragged me to Medical…and the nurse mentioned a prescription…”

It took more self-control than Aerith was aware she even had not to react to his words. Stopped breathing? No wonder Zack and his packmates wanted the kid on some meds. She was surprised they hadn’t tried anything more extreme than just some meds. Then again, they knew Jay’s traumas a lot better than she did, even if she could relate to them on a personal level.

“Did they tell you anything about the prescription?” she managed to ask with complete calm.

“Zack said…it would help with the panic attacks…”

“But you don’t want that?”

He shook his head in a jerky no. “I don’t want to feel hazy and—and weak.”

“You’ve tried that medication before?” she asked, playing up the surprise a little bit. She was sure the answer was no.

“Drugs always make me feel like that,” he said defensively, catching on to her game. “It takes a lot to work when you’ve been...you know.”

“Jay…have you ever gotten any medications for when you weren’t really, really hurt? From anyone who actually cared about your health and loved you?”

He didn’t answer, which was an answer in itself. “I-I shouldn’t need anything to stop being stupid.”

Aerith finally dared to skootch around and sit right next to the little omega, wrapping one arm over his narrow shoulders and pulling him into her side. “You’re not being stupid, Petal. Your mind is just trying to protect you, but the things that used to work don’t work so well now. It’s okay if you don’t want the medicine, but Zack and the others love you! They’re not trying to drug you and hand you over to the scientists. They just want you to be healthy and happy.”

He sniffled. “...I know.”

“Okay.” She rubbed his arm comfortingly. “How about I call Zack and then we sit together by the flowers until he gets here?”

Jay hesitated, conflicted.

“Please?” she tried. “They’re really worried about you.”

“But what if I don’t want to go back?” he whispered.

Aerith bit the inside of her lip. “Well…do you?” Because they were in for a very long, very emotionally fraught chase if the answer was no. She didn’t want to see that. Not again.

“...I don’t know. Should I?”

“Hmm. Well, I know I would! Zack’s hugs are just wonderful, don’t you think?”

“I guess.”

“And Angeal’s cooking? I’ve only had it once, you know, but you’ll have to convince them to invite me to dinner because I want it again!”

The tiniest little hint of a smile pulled at his lips. “He is really good at cooking. And he’s teaching me, too.”

Aerith smiled even wider. “Is he? Well, now you have to invite me to dinner when you cook! Of course, that’ll be hard to do if you get all silly and run off somewhere there isn’t a kitchen…”

Jay sighed slowly, his expression becoming tired again. “Yeah. Aerith…do you think…they could hurt me even though they don’t mean to?”

Always with the hard questions. And just when she thought she was making progress too. “I suppose anyone could do that. But Jay, they love you. And they are listening to you. If you tell them something hurts, they’re not going to ignore that.”

“Even though they’re kind of dumb?”

That startled a short giggle out of her. “Yes, even though they’re kind of dumb.”

He looked at her, searching her face for a moment until he found whatever he was looking for and slowly nodded. “Okay,” he said, almost to himself. “You can call them.”

Relief bloomed in her chest like a lily in the sunlight. “Thank you, Petal. Everything is going to be alright. I promise.”

When they came, they found Jay sitting with his bare feet planted in the dirt, Aerith at his back grooming his wings. She’d cheated to get them out, pouting and pleading, and he had no way to deny her. She already knew about them anyway, so there wasn’t much to hide. They looked better than before—still wounded, but better. He was aware of the image that he must have made, hair and wings glowing gold in the sunlight that streamed in through the hole in the roof.

It wasn’t Zack who got there first. It was Sephiroth.

When the doors opened, Jay didn’t move. Aerith didn’t either, and she didn’t stop working on his wings. Sephiroth walked to him with a single-minded focus, tempered by an obvious desire not to scare him off. Jay didn't say a word as he knelt and took his face in hand to press their foreheads together.

“Please believe me,” he whispered. “I would die before I ever let anyone turn you into an experiment again.”

He did believe Sephiroth, and that hit him like a physical blow because it was…such a reversal. He was used to—his entire body was wired in response to—looking into those slit green eyes and seeing the promise of exactly the reverse. It made something old and deep inside of him crack.

“Would you all stop making me cry!” he managed to get out before he dissolved into inarticulate sobbing.

Sephiroth laughed, though it sounded watery. “I apologize, little one,” he said, and swept Jay up into a tight hug. “But it is true nonetheless.”

It took a little bit for Jay  to get enough control over himself to speak clearly. “I don’t wa-ant to feel drugged,” he said, breath hitching through his words

“I know. I tend not to trust medicine either, Jay, I know. But this is not meant to feel like that. If something goes wrong and it does then we can change the dose or you can stop taking it.”

“I do-on’t nee-eed it at a-all!”

“Jay. The attacks are getting worse. You stopped breathing yesterday. You need help.”

The idea burned like a physical wound. “I don’t—”

“There is nothing wrong with needing help. You are certainly not the only one, Jay. Several SOLDIERs under my command take the same medicine for similar reasons. That does not diminish them in any way.”

Jay opened his mouth to respond, but he couldn’t. He buried his face in Sephiroth’s collar and sniffled petulantly. “I’ll think abou-out it.”

“Alright. Alright.”

The doors burst open again. Aerith yelled “be gentle Zack!” just a second before the dark-haired SOLDIER slammed into Sephiroth and Jay.

“Jayjay!” Zack warbled, stealing him from Sephiroth. He pressed a flurry of frantic little kisses to Jay’s face. “Please please please stop disappearing, you’re going to give me a heart attack.”

“Sorry,” he said, winding his arms around Zack’s neck and squeezing tight. “I’m sorry.”

The SOLDIER squeezed him back just as tightly. “Promise you’ll stop running off. Please.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Zack laughed a little. “Stubborn. Promise you’ll at least come home, then. Promise you’ll let us find you.”

Jay sniffed, opening his eyes to look at Sephiroth from over Zack’s shoulder. The silver-haired man looked painfully earnest when he offered a tiny, encouraging smile. Jay suddenly found himself wanting to go home, to the space he shared with people who cared about him, regardless of its flaws and imperfections and frightening miscommunications.

“Okay,” he said to Zack, putting his head back down. “I promise.”

And, incredibly…he meant it.

Bonus

Chapter Text

The Plushie Saga

Zack walked past with a load of dirty laundry on his hip—the first since they’d gotten Jay back from his little adventure, actually. Jay himself was drowsing up against Gen’s side, clearly trying not to fall asleep. It wasn’t working at all, but Zack was surprised Genesis wasn’t complaining about the drool slowly seeping into his shirt. And that reminded him—

“Hey, lemme see your plushie, bud,” Zack said, reaching over the back of the couch for his lookalike doll. Jay blinked at him, waking back up from the border of sleep. He frowned but held the plushie out. “Thanks baby. I’ll bring it back as soon as it’s done.”

Jay scowled and yanked it back as soon as he realized Zack meant to take it for longer than thirty seconds. “No!”

Gen clicked his tongue and ran a lazy hand through Jay’s hair. “Precious, it’s filthy. Let Zack toss it in the wash.”

“It’s fine,” Jay grumbled, hugging the thing protectively to his chest. “Leave him alone.”

Him? Awww. Zack narrowly held back a coo. “It’ll just be a few hours, Jay-Jay. Besides, I think there’s uh… some stray mako on it. It really needs to be washed.”

“Burned, more likely,” Genesis muttered, which was the wrong thing to say. Jay summarily abandoned him, offense written across his face, and scampered over to the recliner before they could stop him.

“I will likely burn you,” he asserted, stuffing the doll down the front of his shirt and curling around it, knees to chest. His glare warned them away. They exchanged a glance.

“...I’m going to let Angeal handle this one,” Genesis decided, and turned his attention back to his book. Zack sighed and left to deal with the laundry that wasn't being guarded by a fearsome little dragon.

Angeal’s resulting plan was simple: Jay liked Zack and Jay liked his Zack plushie, so just take the doll for a little while when he was asleep and replace it with the real thing. Jay was prideful. He wasn’t generally willing to admit that he even liked the doll, despite the fact that he carried it around everywhere. And anyway, he probably wouldn’t wake up before the drying cycle was done, and then the plushie would no longer be a biological hazard.

Simple.

As they shortly discovered, it was not simple at all.

The swap went just fine and Angeal started up a rapid cycle with the doll and the clothes Jay had worn while traipsing around Nibelheim (they’d been waiting for a wash in a biohazard bag). Jay snoozed on, drooling into Zack’s chest on the couch. All seemed to be going well until he twitched, fingers curling into fists, and his expression contorted.

“You’re okay, baby,” Zack said, noticing immediately. “I’ve gotcha. Nothing scary can get you while I’m here.”

Jay grunted, waking from the beginnings of his nightmare. One hand patted around, searching for the doll. Zack grimaced and caught it in his own hand instead. He kissed Jay’s cold little fingers and hoped it would be enough.

It was not enough. Jay chuffed in irritation and raised his head. “‘S Zack?”

“I’m right here, bud,” Zack answered, amused. He got a groggy, annoyed look for his troubles.

“N’ you. ‘S Zack?” he grumbled, still completely out of it.

Shit. Zack grimaced again and tried to guide Jay’s head back down. “Shh, just go back to sleep, Jay.”

“Zack?” At that point Jay was starting to sound and smell outright distressed, and he resisted the hand on his head. He squirmed upright, looking blearily around for the missing doll. “Zack?”

“Buddy—“ he sighed and gave up. “Hey, little Zack is in the wash, okay? Just go back to sleep and when you wake up he’ll be here.”

Jay stared down at him, tired and uncomprehending, for a very long moment. His eyes became cat-slit and shiny. 

And then his lip wobbled. 

Zack barely had a second of warning as Jay inhaled a breath to outright screech his distress and burst into tears.

“Ohshit,” Zack said, sitting upright so fast he blurred. Panic set in. Even in the worst-case scenario, they hadn’t anticipated this. “Uh—uh—it’s okay! It’s okay, look, big Zack is here, you can just hug me—“

“NO!” Jay wailed, kicking and squirming and pushing at Zack’s face until he had no choice but to let go. “NO NO NO NO! GIVE HIM BACK!”

“Baby…” Zack said helplessly, with no idea what to do. Angeal sprinted in and skidded to a stop by the couch. Gen and Seph were canoodling in the (extremely sound and scent-proofed) master bedroom, so they wouldn’t hear unless someone went and pounded on the door.

“What did you do?” Angeal asked as he reached for Jay. He, too, was rebuffed by screeches and kicks and flailing hands.

“You’re the one who put the damn doll in the washer!” Zack snapped, then forced himself to calm down. “Sorry—he’s mad about the doll.”

Angeal looked bewildered. “He didn’t want you?”

“No! Not even a little bit! Apparently me Zack and the doll Zack are two different things!” He took advantage of the moment to pull out his PHS and text his other two packmates an SOS.

“Jay, honey—“ Angeal tried again, but got no farther. Jay wedged himself into the corner of the couch and cried his eyes out, interspersed with garbled phrases like “give him back!” and “don’t take him!”

No progress had been made by the time Genesis stormed out of the master bedroom, covered in a floor-length dressing gown and far too much scent neutralizer. “What in the Goddess’s name,” he thundered, “are you doing to my baby!” He, too, reached for Jay, but was forced to retreat as the distraught wailing turned to something uncomfortably close to screaming.

“He’s mad because—“ Zack started, but Genesis cut him off.

“What are you talking about! He’s not mad, he’s acting like someone just died!”

Zack and Angeal both paused because… well, Genesis was right. The difference between angry upset and this upset was obvious now that it had been pointed out to them, but they’d both assumed that it was just normal Jay anger with a slightly different delivery. Of course, the realization then begged the question: why was he upset like someone had just died?

There was no use in trying to negotiate with him. He was fully immersed in his wailing fit, far past any rational thought. Zack tried one more time to coax Jay into his arms, but all he got was a bruised jaw for his troubles. Clearly, the doll wasn’t just a doll to Jay. Not anymore.

“Well—what do we do?” Zack asked, panicking as Jay worked himself into a coughing fit. Even in clear pain, he still didn’t allow any of the adults to help.

Genesis considered the problem with only marginally less panic than Zack. “...sleepel?” he finally suggested.

“Call my mom?” suggested Angeal, hands curling in and out of agitated fists as he held himself back from trying to comfort Jay.

“Claudia!” Zack realized, fumbling for his PHS. He punched in her number and hit the dial button, muttering prayers that she would pick up. The PHS connected after an agonizing wait. 

“Hello?”

“Mama Strife! Help!” Zack said.

“What? Are you alright, Zack?” she asked with alarm.

“Yes—I mean, no! Jay is having a fit because we put his plushie in the wash and we don’t know what to do!” He almost whimpered aloud pathetically when Jay’s wailing picked up a little.

“Oh. Oh dear.” Claudia considered the issue. “He gave you the doll?”

“Well… no, he didn’t want to so we thought we could wash it while he was asleep?”

Zack winced as he could practically feel Claudia’s disapproval radiating across continents. “I see. And he’s very attached to it?”

“I—we didn’t think he was attached like this,” Zack said helplessly.

She sighed. “Alright, well, give it back to him.”

“But it’s in the wash?”

“Sweetheart. Stop the wash. Actually, stop the wash, run a bath, and then go wash both my grandbaby and his plushie in it. I can imagine what kind of mess he is right now, and a bath would do him good.”

Zack suddenly felt very small and very stupid. “You can… wash plushies in a bath?”

“Don’t use machine soap,” Claudia said patiently. “Just a little baby wash will do the trick. Let Jay do it, if he wants. He might even forgive you.”

“Okay. Um.” He turned to his packmates, who both looked the same way Zack felt. “‘Geal, can you get the doll? And Gen, run a bath?” They departed without a word. Zack glanced at his sobbing kid. “Um. He’s kind of hysterical right now. How do I…?”

“Give him the plushie.”

“Right.”

Angeal brought it within thirty seconds, still thoroughly wet but wrung out enough to at least not drip everywhere. Hopefully it had been in the machine long enough to remove most of the biohazardous residue. Zack took it and handed the PHS off to Angeal.

“Here, Jay, look, here he is, okay?” He crept forward enough to put the doll on Jay’s upturned knees. “Don’t cry, it’s okay.”

Jay hiccuped, jolted from his fit by the sudden cold and damp sensation on his skin more than by anything Zack said. He looked at the doll with watery eyes for a long second before he realized what it was. His relief flooded the air and he snatched it up, hugging tight as it sent him into a different kind of crying fit.

This time, when Zack tentatively reached to pick him up, he wasn’t rebuffed.

“Okay,” he said, relieved enough that he thought he might start crying too. The whole incident had been less than ten minutes, but it had felt like ten years. He never, ever wanted to be in a situation where Jay fought him like that again.

Angeal was considerate enough to walk him to their bathroom—much larger here in pack quarters than even the extravagant one in Sephiroth’s old apartment had been—with a guiding hand on the shoulder. Genesis had refrained from putting anything too strong in the water, choosing instead to emphasize the natural, clean scents of the pack.

“You can handle this,” the redhead told them. “I need to finish tending to Sephiroth.” His eyes narrowed. “Don’t do anything else to upset him.” Satisfied with his threat, he swept out of the bathroom.

Jay hadn’t stopped crying by the time both Zack and Angeal managed to get undressed. He adamantly refused to cooperate in their efforts to get his pajamas off, so they gave up on that and just brought him in fully clothed. He didn’t even seem to notice as he sat curled up in Zack’s lap, face pressed against his plushie. For some reason they couldn’t even hope to understand, he smelled intensely of guilt.

“You’re okay,” Zack whispered, stroking his sweaty hair. He leaned into Angeal for some comfort of his own. “I’m sorry, baby, we won’t do it again.”

They didn’t try any actual grooming until Jay calmed down enough for embarrassment to start creeping into his scent. Angeal chuckled, reaching out to gently tug his little ear. “It’s alright, Jay. I’m glad you trusted us enough to… be upset.” The embarrassment deepened—clearly Jay did not agree. Angeal just shook his head. “Can we get you out of those wet pjs now?”

Poor Jay, sweaty and snotty and red-faced, steadfastly avoided eye contact as they got his pajamas off and started cleaning him up. He was confused when Zack offered a little baby wash, then less so when Zack softly said, “How about you work on little Zack’s hair while I work on yours, huh?”

The little omega didn’t bother in playing pretend and grooming the doll like it was a person. He just went right for it, briskly scrubbing down little Zack. Big Zack supposed that the pretense that Jay liked to maintain had returned. Of course, it was too late to take back the truth that the adults now knew: that doll was much, much more than just a stand-in for big Zack, or a convenient soft object to occupy Jay’s little hands.

The question was, what exactly did the plushie mean to him?

Jay drowsed in a towel in Angeal’s arms while Zack saw to the tedious process of drying the plushie with a hairdryer. He was about halfway done when Genesis swept back into the bathroom, materia orb in hand. The redhead extravagantly rolled his eyes at both of his packmates before he dried the doll instantly (he really was just that good with magic) and handed it over to Jay.

The sigh that Jay gave was so deep it shuddered. He hugged the plushie tight as the last dregs of his upset finally melted away. He was asleep before they even managed to dress him.

Later, when they were curled up in the nest together awaiting Gen and Seph, Zack hesitantly raised a question that refused to leave him alone. “Hey… do you think maybe there was another Zack?”

Angeal’s hands, which had been playing with his hair, paused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean—well, maybe not someone actually named Zack, but someone that Jay is sort of… thinking of with little Zack. And maybe me, too.” He gently traced the slope of Jay’s nose, unable to keep still.

“Oh.” Angeal considered the question. “That does make sense. You can ask him about it when he wakes up.”

Zack thought about Jay’s hysterical distress at being unable to find his Zack plushie. He thought about the way Jay had rejected all of them while gripped by it. He thought about how, from the very beginning, Jay had seemed to transfer some preexisting feeling onto him the same way he had to Sephiroth—positive versus negative. He thought about all of that, and he weighed it against his desire to understand why.

“No,” he decided, hugging his kid tight. “I think I’m just gonna leave that one alone.”

Medicinal

When Jay took the little pill Angeal handed him, he held it like a man holding the means of his own execution. He looked at it, unmoving. The expected (but still very concerning) smell of intense apprehension filled the air. Angeal nudged him a little. “Jay?”

Mechanically, Jay picked up the cup next to him, put the pill on the back of his tongue, and swallowed it with a mouthful of water. Then he climbed down from his seat without a single word and trudged out of the kitchen. It really looked like he expected to drop over dead at any second, and Angeal followed to make sure he was alright.

To his surprise Jay directly sought out Sephiroth, who was reading through some reports on the couch. He didn’t say anything. He just climbed up and crawled over him, cramming himself into the small space between the couch’s arm and Seph’s torso. Sephiroth looked thoroughly startled by this turn of events.

“Jay?” He set aside the laptop and focused on wrapping his arms around their kid instead. “What’s wrong?”

“He just took his meds,” Angeal answered when Jay didn’t. The smell of bleak fear stung his nose.

“Ah,” said Sephiroth, looking down at the child in his arms. Jay kept as much of himself hidden as he could and didn’t comment. Sephiroth stroked the back of his head. “Tell me how your body reacts. We will keep a log as we go and adjust the dose. Alright?”

Jay made a rare plaintive noise, specific to children— I don’t want to, it scares me, protect me, I need comfort. Had there been a physical threat present, it would have been annihilated instantly just to quiet that noise. Sadly, the threat was not physical. Not in the same way, at least. Angeal grimaced, nodding to Sephiroth before leaving the situation in his capable hands.

Sephiroth inhaled the response his instincts wanted him to give and exhaled calm instead. He patted Jay’s back. “It’s going to be alright. Are you feeling anything right now?”

“…nauseous.”

That was most likely an effect of anxiety and not the medicine, but rational explanations were not the point here. “Alright,” he said, coaxing Jay into a position where he could be more comfortably picked up. Sephiroth carried him into the kitchen and rooted around the fridge until he found the ginger soda they’d bought for exactly this reason. He took one of Zack’s ridiculously-shaped straws and put it in the glass of soda.

“Here. It will help with the nausea," he told Jay, jostling him slightly as encouragement to leave his hiding place in Sephiroth’s neck.

The little one turned his head the absolute minimum he needed to and took the glass, sticking the ridiculous straw in his mouth without any of his customary complaints. Sephiroth used the opportunity to kiss his temple, and his forehead, and his hairline. His chest rumbled with a deep, quiet purr— I’m here, I have you, everything will be okay.

The smell of Jay’s fear dissipated a little.

For the rest of the day he refused to be parted from Sephiroth. He would make that same plaintive noise at intervals— I'm scared, am I going to be okay?— and only Sephiroth’s reassurances did anything. Even when Zack came home Jay didn’t budge, which was such a monumental first that it made the whole pack stop in their tracks. Sephiroth was just as wide-eyed as the rest of his packmates.

Zack, after his initial surprise at being rebuffed, smiled with both delight and worry. “Hey, that’s great! He trusts you, Seph.”

“I—suppose,” Sephiroth agreed with a rare stutter, cradling the back of Jay’s head. Privately, he felt a fragile little bloom of warmth in his chest. His own suffering under the hands of scientists was the reason Jay trusted him and believed his assurances. It felt… nice, to know he could offer something his infinitely more qualified packmates could not.

Cloud’s First Heat

Jay was busy playing a video game on Zack’s console in the living room when he heard the master bedroom’s door open. Whatever argument Cloud and Zack had been having was completely muffled until that moment, so the abrupt upwelling of noise startled him. He paused the game to listen.

“—can’t just spend some time with you, pleeeeease!” Zack whined.

“Nope!” Cloud said forcefully. He sounded partly annoyed and partly gleeful. “No way. This is me and Jay time.”

“But—!”

Jay watched, confused, as Cloud hustled into the living room with Zack on his heels. “Nope! But you can unplug your console and move it to the master bedroom so we can play.”

“What!” Zack cried, dismayed. “You mean I can’t play for a week?”

Cloud grinned at Jay as he swooped down and picked him up with no warning, taking the controller from his hands and tossing it to Zack.

“Wait, I didn’t save!” Jay protested as he was carted away, back toward the bedrooms.

“I’ve gotcha baby,” Zack assured him, and then went right back to whining at Cloud. “But Cloud, why can’t we snuggle too! Just a little bit? Some of the time?”

“None of you have heat privileges yet,” Cloud said loftily, which confused Jay. They were arguing about heat? They probably meant that weird new part of the reproductive cycle Jay had picked up on but never bothered to figure out… because he didn’t care, NOT because it freaked him out and he didn’t want to think about it. Obviously.

“But—!”

“Come back with snacks and a game console,” Cloud commanded, and gleefully slammed the bedroom door in Zack’s face.

Jay frowned at Cloud, trying to figure out what was going on (and why they were involving him). Cloud noticed and his mischievous smile softened. “You’re always so suspicious,” he said fondly, kissing the side of Jay’s head. Jay’s frown turned into a scowl.

“What’s going on this time?” Jay asked bluntly.

“Vacation,” Cloud said. He put Jay down and set about rearranging the massive bed into a very picky nest, pulling a truly ridiculous amount of extra pillows and blankets from the closet and under the bed. “I’m about half a day out from my heat, and you get to spend it with me!”

That made no sense, and Jay didn’t bother to hide the way his expression twisted with disbelief and revulsion. “Eeew? Isn’t heat when you get all…” He tried to pick a word that wouldn’t accidentally trigger a well-meaning interrogation. “…horny?”

His attempt didn’t work. Cloud stopped immediately and turned to look at him with poorly-hidden alarm. “No,” he said, stepping close enough to drop down to a knee in front of Jay. “Why do you think that? Has anyone tried to—“

“No!” Jay said quickly. “I just…assumed?”

“No one’s tried to touch you or make you watch anything…adult? That made you uncomfortable?” Cloud pressed, and Jay squirmed in place.

“No!” He insisted, looking everywhere but at Cloud. Obviously he knew what sex was, but he’d never been violated like that. He’d always been tortured in other ways.

“You know you could tell me, right?” Cloud said. If anything, he just sounded more alarmed now. “Even if someone told you not to, or you felt ashamed about—“

“Oh Planet, no one’s done anything inappropriate or whatever, I just don’t want to talk about sex with you!” Jay said, absolutely done with the conversation. He attempted to squirm around Cloud and make a break for it, but an arm caught him around the waist.

“Okay, okay, I believe you,” Cloud soothed. “But you… really should know a lot more about heat and a lot less about sex at your age.” He still sounded worried. “How did you learn—“

“A TEXTBOOK. STOP.” That was a lie, but hopefully one Cloud would buy and then drop it. Jay covered his face with his hands as his cheeks burned. He did not want to think about sex and his doppelganger in the same context, much less the people his doppelganger made eyes at.

Cloud exhaled slowly. “Okay. I’m sorry, I’ll drop it.” ‘ For now’ went unspoken. He toted Jay over to the bed-turned-proper-nest and tumbled them both to the middle of it. “Anyway, no, heats aren’t just for… uh, romantic intimacy. It is part of the reproductive cycle, yeah, but mostly it’s for social bonding. I spend my heat with friends. When I was younger I spent them with Ma, both for hers and mine.”

“Oh.” Jay considered this as Cloud snuggled him like an oversized teddy bear. “Okay, but don’t you want to spend it with Zack and stuff?”

Cloud snorted. “This is between you and me, kid,” he said, sitting upright and making a show of looking around shiftily before he quirked a brow at Jay and smirked. “But they all think it’s easy to win me over, just because we’re packmates. No way! They’ve gotta earn it.”

Jay looked at Cloud askance. “But you keep—ugh— flirting with them!” he said with distaste.

Cloud burst out laughing. “Oh Jayjay. You are so cute.” He loudly smooched his cheek again, which made him wonder if this was part of the impending heat. Cloud definitely seemed a little more over-the-top with his affection than usuall.

“That isn’t an answer,” Jay grumbled, halfheartedly pushing Cloud’s face away.

Cloud smiled, allowing it, and then shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe it’s just fun.”

Oh. Yeah, that…actually made a lot of sense. It definitely made more sense than any other explanation. “Is that why you’re dragging me into it?” he asked, giving Cloud a gimlet eye.

Mistake. Cloud’s expression went soft and a little sad. “Jay… I’m not ‘dragging you into it’ like you’re some kind of strategic asset. I want to spend time with you, especially a really nice time like this. Trust me, once the heat hormones really start up you’ll get it. When you’re happy and you have people you love around you it’s the best feeling in the whole world.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Jay grumbled, quickly steering away from the messy feelings talk.

Thankfully there was a knock on the door at that moment, interrupting anything Cloud might have said. Genesis poked his head in a moment later, looking around before he entered. “Now, why is Zack moping in the living room about being banned from the bedroom?” he asked, carrying the game console and its bundle of cables. He answered his own question a moment later as he sniffed deeply. “Ah! You’re about to hit your heat, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Cloud said. Jay glanced at his face and noticed the anticipatory gleam in his eye.

“Wonderful!” said Genesis, dropping the console off beneath the flatscreen. He’d only just gotten home, so he shed his coat and tossed it over the edge of the dresser before he sauntered toward the bed. “Your first heat with us, I promise I shall—“

When he went to crawl into the bed, Cloud put a foot in his face and shoved. “Oh no you don’t!” Cloud said, grinning. “Jay only. You’re banned too.”

Genesis gaped in disbelief. “Excuse me?” he sputtered.

“Shoo,” Cloud said, accompanied by a hand gesture.

Genesis tried to wheedle. “Darling be reasonable, banning the alphas and betas is perfectly understandable but—“

“Nope. Jay only. Don’t overstay your welcome or you’ll get to see my territorial instincts firsthand.” He cuddled Jay close, all while maintaining eye contact with Genesis. 

The partially outraged, partially considering tilt to Genesis’s lips was very entertaining to see, Jay would admit. “Hmmph!” the overdramatic man said, tossing his head. “Well then, I see how it is.” It sounded like a challenge more than acquiescence. He flounced out.

Cloud laughed as soon as the door was shut. “Oh yeah, he saw right through that,” he commented to Jay. “I predict bribes. Lots and lots of bribes.”

Jay’s expression scrunched. “You’re so weird.”

“Just like you!” Cloud said, and smothered his face in kisses the exact same way Ma liked to. Jay’s indignant squawk was ignored. “Let’s play some video games and wait for the bribes to start!”

Jay was starting to understand Cloud’s strategy and why he was so enthused about all of this. They sat together playing games and watching movies for hours, with periodic knocks on the door to deliver bribes of food, games, and comfortable bedding items. There were also toys for Jay specifically, usually handed over with a pleading look like put in a good word for me with the boss.

Jay decidedly did not do that.

When evening came they bathed and went to bed in the world’s most comfortable nest, and as the next morning rolled around Jay woke up feeling… different. The moment he inhaled he could sense the difference, especially since Cloud’s chest was right underneath his cheek. Cloud smelled amazing —safe and inviting and warm. Jay burrowed deeper into the smell and drank it in greedily before his mind caught up with him.

Part of him was alarmed by the intensity of the feeling. It felt as intense as a drug, potent and intoxicating. Disgruntled, he assumed it wasn’t supposed to be quite so powerful and this was yet another thing he would have to get used to, just like the purring and the growling and everything else.

Another part of him embraced the sensation with enthusiasm. When did he ever get to feel this safe and relaxed normally? He didn’t think he would even need a dose of his meds today. Cloud’s scent was doing a far better job on its own than the pills did, so he sighed to himself and let his head fall again.

The natives to this universe were probably used to the feeling, but Jay found that he could have laid there, blissed out and blank-minded, for days. He had no idea how long it was until Cloud stirred, automatically wrapping arms around him and sleepily kissing the top of his head.

“My Jay,” he slurred, still halfway asleep. Jay noticed they were both purring, although he didn’t know when it had started. “Mmm, my baaaaaby I love you.”

Normally Jay would have been a little disgruntled—he was not a baby—but somehow Cloud’s declaration hit him like a punch. It was far from the first time he’d heard ‘I love you’ from Cloud and the others, but something about the cocktail of pheromones in the air and the resulting hormones in his own blood made it hit with force. He felt loved, intensely and unconditionally, far deeper than the barriers he kept up ever allowed.

Much to his surprised horror, he hiccuped and burst into tears.

"Oh Jay, Jay," Cloud crooned, fully awake all at once. "It's okay. Shh, I love you, it's okay. What's wrong?"

“Nuh—othing,” Jay hiccuped, scrubbing at his eyes. It was stupid. There was no reason for him to be acting like a baby over some words and a hug.

“Nothing? Are you hurt?” Cloud started patting him down, but Jay batted at his arms.

“No!” The tears wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t bring himself to try and scramble out of the nest for a tactical retreat.

“Hmm.” Cloud consideringly, sitting both of them upright and hugging him tight. “Oh! It’s the first heat you’ve shared. Is it overwhelming you? I’m sorry Jay, I should have thought about that.”

“I’m fine, I’m not crying,” Jay insisted nonsensically. Cloud’s attention was somehow both calming him down and making it worse. Or maybe his reaction to Cloud’s calming attention was making it worse? He didn’t like… feeling things on the best of days, and this was feeling in overwhelming intensity. It was starting to scare him badly enough to undo all the hard work they’d done to get his panic attacks under control. Maybe he needed his usual dose of meds after all—but he still hated taking them and didn’t want to.

“Baby, you’re hyperventilating,” Cloud said, patting his back. “Can you do one of the exercises or do we need to go find your meds?”

“Nooo,” Jay whined, still pawing frantically at his eyes. “I don’t wanna…”

“Okay, come on, can you find five things you can see?” Cloud asked. It was an obvious misdirection because he picked Jay up and started crawling out of the nest while he asked, clearly intending to leave the room and go hunt down the meds.

“Noooo!” He wound his arms around Cloud’s neck and buried his face against his shoulder. The mild hyperventilation just made the smell fill his lungs even more. He found himself stuck between the desire to stay there and drink in comfort and the desire to get up and run very far away. Which was stupid, because he liked Cloud and he’d had it pounded into his head that yes, he did deserve safety and comfort on occasion.

He successfully managed to get his breathing under control for a moment as seething irritation with his own brain filled him. It was an idiot and he wished he could make it shut up forever.

“No?” Cloud padded to the door, running one hand up and down Jay’s back. “How about four things you can hear?”

“Not fooling me,” Jay answered petulantly, losing control of his breathing again. “Don’t… want… meds.”

“Yeah, I know bud,” Cloud said, opening the bedroom door. He didn’t even try to pretend that wasn’t the plan. “Hey, how about we call Grandma later? You can tell her about that sword First Class Johannes got you.”

It was a cool sword. And he would like to talk with Ma—or grandma, as she’d become. But he refused to be appeased that easily.

Sephiroth seemed to be the only one home for the moment (just because Cloud was in heat didn’t mean everyone else got off work) and he was at their side so quickly he created a brief flutter of wind. “What’s wrong? Is Jay hurt?”

One of Sephiroth’s hands touched Jay’s upper back as Cloud shook his head. “No, I think maybe the hormone response he’s having is a little overwhelming since it's the first time he’s felt it. Can you get his meds—no, actually, you take him, I’ll go back into the room.”

Conflicted as his feelings were, Jay still preferred the ambivalence of being with Cloud over the unquestionably unpleasant fate of going with Sephiroth— only pills and worried hovering and non-euphoric hugs lay that way. So he locked his arms and refused to budge.

“Jay—” Cloud grunted when the first attempt to pry him off failed. “Jay, baby, you’ll feel less overwhelmed if you go with Seph. You’re still hyperventilating.”

“Noooo.”

Sephiroth interrupted whatever coaxing Cloud was going to try next. “Jay, how about you take a short break with me, and then we can go back to Cloud and see if it’s still overwhelming?”

“Don’t… want meds,” Jay insisted. At this point he’d forgotten why he hated them so much and was just clinging to his stubbornness for the sake of it.

“How about we sit together on the couch for thirty minutes and then reassess?” Sephiroth proposed, which was code for if you still can’t breathe you’ll get to pick between meds or a trip to go see Dr. Clara. It wasn’t exactly a great deal.

When Jay was stubbornly silent for a minute too long, Cloud brightly said “Well, I guess we can go to Medical right now instead!”

Jay abandoned ship and scrambled over to Sephiroth’s arms.

Cloud snorted. He must have given some gesture to Seph before he went back into the room, because there was a conspicuous pause, filled only by Jay’s unsteady breathing. Then Cloud leaned in to kiss the side of his head one more time and the bedroom door shut. Sephiroth sighed in his very quiet Sephiroth-y way and carried him out to the living room.

“You’re… so… annoying,” Jay informed him grumpily. Sephiroth was the one person he never had any qualms about being openly mean to, even when he didn’t actually mean it. The guy just seemed to get it. Genesis or Zack or Angeal would have responded seriously, but Sephiroth only hummed as he sat down and said “I know,” with a slight smile in his voice.

“Really…annoying,” Jay insisted between pants as he was arranged so that his breathing would be as unobstructed as possible, with his back up against Sephiroth’s chest and his head tucked securely under his chin. He found himself feeling loved again and tried to blink back fresh tears. Clearly he was still being affected.

“I know.” Sephiroth took one of his hands and squeezed it gently as he sniffled. “Tell me five things you can see.”

He didn’t want to do the stupid exercise because he didn’t want to admit that anything was wrong that he couldn’t fix. He didn’t want the meds or the doctors or the exercises. He just wanted his stupid brain to stop betraying him like this! Why couldn’t he just make himself be fine?

“I know you’re frustrated,” Sephiroth said, brushing his bangs from his forehead as the hyperventilation got worse and he started to choke up with tears and snot. “I know. I’m sorry, Jay, but I don’t have a better way to help you. If you just try the exercise, you might not even need the meds today.”

That was a big fat lie and Jay knew it. Any reasonable adult would insist he take his meds after something this bad. He did need them. He knew he did, but he still didn’t want them, and he was so grateful that the SOLDIERs gave him enough leeway to make stupid, self-destructive decisions…sometimes, at least. It made him feel loved. Again.

Jay lost the last of his tenuous control. “Stupid!” he wailed as the sobbing resumed in earnest. Stupid, stupid SOLDIERs with their stupid love and attention for his stupid self who couldn’t even handle the most stupidly tiny amount of it without having a mental breakdown. He pressed his hands over his face and stopped trying to pretend he was okay.

Sephiroth responded immediately, his chest rumbling with a deep, steady, soothing purr. He retrieved the Zack plushie from where it had fallen and tucked it between their chests before he stood up and began to pace. Jay buried his face in Sephiroth’s shoulder as he cried, holding onto Zack with one hand and Sephiroth’s shirt with the other.

Jay wasn’t okay. He was damaged and he knew it, even if he didn’t want to think about it. Love had become dangerous for so long—it was either a false, possessive love, or it was a pure and unselfish love that was used against him. He’d tried so hard to not want love, not accept it, and not need it, but that just wasn’t how it worked. Now that he had people who loved him and a safe place to accept it, he realized that he didn’t know how anymore. It scared him.

What if he was so broken he could never accept love? Or, worse, what if his deepest fears were right and everyone that loved him was doomed to destruction? It was a lot safer to assume the latter and keep everyone away, but part of him—a part relentlessly coaxed out by his altered biology—desperately wanted to be healthy and normal again. It didn’t want to pretend he didn't need love. It wanted to be open and honest in its desire (demand, really) for love, support, and safety.

So Jay wasn’t okay at all as he wrestled with himself. His chest ached horribly with something that felt like grief, and it was hard to breathe. Maybe it would have been worse without Sephiroth trying to soothe him, but—no. No, without Sephiroth there to love him, he would have just stuffed all his feelings away and ignored them. Better in the short term, to be sure, but it didn’t fix anything.

He wasn’t sure getting snot all over Sephiroth’s shirt was fixing anything either, but he knew he couldn’t hide from himself forever. He probably had to break down and let the years of accumulated grief and terror out at some point and unfortunately today seemed to be it.

His head was starting to get light when he realized they were in the kitchen and Sephiroth had the pill bottle in his hand, and… alright, Jay was willing to accept that he needed a little help calming down right now. It was better than being dragged to Medical, at least.

It took some doing to swallow the damn pill, considering his throat kept constricting with sobs and he couldn’t breathe properly, but eventually he managed it. Sephiroth made him drink some extra water, anticipating a dehydration headache, before he finally relented and let Jay put his head back down. The meds wouldn’t work for a little while, but Sephiroth didn’t resume his pacing. Instead, he leaned back into the kitchen counter and just ran his free hand up and down Jay’s back, waiting patiently.

By the time Jay finally went quiet, he was immensely grateful for the extra water. He felt wrung out and sweaty, but for once there was no headache. The pills took the edge off his panic, but the way they mixed with the… what had Cloud called them? Heat hormones? The way they mixed with the heat hormones made him feel like he couldn’t quite get his emotional balance. And besides that he was still afraid, just not panicked to the point of childishness.

With his head resting securely against Sephiroth’s shoulder, he wondered what he was supposed to do. Not run away—that impulse belonged to his panic, and it would never work anyway. Could he stay quiet and just ignore the way he kept floundering when offered safety and affection? Maybe the answer for how to be normal again would come to him if he just waited.

He almost snorted aloud at the thought. Yeah, right. He knew full damn well he was going to have to work long and hard and painfully to win back the normal self he barely even remembered… or believed could exist again.

“Can you tell me what overwhelmed you, Jay?” Sephiroth asked when he’d been quiet for a while. His voice was soft and undemanding.

“Um.” Jay sniffled, trying to think of an answer. He wasn’t trying to think of a lie, per se, but he also just didn’t know how to answer honestly.

No— that was a lie. He did know. But he balked at the idea of saying something so vulnerable and fundamentally humiliating out loud. And he balked even more when it occurred to him that he probably had to say it out loud in order to start improving. He turned his face so that it was fully hidden and brought the plushie up to cover his exposed side for good measure.

“Um. I guess…” his voice wavered, muffled by his position hiding his face, but that was Sephiroth’s problem. If he wanted to know he would have to listen hard. “I guess… it’s just when you… when I feel like you all…” He was starting to choke up again. He had to stop and take a shuddering breath. Sephiroth waited patiently, one hand rubbing his back.

“It’s—it hasn’t been safe to feel… like this… until now. A-and Cloud’s… uh, stuff, made it feel… I-I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t feeling… it, and…” He hiccuped, humiliated tears spilling over and soaking into Sephiroth’s already-damp shirt. “A-and it’s scary because it still feels dangerous and I don’t know how to make myself be… not messed up!”

There. It was out. He’d said it, if in a strangled and somewhat incomprehensible way. He hoped the goddamn SOLDIER bastard holding him was happy, especially since the admission body slammed him back into stupid crying. His chest hurt.

Sephiroth was smart enough not to comment immediately. Instead, he straightened up and returned to the living room so he could pace again. When Jay got himself back under control, he sat down on the couch.

“It hasn’t been safe to feel comfortable?” Sephiroth asked. That was a much less humiliating word than loved, so Jay quickly nodded. “And when you were with Cloud you felt so comfortable that it scared you?” Jay nodded again and his nose twitched a little as he caught a whiff of sadness and barely-controlled fury. 

Despite himself, he felt his heart lurch with anxiety in response. Sephiroth quickly lowered the pitch of his purr and cradled the back of his head—a wordless reassurance of I'm not angry with you. He relaxed again.

“Thank you for telling me,” Sephiroth said, carding fingers through his hair. “I know it was hard.” The SOLDIER took a deep breath and paused, considering what he wanted to say. Jay finally turned his head to the side, letting the plushie drop to his lap, so that he could breathe easier. He sniffled and cleared his throat.

“Jay… it’s okay if you’re not okay right now. It’s okay to be scared, even if you don’t think it makes sense. It protected you while you were being… mistreated.” Sephiroth took another deep breath and Jay smelled the briefest hint of fury again before it was quieted. “You are not ‘messed up.’ You’re just… a little injured, and you need some time and help to recover. It is no different from being physically injured.”

Pretty sure that counts as being ‘messed up,’ Jay thought wryly, but he didn’t argue. He felt much calmer now. He didn’t know how much was the meds and how much was thanks to him explaining out loud, but it seemed to be working either way. And, strangely… even when he felt calm, he didn’t feel ashamed over his childishness. 

He felt justified. It had been hard, and he wanted comfort. He deserved it. There was nothing wrong with accepting it. He wasn’t in danger, and Sephiroth wasn’t in danger, and no one else was in danger either. Everything was okay.

It was—it was okay. Even though he hadn’t been in control of himself, even though he’d had to ask for help, admit weakness, and rely on people who loved him, everything was okay.

When he exhaled, his breath shuddered and he had to close his eyes against an upwelling of relieved tears. It finally clicked: he wasn’t okay, but he didn’t have to be. Even if he was never okay, that would still be… okay. There was no outward pressure he had to match and bear up under. His recovery was entirely for himself.

He only had to be okay if he wanted to be.

Sephiroth seemed to sense his sudden change in mood. “Jay?” he asked softly, patting his back.

Jay shifted, his breathing only a little bit shaky, and wrapped his arms around Sephiroth in a tight hug. A tiny, quiet purr rumbled in his throat as Sephiroth hugged him back without skipping a beat.

“Are you feeling better?” Sephiroth asked, not quite sure what to make of the change.

“Yeah,” Jay rasped, face buried in the collar of the General’s shirt. “Not okay, but better.” He inhaled deeply, seeking an unnecessary but still pleasant reminder of where and when he was. The warm mint smell of Sephiroth, mixed with the scents of the other men in the pack, was undeniably real and undeniably home. He was safe. He was loved and cared for as a person, not a weapon or a belonging.

He had a fleeting thought, there and gone in an instant: maybe they’d even still love him if they knew what he really was.

One mental hurdle was enough for the day though, so he raised his head and looked at the man as he asked, “Can we both go join Cloud?”

Sephiroth looked hesitant. “Are you sure it won’t overwhelm you again? Especially with my presence added?”

Jay shook his head. “I don’t think so. Or… if it does, maybe only a little bit this time, since it’s okay to… not be okay?”

Sephiroth’s eyes softened to a borderline uncomfortable degree, but Jay resisted the urge to duck behind his bangs and hide. “Alright,” Sephiroth agreed, dipping down a little to kiss his forehead. “Let’s go join Cloud.”

Jay hopped down and together they went to the kitchen to gather up supplies like food and drinks before heading to the master bedroom. Sephiroth glanced down at him just before they knocked. “I trust this is not part of some scheme to make the others seethe with jealousy?”

“No,” said Jay. Then a tiny smirk pulled at the corner of his lip. “Well. Maybe just a little.”

Roche’s Road Rematch

Jay had a sort of… understanding with Roche. The SOLDIER had hardly been the among the first choices for babysitting, but when circumstances had aligned and the backup of the backup of the backup (aka Roche) had to be employed, Jay had seen an opportunity. Thus, he’d done something he rarely did for anyone who wasted their time babysitting him, including the five SOLDIERs who’d adopted him: he behaved.

Not too much, of course. He couldn’t make anyone suspicious. But he did behave far more for Roche than he did for anyone else. And he could tell from the considering gleam in Roche’s eye that the Third had at least some idea of what he was up to.

It took months of patience. Slowly, Roche was selected for more and more stints as a babysitter. Slowly, he was trusted to watch Jay for longer periods of time. Slowly, Jay lulled them into a false sense of security and made them think he would always be good when Roche was watching him.

They gave Roche permission to take him out into Midgar, as long as at least one of the responsible Firsts, like Elias Johannes, went too. Those outings were fun, actually. Eli let him kill low-level slum monsters, and even though that was far from the kind of thrills he normally wanted, it was incredibly gratifying after so long without any real action. Still, it was just a stepping-stone in his master plan.

Then, finally, they made a fatal mistake: they let Roche take him out alone.

Thirty minutes after Roche had nodded solemnly about keeping Jay safe and being responsible, the two of them were racing down to Roche’s illicit junkyard racing track. Two gleaming SOLDIER-grade motorcycles waited for them: one Roche’s, and one painstakingly built by and for Jay, smuggled down piece by piece and assembled by Roche.

“I’ve been waiting so long,” Jay crowed, pulling on goggles and an appropriately-sized set of protective gear. Roche had insisted on that, actually. He wanted a rematch, not to be murdered by Jay’s… caretakers.

“As have I, little speed demon,” Roche said, throwing his leg over his motorcycle and settling into the seat like he was born for it. “This… oh, this will be a rematch for the ages! Our race will be worthy of poetry!”

Jay rolled his eyes as he hopped up onto his own cycle. It was incredibly gratifying to actually be able to reach the pedals. “Yeah, yeah, I'm sure your second loss will be poetic, Big Speed Demon. Now race me!”

Roche laughed as his motorcycle roared to life. “So confident, for such a tiny competitor. We shall see who the true master of the ride is!”

Jay blew a raspberry—honestly, Roche’s dramatics were worse than Genesis’s sometimes—and shot off. The SOLDIER crowed a laugh and followed close behind.

The race was dangerous because of course it was. The track was haphazard and littered with obstacles to make the otherwise repetitive laps far more interesting. The walls of the makeshift arena curved, enabling them to drive up into it once they’d gotten sufficient speed. By the third lap, they were racing at speeds too fast for normal humans to keep up with.

By the fourth, Jay was laughing.

Adrenaline surged through his veins like nitrous oxide, driving him to a thrilled high he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Unlike a panic attack, this surge of adrenaline had no anxiety attached to it. He felt like he was flying. He didn’t even really care about winning anymore—he just wanted this feeling to last for as long as it could.

But he would win anyway. Just for the hell of it.

“JAY STRIFE!”

The boom of Angeal’s voice sent Jay screeching to a halt, dragging a long skid mark along the track behind him. Roche had been neck and neck with him and stopped just as quickly. He whipped around, eyes wide behind the goggles, to see Angeal at the far end of the makeshift arena. Even at this distance his furious expression was easily visible. Zack and Sephiroth were close on his heels.

“Uh oh,” he breathed.

“They’re gonna fucking kill me,” Roche whispered. He sounded more anticipatory than worried.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING YOUNG MAN!”

Yeah, what did he think he was doing, just sitting here waiting? Jay had never done well with authority, even when it was his Ma. He was downright notorious for his rebellion, in fact. A true hellion of a child.

“Hey, Speed Demon,” he said from the side of his mouth to Roche. There were two exits from his ramshackle racing track. One was blocked by angry parents. One was not. “I’ll race you to the top of the Plate.”

Roche was surprised for a split second before he grinned. “Truly, you have the heart of a rider! Alright, little spitfire, you’re on!”

Their motorcycles roared to life again, drowning out Angeal’s outraged yelling, and they took off at full speed.

“Okay,” Jay said, allowing Roche to carry him back to the apartment in order to look cuter and more sympathetic. “Remember, if anyone asks, we just went and wandered around eating street food.” Which was partly true. They had eaten street food.

“You are a truly ambitious and compelling child, Jay,” Roche said, sotto voce, “but this will not work. Are you sure—?”

“Shh, plausible deniability. We never actually responded and we had protective gear on.”

Roche sounded amused. “Are you certain you’re not forgetting something vital?”

Jay narrowed his eyes. “No. What?”

“You are bonded to your parents. They didn’t have to look to know it was you.”

“Oh.” Jay frowned. “Right. Shit.” He considered the problem. “Eh. Not like it can make things worse.”

“Optimistic, aren’t you?”

“Shut up.”

Roche opened the apartment door using Jay’s keycard, revealing the sight of Genesis sitting expectantly on the couch. They both froze in surprise. He was supposed to be out of the city.

“Well now,” he said, arms crossed. It was obvious he’d been waiting for them. “I wasn’t expecting you to be home so soon, Jay.”

“I didn’t… expect to see you home either,” Jay said cautiously. Maybe they could get away with this, considering Genesis was the one who hadn’t been there in person.

“Hmm.” Genesis hummed and tapped a finger against his mouth as the door shut behind them.  “I was called back. Urgently. Did you have fun, little dove?”

“Yeah, we uh, had some good food. Right, Roche?”

“Indeed.” Roche gingerly set him down. “Since the Crimson Commander is here, I will take my lea—”

“No, stay.” Genesis tilted his head. “Take a seat. I’m sure my packmates will want to thank you for your good work.”

Roche sat.

“Uh.” Jay glanced between the two adults. “Yeah… I’m going to go to my… room…”

Genesis’s smile was dangerous. He crooked a finger. “Come here.”

Clearly they weren’t going to get away with it for even a moment. Jay slunk over to the couch, defeated and crabby about it. He wasn’t surprised when Genesis pulled him into his lap.

“Hmm.” Genesis briefly buried his face in Jay’s hair as he kissed the top of his head. “How strange. You smell of motor oil.”

“We uh, walked past a lot of cars.”

“I see. And your hair is so very messy! You must have been walking quite fast.”

“Yeah, I… beat Roche to the food since I can run really fast.”

“Yes, I suppose you can.” He rested his chin on top of Jay’s head. “Did you see anything strange while you were walking below the plate, sampling those delicious street foods?”

“Not really,” Jay said, determined to commit for as long as he could. The ship might have been sinking, but he’d be damned if he didn’t go down with it all the way.

“Oh? I received a very strange report from Sephiroth, who originally received it from the Turks.”

“Weird,” Jay said blandly.

“Yes, yes, very weird. Are you certain you didn’t see anything strange? Because several people reported seeing a SOLDIER and a little boy racing motorcycles right where you two were wandering. Imagine that!”

“Nope, didn’t see anything like that.”

Genesis choked on a laugh, though he was clearly trying not to. He kissed the top of Jay’s head again. “Darling little bluejay,” he said. “You have an astounding poker face, but we truly need to work on your olfactory control. I can clearly smell that you are lying.”

DAMMIT. Jay pursed his lips (it was not a pout) and said nothing. He had been working on controlling his scent! It was just… really fucking hard to get used to a form of nonverbal expression that hadn’t even been relevant until he got tossed into this world.

Genesis put a hand under his chin and coaxed it up so that they were looking each other in the eye. “You know it will end better for you if you’re honest,” Genesis told him, eyebrows high. “Especially once Angeal gets here. I can admire the effort, but him? Well…”

Jay bit his lip, looking to the side. There was no chance they’d buy it and no chance they’d let this one slide, but he didn’t want to come out and be honest either because he wasn’t sorry—and that promised to get him in even more trouble. Maybe there was a middle ground? A secret weapon he could use that he’d been honing for so long? There was only one problem.

It was super fucking embarrassing.

“As for you, Roche,” Genesis said, offering Jay respite by temporarily directing his attention to the SOLDIER. He didn’t actually finish the statement, but his expression was terrifyingly pleasant. When Jay glanced over to see Roche’s reaction, he looked half terrified and half thrilled. He was so, so weird, and Jay neither understood him nor wanted to.

Genesis seemed content to let the matter lie until the rest of the pack returned. It wasn’t a long wait, which made Jay suspect they’d turned around and headed back for the Tower as soon as he and Roche had bolted. Jay cringed into Genesis a little as he caught a brief glimpse of Angeal’s stern expression.

“Jay,” the burly SOLDIER said, coming straight from the door to stand in front of the couch. He loomed over them sternly. Jay kept his eyes on his lap. “Young man, what exactly did you think you were doing? First you go behind our backs to do something as dangerous as street racing, then you run away from me? If you have an explanation, I want to hear it now!”

Well, if Jay was going to try and use his secret weapon, there was no time like the present. He channeled his inner Zack, making his eyes as big and tear-shiny as possible, lips pulled into a carefully-crafted moue, and looked up at Angeal with the most pathetic puppy eyes he could muster. He didn’t even say anything, well aware that his habitual snark would probably break the illusion.

Angeal looked like he’d been physically struck, rearing back a little as his eyes went wide. His mouth opened, then shut with a click. Jay kept the look up with all his might. Angeal stared for half a second more before he quickly turned away and muffled a cough in his hand. “Seph, you—you talk to him.”

But Sephiroth also seemed to have been short-circuited and was watching with wide eyes. Zack was similarly incapacitated, brows nearly merged with his hairline and the barest hints of a smile starting to curl at the corners of his lips. Genesis badly covered a laugh by turning it into a cough. It sounded like he was choking on a grape.

Jay was amazed. Maybe they would get away with it—not in the sense of no one noticing, but in the sense of avoiding a three-decade grounding. There was just one more piece he needed to add. He’d already swallowed his pride to use the secret weapon, so what was just a tiny bit more?

He sniffled a little, which wasn’t quite intentional but really added to the effect. “I’m sorry,” he said pathetically. “I just feel so safe when I’m racing, like no one could ever catch me…”

Genesis choked again. Jay resisted the urge to viciously elbow him. Zack looked fully knowing now, a half-stifled smile breaking across his face.

“Yes, well,” Angeal said, briefly glancing at him before quickly looking away. “Well. I—“ He pursed his lips. “Zack taught you that, didn’t he?” he accused.

Jay, not trusting himself to speak, made a noise of confusion in the back of his throat. Angeal tried to look at him again, only to quickly give up with a curse. “That’s it—give him to me, Genesis,” he said, blindly holding his arms out. Genesis, snickering, stood up and obliged. Jay realized he was taking the ‘it won’t work if I can’t see it’ approach.

Still, Angeal seemed to calm down as soon as he was holding Jay. Maybe he really had been worried by how dangerous the motorcycle race was—even if Jay knew he was too enhanced for it to be that dangerous. He huffed, both touched and a little annoyed by the protectiveness, and cutely (he was still working that angle for as long as he could) laid his head down on Angeal’s shoulder.

“You,” said Angeal, his hand finding the back of Jay’s head, “are so very grounded.”

Godsdammit.

Sneezes and Secrets

Jay’s punishment included being babysat by Vincent for the foreseeable future. None of the SOLDIERs were allowed to watch him—that would have been too fun. It turned out that Vincent was incredibly boring when you couldn’t pull rank as the leader of a little ragtag group and go do whatever you wanted. Jay was strangely glad he hadn’t been daring enough to wake the man back in his other world.

Today Jay woke up with an itchy throat and the persistent urge to cough. The nest was already empty, since only Zack and Genesis had been home for the night in the first place. Cloud, Angeal, and Sephiroth were out on mission until tomorrow. He could faintly smell breakfast cooking, layered over the faint smell of Zack and Gen’s much earlier breakfast.

Grumbling, he rolled over and crawled out of the nest. His back was itching too, wings restless and uncomfortable. No one had asked about them since that first incident where he hadn’t been able to keep them contained. He was glad they’d either forgotten or didn’t care. He may have started to trust them, but that didn’t mean he wanted them—or anyone—to see the stupid things. Nowadays, he just shook them out every once in a while in the privacy of his room.

Vincent slid a plate of infuriatingly healthy food onto the table as soon as he’d shambled into the kitchen. “Good morning, Jay.”

Jay grunted at him and thunked down into his seat. He glared at the stack of vegetable omelets. They weren’t nearly as good as anything Angeal made. If he wasn’t going to get Angeal’s food then the least they could do was let him have a nice stack of pancakes or something, but nooooo.

To add insult to injury, Vincent set a glass of milk down beside the plate and blithely ignored the resulting murderous glare.

As soon as he finished eating, he was allowed to go do… nothing. Nothing at all. He wasn’t allowed to play Zack’s video games. If he wanted exercise he wasn’t allowed to do anything but run laps. He wasn’t allowed to leave the Tower. He definitely wasn’t allowed to go wandering around. Maybe the beginning of this stupid illness was a mercy, because he didn’t feel like he wanted to do anything today. He curled up in the corner of the couch and hunkered down to wait it out.

Jay wasn’t sure how long he sat there, stuck in a hazy doze. A hand touched his forehead and he startled awake, feeling significantly more shivery and uncomfortable than before. Vincent confirmed his suspicions a moment later when he said, “You have a fever, little one.”

“No shit,” Jay said, which was a mistake. Speaking made his throat itch, and he started coughing.

“Hm.” Vincent curled a hand under one of his arms, making sure he was sitting upright and could breathe properly. “When did you start feeling unwell?”

“‘S not a big deal,” Jay muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand once the coughing fit had ended. He glared over his knees at where Vincent was crouching in front of the sofa. “Just leave me alone.”

Vincent’s eyebrows went up slightly, a motion Jay could only read beneath the bandanna thanks to long experience of being around the man. “What has been your experience with illness, Jay? Being left alone to suffer through it?”

Jay glared harder and didn’t answer. No, actually, quite the opposite. He wished everyone would just leave him alone, especially the stupid idiots who kept insisting on getting involved even with the threat of Sephiroth looming over them.

His chest panged briefly with grief that he ignored.

The hand found his forehead again. “I hope you understand,” Vincent said, “that such a thing is the height of cruelty. Even if I were inclined to leave you alone to suffer—which I am not—your parents would kill me.”

“It’s a fucking cold,” Jay snapped, miserable enough already to pull no punches. “Or the flu. I’ve suffered a lot worse.”

“I’m sure you have,” Vincent said. “All the more reason not to let you suffer any longer.” He stood up, pulling out a PHS, and walked into the kitchen.

Jay groaned and mashed his face into the couch cushion. Vincent was probably calling Gen or Zack. Hopefully he wasn’t having any thoughts about doctors. Jay would bite anyone in a white coat who tried to touch him at the moment. Or any other moment, really.

He sniffed back the snot that wanted to drip out of his nose and closed his eyes again. Vincent’s voice was just quiet enough that Jay couldn’t make out what he was saying (the ex-Turk knew exactly what the limits on his enhancements were), so instead of trying to listen he let it wash over him like white noise. Which of the overprotective SOLDIERs would be back first? Genesis? Maybe a sick kid was enough of a crisis in this bizarre culture that Angeal and the others would rush back too.

Stupid.

He must have slipped into a doze again, because when the soft fabric of a blanket brushed his cheek he startled awake. Vincent was crouched in front of him again, wrapping him up snugly in a blanket. Jay gasped sharply when he realized it was the blanket that should have still been hidden on his bed beneath the mountain of plushies; the stupid blanket he’d almost strangled Zack over, because it was covered in stupid cartoon characters from that stupid cartoon he (not so) secretly liked.

He stared at Vincent, betrayed. No one outside of the pack was allowed to know his humiliating secret! He’d blackmailed Genesis over it! He’d blackmailed Genesis using Genesis’s own secret humiliating love of a different cartoon intended for children!

“You are ill,” Vincent said, answering his accusing stare. “Your parents want me to offer you all possible comforts.”

“They told you?”

“Told me about what?”

Jay shut his mouth with a snap. He couldn’t answer without further incriminating himself.

Then Vincent surprised him again. Instead of leaving, he picked Jay up, sat down, and settled him in his lap. It took Jay a moment to process—Vincent, unlike… literally everyone else,  hadn’t been especially touchy until this point. In fact, he’d held Jay on exactly two occasions: once in his crypt, then once a week ago when Jay had led him on a merry chase around the Tower.

“What are you—” Jay had to pause and press on his nose to keep from sneezing. “What are you doing?”

“This may surprise you, little one, but it is normal and expected to hold children when they are unwell. But don’t worry, I am very certain Genesis is returning as fast as possible to take over the responsibility.”

Jay pressed harder on his nose, sniffling. “You really don’t need to. I’m fine.”

Vincent just hummed, and then a very rusty-sounding purr rumbled in his chest. Jay was surprised yet again. He couldn’t remember hearing anyone but his… eugh, fine, whatever, his parents purr until now. It was strange. Soothing, to be sure, but he was pleased to note that Vincent’s purr didn’t work nearly as well in reducing him to a puddle as theirs did.

“You’re all so weird.” He coughed, scrubbing at his face to try and relieve some of the pressure.

“Yes, I imagine we do seem that way to you.” Vincent proffered a box of tissues.

Jay took one as the itching in his throat and sinuses became unbearable. He sneezed violently, cringing at the sensation of the thick snot against his nose. When he checked, it was a stark greenish color against the tissue. He scowled and scrunched it up, tossing it onto the coffee table for someone else to deal with. Godsbedamned respiratory illnesses.

His wings itched restlessly under his skin and he resisted the urge to squirm. He fidgeted with the edge of the blanket instead, trying to stuff the wings down even more, and started to feel truly desperate when the sensation just got worse and worse.

“You can put me down now,” he said after a few minutes, trying not to be too obvious about it. Had he been alone, he probably would have been rolling on the floor. Or trying to scratch his shoulder blades with a steak knife.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just wanna go to my room.”

Vincent hummed. “You’re a terrible liar, child. Please keep in mind that your parents will at least attempt to kill me if I knowingly leave you in pain.”

Jay scowled. “I’m fine!” Oh this was going to drive him up the wall unless he managed to escape to the privacy of his room. The itch was unbearable. He bit the inside of his cheek to try and distract himself, then pressed hard on his nose as the urge to sneeze came back.

Vincent patted his arm. “Zack promised he would bring SOLDIER-grade cold medication. I’m sure he will be here soon.”

“Urgh, great,” he said, and despite his tone he meant it. Maybe that would help him keep everything under control.

“In the meantime, tell me what’s wrong that you don’t want to admit.”

“You are so fucking annoying sometimes Vincent,” Jay snapped, and then sneezed into his hand.

That was about when everything went wrong.

Fabric loudly tore apart. The blanket was yanked from his body, caught suspended on one of the oversized wings that suddenly sprouted from his back. Jay froze, one hand covered in snot, shoulders aching badly from the explosive emergence of the wings. Vincent was equally taken aback, though it was more obvious in his scent than his expression. Jay coughed, staring with revulsion at the string of snot that connected his palm and his nose. Gross. Fuck his life, seriously.

“Ah,” said Vincent. “So that’s where those went.”

“Shaddup,” Jay grunted, frantically squirming to the ground. The wings flapped jerkily, sending loose, neglected feathers everywhere, but the extra force helped him get free. For obvious reasons, he booked it to the master bathroom.

Vincent followed but Jay managed to be just fast enough to slam the door shut and lock it. He heard Vincent exhale softly through his nose, which meant ‘this is a foolish decision’ in Vincent-speak. Since Jay didn’t particularly care for the man’s opinion at the moment, he ignored it and instead went to wash his face and hand at the sink.

“Buh.” His reflection looked terrible—pale with fever-pink spots on his cheeks, eyes slit and hazy, lips pale. He sneezed again and the wings fluffed up dramatically. At least a dozen feathers shook loose and drifted to the floor, slowly dissolving away into pale mist. He stuck his tongue out at them.

“Jay, open the door.”

“In a minute,” he muttered, bracing his hands and forehead against the cold stone of the counter. Reeling the wings back in was always much harder than letting them out, especially when he was upset. He took a deep breath and pulled with all his might. The wings started to dissolve with agonizing slowness.

“Jay?”

He bared his teeth at the floor and didn’t respond. His head throbbed sharply from the combination of his illness and effort. The wings did not want to return. He’d ignored them for too long and now he was paying the price.

Then he sneezed again and all his hard work undid itself.

“FUCK!”

“Jay, if you don’t open the door in thirty seconds, I will open it for you.”

“I’m FINE.” He tried again, eyes squeezed shut against the escalating headache.

“You are not fine. If you don’t let me in, I’m going to assume you need immediate attention and must be rushed to the nearest doctor.”

“I shouldn’t have woken you up, you annoying motherfucker!” Jay snarled, glaring at the door. His voice was laced with pain. It occurred to him that his scent probably was too, and was also in no way contained by the bathroom door.

“Irrelevant. You have fifteen seconds.”

Vincent wasn’t one for idle threats. He really would haul Jay to Medical. Cursing creatively (including one particularly gory combination he’d picked up from Vincent himself) Jay stomped over to the door, unlocked it, and kicked it open.

Disappointingly, it didn’t manage to hit Vincent in the face.

“See, I’m fine,” he said, chest rumbling with the hints of a genuine growl. “No doctors.”

Vincent cocked his head to the side slightly, then crouched and touched his hand to Jay’s forehead again. “What did you do to make your fever go up so quickly?” His eyes turned to the wings, something uncomfortably perceptive in them. When he reached out to touch a feather, Jay skittered away.

“Don’t!” he snapped, hugging his arms. Don’t, don’t, don’t.

“Alright.” Vincent stayed where he was. Jay tried to quickly stuff the wings away and failed—again. The annoying motherfucker noticed. “Do they hurt?”

Lying would probably tempt Vincent to drag him to Medical. “Maybe,” he said sullenly, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, and did not elaborate. Vincent observed him silently. Jay glared back. They seemed to be equally matched in that regard, so eventually Vincent broke the silence.

“You tore your shirt.”

“I—yeah? So?!” Jay asked, bristling. Almost literally bristling, since his wings puffed up to match his agitation.

“Calm, little one. I only meant that we should get you a new one.”

“Oh.” He coughed, which made the headache worse. “Um. Then… go get me one.”

“Hmm. Will you agree to leave the door open?”

“Yeah fine whatever,” Jay said. If Vincent just left then he could focus on dispelling the supid inhuman extra limbs he was cursed with.

The knowing look intensified, but Vincent only nodded and stood, silently disappearing to go find a new shirt. Jay backed out of immediate view from the doorway and dropped down into a crouch, pressing his forehead to his knees. Just go away, he thought, panic slowly creeping up through his chest. He didn’t want to deal with the wings—he didn’t want anyone to touch them, or look at them, or worry about them, or ask him questions about them. He didn’t want to think about them.

He didn’t want to think about the reason he even had them in the first place.

His eyes and nose were both streaming by the time Vincent came back. Jay barely noticed, too busy sucking in air in strained gasps. It hurt. He hadn’t expected it to hurt this much, but at least he’d gotten the stupid things put away.

“Your nose is bleeding,” Vincent observed, setting down the bundle in his arms and dropping gracefully to the floor so that he and Jay were closer to the same height. He pulled a tissue from the box he’d brought along and delicately lifted Jay’s chin with his fingertips.

“Buh,” Jay said. At least that explained why his mouth tasted like copper. He didn’t have the energy to object as his face was cleaned. Vincent quickly covered his nose when he sneezed again, saving both them and the bathroom from being coated in a fine spray of blood and snot.

“Jay, bleeding is a hard line. We need to go to Medical.”

“No.”

“Yes. Unless you can tell me why your nose was bleeding.” He pulled the torn shirt off as he spoke.

Motherfucker. That was open blackmail. Jay glared at him furiously, briefly interrupted when Vincent pulled the new shirt over his face. “I hate you.”

“Irrelevant. What do you choose?” He shook out the stupid cartoon pony blanket and used it to bundle Jay up again.

“…it was just… strain. It’s not a big deal.”

“Strain?” Vincent’s head tilted slightly. “From forcing the wings away.”

Jay let his chin sink down to his chest until only his eyes were visible, glaring daggers over the edge of the blanket. “I hate you so much.”

Vincent continued to ignore him. “Why put them away? You don’t need to. It won’t change the way your parents love you.”

Jay finally lost his temper and snarled aloud, deep and gutteral in his throat. “Well I don’t like them so I’m not GONNA!” The snarl was too much and he got caught up in another coughing fit. His back and head throbbed sharply in unison with his coughs.

Vincent lightly patted his back and shoved another tissue into his hands so that he could cough into it. “Alright,” he said quietly, once Jay could hear him. “You don’t have to. Do you want to be in the nest right now?”

Jay was exhausted already and it wasn’t even noon yet. The nest sounded nice, but with Vincent? No. He shook his head. Maybe when Gen or Zack came home.

“Alright. We’ll stay on the couch until your parents return.” Vincent picked him up. He really was too tired to put up more than a cursory protest.

“You don’t—“

“Shh.”

The purring started up again. He went limp and decided to just be grateful his wings were staying put. No one was here to see him be pathetic anyway.

Vincent put some cartoons on the living room TV and didn’t bring the wings up again. Jay contented himself with burrowing miserably into the blanket. The chills were unusually strong, which told him this fever was going to be a bad one. His throat burned with every swallow. As the minutes crawled on, he could hear his lungs filling up with gunk.

If he’d been in Wutai he would have gone and holed up in one of the supply tents to wait it out. He spared a brief moment to worry about Vincent catching a bug strong enough to get through his enhanced immune system, then dismissed his concern. Vincent could live through a bout of the flu. Plus Jay was still pissed at the guy for seeing right through him at the worst possible moments.

The longer he sat pressed up against Vincent, shivering and sniffling, the more he thought he understood why these people were so keen on physical contact with sick and injured loved ones. He’d spent a lot of time keeping tabs on all the changes to his body and this felt like one of them. It wasn’t an obvious change—more of an intangible shift, undeniably there but impossible for him to describe in words. It was enough to make him wonder if deliberately isolating himself would legitimately harm him.

He coughed, irritated. Why did everything in this place have to work against his strongest instincts? If only he’d crash landed in a universe where isolation was expected, then he could have gotten shitfaced in peace instead of being cared for.

Stupid SOLDIERs.

When the front door opened, he woke from his uncomfortable doze and turned his head just enough to see who’d arrived. To his immense irritation (but very little surprise) it was Genesis escorting Dr. Clara, the pediatrician who was one constant between this world and the last. She wasn’t supposed to be working at ShinRa, and hadn’t been until Rufus realized that looking after Jay was his best ways to keep from being Presidenticide Part Two.

“No,” he grumbled before anyone could even say hello. His glare must have been something to see, because Dr. Clara had to visibly bite her lip to keep from cooing.

“Oh, I know you don’t want to see me,” she said, cautiously approaching the couch. As a tiny consolation, she wasn’t dressed in the usual white coat. In fact, it looked like she’d been hastily retrieved from her home since her hair was tied up in a messy bun and she was wearing jeans and a sweater. “Sorry buddy. It’s no fun being sick, huh?”

“Go away,” he said with as much grace and courtesy as Dr. Clara was ever going to get from him. Any other medical professional would have been snarled at. And maybe bitten.

Genesis tsk’d, stealing him from Vincent. To Jay, the difference between an adult with no bond to him and one of his bonded parents was startlingly immediate. It felt like he could breathe better just by touching him and even his headache eased. He melted into Genesis like ice on hot pavement.

“No need to be so hostile, little bluejay,” Genesis said, voice lowered as if he knew right away how to keep the headache from worsening. “I’m here.”

“No doctors,” Jay grumbled, breaking into a coughing fit. He had to hold his breath for a moment to keep the wings in.

“Darling, you’re about to burn through my coat with that fever,” Genesis said. “Can’t you let Dr. Clara look at you for just a little bit? You know her, she’s very nice.”

“No.”

“Please? She’ll make sure you get the supplies we need to make you feel better.”

‘Supplies’ was code for ‘medicine,’ and while Jay didn’t have quite as visceral an aversion to common cold medication as he did to anesthetics and mind-altering drugs, he still didn’t like them.

“Don’t need anything. It’ll go away eventually. Enhanced.”

Genesis blew out a slow breath. “Yes, I’m sure it would. But you would be miserable the whole time, and that’s the last thing I want to see. Not to mention that if this is something more severe than what it seems, or if it worsens without care, you would have to go to the hospital.”

Jay grimaced into his shoulder. It was not pneumonia and it wouldn’t become pneumonia. Genesis was just paranoid. But the looming threat was still clear.

“It’ll be so quick,” Dr. Clara promised, her voice softened to match Genesis’s. “I promise. And there won’t be any tests.”

Agreeing would probably make them all go away faster and leave him alone longer. And he did know Clara Johannes. She wasn’t a scientist. So he sighed, squirming one arm free from the blanket to punch Genesis (couldn’t let him think he’d won too easily) before he grumbled, “Fine.”

It was only when he was glaring blearily at Dr. Clara as she used a stethoscope to listen to the state of his lungs (bad) that he remembered he was still wrapped up in his secret blanket. And now she’d seen it too. And she would tell her husband, First Class Elias Johannes. Jay turned a renewed glare on Vincent and promised death with his eyes, since this was all his fault.

Vincent didn’t seem particularly concerned.

“Well,” Dr. Clara said when she was done, smiling at Jay. “The good news is that this is just a bout of the flu. The bad news is that we have no guidelines for scaling down the dosage of antivirals for enhanced kiddos, so you—” she pointed at Genesis ”—are going to be keeping a very close eye on his reaction and reporting back to me.” 

“Of course,” said Genesis, arms wrapped snugly around Jay’s stomach.

She picked up her PHS and typed into it. “I’ve sent the prescription to the Tower’s pharmacy so Zack should be able to pick it up as soon as it’s done.” She chuckled a little. “I’m pretty sure the President has a standing priority order on anything for your pack, so it shouldn’t be long.”

“He would,” Genesis muttered. “Thank you, Clara. I know it was your day off.”

Dr. Clara waved a hand. “It’s no trouble where Jay is concerned. And besides—” A huge, shit-eating grin crossed her face as she stood. “As per my contract, any off-duty calls for Jay nets me a truly ludicrous bonus. Rufus is going to be buying my boys the newest gaming console they’ve been pestering me about.”

Genesis snorted and Jay did too.

Vincent left along with Dr. Clara, leaving just the two of them alone in the apartment. Genesis smoothed his bangs away from his forehead and adjusted him into a more comfortable position. He kissed Jay’s forehead, lingering there for a moment. “Thank you for letting Clara look at you,” he said.

“Can’t fucking believe you told Vincent about my blanket,” Jay grumbled in response. “Gonna tell everyone you liked Bluey even before I got here.”

“Mmm, blackmail. You drive a hard bargain, little cub. How about we end your grounding now instead?”

Jay cracked an eye open and squinted at Genesis. “Are you even allowed to decide that?”

“I can be very convincing.”

“You mean annoying.”

“Goodness, you are in fine form today. Are you sure you don’t want some painkillers?”

It felt like he had to sneeze again, so he turned and mashed his face into Gen’s shoulder. “No,” he grumbled on principle, sniffling.

Genesis laughed very softly and stood. “Alright, alright.” He carried Jay to the master bedroom and set him down in the nest so that he could take off his uniform and change into something a little more suited for laying around in. Jay curled up and draped himself over the edge of the nest to watch Genesis disappear into the closet.

Then he was unable to stop another sneeze and ruined his second shirt of the day.

Genesis came tearing back into the room at the noise, but Jay just whined to himself, blinking back frustrated tears. If this was going to happen every time, there was just no way he’d be able to keep the stupid wings contained. Plus he had snot dripping from his face again.

“Shh, it’s alright,” Genesis said, retrieving a box of tissues. He didn’t even pretend to offer one to Jay before he went straight to cleaning off his face. “It’s okay. Just leave them out, darling.”

Jay scowled at him and snatched up a tissue just in time for a follow-up sneeze. Feathers scattered all over the room. “No!”

“No?” Genesis quickly shed the last of his gear, tossing it to the side in an usually messy way as he evidently decided speed was better than neatness. He slid into the nest. “Why not?”

“‘Cuz I don’t want them out,” Jay said, pressing the heels of his hands into his sinuses. The fact that his back had stopped itching and his head hurt less and he didn’t feel as cold did not make having them out worth it. He broke into another coughing fit, which gave Genesis the perfect opening to pick him up and pull him back into a position lying on his chest.

“Mmmm, I see,” said Genesis, and his hands found the achey muscles at the base of the wings and he fucking cheated by digging his fingertips in and massaging them. Jay gave a near-violent shudder and went limp. If Genesis had tried to argue the point in any way it would have fueled Jay’s spite enough to try reeling them in—but he didn’t, the fucking cheater.

Jay rubbed his snotty nose on Gen’s shirt in revenge.

By the time Zack came home (quietly, for once in his life), Jay had almost forgotten why he hated having the wings out where people could see them. Almost. He anticipated Zack commenting on them, which would give him enough spite to try putting them away.

Except, Zack didn’t comment either. He just said “aww, hey baby,” and came over to test Jay’s temperature with the back of his hand. “I thought you felt a little warm this morning, but man that came on fast, huh?” He set his plastic bag on the nightstand and started rifling through it, pulling out bottle after bottle of medicine.

Frustrated at how perceptive everyone seemed to be today, Jay glared at him and ran the back of his hand under his nose. Zack just smiled at him sympathetically as he shook a few pills out into his hand and picked up a water bottle. “Yeah, I know. C’mon, these will make you feel better.”

He physically took Jay’s hand and put the pills in them, then held on and waited patiently. Jay glared at the pills. “What are these?” he asked petulantly, sniffling.

“Antivirals. They shouldn’t make you feel foggy at all.”

Huffing at himself for his own childishness, Jay yielded and put the pills on his tongue, washing them down with a long drink of water. Zack promptly put two different pills in his hand. These he trusted much less. “‘N these?”

Zack took a breath in like he knew he was about to meet resistance. “Painkillers.”

“No,” Jay said flatly, trying to push the pills back into Zack’s hand.

Zack didn’t let him. “Hey, it’s just normal painkillers like I would take for a headache. They’re not strong enough to make you feel foggy or anything, just like the antivirals.”

“It doesn’t hurt that bad.”

“But it still hurts,” said Genesis, jumping in. He tucked Jay’s bangs behind his ears. “Especially when you cough. And I’d imagine your throat feels like it’s on fire?”

He didn’t want to. On principle. “I’ve lived through a lot worse.”

It was a well-worn argument. “I know. I know you have,” Zack said, as unable to keep the sadness from his voice as he always was. “But you don’t have to anymore. Please take them? I promise it’s not going to make you feel anything you don’t like.”

He was too tired to keep arguing, so he gave up and took the painkillers too. Then Zack handed him a third medicine, this time liquid in a cup, and the annoyance returned in full force. “What the fuck else is there!” he snapped, and broke down coughing again. It hurt like a bitch.

“Last one, I promise. It’s a cough suppressant,” Zack told him, keeping his hand and the medicine steady.

That one Jay swallowed without argument. It tasted vaguely like oranges.

Zack’s relief at the lack of a drawn-out battle over all of the different medications was palpable. “Thank you, Jayjay,” he said, briefly cupping his face.

Jay grunted in acknowledgment. “You know if this bug was strong enough to get to me it’ll probably make you sick too, right?” He observed, unable to quite summon up the will to outright tell them to leave. Truth be told, he didn’t want them to. Something about their presence really did make him feel a little less like he’s been chewed up and spat out by Ifrit.

“I would fall ill a thousand times before I left you alone for even a minute, little cub,” Genesis said, not missing a beat. “But fortunately it shouldn’t come to that. Dr. Clara sent us some antivirals of our own for prophylaxis.”

Jay blinked, surprised to find that he didn’t know the word. He supposed that if anyone would use vocabulary he wasn’t familiar with, it would be Genesis ‘Insufferable Thespian’ Rhapsodos. “What’s prophylaxis?”

“Yeah Gen, what the hell is that?” Zack asked, shucking off his uniform at top speed so he could crawl into the nest too.

“You barbarian,” Genesis said, watching the gear go flying. Jay rolled his eyes, considering the redhead hadn’t been any neater earlier. “Prophylaxis means a measure taken to prevent illness. When we take antivirals to make sure we don’t catch what you have, Jay, the antivirals are considered a prophylactic measure.”

“Oh!” Zack realized, crawling into the nest. “Prophylactic! Like condoms!”

“ZACK,” Genesis snapped, but Jay laughed from sheer surprise. The adults were absolutely meticulous about not bringing up anything related to sex around him, so it had caught him completely off guard.

“Sorry,” Zack said as he curled up around Jay, looking both guilty and pleased with himself for getting a laugh. “Forget I said that, Jayjay. I only know the plebian uses of words, not the fancy-shmancy ones.”

Genesis rolled his eyes and shoved Zack enough to make room for him to snuggle up too. “We are NOT discussing this in front of my baby.”

Jay sniffled and ran his hand under his nose, debating whether or not it would end well for him if he explained that he already knew what condoms were. Probably not. He suspected that Cloud had told them about his reaction to the concept of heats and they consequently all half-assumed he’d been molested. Nothing he could say about condoms would help disabuse them of the notion.

“Okay,” Zack said, gently pulling until Jay flopped back down to sprawl across his chest. The wings settled down into a surprisingly comfortable posture once he’d stopped thinking about them so much. “How about we turn on something to watch until—for a while, huh?”

He’d probably meant until the meds kick in . Jay soured at the reminder, but there was nothing to be done about it now, and he did feel… completely, horrifically awful. The fever had climbed a little more and he was still wracked with chills. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for the medicine to kick in, or for him to have a distraction until then.

Zack wasn’t as warm under his cheek as usual, but he was comfortable and familiar. Jay could feel his heart beating steadily. One of Genesis’s hands carded lightly through his hair, gently massaging a little more of the headache away. His secret favorite show started up on the bedroom TV, but he found himself more preoccupied with the foreign sensation that flowed through his nerves like a gentle tide. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew it was coming from the SOLDIERs.

Love?

He felt loved, at least. Zack started massaging the base of his wings, right where his muscles were the tightest. Both he and Genesis were purring quietly. The wings hurt less than they had in… well, ever. He felt loved. Safe, even with the part of himself he hated the most, the one that had been forced upon him, exposed. And that made him—he felt—

Jay swallowed past the lump of some heavy emotion stuck in his throat and decided now wasn’t the time to think about it too deeply. He was sick. There was no point in making it worse or in making them more concerned by a sudden mental breakdown over something so small. Later.

Later.

Chapter Text

Remember Me

It began one night when Jay had a nightmare.

In their household, nightmares were hardly a rare occurrence. Usually, if Jay was going to have a nightmare, it would be a little later in the night when one or two or all of the pack members were curled up with him in the nest. That night, he’d been put to bed as usual a few hours before anyone else retired. Barely forty-five minutes later, he’d come scrambling down the hallway toward where Genesis and Cloud were sitting together on the living room couch.

Genesis clicked his tongue softly, a little surprised but not unduly alarmed. “Jay?” he asked, easily accommodating the six-year-old when he crawled up into his lap. “What’s wrong?”

Only then did the smell of tears and terror truly reach them. Cloud sat up attentively. Genesis drew in a sharp breath.

“Nigh’mare, Vati,” Jay said, warbling and muffled from where he’d buried his face in Genesis’s neck.

“Oh?” He didn’t recognize the second word, but didn’t pay it much mind. There were more important things to focus on. He purred, low and soothing. “It’s alright, I have you, darling.”

Jay melted against him in the way of soothed children. Cloud, however, was looking at the two of them with wide, wide eyes. Genesis quirked a brow. “Something wrong, my love?”

“Jay,” Cloud said, shifting closer and tilting his head to try and see the little one’s face where it was hidden. “What did you just call Gen?”

With an unusual level of pliancy and cooperation, Jay turned his head to look at Cloud. Genesis was startled to see that he was chewing on his knuckles. Something was off about the look in his eye too, or perhaps the expression on his face. “Vati,” he repeated.

Cloud did not look any less startled. Genesis asked him a wordless question once their eyes locked again. What?

“Oh, uh,” Cloud said, glancing between him and Jay. “It… I didn’t expect him to know vati. It’s an old word. Really old. From Nibelheim.”

“Oh?” Genesis was intrigued, despite his concern over Cloud’s reaction. Jay snuggled closer, still chewing on his knuckles and holding his blanket close. “What does it mean?”

“It means… um. Well, ‘dad.’”

Dad? Genesis’s first instinct was to be delighted. Jay always addressed them by their first names, never any nickname or parental title. It would be both delightful and promising if he’d finally grown comfortable enough to use words like ‘dad.’ But Genesis’s second instinct was far stronger, and it loudly asserted that something was very, very wrong.

“Jay?” He said, keeping his voice soft and readjusting the little omega so that they could easily look each other in the face. “Why did you call me Vati?”

What he expected was a normal level of Jay defensiveness—a fire in the eyes, and a snap of why ask, who cares, what do you want? Instead, Jay tilted his head with a little spark of confusion in his strange bearing and said, “huh? Because you’re Vati.”

“I’m Vati?”

“Yah.” His attention drifted over to the TV and he resumed chewing on his knuckles.

“Jay?” Cloud interjected, “what am I?”

Genesis felt his stomach drop when Jay didn’t even glance over as he answered, “Pa.” He thought he would try one more thing to confirm his suspicions.

“Little cub, do you want to watch ponies until you fall asleep again?”

Jay looked up with a delighted, open smile, and enthusiastically agreed. There were no attempts to even pretend he didn’t like the childish cartoon. There was no hint of self-recrimination or embarrassment in his scent.

Genesis put on the show, and he sent an emergency message to Dr. Clara in the medical department. Something was wrong.

Jay was asleep in Cloud’s arms when they took him to Medical. Clara met them without any complaint about the hour. As was their usual habit to keep Jay from becoming too agitated, she took them to her office instead of an examination room. A few nurses brought in what little equipment she needed.

Yet another strange thing happened as Genesis and Cloud explained the situation: Jay didn’t wake up. Normally he would have snapped awake the moment the first whiff of antiseptic and scent neutralizer reached his nose, nevermind Clara’s voice or the sensation of a blood-pressure cuff on his arm. But he was still asleep, even after she’d finished checking his vital signs.

She exchanged an uneasy glance with both Genesis and Cloud. “Well, nothing is wrong that I can see immediately. Go ahead and wake him up. I want to talk to him directly.”

When Cloud gently shook him awake, he mumbled something and turned to bury his face in his shoulder. Cloud smiled a little, despite the situation. “Hey, come on buddy, Dr. Clara wants to talk to you,” he said, a preemptive purr already rumbling in his throat in case that finally snapped Jay back to awareness.

It didn’t. Jay just turned his head enough to look at Clara and wave shyly. 

“Hey, Jay,” she said, barely keeping the worry from her voice. “Sorry to wake you up when you were so comfy. Can you tell me how you’re feeling right now?”

“Umm, sleepy,” he said. Like earlier, he started to chew his knuckles. 

She chuckled. “Okay, I should have expected that. What about your head, does it feel okay? No fuzziness?”

“No, not fuzzy.” He shifted to rest more securely up against Cloud’s chest, eyelids already drooping again.

“Okay. That’s good. You know, the last time you saw me you didn’t like me very much. What changed, huh?” She reached out and gently shook his socked foot, smiling. 

Jay looked puzzled. “I did?”

The smile dimmed a little. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Do you not remember?”

“But I like you, you’re nice,” he protested.

“Yeah? Well, I like you too. Can you tell me about the last time you saw me?”

“Ummm…” Only now did a hint of his usual anxiousness emerge. “I was sick. You came and saw me ‘n Vati.”

“That’s right, good job buddy.” She squeezed his foot again and the anxiousness dissipated. “How about the first time we met, do you remember that?”

“Ummm.” He squirmed around a little in a way that was not at all like his usual tightly controlled movements, but was very like the normal movements of an uncomfortable six-year-old. “Da was there. ‘N I was really sleepy all the time, but you said that was okay.”

He was, of course, referring to her first visit after being hired by Rufus. The meeting had been quite a bit more fraught than he seemed to remember, involved a lot of growling and refusals and negotiation. Still, she smiled. “Yeah, that’s right. Let’s go a little farther back, do you remember when your daddies found you in the slums?” Normally she would have avoided that phrasing like the plague, but he didn’t even bat an eye.

In fact, he just stared at her blankly. “Huh?”

“Do you remember when you first met your daddies? Before you lived here?”

“But I always lived here.”

There were no answers that night. Jay went back to sleep. Cloud and Genesis returned home and communicated the situation to the rest of the pack. Clara promised she would look into the matter of lost memories and get back to them as soon as possible.

Then Jay woke up the next morning, completely normal.

The rest of the pack had gotten emergency permission to return, leaving the mission wrap-up to others. They were gathered in the kitchen early that morning, quietly discussing their options to find help for Jay, when he came shuffling out of the bedroom to join them. They paused. He did too, standing in the entrance to the kitchen and squinting into the light.

“‘Ngeal?” he asked, and both Genesis and Cloud blew out explosive breaths, relieved beyond words.

Jay paused again at the noise, halfway across the kitchen toward Angeal. “What?” he said, and none of them had ever expected his distrust to be a relief. He actually skittered back a few quick paces, eyes darting between them. His pupils hadn’t quite gone slit, but they could tell it was a close thing.

“Sorry, kiddo,” Angeal said, crouching and holding his arms out. “Come here, we’ll explain. It’s just… confusing?”

After one more round of suspicious glances at each of them, Jay padded across the floor and let Angeal sweep him up into a tight hug. He returned it, not even squirming when Angeal tucked his face into Jay’s hair and lingered for a moment. When Angeal stood, he took Jay with him.

“Little cub, do you remember what happened last night?” Genesis asked cautiously.

“Last night?” Jay’s brows furrowed. “Uh, we ate dinner, and watched… a show, and then I went to bed?” He tilted his head and frowned. “Why are you home so early?”

Cloud and Genesis exchanged a glance. “Well…” Cloud said, taking over. “You woke up from a nightmare last night and came into the living room. Do you remember that?”

“No.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re not answering me.”

Cloud smiled, but it was painful. “Sorry, I’m trying. I guess if you don’t remember waking up you also don’t remember talking to Dr. Clara?”

Jay went stiff. Angeal’s immediate reassuring purr only did a tiny bit to relax him again. “What are you talking about?” he asked tightly. “I don’t remember that. This isn’t funny.”

“It’s not funny,” Genesis agreed soberly. “Not at all. You don’t remember what happened last night, but last night you didn’t seem to remember anything from before the first time Angeal found you. That’s why we took you to Clara and why everyone came home so quickly.”

Jay’s breath turned so shallow it was inaudible as he looked at Genesis. His pupils elongated into sharp slits. After a moment, his lips moved, but he didn’t make a sound and no one could quite tell what he was mouthing.

“It’s okay,” Angeal said, rubbing Jay’s back. “Hey, it’s okay. I know it’s scary, but Dr. Clara is looking into it. We think it might be a side-effect of the meds, so then you’d just stop taking them, okay? It’s not permanent. You’re okay.”

Jay’s lips trembled as he finally took an audible breath. “I’m missing memories,” he whispered, looking down. It didn’t quite seem like he was talking to them. “I’m—they’re gone. I’m missing memories.”

“Hey, kiddo—”

He pushed against Angeal and squirmed to get down. “Put—put me down, I need to walk. I need to—”

Reluctantly, Angeal did so. Jay bolted into the living room and they followed immediately, alarmed, but he just took up pacing in an agitated loop, chewing on one of his fingernails. After they were sure he wasn’t going to do anything reckless, they resumed their hushed conversation while keeping an ear out.

He paced. He paced and paced and paced, muttering to himself. Then he went silent and paced and paced and paced. By the time they reached a consensus, the pacing was a background noise. No one was happy, but they at least had a direction to go.

Then they realized the pacing had stopped, and when they checked, they found the living room completely empty. The other rooms, hastily checked, were as well.

Jay was gone.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long to find where Jay had disappeared to. He was sitting in the solarium at the base of one of the planters, staring down at his palms. Zack was sent first as an envoy, just in case, while the others hung back to wait and watch.

Jay didn’t react when Zack cautiously sat down next to him. He didn’t react to Zack’s soft, “Hey, baby,” either. Zack opened his mouth again, then closed it, deciding to wait.

“I think… I’m dying,” he finally said, and Zack’s heart lurched with panic.

“No!” the SOLDIER said quickly, barely stopping himself from yanking Jay into his lap. “No, no, you’re not dying, I promise. I know the memory issues are scary, but you’re gonna be okay.”

Jay shook his head. It was hard to get a read on his mood. He didn’t quite seem to know what he was feeling himself. “Not like that,” he said. “It’s not my body that’s dying. It’s…” His fingers flexed in briefly, then stretched back out. “Part of me. Part of me is dying.”

Zack bit his lip and wished he didn’t understand what Jay meant, or at least that he had a good answer. “Jay…”

He finally looked up, something both defeated and at peace in his eyes. “No, it’s okay, Zack,” he said softly. “This is… better. It’s better. I shouldn’t have made it this far anyway.”

"Don't say that," Zack snapped immediately. His breath caught in his throat, guilt following immediately on the heels of his bristling fury. "I'm sorry. I'm—don't say that. I don't understand what you're saying but it's not true."

Jay offered him a painfully tender smile, one with a depth of tired fondness that a child his age really shouldn't have had. "Zack," he said quietly. He reached out and took one of Zack's hands before looking down at his knees again. "It's okay. Really."

Panic seized Zack, even though he didn't understand why. He didn't really even understand what Jay was trying to tell him. "Baby, you're gonna be fine," he promised, desperation leaking from his voice just as much as his scent. "We're just gonna stop using the meds for a while and see if that was the cause. Even if it isn't, Dr. Clara is the best of the best and we have so many resources. You're not gonna die, not even partly."

Jay heaved a sigh. It trembled a little, and Zack could feel his fingers shaking slightly too. "It's not the meds."

A sensation like freezing electricity zinged up his spine. "You know what it is?"

But Jay shook his head immediately. "No. Not really. But I know what's going to happen. I mean—you can't have missed it. The memories that I'm losing... it's the bad ones. Only the bad ones, from before you found me."

"I—yeah, I guess. Isn't that a good thing?"

"Yeah. That's what I mean. That part of me is going to go away. This part of me. But it's okay. This is—" he broke off when his voice cracked and bit his lip. Tears threatened. "This is the broken part, the one that can never be fixed. So it's better if you—if I let it go. It's okay."

"What—" Zack felt tears of his own threatening. "What do you mean this part of you? It's—that's not—"

"Hey." Jay turned and sat up on his knees, reaching his free hand to touch the side of Zack's face. He blinked, and tears streaked down his face. "It's gonna be okay. I'm just... it'll be like drifting off to sleep. Just one part of me. It'll be better. I won't be the same, but it'll hurt less."

Zack swallowed a whimper and cursed himself. How was his little son being so much stronger than he was? "No, you're going to be alright. You're—you're more than just your memories, baby."

Jay smiled at him, and more tears spilled over. "Maybe. But I won't be the same. This part of me was built on... all those memories. And when they're all gone, he will be too. But it's okay." He swallowed down a whimper of his own bit his lip. "I guess... he's just a little scared."

"No," Zack said, and he didn't even know what he was arguing against. He finally reached out and pulled Jay into his lap, wrapping himself all the way around his little form. "No, Jay. Don't be scared. You don't have to be scared."

"It's okay." One hand squirmed between their bodies enough to grip Zack plushie where he was jammed into his jacket pocket. "Sorry. Sometimes you have to go where no one can follow."

Zack held on tighter. "You're not going anywhere. Over my dead body!"

Jay laughed—a tiny, sad little noise. "Yeah, I know."

"Jay. Don't—don't talk like that." He tried to rally himself. There really was nothing to be scared of. They were going to get a handle on the memory problems. Jay was going to be just fine.

"Sorry." His forehead was pressed up against Zack's neck, warm breath feathering over his skin as he talked. "I really am. I wanted to stay. I thought—maybe you could even fix me." His voice broke again. "But this is okay too. I was probably wrong anyway."

"You are not broken," Zack tried to assert, but it came out more like begging. "You're not gonna die, everything is going to be fine. I'm never ever ever going to let anything hurt you, okay?"

"I know you will," Jay whispered. One of his hands curled into Zack's shirt. He sounded sleepy. "It's what you do best. And it'll be even easier to love what's—to... a fresh start will be better. It's okay."

Zack took a deep breath and finally pulled himself the fuck together. "You know what, yeah," he said, standing up abruptly. Jay's legs automatically wrapped around his waist. "It is going to be okay. We're gonna talk to Dr. Clara again and you're not going to lose any more memories, got it?" He turned. His packmates looked utterly stricken, and he didn't blame them. Cloud was especially pale.

Jay grunted quietly, which made Zack frown and jostle him a little. "Jay?" He craned his neck to see little golden eyelashes staggering up and down. Jay made another quiet noise in the back of his throat. Zack felt fear seize his heart "Jay? Baby, are you still with me?"

"Mmh?" Finally, the kid seemed to respond, using his free hand to rub at his eyes. His eyes opened again, calm and lacking the tell-tale slit pupils. They also suddenly lacked something Zack couldn't put his finger on. Jay frowned at his expression and touched his cheek in an uncharacteristically clumsy gesture. "Da?"

Zack's heart dropped down to the level of his boots.

Dr. Clara didn’t know what to tell them because there was nothing to tell them. Jay was as fit as a fiddle, with nothing to explain the sudden catastrophic loss of his memories and even less to explain why they seemed to be coming and going like the tide, with fewer left over each time. Jay as he was at the moment didn’t mind seeing her at all, though he didn’t seem to particularly like being in Medical. But he didn’t snarl or snap or glare. All he wanted was to be in someone’s lap with his blanket and his plushie.

It was so wildly uncharacteristic that Zack thought he might finally have understood what Jay had meant in the Solarium. He’d never hated anything as much as he hated that realization.

But ‘he’—the Jay who seemed to think so very little of himself, who explicitly remembered every bad thing that had ever happened to him—didn’t disappear immediately. He would come back, which was easy to tell by the way he would suddenly return to addressing them by their first names. He didn’t seem to remember the conversation he’d had with Zack. And each time, the difference between one state and the other became less pronounced.

They tried everything. Experts were brought in from all over the world. Jay endured hours in Medical, although he would flatly refuse unless he was lacking his bad memories at the time of the appointment. Even without the memory of his terrible realization, he seemed to know that nothing would work. And he was right.

One day, that part of him did exactly as he had predicted a few weeks prior: it went to sleep and never woke up.

"He seems happier," Genesis observed, something tormented hidden in his tone. Jay was sitting on the floor, gleefully and shamelessly building up a tower of blocks to house his pony toys. Before, he barely glanced at the many, many toys people had gifted him over the months. Now, he was thrilled by them.

Now, it was the sparring swords hanging up on the wall that he barely ever glanced at.

"I guess," Cloud said, biting his lip. "But..."

Zack exhaled slowly through his nose. "Yeah. But."

He felt helpless. He was helpless. Jay had spelled out exactly what he was scared of, and still Zack hadn't been able to stop it. He'd failed his kid, at least arguably. Even if Jay was happier and more willing to be open about what he was feeling and what he needed, he'd still... lost something. He hadn't given it up, he'd lost it.

But there was still one last-ditch effort Zack thought he could try.

Aerith wasn't surprised to see him considering he'd warned her. She looked at him sympathetically before turning her attention to Jay, who was holding one of his hands.

"Hey, Jayjay!" she chirped, crouching to be at his height. "How are you feeling today?"

"Good!" he chirped back, smiling a little shyly. His Zack plushie was tucked into his jacket front and he was holding his once top-secret comfort blanket in his free hand. "Cuz we came to see you."

She laughed. "Yeah?" She stood and held out a hand. He hesitated for only a moment before letting go of Zack's to take hers. "You wanna come see my flowers?"

"Yes!"

Zack settled down on a pew, biting his lip nervously as he watched Aerith walk Jay into the middle of her flowerbed. They sat down together and she held his little hand with both of hers, smiling.

"Will you help me do something special, Jay?" she asked.

"Okay," he agreed easily. Before he would have tilted his head and eyed her suspiciously for a moment before giving in. Zack's teeth dug deeper into his lip.

“Thank you. Do you know what magic sounds like?”

“Sounds like?”

“Yes, what it sounds like. I know you like making fireballs, do you remember how it sounds when you use your mana to do that?”

“Um… yes.”

“Okay, good! You’re such a smart boy. What we’re going to do is listen together and see what we hear. There’s a lot of magic right here, because it’s a special place.”

Zack had no idea what she was trying to do. Maybe it was an omega thing? Jay seemed to understand instinctively, because he nodded. Both of them went quiet.

Nothing happened for long enough that Zack was starting to get fidgety. Just as he was wondering if he could get up and start doing squats without disturbing them, Aerith said ”oh.”

Zack’s head snapped up. Jay seemed to be asleep in Aerith’s lap, though he’d missed the moment when she’d picked him up. More importantly, there was a glowing figure laying in the flowers right in front of her. It took Zack a moment to realize, but the figure was clearly Jay, flickering and warping between different ages and states. Most were, to some degree, torn up like they’d just come from a battle.

“What’s happening?” he asked, sprinting over. “What did you do?”

“Well, he’s doing it, actually,” Aerith said, a little-wide eyed herself. “I had no idea he could make it appear like this though.”

“It? What’s it?”

“His memories, essentially. I helped him pull them back from the Lifestream.”

Zack stared down at the image of a little two-year-old Jay, beaten and bloodied. The image wavered and suddenly he was looking at Cloud , older than even Genesis and dressed strangely. One of his arms was missing, and he was bleeding from several deep wounds on his chest. “Why do—why do they look like this?” Zack asked, stricken.

“I’m… not sure. This is how Jay… perceives the memories he lost, I think. Or how he would represent them.”

The broken part of me, he’d said. The one that can never be fixed. Zack’s breath caught in his throat around a painful lump. Without thinking, he reached out to touch the apparition’s face—currently that of a four-year-old—and was surprised when his fingers actually made contact.

The ghost hummed, resonant with a hundred slight variations of his own voice, and opened his eyes.

“…Zack?” He asked, suddenly about Cloud’s actual age and dressed in a First Class uniform. The front of his chest was riddled with bullet holes. Zack choked on his own breath at the sight.

“Hey, buddy,” he said, stroking a thumb over his ghostly cheek. “Hey. Wasn’t sure I’d ever get to talk to you again.”

His brow furrowed. “What? Wasn’t I just…” He glanced over, spotting Aerith and his physical body. His form flickered, turning him two years old. “…Aerith? What did you do?”

“You did this,” Aerith said, watching as he sat up slowly with a helping hand from Zack. The wings he hated so much spread out behind him, though in a strange and abstracted way compared to their physical forms. They seemed to replicate themselves, flickering like his body. It would have been breathtaking under other circumstances.

“I can’t have,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes. “I…I remember everything again. Even the stuff he took from me.” He lowered his hands, revealing silvery tears streaking down his face. “All of it. It… hurts. So much.”

Zack’s heart clenched as Jay dissolved into sobs, hands clutching at the fabric of his shirt. He flickered rapidly between ages. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, helpless again at the sheer anguish in Jay’s cries. “I’m so sorry.” He blinked, feeling tears roll down his cheeks too, and sucked in a shuddering breath. “I don’t know how to help you,” he finally admitted in a breaking voice.

“I don’t—I—I want it to stop,” Jay said, suddenly a young teenager with an adorable ponytail and untamable bangs. His whole body was fragmented, like a shattered porcelain doll somehow still holding its shape. “I—the Planet—she’s—“

“Trying to help,” Aerith whispered. Jay’s physical body continued to sleep peacefully in her lap, a tiny smile on his face. “She’s trying to fix it.”

“Well it’s not working!” he snapped, clawing at his chest and choking on desperate whines. “I don’t want it back if it hurts like this! Make it go away!”

Zack looked desperately at Aerith, and she looked back with glistening eyes. “Aer, please, what do I do?”

“I think you need to say goodbye for a while, Zack,” she whispered.

"What? No!" Zack protested reflexively, breath stuttering in his throat. This was the promise of saving Jay, he couldn't give that up!

But then he looked down at the kid in his arms, who suddenly resembled his real form again. His hands were clawed with the force of his grip on his own chest. Sword wounds covered his body. Blood dripped from his mouth and over his chin as he looked up at Zack with desperation.

"Please," he whispered, gasping for air. "Please, please make it stop Zack, please. It hurts so much, I can't take it, please let me die already."

"You're not going to die," he refuted, but fear made his heart thunder in his ears and he looked at Aerith. "Right?"

She bit her lip. "I don't know. The Planet wants to heal him and… I think she wants to give him back, but... she's not like us. She doesn't think the same way. He could get himself back in a day or a thousand years, or... maybe she'd just keep him forever. She really seems to like him."

"But—" How could he say yes when he might never get him back?

"Please," Jay begged quietly. "Please, please. It hurts. I'm sorry, Zack. I’m sorry."

Zack shut his eyes, spilling over a fresh wave of tears. "Don't be sorry," he said, the terrified tension leaving his shoulders as resignation overtook him. He had to do what was best for Jay, even if it hurt. Even if this meant he would never see this part of his kid ever again. A sob caught in his throat. "You didn't do anything wrong," he managed to get out.

Jay looked up at him with something profoundly vulnerable in his eyes. Zack managed to smile through the dramatic blurring of his sight. "I love you, kid," he said, even though the form in his arms looked about twenty-five and as worn down as a rock in a river. "So much. Remember that."

"...always," Jay said, sounding like his normal self for just a moment. "I love you too."

A sob forced its way from Zack's throat, but he quickly rallied himself, leaning down to kiss Jay's forehead. "Let's meet again," he said. "Whatever way you want, kid." Here, or there. Wherever you are, I'll come find you eventually.

Jay's eyelashes fluttered. His breath was slowing, but the bloody wounds were gone. "...'kay. For you." His eyes shut. "Promise. I promise."

And then, just like that, he was gone—and Zack broke.

Aerith shuffled closer as he hunched down, hands pressed against the dirt, and wailed his grief. Tears splattered across the backs of his hands. He realized, suddenly, that he understood why his kid had begged for release. It hurt. He thought the pain might tear his chest right in two. Even Aerith's hand on his arm and loud purring couldn't make it hurt any less.

"Da?"

The little voice startled him from his grief. He raised his head to see Jay looking at him with wide, worried eyes from Aerith's lap. He reached his little hands out. "Da, are you okay?"

"Y-yeah," he stuttered, reaching out to take him from Aerith. Jay hugged him tightly, worry and a little bit of fear in his scent. Zack managed to purr quietly in reassurance. "Da's okay. Just... a little sad."

"It's okay to be sad," Jay reminded him, parroting Angeal all the way down to his inflection. 

Zack laughed, although it came out a lot more pathetic than he'd intended. He buried his face in Jay's hair and hoped his kid wouldn't mind a little dampness. "You're right, baby," he said, grieving something he hadn't even known could be lost. "It is."

Telling

It was going to be bad. They could see it, smell it, feel it in the air. The way Jay's face settled into something grim and dead as he looked at nothing, face tilted away from them and halfway toward the floor. He was holding tight fistfuls of his pants, right over his knees. He’d warned them not to touch, but he hadn't even started talking yet and it was already so hard to leave him be.

Abruptly, his spine straightened and his shoulders drew back. "There's... a lot more to the story than I told you," he started, voice barely above a whisper. "But you know that now. So... I guess I don't have much of a choice left."

“Maybe you figured it out by now, but I’m not really… from this world. I fell here accidentally. Sort of. I think maybe the Planet pulled me in on purpose.” He exhaled slowly. “We were sparring. Me and… the person who made me like this. We fell between worlds. I still don’t know how. I think it was my fault. But… because we fell… the fight changed. We started… fighting on a level that wasn’t physical. And I finally… I finally, um… figured out how to break what he’d done to me.”

His breathing became even less steady. “I… had to. Because he turned me into a sort of anchor. Even if I killed him, he could use me to resurrect himself. And…” The sharp scent of his distress grew. “Even if I died, he would just bring me back.” He swallowed hard, still not looking at them. It took enormous restraint not to close the careful distance between them and scoop him up with a comforting purr. “But I broke the bond. And then I killed him.”

They had more than just a guess about who ‘he’ was, but no one spoke. Jay deserved their full restraint and consideration.

He clutched the fabric of his pants until his knuckles went white as his head ducked down a little more. “That’s… how I knew you already. He stole me when I was a baby and made me into… this… using ShinRa’s resources. He didn’t… care about ShinRa at all. He killed Hojo. But it was convenient.” He exhaled slowly again, fighting to stay calm. “When… the President called for him to be deployed to Wutai… I went with him. I was there for t—for two years.”

Evidently they didn’t react the way he was expecting, so he looked up and searched their faces. His expression fell slightly, and he quietly clarified, “two years… fighting.”

They drew in sharp breaths and he hastily moved on. “That’s where I met you. Genesis. Angeal. I tried—“ His voice cracked, forcing him to pause for a moment. “I tried to keep everyone away from him. I tried so fucking hard. But you two were too fucking stupid to stay away.” The dead expression on his face gave way to a vicious glare.

“I’m glad,” Angeal blurt out, unable to stop himself. “I’m glad you weren’t alone, Jay.”

The six-year-old rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling, lips pressed into a tight line. “You would say that,” he observed bitterly. The dead expression returned.

When Jay didn’t continue, Zack tentatively spoke. “Jay… where did you meet me?” he asked. The timeline didn’t make any sense. Zack had been all of eight years old when Sephiroth was deployed to Wutai.

Jay didn’t answer immediately. It was clear the question deeply distressed him—his grip tightened, and his lips trembled, and his breathing one again became ragged. “Yeah, well,” he said unsteadily. “That’s… that’s the thing. Because the story doesn’t s-start… when I was stolen. It starts…” He choked, blinking rapidly, and his head tilted down until it was tucked up against his chest, sheltered by his drawn-up shoulders. “It starts with… a monster… who… who unwrote a whole world… because of me.”

"I guess—" He choked again, and every word sounded like he cost him tremendously. His hands and arms started to shake from the force of his clenched fists. "You could say this is my... third world. And I met you in the first. And you—" His face contorted. "Died. For me. And you left me your sword." He strained for breath, but didn't cry. Raw, potent grief filled the air accompanied by intense guilt. "I was... supposed to be a hero for you." His throat clicked as he strangled down any vulnerable noises. "Instead I got everyone killed. Just. Because I existed."

Sephiroth had to physically restrain Genesis from getting up and going to Jay. Cloud had to do the same for Zack. They both shook their heads, sensing that the worst was yet to come.

"Sephiroth," Jay said, finally putting a name to 'him,' "wanted to make me... an inseparable part of him. An... extension. A weapon. Because I k—" The word choked off before he could finish it. "I killed him... three times. And it still wasn't enough." He looked up again, eyes sharply slit and glowing more intensely than they'd ever seen with raw torment. "He could have forced it. At any moment, he could have drowned out my mind and worn my skin like a suit. He did that once, just to show me he could, but that wasn't what he wanted." His teeth began to chatter. The shaking in his arms became violent.

"He wanted me to choose him. He wanted me to break. Sometimes I wanted to break but I couldn't Zack, I had to keep going. I had to, I had to, I couldn't let you down twice."

This was too much. Zack shook Cloud off and crossed the room so fast he blurred, snatching Jay up into his arms.

"No, no," he crooned hoarsely, hands moving restlessly as he held Jay close, like he couldn't figure out how to hug him tight enough. "You didn't let me down. You could never let me down, it wasn't your fault."

Jay didn't return the embrace and the shivering, teeth-chattering episode didn't ease. "It is, It is, 's because of me," he said, hardly louder than a whisper. "My fault. 's gotta be."

Zack shook his head, pacing in a tight loop. "No, it's his fault. All of it. You didn't do anything wrong."

Jay quieted. "You can't know that."

"I know you. Yes I can."

"No you don't."

"Yes I do. Jay, you know what you just told us doesn't change what I know about you, right? I mean, it adds more backstory and I hate everything you were put through, but it's still you. I still love you. And I know you must have done everything in your power to protect everyone."

Jay’s scent shifted slightly to something utterly despairing. “Don’t,” he choked out.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t… risk it. Wh—why would you…”

“Risk loving you?”

“I’ll get you killed too,” he whispered. “Don’t love me, Zack. I’m not even a real kid, I’m just… broken.”

“I refuse,” Zack said, downright cheerfully. “I love Jay, even if he’s been through so much more shit than I could ever imagine. In fact, I think he needs me even more now than ever.”

"You shouldn't," Jay mumbled, but it sounded like he was weakening beneath Zack's unshakable resolve. His head finally dipped the last few inches to rest against Zack's shoulder.

"You've said that before. But you know what? I think I will anyway. And I think we're all going to be just fine."

Zack continued to pace, although he slowed down as the silence stretched. The others watched, trusting him to handle it. When he felt confident enough, he went and sat down on the couch between his packmates. "Is there something else you wanted to tell us?" he asked softly.

Jay's mood had ebbed back down into something numb again. "Uh, I guess you should know that... I lost a lot of my original memories, sort of. He... some of them got destroyed, I think, but a lot more were just.... I don't know, they used to be real memories, but now it's almost like memories of memories. I know what should be there, but I can't... there's no scene attached to it. It's just a fact in my head." He paused. "Not y—not Zack. Dying. I remember that one."

Zack let out a slow breath and calmed himself down by kissing Jay’s head. "Thank you for telling us. I'm really sorry you lost all those memories, baby."

Surprisingly, Jay shook his head. "No, it's better," he said. "There's no emotion attached to the memories that are gone. It doesn't hurt as much as it would have."

That was much harder not to react to, but they managed. Zack bit his lip and took a long moment to gather himself before he asked another question. "Thank—thank you for telling us. Um, Jay... what was your relationship with your Zack like?"

"Uh... we were friends?" Jay sounded puzzled by the question. "He dragged me around the world when I was in a mako coma and then he died trying to protect both of us from the infantry." Then, mumbled under his breath, "probably should have left me."

"Oh thank fuck," Zack muttered, relieved. "And hey, stop that. He's allowed to care about you."

Jay finally raised his head again to squint at Zack. He ignored the second part entirely. "What did you think I was gonna say about me and Zack—" He seemed to realize what the SOLDIER had been worried about, since his eyes went wide and a pink blush crossed his face. "NO! No no no no! It wasn't like that! For either of us!"

Zack smiled sheepishly. "Okay, good! I'm sorry, I'm just... you know, I really love Cloud. It might have been kind of weird if you'd also—"

"No!" Jay buried his face in his hands, smelling strongly of horrified embarrassment. Everyone considered it a much more preferable state to the dissociative episode he'd been in. "No no no no! I was married to Tifa!"

Cloud pulled up short at that, his eyes bugging out. "Tifa?" he echoed.

"Yes," said Jay. He did not remove his face from his hands. "That's... one of the sets of memories I don't really have. But I know we were married. And we were happy." Then he took a breath and it turned ragged. "Is it bad that I'm relieved I can't remember all of it? It doesn't hurt as much as it should. I can't do that again."

"No," Cloud said softly, reaching out to tuck some of Jay's hair behind his ears. "She would understand."

Jay shuddered, lowering his hands. He stared down at them as if he didn't know what he was seeing.  "Why—" His voice cracked. "Why does... it didn't hurt until I said it. Why did telling you make it hurt?" His eyes welled up with tears. He hastily scrubbed at his face, faster and faster when the tears refused to stop. "I—" He whimpered through gritted teeth and Zack had to grab his hands to stop him from rubbing his skin raw.

"You never let yourself feel it until now, did you?" Genesis asked softly. "Hurt doesn't go away when you silence it, my love. It just waits until you finally choose to let it speak."

Jay's face crumpled. Sobs started to escape his throat in choked bursts. "No," he protested, fear creeping into his scent. "I ca-an't, there's too mu-uch. I can't."

"Maybe not alone," Angeal said, leaving his seat entirely so he could kneel and be closer to Jay. "But we're here. We've got you. You're not alone."

He looked at Angeal helplessly, tears streaking down his face. "Why?” he asked, like he still couldn't understand it.

"We love you," Angeal said, smiling sadly. "Secrets and all. Not a thing you said—not a thing you think about yourself could get rid of us."

"But I'm not even a kid!" he said, one last desperate attempt to ward them off.

"And? Jay, adults need love and support from their families as much as children do. You need love and support and a safe place to recover from everything. I love you —not the child version, or the adult version, or the version that's only known one world. You."

And finally—finally—after months and years of torment and repressing every feeling it wasn't safe to feel, Jay finally broke. They didn't need the caregiver bonds to help them understand the sheer depth of his anguish as he wailed. Even an unbonded adult would have understood. Zack, still the safest and most effective choice between them, pulled him close and curled up around him as he screamed and sobbed. Genesis took one hand, Angeal the other. Jay collapsed in on himself and held both close to his chest, where they could feel every hitch and heave and spasm.

Anguish turned to fear, then to grief. Grief turned to anger, very briefly, and then to a much deeper despair. Despair turned back into helpless anguish. No one stood to get his meds, even when he struggled for breath. For now, at least, he needed to feel.

Cloud was kind enough to attend to Sephiroth, who knew full well that he was not the person Jay needed comfort from at the moment. They curled up together to wait out Jay's long-overdue emotional breakdown.

It lasted a long, long time, far past the point when he had no more tears left and his breath hitched with dry sobs. He smelled utterly exhausted, but there was a noticeable lightness too, in a strange way. He'd finally unburdened himself of a heavy weight he'd been carrying for a long time. Even his muscles seemed to have uncoiled a little from their perpetual tenseness.

Zack ran his fingers through Jay's sweaty hair, a painfully tender look on his face. Genesis and Angeal were still sitting in the same position, holding on to his little hands even as his grip had loosened. Cloud stood, briefly pressing his hand to Sephiroth's face, and padded quietly away to go get water and a wet cloth.

Sephiroth hesitated once he'd been left alone, watching his gathered packmates with uncertainty. Slowly, he stood and moved to join them. As he knelt, Jay's eyes cracked open. Tears glimmered where they were trapped in his eyelashes, and his eyes were swollen and bloodshot, but the pupils were round. Calm. That didn't change when he saw Sephiroth, and he took it as a reassuring sign

"I'm sorry he did that to you," he said, reaching out to very lightly touch Jay's fever-hot cheek. "I wish I could have spared you somehow."

Jay's expression crumpled again, though he truly had no tears left. He let go of Genesis and Angeal, instead reaching for Sephiroth. Surprised, Sephiroth took him from Zack and held tight. Little arms wound around his neck.

"I wouldn't have let anyone else take my place," Jay whispered in a voice wrecked by his earlier wailing.

"I know," Sephiroth whispered back, standing. Jay always preferred to be in motion. It was why they paced so often when they held him. "But that will not stop me from wishing."

Jay's breath hitched. "'m sorry I had to kill someone who used to be you. 'm sorry."

Sephiroth was surprised to find himself blinking back tears. Jay wasn't apologizing for doing what he'd been forced to—he was apologizing for harming the monster, merely because they resembled one another on the surface. He was apologizing for the merest sliver of a chance his story might have hurt Sephiroth. It was so terribly sweet, and so utterly unnecessary. He turned his head and kissed Jay's hair.

"Don't be. I would have killed him myself if I could have."

Jay made a quiet, wounded noise, like Sephiroth's words had speared right through him. He turned his face to hide behind his arms and up against Sephiroth's shoulder, obviously trying not to break down again. Sephiroth chose not to say anything more, instead focusing on gently tracing the line of Jay's spine.

Cloud returned, carrying a glass of water in one hand and a damp washcloth in the other. He circled around Seph's back and made a little sympathetic noise in the back of his throat. "Hey, Jayjay, I got you some water. You wanna sit up for a sec and drink it for me?" he asked gently.

After a reluctant pause, the little omega slowly pulled his head up. "Why are... I told you I'm not really a kid," he said hoarsely, but nonetheless reached a lightly trembling hand for the glass.

Cloud snorted, but there was sadness in his face. "You know that we weren't looking after you just because you're a kid, right? Or, you look like one, I mean. We're looking after you because we love you, and honestly Jay... you really need this. I'm glad your physical age gave us a reason to help you without hesitation."

Jay looked deeply baffled by the assertion, but couldn’t argue while drinking. As soon as he’d drained the glass, Cloud swooped in with the damp cloth and cleaned his face up. Jay endured it with a minimum of squirming.

“Guess it doesn’t matter,” he grumbled, pulling his shirt up to dry his face when Cloud finally relented. “Since no one else is gonna know the truth. Not like you can just let me go… uh…”

“Go self-destruct?” Angeal ask, both wry and sad.

Jay looked down at Seph’s shoulder. “No,” he said unconvincingly.

“So you wouldn't follow your impulse to go drink a liquor store?” Genesis chimed in, one brow arched. “I seem to recall you mumbling something to that effect when you stole my drink and got wasted.”

“That was one time,” Jay said, scowling at him. “And you offered me that applejack.” A tiny smirk crossed his face. “You just… didn’t know I used to live in a bar.”

“Yes, your body didn’t seem to either,” he responded dryly.

Jay scowled at him. “Oh shut up.”

“Anyway,” Angeal said, breaking up the looming bickering, “there are probably a hundred small things we could work out, but the big question… Jay, are you willing to let us keep helping you? We can—we really have no right to ask anything of you when it’s just us, but I think Cloud is right. Structure and attention really has helped you.”

Jay looked down, plucking at the collar of Sephiroth’s shirt. It was, ironically, one of the most openly childish things they’d ever seen him do.

“I don’t know who I really am anymore,” he finally admitted in a whisper. “There’s… so many pieces missing. I’m not really a kid, but I’m not really an adult anymore either. I don’t think I’m much of anything but a mess.”

“You can rebuild,” Cloud said. “I know you can. I’ve seen it happening. You can keep rebuilding here, where it’s safe and you have our help. I don’t think you have to put a name to it. I mean, it’s not like we’ve exactly been treating you like a normal kid anyway. Is that okay? If we just try to give you what you need?”

Not a kid. Not an adult. Just Jay—a mess. Just Jay, who needed things normal people didn’t, because he’d been through things normal people couldn’t even imagine. Just Jay, who wasn’t loved because he was a kid, wasn’t loved because he was an adult, wasn’t loved because he was useful or smart or funny or sweet.

Just Jay, who was loved because he was Jay. Somehow. Some way. Loved.

“It’s okay,” he decided, and the terror he hadn’t even realized had been tight around his chest loosened. “Are—are you sure?”

Sephiroth leaned down a little to press their foreheads together. “Dear one, I have never been more sure of anything in my life.”

The Stork Left Him

Jay’s Zack plushie was missing. It was entirely Zack’s fault, since he was the one who’d picked up a napping Jay from Aerith’s care and failed to notice the missing doll. Sephiroth was the one who’d spied the conspicuously missing item and asked where it had gone when they returned home.

Zack’s eyes went wide. “Oh no,” he said. “It must still be with Aerith.”

Jay was fortunately still napping and thus not conscious to throw a fit, but as it turned out there was no need for them to call Aerith—instead, she called them first.

“Hi boys,” she said with a strange note to her voice over speakerphone. “Um. I think there’s something you need to come pick up.”

“Jay’s plushie,” Zack said, relieved. “Yeah, we just realized. I’ll head over now.”

“Well…” Aerith trailed off. “It’s… how about you bring everyone with you, instead?”

“Is something wrong, Aerith?” Angeal asked.

“No. Not wrong. Just… difficult to explain,” she reassured them. “Make sure you bring little Jay too.”

“Oh? Well… okay. We’ll see you soon, then.”

So they went down to Aerith’s church together. Jay stayed asleep until they were about halfway down, but was easily placated with the promise that they were going back to Aerith to retrieve  the Zack plushie. Genesis entertained him with a discussion about which of the greenhorn SOLDIERs he’d been sparring (playing) with recently showed any promise.

Aerith met them at the door of the church with a strange, nervous smile. “You left something in my flower bed, petal,” she said to Jay.

He tilted his head, confused. “But we didn’t play in the flowers today?”

“Oh, I know. Come take a look and tell me if he’s yours.”

It was strange phrasing, but they realized why as soon as the flowerbed came into view. Jay drew in a sharp, startled breath, tumbling to a stop. A little boy the same age as him was asleep among the flowers, dressed in a tiny SOLDIER uniform. His black hair glimmered in the late afternoon light. There was a distinctive cross-shaped scar on his jaw.

With a heartbreaking little cry, Jay blurred forward at top speed to crash down next to the boy. “ZACK!”

“Zack?” Sephiroth echoed, shooting Zack a startled look that was returned tenfold as they quickly followed their boy.

The new child groaned, eyelashes fluttering as Jay hauled his upper half into his arms. “Cloudy?” he rasped.

“Zack!” Jay sobbed.

“You okay?”

Jay’s sobbing instantly became more hysterical. “Am I okay? Are you okay! How are you okay! He unwrote you!”

“Wait—don’t cry!” little Zack wrapped his arms around Jay and scrambled up onto his knees, purring loudly. “I’m okay. Dunno how, but I’m okay. Wasn’t I shot?”

“YES!” Jay wailed.

Angeal decided it was time to intervene, stepping down into the flowers and crouching beside the boys. “Jay?” he asked softly, putting a hand on his son’s back. Jay didn’t respond, but little ‘Zack’ raised his head and looked at him. Angeal was struck dumb by how absolutely identical the child was to big Zack. Was this what Zack had felt seeing Cloud in Jay’s face the first time? Surely both this child and Jay had been made by the same methods.

Little Zack stared at him like he was seeing something impossible. “...oh,” he said faintly. “Hi.”

“Hi, buddy. Your name is Zack too?”

“Too?” He looked around and spotted the bigger Zack as he too came to kneel in the flowers. “Oh.”

Jay warbled something between his sobs that no one but little Zack could understand

“Oh. Um. Where are we?”

“We’re in Midgar, buddy,” big Zack said, looking at the kid with wonder. “Where were you before?”

Little Zack considered this for a long minute, holding Jay as he sobbed. “I think,” he decided, “I was dead.”

They ended up going back home with one extra child, no plushie, and no answers. Aerith made vague allusions to the Planet giving another ‘gift’ in the form of little Zack, who was quickly nicknamed ZJ to avoid confusion. Genesis was baffled but delighted to be graced by the Goddess a second time, but everyone else was just plain worried. 

Since Jay refused to let go of ZJ, Zack ended up carrying them both at the same time. ZJ alternated between comforting Jay, looking around in bafflement, and rubbing his chest with equal bafflement as they rode home.

At one point, Jay calmed enough to raise his head and reveal teary, cat-slit blue irises. ZJ blinked at him. “Did your eyes always look like that?” he asked.

“NO!” Jay wailed, set off again. ZJ quickly hugged him with a guilty expression, purring even louder.

The adults did their best to be discreet in getting the children back to their quarters, but after all of the recent upheaval, that was easier said than done. It was made a lot trickier by the fact that Jay was exuding a smell of overwhelming grief and guilt. Heads turned in alarm from across the entire room when soldiers and civilians alike caught a whiff of a child’s scent turned so sour. Despite all of that, though, no one had the authority or boldness to stop them.

“Shall we put them in a nest?” Genesis asked, looking at Cloud.

“Yes,” he agreed.

ZJ looked at them curiously. “A nest? What kind of nest would fit us?”

“...alright, so you’re not going to know what any of this is either. Noted.”

“Huh?”

“Your, er, brother was very confused about a lot of basic things when we found him,” Zack explained. “Like the fact that he was an omega, or what nests were, or what packs were.”

“What’s a pack?”

“Merciful goddess,” Genesis said. “Let’s wait until we’re in the nest and Jay can calm down a little bit, then we shall explain everything. Does that sound like a fair trade, pup?”

ZJ stared at him like he’d grown a second head. “You’re weird,” he declared, “but… okay.”

The little ones easily curled up together in the nest, but ZJ eyed Genesis, Angeal, and Sephiroth too warily for them to join. Only Cloud and Zack were allowed in to calm and comfort them. ZJ listened quietly as they explained all of the things Jay hadn’t known. Jay himself calmed down in the nest with both Zack and ZJ purring on either side of him, but he seemed content to listen where he was instead of speaking.

When they were done, ZJ said, “I want to talk to, um, Jay alone.” His eyes narrowed. “Without anyone listening.”

The adults exchanged glances, but Jay sat up and glared at them. “He wants to talk to me alone.”

And since ZJ had, it seemed, legitimately been dead for a while, they reluctantly left the room and allowed the boys to speak to each other alone. The downside of having a very well-insulated home was that they couldn’t hear or smell what was going on as they waited anxiously in the living room.

An hour passed, then two. By three, Angel was stress-baking, Sephiroth was staring in the direction of the master bedroom without blinking, and Cloud and Zack were physically restraining Genesis from barging in. They were saved from straining for too long by the sound of the bedroom door cracking open.

“You can come back,” ZJ called hoarsely. The smell of intense emotional distress hit a second later and they all ran.  

Zack and Cloud went in first, not wanting to overwhelm them. ZJ had crawled back into the nest to curl around Jay, who was asleep and had clearly been through an intense and prolonged emotional breakdown. ZJ himself looked a little better, but not by much, and regarded them with a strange, tired look.

“You adopted him?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Zack said, cautiously settling down on the edge of the bed, “we did. And… if you don’t have any parents, we’ll adopt you too.”

ZJ nodded. “He said you would.” He looked at each of them, lingering on Sephiroth where he stood just inside the doorway. “You love him and want to help him?”

“More than my own life,” Sephiroth said without hesitation.

“Good,” said ZJ, and promptly burst into tears.

Adjusting to ZJ’s unexpected presence in their life was surprisingly easy in some ways. He was just as unfamiliar with basic comfort as Jay had been, which made him easy to calm and soothe. He and Jay were attached at the hip, refusing to be separated for anything. Unlike Jay, though, he actually took to the pack’s routines and enjoyed them. It was thanks to his enthusiasm that Jay started playing without any adult encouragement.

In other ways, it was not so easy. ZJ loved Cloud, and he was willing to be around Zack since Jay liked Zack best. Genesis he seemed to only tolerate, despite the man’s best efforts at bribery. Angeal and Sephiroth were both treated to an unpredictable mix of affection, anger, and tears, though Angeal got the worst of it by far. The anger was generally expressed through biting, because the affection often was too. ZJ was a lot like a puppy in that way. Neither he nor Jay could be coaxed, cajoled, or pleaded with into telling them why they had such strange feelings about their parents.

Both children at least vehemently denied the possibility that any living adult clones of Angeal, Genesis, or Sephiroth existed.

ZJ also had a lot of nightmares, but unlike Jay, he was not quiet.

“It’s okay, baby,” said Angeal, holding him in the recliner at 0245 as he wailed and clung. The purring did very little after bad nightmares. Sometimes he woke up unspeakably furious at Angeal. Sometimes he woke up and refused to let go, sobbing out incoherent demands that he never die or think he was a monster. Today was one of the latter days. “I’ve gotcha. I’m not going anywhere.”

Sephiroth was supposed to be lulling Jay back to sleep in order to make sure they didn’t have two grumpy, sleep-deprived boys in the morning, but Angeal wasn’t too surprised when Jay clambered up into the chair to curl up with ZJ. He sighed and wrapped an arm around his other child too.

“I wish you would tell us what hurt you so much,” he whispered.

“No you don’t,” Jay said. ZJ finally started to calm down once their little hands were linked together.

“I do. I love you both so much, but I can’t help you as much as I want to without knowing what’s wrong.” What you think I did wrong, he added in his head but not aloud.

“No,” Jay disagreed sleepily. At least Angeal’s wholehearted purring seemed to be working on him. “It’s not your fault. It’s not fair to be upset with you if you didn’t do it.” He sighed. “You’d probably do something stupid like blame yourself anyway.”

ZJ sniffled. “It-it’s not your fa-ault,” he hiccuped, agreeing. “I shouldn’t buh-be mad at you. ‘M sorry.”

Angeal stroked a hand through ZJ’s wild, sweaty hair. “It’s okay, baby. I know you’re just hurting. I love you.”

He hiccuped and whined, brought to the verge of another sobbing fit by his words. “Don’t make me kill you,” he begged, this time coherently, and Angeal felt a horrified chill sweep over his skin.

“Never,” he promised, staying as calm as he could. “Never ever, and not for anything. I promise.”

Both of his sons fell asleep on top of him eventually, and his packmates helped get them back into the nest without waking, and Angeal knew he was never going to forget those words.

Maybe ZJ didn’t forget either, because the wild mood swings began to calm down. He warmed to Genesis first, then started to treat Sephiroth and Angeal with more of a wary acceptance than the anger or enthusiasm that belonged to whomever ZJ saw when he looked at them. It seemed like he started to see them, as they were. Fortunately, he also seemed to think what he saw was worth affection.

Along with that change in attitude came the sheer, unbridled chaos of ZJ fully coming out of his shell.

If they’d thought he was boisterous before, especially compared to Jay, they were soon to realize he’d been positively subdued. ZJ was the epitome of  the phrase ‘bouncing off the walls.’ He was always in motion unless he was passed out or snuggled up to a purring parent. He was always in mischief too. One of his favorite games was to sneak away with Jay right before they were supposed to leave for some outing or appointment and force the adults to engage in a frantic game of hide-and-go-seek.

Will you change? his eyes seemed to ask when they finally found and caught both of their giggling sons. Will you still be good? Will you still love me?

Of course they did. ZJ earned himself plenty of time-outs, groundings, and temporarily revoked privileges, but even the easily-annoyed Genesis loved him to pieces.

And there was nothing he or Jay could do to get rid of that love.