Work Text:
It was a quiet night. Quite a peaceful one, really. Moonlight shone through the cracks of the curtains, illuminating the particles drifting throughout his room at the Icicle Inn. They were able to scrounge up enough gil to get everyone their own individual rooms this time — though not the smartest choice, everyone agreed on the much-needed luxury after Aerith—
Cloud Strife blinked.
After Aerith what? She was sleeping in the next room over.
He smiled to himself. Smiling had felt easier lately, after all. It felt even easier around Aerith. The brunette was probably letting out quiet snores as he thought of her.
Cloud Strife. Ex-SOLDIER, first class, turned mercenary. One of Shinra’s finest weapons turned against them. The man himself was seated on the edge of his bed, lost in thought. Over… what, exactly?
He shifted his gaze from the window to his own worn boots. Shreds of moonlight illuminated the scuffs and dirt on them. He really should get a new pair soon, with the soles barely hanging on. He’s had them since he—
Since he joined up with SOLDIER. So, seven years ago? Or was it five? No, Nibelheim was five years ago. Shouldn’t they be more worn out than they are, then?
He inspected them closer with nagging skepticism until splotches of maroon on his pants caught his gaze. They were quite the eyesore, being asymmetrical splotches of bloodstains. Running over his knees, bleeding into the fabric enough to forever dye their designated spots. From sitting on his knees to one too many deaths, it seemed.
Who died?
A piercing pain shot through Cloud’s skull. He brought his hands up to cover his ears, failing to drown out the horrible cacophony of shrill rapture. It was pure agony. It was hell. The rapture (Mother’s music, Her song) echoed in his head at a dizzyingly repetitive speed, accompanied by a loud ringing. Images of bloody scenes and bullets and Masasume and cliff sides and Aerith danced across his vision like a mocking film strip.
“What’s got you so riled up, mister?”
The lilting voice shocked away his headache in a matter of seconds, making him flinch. Taking a few more seconds to process who that voice belonged to, he turned and found Aerith sitting by his side, happy as ever. The light, teasing smile on her face made the back of his neck prickle in a cold sweat. Shocks ran down his spine, making him sit up straight, a crawling feeling that something was wrong.
What could be wrong, though? It was just Aerith — she always knew how to bring a smile to his face. He didn’t hear her come in, though… she must have slipped in when he wasn’t looking to garner the reaction she was currently getting from him. The realization made him smile to himself as he fought away the discomfort lighting his nerves.
“Cloud? You in there?” Aerith asked, miming knocking on his head. He shifted the gaze he didn’t realize had strayed back to her face.
“Yeah, I’m fine. What’re you doing in here?” he asked in response.
“Mm, couldn’t sleep. I figured you would be in the same predicament as me, so I snuck into your room. You were spaced out, as always,” she replied, gently kicking her feet while staring at the ground.
“Hm.”
Call it a trick of the light, but upon looking closer, Aerith looked… fuzzy, around the edges. Like remembering parts of a dream. Cloud blinked a few times, ignoring the low hum of some… calls brewing stronger under his skin. Aerith’s eyes seemed almost luminescent in the dark room, and oddly dull. It was like she was an amalgamation of what seemed to be Aerith, crafted by an intermediate artist’s hands.
That sounded insane, didn’t it? Maybe he really was going crazy. Obviously this was the real Aerith.
Cloud looked away from her for his next question. “What did you wanna do then?”
“Hm? Oh,” Aerith’s attention snapped back to him.”I wanted to talk to you, but I’ll give you a second. Is that okay?”
“Of course it’s okay,” he replied, smiling. Aerith beamed at his approval, shifting closer to him on the bed. She leaned her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his right arm.
She didn’t feel warm.
Blood everywhere. Blood underneath him, on him. A rapidly cooling body in his arms, one of someone he knew he cared about, knew he should remember, but his vision was replaced all with red. His hearing filled with screaming, Her song, Sephiroth’s listless drawl. Like the taller man was commenting on the weather on a regular Tuesday.
Without realizing, his hand had let go of the one in his hand. It slid down, falling onto the stone beneath them (red, bloody stone, bloody hand, bloody everything) in a wet plop. His face felt wet. Everything felt wet. Someone very important to him was dead, but he couldn’t figure out who it was.
Blood seeped into his pants, right on his knees. They seeped in the fabric — the previous stains were overtaken by the larger puddle of blood below him.
Cloud pushed the figure away from him in a panic. His mind was filled with cotton. His ears were filled with that horrific, shrill sound again (that beautiful tune, making him feel whole), louder than before. The figure fell on its side on the bed, half off the edge. It let out a startled cry as he covered his ears.
She did not die. Aerith did not die. He saved her.
Who was this creature? What was beside him? Where was Aerith?
“Cloud! What the hell?”
Cloud abruptly stood up. Stumbling backward, his feet knocked into the Buster Sword leaning against the wall. It was on the verge of falling over.
Feeling like he was doused in ice water, he spoke in a wavering voice. “Who are you?”
“What? Cloud—“ the figure righted itself on his bed, “—it’s me. Aerith. Can you please sit down? You’re scaring me.”
“You can’t be, she—“ his head exploded in pain like lightning had struck him. Clutching his head in both hands and heaving gasps, he looked past his hair into the creature’s eyes. “You’re not Aerith.”
“I am, see? All 100% Aerith,” it replied while showing off its arms and legs one at a time. “Now sit down.”
“No, you can’t—“ he backed up further and the Buster Sword went tumbling in a loud clatter. He flinched but otherwise paid it no mind. “She’s— no, she’s—“
“Cloud. Enough.”
Everything went still.
Cloud slowly lowered his hands, the pain dissipating. His mind went blank. He was eager to listen and obey.
Aerith stood slowly, with a grace that looked wrong. Too smooth and unnatural to be that of a human’s.
Cloud remained frozen. His wide eyes lay still on Aerith.
“I’m Aerith. You can see that I am Aerith. I am alive.”
He stared, simultaneously uncomprehending and clinging onto her every word.
“You know what you need to do. Don’t you?”
He nodded.
She stepped closer. He still remained unmoving.
“Say it.”
He swallowed. His face was covered in a thin sheen of sweat he couldn’t feel. “Go to the Northern Crater.”
Aerith got close enough to nearly be nose-to-nose with him. “And what do you need to do there?”
“Black materia. Sephiroth.”
“And?”
The black robes.
Cloud’s pupils broke into thin slits. “Reunion.”
“Good boy.” She stepped back and held his face, dragging a slow, cold hand down his cheek. He couldn’t feel anything. “You will let me in. You will listen.”
When he continued staring at her, she repeated herself again. Then again. And again.
“Let me in, Cloud. Let me in. Let me in. Let me in. Let me—“
There was suddenly loud banging on his door. He startled, pupils dilating back to normal, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. The hand retracted in his peripheral (he couldn’t tell if it did by touch alone). He squeezed his eyes shut, panting to make up for lost oxygen, and slid to the floor on top of the Buster Sword. His hands were shaking. They felt wet and slick.
The banging came again, sounding like it was coming from all around him. “Everythin’ okay in there, kid? Heard some loud shit in there,” a deep voice came from behind the door.
Cloud paid no mind to the deep voice. He was too focused on the space in front of him that was now empty. Where did Aerith go?
That was Aerith, wasn’t it? She proved it to him. He believed her with every fiber in his being. Of course Aerith didn’t die — where had he gotten that idea from? She was right there, except now she was gone. Like she’d never been there in the first place. Cloud’s head hurt at the thought, his mind still recovering from the haze draped over it. He exhaled one shaky breath after another, loud and ugly.
“Yo, Cloud! Open the door!” came the voice again.
He startled. He forgot someone was there.
“Who is it?” he called out.
“Who is it, my ass…” the voice mumbled behind the door. “It’s Barret, genius. Now open this damn door or I’ll blast it open.”
Oh.
Cloud rose on shaky legs, his knees threatening to give in at any second. He stumbled toward the door and fiddled with the doorknob shakily until Barret burst through.
“Jeez, boy, ya manage to scare me even when you’re supposed to be sleepin’. What’s going on in here?” The bigger man stomped into the center of the room before whirling around and getting a good look at Cloud. “What’s happened with ya?”
“I’m fine…” the blond trailed off. He picked at the calluses on his palms, hand still slightly trembling. “What do you want?”
“I’m checking in on you, kid,” Barret replied. His face softened into one of concern.
Cloud hated how often he was receiving that look from Barret, lately.
“Ya woke me up with yer loud clangin’ n’ shit. The hell were ya doing in here?” Barret continued.
Cloud looked down at his hands, now wringing together. Something in the deepest fibers of his being told him to not tell Barret about Aerith visiting him. It was like a secret he had to keep. Their secret. His cells felt repulsed by the idea of letting anyone know Aerith was talking to him.
Which was quite unusual, wasn’t it? Aerith was a part of their team. She was sleeping in the room over. Why wouldn’t she talk to Cloud?
His brain stem felt tingles of electricity brewing the further he tried to dissect his rationale. His mind and body screamed at him to not say anything about Aerith. So, he heeded.
Upon looking up, Barret was still looking at him worryingly. Cloud sighed. “I was cleaning the Buster Sword,” he said. “Accidentally dropped it.”
Barret scrunched his nose and pointed at the Buster Sword laying on the floor, disregarded in front of the wall. “Over there? Why’d ya be cleanin’ it on the floor?”
“Felt better.”
“Cloud, ya don’t gotta lie to me. What’s going on?” Barret asked, full of suspicion and concern.
“Nothing,” Cloud denied. Too fast. “There anything else you need from me?”
“Cloud—“ Barret broke off in a groan. “Ya know you can talk to me, right? Don’t gotta keep up this ‘tough merc’ bravado bullshit on around me, anymore. I heard you was talkin’, too.” He scratched the back of his head with an air of hesitance around him. “I’m not gonna have my few hours of sleep interrupted without making sure you’re okay. Hell, you’re still shaking, kid.”
The shorter man flinched at that. He stared at his hands, still trembling (and as weak as ever) and quickly shoved them in his pockets. He was fine, he was fine, nothing was wrong. Why couldn’t Barret get that?
“I’m fucking fine, Barret. Sorry for interrupting your beauty sleep, or whatever. You can go back to bed,” Cloud mumbled as he made his way to his bed. Barret grabbed his arm to stop him. The touch sent Cloud reeling.
The screeching of metal filled his ears. Everything felt wet. Everything was covered in blood and mako, reeking of the smell of iron and rotten eggs.
He felt like throwing up.
“Don’t touch me!” He yanked his arm away. The back of his knees met the bed, making him fall backwards onto it. Barret stumbled back, hand and gun up in the air defensively.
“Hey, everything’s okay. Didn’t mean no harm by it.” Barret slowly lowered his arms. “Sorry ‘bout that.”
Cloud continued to stare at him with wide, unseeing eyes. His eyes always freaked Barret out a little. The way they’d glow mako green in the dark, pinprick pupils cutting through them despite the dim lighting. The shorter man before him lay on the bed, propped up by his elbows, chest rising and falling faster and faster. One breath out, then one in, then one out faster than the last, until he began working himself up into gasping. He was beginning to look more like a cornered animal than anything. The sight filled Barret with unease.
He looked so vulnerable.
If the blond didn’t make such a display of his inhuman strength daily, Barret would have been convinced he was still just a kid. He sure still acted like one, underneath that pseudo-hardened exterior.
Taking on the “parenting voice” he held when Marlene had a nightmare, he crouched in front of the bed. Cloud’s eyes darted all over his face.
“Hey, buddy,” Barret said in a calm voice. “Everythin’s okay. You’re at the Icicle Inn right now.”
“I know that, I’m—“ the blond cut himself off by gritting his teeth.
Hovering a hand over Cloud’s knee, Barret placed it down when Cloud didn’t give any disapproval at the motion. “Look, all of us are distraught over what happened to Aerith. I bet you’re the most hurt out of all of us. She was—“
“Nothing happened to her!” Cloud shouted. It startled Barret; he retracted his hand immediately. Cloud’s eyes were filled with sudden clarity as he sat up, back leaning against the wall. “She’s fine. Aerith is fine. She’s in the room next to us. No, she—“ he cut himself off with a hand pressed to his head, eyes squeezing shut in pain. “She’s at the Capital. She’s fine. She’s fine.”
It sounded like he was trying to convince himself of that.
None of them had tried to gauge what was going through Cloud’s head since Aerith’s death. Something there was clearly wrong, but nobody knew to what extent. Up until then, Barret had kept his lips sealed shut when it came to the topic of Aerith around Cloud. However, his emotions were getting better of him at the thought of the flower girl, now.
“What makes you say that? How could you possibly know that?” he asked, barely restraining himself.
“I saved her! She’s fine! Just get the fuck out, Barret,” Cloud spoke through gritted teeth. His face was red, hand to his head, looking like he was on the verge of exploding from anger. Or something.
Barret heard shuffling outside the room. Gaia, he hoped the others had the good grace to not charge in at the sound that had no doubt woken them up.
Steeling himself with a deep breath, Barret forced himself to calm down.
“Cloud,” he began, “look, I dunno what’s going on in that head of yers. Now, what I do know is this: we can’t have ya losin’ yer marbles this far into things. Not when we’re this close to finding Sephiroth.” The blond jumped at the name, but Barret continued onward. “We can’t have ya freakin’ out like this or losing yer shit without tellin’ nobody. I just want ya to talk to me. Or shit, not even me — talk to Tifa, or Nanaki, or even Vincent for all I care. This shit is high-stakes, and you’re leadin’ us. You need to do it right. Do I make myself clear?”
Begrudgingly, it was the first time Barret officially acknowledged Cloud as their leader. Regardless, he stayed by his word, holding Cloud’s eyes in an intense stare down. Eventually, Cloud relented, sighing and releasing his grasp on his head. His body seemed to deflate.
“You’re right. Sorry. I’m supposed to be better than this,” Cloud admitted in defeat.
“None of that, boy. We’re all goin’ through shit, right now. Ya just can’t bottle everythin’ up ‘til it explodes in your face, is all,” the bigger man replied. His feet were getting the feeling of pins and needles from crouching for so long, but he stayed rooted in place. The ex-SOLDIER in front of him was more important than some leg pain.
The silence stretched on for a while. He continued crouching as he knew the other man took a while to formulate his thoughts, sometimes. Just when Barret thought Cloud was actually done speaking for the night, he spoke in a quiet voice.
“I’m… scared. I don’t know what’s going on in my own head anymore. I’m actually feeling scared,” Cloud’s voice wavered, almost in a whisper. “I don’t feel in control of myself, sometimes. I don’t know what I’m capable of doing. I’m scared.”
The sliver of moonlight from the window illuminated parts of Cloud’s face in a soft, blue tint. His glowing eyes looked contemplative; tired. A bone-aching exhaustion that persisted throughout the posture of his body. Before Barret was a man who didn’t know how to be a man. Didn’t know how to grapple with the world around him, nor his own mind. Gaia only knew what really happened to the broken man that spoke of his fear of himself. His gaze held the look of someone who had seen much beyond their years. A bone-deep tiredness that wanted it all to end.
Suddenly, Barret understood. This was a man who was still a boy. A boy, lost and broken, shoved head-first into a world so beyond him with an objective so daunting. This was a boy who had lost what he called a home, instead confused by who he should call his mother. Deep down, Cloud really was a boy who was afraid of the unknown, and that unknown was his own consciousness and whatever forces that tampered with it.
Cloud rubbed his chin self-consciously with an ungloved hand. The action exposed the plethora of various scars littering every inch of his skin, glistening this way and that in the dim moonlight. Barret had a better head than to ever ask him about such scars, but part of him feared the answer he’d receive. They looked to be both from battle and… precise. Oddly surgical.
The thought filled him with a sense of dread and unease he felt one too many times while looking at the blond.
“I’ll let you all know when I feel confused,” Cloud mumbled in embarrassment. “This is all bigger than me, I guess. As much as I’d like to push this shit aside.”
That finally snapped Barret out of his thoughts. He looked onward at the blond. “Thank you. You’re not in this alone, aright? I’ll keep repeating that until it gets drilled into that thick skull of yers. I ‘ppreciate ya openin’ up to me,” Barret said. Though, he didn’t do much in response to one of Cloud’s rare “opening up” speeches — he was left speechless, frankly. His conscious rattled with guilt at that.
“Yeah,” Cloud mumbled in response. “And, uh… thanks. For listening,” he finished lamely.
“Don’t mention it.” Barret finally stood up from his crouch, groaning at the popping in his knees. Shit, he was getting old, huh? Much older than most of the circus that was the rest of their team. “Now, ya need me to stay here longer or can I trust that you’re feelin’ better and are gonna sleep?”
“You can go. I’ll go to bed,” Cloud said, shifting himself until he was on the bed normally, laying on his side. “G’night.”
“Aright. Goodnight.” Barret walked to the door before stopping at the doorknob. Cloud’s words bounced around his skull, leaving him unsettled. It felt wrong to leave such an important moment with the blond like that.
Barret turned around boisterously and spoke with determination filling his chest. “It’s okay to be scared of yerself, sometimes. I know it must be scary, not knowin’ when you’re in control or somethin’ else is. But,” Barret jabbed a thumb into his own chest, “ya got us. We’ll make sure ya keep yer head on straight. We’ll remind ya of who you are and we’ll tell ya when you’re actin’ funny. You’re not alone, kid; it’s okay to lean on us every so often. That’s what friends are for.”
Cloud turned his head over his back to look at Barret. His eyes glistened, wet in a way Barret had never seen before; neither refused to comment on it. “Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”
“No prob, kid.” Barret turned the doorknob and stepped into the doorway. “Get some rest, aright? Needa be up bright n’ early if we wanna check out on time.”
“Got it.”
Closing the door, Barret let out a breath. The man they had come to call their leader was losing himself by the day. They needed him to hang on if they wanted this journey to not be in vain.
His head hurt from the upcoming conversation he’d have to have with the others. How was he going to tell them that Cloud thought Aerith was still alive?
Cloud lay in his bed, head much clearer than before. His eyes pricked with the warm sensation of something he refused to address.
“That’s what friends are for.”
Someone else had said that to him long ago, didn’t they? Someone tall. And strong. They had kind eyes. He remembered feeling protected, like he no longer had to fight his battles alone.
The memories vanished as quickly as they came. In their wake now was the tears Cloud tried to suppress. It left him feeling… lonely. Empty.
“He’s lying. They all lie to you, time and time again.”
Cloud inhaled strongly through his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. His brow furrowed at the unwelcome words, conveyed through the sweet, lilting voice of Aerith.
“There’s only one person you can trust in.”
Almost like a fear-inducing lullaby, Cloud found himself being lulled to sleep by the voice. The soft whispers of many abraded away at his consciousness until he found himself relaxing. Before finally giving into the sweet relief of unconsciousness, he heard it say one last thing:
“You can only trust in me. Let me in, Cloud.”
It was a quiet night. A peaceful one, really.