This fic is a commission for my lovely friend tekka-wekka on tumblr. In what we called her 'Surfer Jen AU' Genesis goes through a lot of trauma and loses his memories... and becomes a surfer in Costa del Sol. It got a plot, a cast of OCs, Jen's friends, and we figured out how Sephiroth, Angeal, Zack, Cloud, and even Tifa fit into the overall story. So! Please enjoy - I've put a lot of work into this, and it was just so fun. And if you like the fic, feel free to let tekka-wekka know on tumblr how rad her ideas are. :)
Costa del Sol, once a small port city on the Western Continent and now a very large one, was characterized by a few sayings locals liked to quip and that merchants liked to print on boardwalk t-shirts to sell to tourists. Ranging from the obscure to tongue-in-cheek, Costa del Sol was surely the most jingled about or dittied place on Gaia.
Our Grass is Class referred to its endless stretches of grassy dunes. Much of Costa's land was roped off and protected nature reserves (although it seemed crooked local government sold another couple miles of costal reserve back to the private sector every week to make room for more condos and theme parks).
These dunes were essential to local ecosystems. Without the long vines—at timeas over 30 meters—running underneath and throughout them, the winds from the ocean would shift them around too much and erode the coastline. Instead, animals were able to shelter inside them, feeding off the railroad vines inside and in turn feeding larger predators on the coast. The rolling dunes, looking like countless thick, greenish-brown brushstrokes on the canvas that was Costa, certainly gave the area a certain pulchritude.
The saying may also have referred to all the stoners in the area, most of whom probably would have rolled their eyes at someone using the pretentious word pulchritude to talk about Costa.
We're More Golden than the Saucer was all over the heavily touristed areas. While the Golden Saucer was the primary attraction in the world for folks who wanted to blow their money, Costa was a close second. They also had particularly yellow sand due to local sediment deposits that, at dawn and sunset, glittered and glowed like Gil.
One that bored suburbanites everywhere liked to hang somewhere in their homes was We all Feel the Pull of Costa del Sol.
One man didn't know about this popular saying but he sure felt that pull. He had been outside Midgar, he knew. A couple days ago—although time was weird for him, and passing in blurs of confusion and pain—someone he'd spoken to had told him they were a day or so outside Midgar and helped point him towards the sea.
Now the man was across it and on a different continent entirely. He barely remembered how he'd gotten on a ship here.
The man had been sick. Was sick. He could tell from the thick green still seeping from his pores in the sun like a toxin. His chest had been bloody, but he'd had no wound—at least, he couldn't remember far back enough to where it was fresh. It was just a starburst-shaped scar on his sternum. His hands trembled and his head throbbed and his nausea, present for days now, roiled his empty stomach.
The northern tip of the Costa peninsula was less packed with tourists than the main stretch of beach. There were more open space, and those radiant, grassy dunes were just gorgeous this early in the morning. Birds chirped overhead, diving low to scoop up fish swimming too close to the surface. A friendly monster squealed somewhere, obscured by a dune. Someone with long, dark dreads was surfing out there in a wetsuit; the man's eyes slid over the figure before continuing upwards, unseeingly, as they rolled in their sockets.
His legs gave and his bare knees hit the damp sand. People liked to say that Every Path Ends in Costa and this was surely the end of his… his chest heaved, his breath raspy and whistling in his parched throat. The shorts he wore were nearly soaked through in the acrid green sludge he couldn't stop sweating.
Somehow Costa del Sol had called to him. The man didn't know a whole lot but he did know that wherever he'd left—though he didn't remember it; he barely remembered anything at all beyond a couple days ago—hadn't been good for him. He was escaping from something, and the constant fear he'd felt since his consciousness had finally bubbled up from some dark, green place pushed him even now.
The man collapsed down onto the sand altogether. The tide, rising now, lapped at his bare feet and ankles. Soon it would rise above him.
The man was afraid. His arms pulled fruitlessly, trying to haul himself up the beach, but they, too, went slack as his body relaxed. He took in a large, stuttery breath as he blinked rapidly, trying to get his eyes to focus on something—but it was all gold and green, and then dark.
The man's name was Doe.
Well, no, it wasn't, not really—but the nametag on his bed in the hospital read Doe, John and it had taken Doe some time to remember that typically the last name was written first and that John wasn't really a last name. By then he'd already started calling himself 'Doe' in his head, though, and even that little bit of self-claim was important when he didn't own a single thing or know a single thing about himself.
He knew he had strange hair, after a nurse propped him up and gave him a hand mirror. The roots were a reddish auburn but a couple inches down it was all gray streaked with white and black, and the texture was brittle.
Mako poisoning, he was told. Someone surfing off the coast of Costa del Sol's northern tip had seen him collapsed on the sand. By then the tide had been just about up to his mouth and the surfer had resuscitated him and breathed air back into his lungs. Sand had stuck to his entire body, he had been told, due to all the mako seeping from his pores.
What's mako? Doe had asked, blearily, still nursing a devastating headache from the mako withdrawals.
His doctor had explained. Energy pumped from the earth. ShinRa Electric and Power was the premier supplier of mako on Gaia, his planet. Sometimes people fell in natural mako reservoirs or ingested more than just trace amounts. There were quite a few ways to get mako poisoning, Doe learned, and almost all of those cases ended badly. People stayed in comas the rest of their lives, or were severely disabled after surfacing. Mako ate away at body cells in some cases and caused horrible mutations in others.
Do you remember your name? No.
Do you remember how you got to Costa del Sol. Not at all.
Do you remember anything at all about your life? Soon after Doe woke up in the hospital he could close his eyes and get snatches of things—more green, cold glass, metal hallways, a flash of silver. That soon left him too, so the answer when the doctor asked was: …No.
Nobody at the hospital had heard of amnesia being a side effect of mako poisoning, but Doe had it explained to him that the shock of mako overloading the system, combined with severe physical or mental trauma… that could do it.
Doe did not miss the looks of pity the hospital staff gave him. In a way he was something of a celebrity—the mystery man found on the beach. They wanted him to know about his old life as much as he did. Doe, who was in surprising physical condition, as a nurse said, puzzling over why other than exhaustion he hadn't been hurt in any way, studied his body.
Pale skin. A pointed nose. Soft lips. The palest of freckles under his eyes. Red eyebrows speckled with gray. Was he old? He wasn't old; he was in great physical shape, it looked like. Firm, defined muscles and hard angles. Had he been sick, before he got sick with mako poisoning?
A star-shaped scar on his chest puzzled him. He ran the pad of his finger over it as, on the third day after he woke up, his doctor said he had a visitor.
Doe had been unconscious for just under two weeks. During that time mako had poured from his system, soiling his hospital bed. At times his limbs had flailed with the strength to send a nurse flying back into the wall like some kind of superhuman. His visitor had showed up about a week in but had been turned away since Doe was still in his coma.
The surfer who saved him brought a gift.
Doe inclined the upper half of his bed so he could sit up and greet the man hello. He felt fine, and he kept impatiently getting up and out of the bed, but the staff insisted he rest a while longer.
"Thanks for rescuing me," Doe said.
The man—Damon, as he introduced himself—smiled crookedly. "Nearly had a heart attack when I realized there was some guy about to drown in the tide. I'm glad I got to you in time."
"Me too," Doe said, the relief evident in his voice. He didn't have much of a life like this—and who knew what kind of life he had just left behind (it probably wasn't great, from what he could piece together)—but he was still alive, thanks to Damon.
"So, the surfing crowd in Costa has this little tradition. If any of us have a bad wipe out or any kind of, you know, near death experience with a shark or ray or whatever—they get one of these." In his hand was a twine necklace with a tooth on the end surrounded by two yellow beads. "From a kraken," Damon said. "The story goes that one of us, before any of the current crowd was around, was surfing and from directly beneath her the kraken just…rose."
Damon bent his knees and then slowly rose up, his arms spread wide as if in alarm. "Her surfboard was hooked around her ankle, you know? The kraken got the board in its mouth and yanked—snapped her ankle. Still, she got it off and held on to the damn thing's back throughout all this thrashing. When it submerged again she swam all the way over to where it had flung her board and paddled back to shore. The kraken washed up on the beach a couple years ago. The pollution from the closest mako reactor and trash from Costa killed it."
"What a shame," Doe murmured.
"Yeah." Damon looked regretful too. "But a bunch of us were the first ones on the scene. They nabbed the teeth and keep 'em for people who battle through hell like that. The beads are gold glass from good ol' Costa sand."
Doe accepted it. With Damon's approving gaze on him, he slipped it around his neck and adjusted its tightness. The tooth was jagged and maybe half the length of his pointer finger. "Thank you," he said, meaning it so much. Someone was showing him kindness so soon into this (new?) life. "I think I'd have something profound to say, but they're saying I've lost all my memory before just a few days ago. So just… thanks."
Damon put his hands on his hips. His white t-shirt looked soft and comfortable, and made his blue and green bathing suit stand out even more. He was Black, and his long, gorgeous dreads were held back with a large band. He grinned at Doe. "You're welcome. You got a name yet?"
"Not really," Doe said. Doe was okay for now, but he wanted to pick something that felt like him.
"Well you're welcome then, stranger."
Doe smiled again and Damon returned it, making warmth spread in Doe's belly. They talked for a while, and when his first friend left Doe settled back into his bed, feeling more alone than ever.
The doctors gave him an MRI because they were getting weird readings on some of their complicated instruments. While Doe laid there, still and quiet, he thought about the family he presumably had somewhere. Parents. A spouse? Kids? Friends?
It made something in his side ache.
It turned out that that aching was due to something much more mysterious than longing.
"You have materia inside your body," said some surgeon he hadn't met yet, looking baffled as he studied printouts.
"Materia?" asked Doe, struggling to remember what someone had told him a few days ago. Another head surgeon, scratching her head, told him that it was crystallized mako used to cast magic. "Ah, right," Doe said, furrowing his brow, as it came back to him. Facts—like what spaghetti was, and how to use a toilet—weren't all gone; he wasn't totally a blank slate. He could still communicate in his language, after all. Anything about himself was still totally out of reach and he definitely couldn't call himself 'worldly' anymore, if he ever could.
The small orbs were mostly along his spine—four were there in total. Another was near his heart and one lodged hear his pancreas.
"I don't… I don't even understand how they could be inside you without your body rejecting them," the female doctor said, sounding lost.
After that came discussions of removal surgery, and even if he didn't want that, then payment for the two weeks and a couple days he'd spent in the hospital. A nurse sat down with him and explained that they were going to bring in a therapist to try to help him remember enough to contact a family member for the hospital bills.
In the middle of the night that evening Doe escaped.
Yeah, he felt shitty about it—but being a slave to a hospital bill this early into his new life scared the crap out of him.
And you know what?
If he had materia along his spine (if he curved his back he could feel them if he felt with his fingers) and this scar on his chest and had suffered from mako poisoning, perhaps purposefully administered, as he'd seen across the room on his doctor's clipboard… maybe he wasn't sure if he wanted to know the truth about himself yet.
So he climbed out the window. This was easier said than done, because his room was on the third floor of the building. He wrote So sorry! I'll pay for the time I spent here someday on the nurse's checklist at the foot of the bed and put on the shorts he'd been found in, which had been washed while he'd been unconscious. He made sure his necklace was firmly tied around his neck and removed the protective bar from the window with one big heave.
Maybe it was the materia in him that explained why he was so strong. Maybe it was the mako—someone had told him that occasionally having it in your system could make you strong. Doe dangled from the window by his fingertips, his long body stretched. He really hoped the room below his had their shades drawn.
Something told him he'd be fine if he fell—which was ridiculous, really, this being the third floor!—but he swallowed the fear in his throat and let go of the window.
And he was fine. He dropped into a roll, all muscle memory as his brain was still falling between the second and first floors somewhere and was up on his feet as quick as anything. Doe was pretty sure that would have killed most people.
He didn't stop to marvel, speed-walking barefoot down the street. Even at this hour Costa bustled with couples holding hands and sharing ice cream in the cool three a.m. air or buses dropping off tourists idling at street corners.
Costa del Sol was a big city, and the hospital sat in the middle of it. Costa del Sol was a big city in an even bigger world and wasn't in the middle of that at all. Doe wasn't even sure where he fit into that.
In the morning he stopped at a hair salon, explaining that he'd had mako poisoning and lost his memory and if he could borrow a pair of scissors for a couple minutes to cut his hair.
Whether they believed his story or not he was charming and also shirtless, with a handsome smile. One of the hairdressers who didn't have any customers sat him down and quick cut his hair, getting rid of the old, grey ends and then trimming a bit more.
He looked so different with short hair. It was buzzed short on the sides and longer up top, styled into this trendy flippy thing. "You'd look cute with glasses," the woman, Christa, said, tapping her chin as she surveyed him.
Doe didn't know how to thank her. "It's no trouble," she said, waving an arm. "Amnesia from mako poisoning. We hear a lot of things to get free haircuts, but that's the first time I've heard that one. Thanks for the laugh."
It wasn't worth fighting. Doe thanked her again and ducked out. His stomach growled in hunger—his last meal at the hospital seemed far away and Doe's purposeful strides slowed on the boardwalk until he was stopped altogether, disgruntled tourists going around him with dark looks.
He turned and put his forearms on the worn wooden railing. The ocean was big and vast before him like this. The sun reflecting off it made him squint, but even so… it was gorgeous. There were families spread out on blankets and under umbrellas.
Again, the thought that maybe Doe had one of those made his stomach flutter uncomfortably. As the adrenaline from running away from the hospital wore off, it was becoming increasingly clear that that was a stupid decision. He should have gone back. He should have met with their therapist and tried to discover his old self, if it was possible.
Because what was there for him out here? He had no I.D, no life story, no money. He wouldn't last long.
On those dazzling waves, a surfer cut through the sunlight. Doe watched them reach the crest of a wave and pivot, riding its momentum down towards the shore.
He had at least one option, and that was a hell of a lot better than zero.
He'd been found on the northern tip of Costa, so that was where he went. Doe walked along the beach for a couple miles, letting the cool water pool around his feet as damp sand squished between his toes. He saw pretty shells and the soggy remains of sand castles built during low tide.
He found Damon easily enough. He was sitting on the sand, his surfboard stuck into it, eating a sandwich with his legs stretched out in front of him. He wasn't alone; he had a couple friends sitting with him and more out on the water on their own surfboards.
Doe was a little awkward approaching him, but when Damon's eyes flicked over his new haircut and then the necklace around his neck he grinned. "You're free!" he said.
"You could say that," Doe answered, raising a hand at the two girls and the other man sitting and looking at him. "They'd probably say 'escaped.'"
Damon whistled. He looked him up and down. "So that's it?" He asked.
Doe knew what he was asking. "That's it," he confirmed. "I've got nothing. Thought I'd try to find you. Figured you could… point me in the right direction, or something."
"I don't know much about that kind of thing," Damon said. He walked towards the water a bit to give them some privacy and Doe followed. "I used to have a real job and all that. Now I just surf. Help out at the environmental centers around here."
"What did you do before?"
Damon sighed, folding his arms. He was in a wetsuit, and something about it seemed familiar. "Was in the military," he sighed. "ShinRa. Can't say I'm too proud of it."
"Hm." Doe didn't know how to answer that. Half of the hospital staff talked about ShinRa reverently and the other half seemed to hate it.
"You know," Damon said, studying him. "Before that haircut you looked a lot like one of my old Commanders."
"Oh?" Doe's heart beat erratically in his chest.
"Yeah, kinda. Don't get your hopes up—he's dead. Defected from SOLDIER—that's the group I used to be part of—and took a big part of the forces with him. Was pronounced Killed in Action a year or so later. I left around when he and another CO I really looked up to deserted. ShinRa really ain't all I convinced myself it was."
"Oh." Doe felt so foolish, having these flat responses to everything everybody told him. He heard them, it was just… a lot to process, still.
"Surfing's a lot better than killing or doing their dirty work," Damon said, stretching. The sunlight looked so good on his skin. "I like this life. You wanna hang with us for a couple days until you figure out what you wanna do with yours?"
Doe answered, his throat parched again, "I'd love that."
Damon eyed him. "Come on. I haven't taught anyone how to surf in a while but I can give it a try."
The small group shared their lunch with him. "You really don't remember anything?" asked one of Damon's friends, a redhead named Ronnie. His long hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Most of the guys seemed to have long hair. It was a relaxed kind of thing, Doe realized, finding he liked it.
"Nope."
A girl, not much past fifteen, asked him with excitement in her voice, "Do you have a name?"
"I've been calling myself—well, forget it. Any ideas?"
Everyone threw options around. Damon was convinced Doe should be Damon II, making the teenager Salome cackle and throw a bottle of sunscreen at him. Other options were Reginald, Alfred, Barnaby and others that grew increasingly silly like Jellyfish and Mideel. Nadi, who was a very macho type, laughed loudly and said, "You're a pretty type—what about Eleanor? Jenny?"
Doe leant back on his hands in the warm sand. The sun was burning his shoulders slightly but even that didn't feel awful, not with a crowd of tentative friends around him and the first bit of stability he'd felt since he woke up. "'Jenny,'" Doe said, feeling the word around in his mouth. "Jenn. I think… I might like 'Jen.' Something about it feels right." At the look Nadi shot him he clarified, "One 'n,' I think."
"Jen," Damon said, looking at him strangely. He squinted, as if studying his face. "That's an interesting choice."
"Oh yeah?"
Damon finished his study and nodded to himself, looking out over the dunes. The grasses on top swayed in the breeze coming off the ocean. "Yeah. It suits you."
The man's name was Jen.