Finally, another installment of my Random Bits series for FF7. Sorry it's taking so long between updates. I'll try to get these out in a more timely manner.

Random Bits: FF7 04

Chapter 1

[Setting - Zack is having a bothersome tooth pulled, and Cloud has been elected the lucky man to pick him up from the appointment.]

[Location - The Infirmary - Dental Surgeon's Office waiting room - Just passed noon. ]

The office door opened and a nurse poked her head into the waiting room. "General Strife? He's awake and just about ready to go," she said.

Cloud paused the cat video he had been watching and stuffed the phone into his pocket. How many videos had he watched in the last forty minutes? He'd lost track after the tenth one, not that it mattered. What else was the internet for, if not for watching cat videos and looking at memes?

Besides, there wasn't a doctor's or dentist's office on the planet that had anything actually interesting to do while you waited, unless you enjoyed reading informational pamphlets on embarrassing diseases (you know which ones I mean), reading ratty, out of date magazines which always seemed to be missing pages, or had the one interesting article cut out, or watching the informational programming which always seemed to have a segment about bodily functions like 'Everybody Pees'. If you were feeling particularly bored, you could always have a go at the ever present Bead Rollercoaster, or if you were really lucky, the 6-in-1 playcube activity center (with counting gears, abacus, tic-tack-toe, and three different bead play options!)

Cloud had actually been considering giving the activity center a go, but a toddler had already laid claim to it, and had obviously not been taught that sharing is caring.

"The extraction went well," the nurse informed Cloud as she led him to one of the many exam rooms lining the hallway, "Er, after we got him sedated."

"Ah, yeah..." Cloud mumbled awkwardly.

Getting Zack to agree to have his festering molar pulled had required a great deal of convincing, which involved Cloud Angeal, and three 1st Class ELITEs physically manhandling him from the training field all the way to the exam chair.

One of the new 3rd Class ELITEs had been attempting his first Shift, when the abscess around Zack's rotting tooth had finally ruptured. One minute Zack had been standing there normally (aside from the swollen lump on his left cheek), and the next minute he was projectile vomiting like a geyser.

The smell had been horrific. A Smell Connoisseur, had such a thing existed, would have described the stench as a full-bodied, toothsome malodor that had not so subtle overtones of fleshy putrefaction with smoother hints of vegetable decay and, for some reason, brimstone. The Average Joe would have described it as akin to a stew of week old corpses simmering gently over a burning trash heap.

Cloud and Angeal had each grabbed Zack by an arm and started dragging him to the Infirmary. Zack had Shifted and dug all four paws into the ground, screeching and twisting, spraying puss and rot-stink like a busted water main.

All the frantic movement had only served to stir up the smell to an intensity that caused it to physically manifest itself as a cloud of fog in distinctive color of Baby Poop Green. It had swirled around the three struggling figures, trying to choke them with greasy, fetid tendrils that went straight for the gag reflex.

Three 2nd Class ELITEs had jumped in to help, demonstrating great constitutional fortitude and earning themselves two days of no drills. Between the five of them, they had dragged Zack along, escorted (and slightly obscured) by the sinister green cloud. Their progress was marked by the caustic effects of the The Smell. Paint had peeled, plants had withered, metal had tarnished, wood had blackened, carpets had curled, and two plastic chairs had gone runny by the time Zack had finally been deposited in the exam chair. The Smell had been banished to the waiting room, where it had lingered only briefly before meeting an untimely end at the hands of a nurse armed with a can of air freshener.

Cloud entered the room and found Zack slouching in the the exam chair, grinning widely at a point several hundred yards away. If his eyes had been anymore unfocused, they would have been looking in opposite directions.

"Hey, Zack," Cloud called, with a slow, exaggerated wave.

Glassy eyes slowly floated into positions suggesting reasonable focus, and the light of recognition flicked on.

"Heeeeeeyy...look a' this!" Zack slurred proudly as he waved his arms around over his head.

"Er, that's great, Zack,"

"Innit tha' cool?"

"Uhh, yeah. Good job. Are you feeling okay? You look a little out of it." Cloud remarked in an amused tone.

Zack just gave him a pumpkin grin in reply and blinked, which would have been completely ordinary, had both of his eyes actually blinked in unison.

Wondering just how doped up Zack was, Cloud leaned close and very deliberately said "Knob."

Zack's goofy grin faltered for a split second as a look of vague unease flitted very briefly across his features.

"Wow! You really are out of it!" Cloud chuckled with an amused smile.

Zack watched through a drug-induced haze as Cloud turned to speak with the dental surgeon. He giggled to himself as Cloud's head turned away, but his mouth stayed where it was, continuing to speak while hanging in mid-air. Every time the mouth spoke the word 'and', a tiny wooden bird on a stick sprang in and out of the mouth like a Cuckoo clock, but instead making of the classic cuckoo! sound, the melodic whistle had been replaced by the voice of Samuel L. Jackson shouting 'Cuckoo, Mother(censored)!'

Cloud had turned back to Zack, and was asking him something, but Zack wasn't really paying much attention. He was too busy watching Cloud's facial features shuffle themselves randomly around his face. Both eyebrows and one eye charged at the nose trying to invade their territory. For a moment, it looked as if the nose was going to win, but then the other eye and the mouth swooped in and drove it back to its proper place. There was a moment of peace, before the nose twitched and then everything started warping and sagging like a Salvador Dali painting.

Zack laughed as Cloud's last remaining facial feature, his left eye, slid down his face like a raindrop, gathered at his chin, then finally dripped on to his shirt front to join its brothers. The other 'facey' parts cheered and wiggled around before beginning the climb back up.

Zack completely lost it when Cloud's mouth flapped up into the air, stuck itself to the face of the exam room wall clock like a Colorform sticker (80's babies, you know what I'm talking about), and started making rude noises.

"You should probably monitor him for the next twenty four hours, since he seems to be having trouble with both the sedative and the anesthesia." the surgeon instructed while Zack whooped with laughter and went Thhpppbbbttt! at the wall clock.

"Obviously," Cloud remarked wryly as he pulled one of Zack's arms across his shoulders and heaved him out of the chair. Zack snickered, mumbling something about balloons as he was led unsteadily out the door.

Cloud sighed and shook his head. It was going to be a long afternoon.