Drabble written at sometime around midnight. Yeah. I'm weird.
Final Fantasy is property of Squeenix.
DDR
When he was young, Cloud liked to play DDR. No, he more than liked it. Heloved it. DDR was fun. It was easy. Most importantly, it was relaxing.
Zack quickly noticed his young friend's obsession with the game. It was hard not to, really, with the way the boy absent-mindedly tapped his feet in the mess hall, or at his desk, or anywhere else, for that matter. After giving the blonde the heads-up that going through DDR step patterns in formation wasn't the best thing to do, he made a point of showing up in the evenings to watch all the trainees compete.
They were all good, he'd give them that. If any in that particular group had shown up not knowing how to play, it was gone now, trained away by those who did. It was relaxing to watch the young soldiers-in-training relaxing in one of the few ways they knew how. Dangerous as they all were, they looked like nothing more than the children they were when they were all playing that one game against one another.
Zack was always impressed with the grace the gangly teenagers all seemed to possess when they fought each other down on the training fields. In here, in their dorm, the heart of their existence, it was no different. Gangly kids with arms and legs too long for their bodies somehow managed to look like the most graceful birds alive. Children who looked as if they should barely remain upright somehow managed to put the grace of trained SOLDIERS to shame. And it looked natural, too.
No matter how graceful the others looked, Cloud always looked as if he was able to walk on water. The little blonde was shorter than the rest of his group, even with his hair sticking up and defying gravity. Still, he put them all to shame when it came to playing and winning DDR. It amused Zack to no end. If he could just convince Cloud to put as much practise into his swordsmanship as he did the videogame, it was conceivable that the boy could beat Sephiroth in a fair fight.
Not that Zack had any intent of making it a fair fight.
So, having everything to do with Zack wanting Cloud to get better with swords, and at the same time having absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Zack knew Cloud couldn't look the General in the eye without wanting to cream his jeans, Sephiroth soon join Zack in watching the trainees play DDR.
Cloud's reaction upon seeing his idol that first night had been to utter a quiet, 'eep!' and turn bone white.
Zack had smirked.
After that, though, the nights had rolled by with the same ease and carelessness they always had. The second night became a third, and the third a fourth, and the fourth a fifth, and so on and so on, until Sephiroth was as much a permanent fixture at the nightly games as Zack himself.
And so it was the General who realised that the blonde boy wasn't present at the nightly games. And when the dark-haired SOLDIER didn't bother to show up, he knew something had to be wrong. Not even bothering to excuse himself, he left the room, a general vacuum of silence following in his wake as he searched the buildings, not stopping until he found them in one of the medical labs on the far side of the complex.
Cloud's reaction upon seeing his idol that first Mako-infected night had been a soft, drugged smile, followed by a tight wince of shooting pain.
Zack merely looked up for a moment, before turning back to comforting his pained student.
It surprised no one that Sephiroth had pulled up a stool, and, grasping Cloud's cold hand between his own, had proceeded to stay the night.