This is my first Fan Fiction, I'm pretty nervous about putting this up but I really don't mind any nice constructive criticism anyone may have, after all sometimes you can't improve your flaws if they're not pointed out to you :)

"Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge (I think :p)

Anyways, thank you for reading through this first bit and please enjoy...

Cloud pressed his fingertips against the glass. Everything beyond the glass tube was blurred by the mako he was suspended in, but he could make out the white of long laboratory coats preparing a metal operating table in the near distance and shivered.

A huge part of him prayed that whatever they were preparing for had nothing to do with him, and yet at the same time, a tiny, treacherous part of him longed for the brisk human contact he received each and every time he was removed from the mako tank. It was the only contact he ever felt anymore.

His limbs shivered involuntarily. Each time he was taken away from the cold glass prison, he was plunged into a nightmare of unrelenting agony. The scientists didn't seem to think that he either needed or deserved sedating, or even anesthetising, the only thing they thought to inject him with was a paralysing agent that to him seemed completely unnecessary; he could hardly move as it was. But even so, when he was drugged and bound so securely to the metal slab that he couldn't even hope move his head, he could sense their fear. Why were they afraid of him? That was the one thought that always invaded his mind just before pain consumed him, as scalpels dug deep into yielding flesh too drugged up to even scream.

His fingers roved across the surface of his prison as if reaching out towards that pain. Could he really go through all of that again just to access that most basic need within himself that would sweep his loneliness away, if only for a moment? Would that moment really be worth the suffering? His fingers spread, eyes closing. It was. It really was.

As one of the white coated blurs stepped towards the line of mako tanks, Cloud dragged his weak fingers as hard as he could against the inside of the glass. A weak squeaking sound turned the scientist's attention towards him.

He a caught a toothy grin and muffled words as the man in front of him nodded and the tank around him began to un-fill. He trembled as arms harshly pulled him onto another wheeled metal table and more violently as he felt himself being moved and strapped painfully tight to the operating table, as a needle entered his arm and pumped that damning fluid into his veins.

As he felt the first scrape of metal against his skin and the pain began once more, he closed his eyes and let the tears run freely down his cheeks. Had it been worth it? He opened blurred eyes to stare at the blinding white light above him, body unable to flinch as a gloved hand brushed against his side in a motion that to Cloud felt as perversely comforting as any caress. That accidental soft touch, that gentle contact that seemed to rise for one moment above all the pain. Yes. He closed his eyes, the agony and the sensation of warm liquid running down his sides and pooling on the table beneath him, it was almost bearable…

It was worth it…

… All because of that one accidental touch.

Thanks again for reading and please review through that nice little button below