Happy Holidays everyone and welcome to my holiday fanfic! None of these characters belong to me.
"Now do you see why I did not want to come here, Fair?" The silver-haired SOLDIER general said to the other SOLDIER with black, spiky hair. He sneezed again for about the millionth time and snuggled deeper in the nest he made out of blankets on a chair by a bed that held a practically-mummified person with a tuft of golden, spiky hair sticking out of the bandages at the top of its head. He sighed and looked around at the wooden boards that made up Icicle Inn that they had all been brought back to after a disastrous snowboarding incident.
Zack had the least injuries out of the group that had went, only a few scratches on his face, Angeal, meanwhile, had scratches all over and even a few gashes. Sephiroth had gotten a cold and a few bruises, which explained why he was bundled up in blankets at the moment, and the poor cadet, Cloud, had broken a few bones, causing Zack to go overboard with the bandages from worry. Now-smug Genesis had refused to go with them down the slope, choosing instead to read his favorite book, LOVELESS, while staying in the warm comfort of the inn, nestled around the middle of the Northern Continent.
The redhead now looked at the group over the rim of the mug of hot chocolate he was drinking in an 'I told you you'd get hurt' way while wearing an arrogant smile on his face. He took the mug away from his lips and opened his mouth to gloat over his friends.
"Genesis, with whatever holiday warmth may still reside within my heart, shut the hell up before I toss you out in the cold."
Everyone in the room turned their head towards Angeal as Genesis snapped his mouth shut, Cloud's bandages slipping from his head a little to allow him to see. Usually, the honorable man was the last among them to lose his temper. It seemed as though the ice and cold had chilled even his patience until it turned brittle and snapped.
"Geez, someone sure is grumpy today." The redhead muttered.
"You're not the one who's been out there in the cold all day running into trees, rocks, and snow drifts." Angeal countered back, causing Genesis to pout like a child. He sighed. "Remind me to never let the Puppy choose a vacation spot again."
"Agreed." The others in the room except Zack voiced their opinion simultaneously, Cloud letting out a muffled 'Mmph' to agree with them.
The raven-haired man looked at his friends with a shocked look evident on his face. "W-why?! Oh, C'mon guys, it wasn't that bad!"
"It was." Angeal and Sephiroth responded back, sounding as ticked off and serious as was superhumanly possible.
"Was not!" Zack argued back before turning to his friend laying nearly motionless on the bed. "Isn't that right, Cloud?"
The man in question widened his visible eye as it darted around the room to avoid contact with Zack, pleading silently with any of the other people in the room for help when it landed on one. Finding none, he closed his eye, thinking of the beginning of the day.
There the young cadet stood, shivering at the top of the slope as he gazed down what seemed to be a trail that led straight to his doom. He clutched his snowboard tighter to his chest and whimpered softly as Zack nudged him to hurry up and take his turn.
"C'mon Spiky, hurry up. It won't be too bad."
The golden-haired man groaned at the familiar second sentence his friend said far too often, knowing only too well it will be bad if he says that.
"Oh, for Gaia's sake, hurry up so we can get back to warmth sometime soon." A shivering Sephiroth in a sour mood muttered before shoving Cloud down the slope himself, the teen screaming his head off as he zoomed down the trail with his stomach on the snowboard. The general shrugged dismissively and wrapped the blanket he had tighter around him as Zack gave him an incredulous look. "You can go get him if you want. I am certainly not going to."
The black-haired man rolled his eyes and huffed at his supposed friend before snowboarding after the cadet, wobbling slightly to start out with before straightening his board out. He eventually found his friend mostly buried in a small, fluffy snow hill, groaning slightly and only his legs and a slightly twitching hand sticking out of the white powder. He immediately knelt down beside the mound and started shoveling snow off of the body, not even noticing when his friends and a first-aid person on a snowmobile came up behind him, Angeal oozing blood from new scratches on his skin and Sephiroth shivering despite the warm leather he was wearing.
The blond let out a soft groan once he was mostly uncovered and tried to get up, shaking off the puffy snow that was remaining on him. He watched out of rapidly-closing eyes from the pain as Zack pushed him back down with a hand on his chest as the medic began examining him. "Hey, take it easy, Spiky." He managed to hear his best friend tell him as though he were far away before blacking out completely.
A few hours later, Cloud woke up back at Icicle Inn with a cast around his broken fibula and another one protecting a couple of the bones in his arm which had also been broken, listening to the SOLDIERs voice their complaints to Zack until they noticed he had awoken. He was immediately met by a barrage of questions by the most hyper one in the group about his condition. Even after his repeated answers of being fine, he found himself mummified in bandages by his friend who was apparently unconvinced about his state.
"Hey Spiky, you still alive?!"
Zack's exclamation snapped him out of his thoughts and brought him back to the present conversation. He let out a soft sigh and gave his friend a neutral shrug.
"You see! He didn't think this was bad!" The hyper SOLDIER cried to his friends as he gestured at the man lying in the bed.
"Puppy, he's just saying that so he won't hurt your feelings." Angeal replied, crossing his arms against his chest.
"Nuh-uh!" He said like a child. "You liked it, didn't you Cloud?" The other man's reluctance to meet his eyes told Zack all he needed to know. He pouted and turned his back to the others in the room, looking out the window at the snow-covered landscape, glistening and glittering due to the light of the sunset bouncing off the freshly-fallen snow.
"The helicopter is coming." Sephiroth commented before any of the others knew, his super-human hearing clearly not having been affected by his cold. "Thank Gaia Angeal had enough common sense to call one in to end this lovely little trip ahead of time."
Zack sighed and helped his best friend onto a stretcher, Angeal reluctantly holding the other end as they helped him to the door, Sephiroth and Genesis tagging along behind them. They continued outside once the helicopter landed, boots crunching on every step as they fell down on the packed snow. Once Cloud was settled in the helicopter, each SOLDIER retreated to their own separate corner of the machine, grumbling to themselves or in Genesis's case, reading, except for Zack, who chose to remain holding onto the bar on the side of the door, looking down as they took off. As his gaze wandered along the white, sparkling powder that coated the soil, a single tear fell from his eye at this attempt to bring them all together for the holidays that had failed and probably made them become even more separated than before. As they left, he watched the droplet fall and freeze, joining the innumerable snowflakes and particles of ice that enveloped the land.
In case anyone's wondering, the fibula is a bone in your leg.