Disclaimer: Final Fantasy (c) Square Enix
The twitch of a hand and soft shifting went unnoticed at first. It was such a minuscule action, normal. But the occasional twitch turned into a small jerk of the arm, the muscles all clenching as the hand clenched and released. This gained notice, but the actions calmed soon after and so was left alone. Perhaps a dream about training or something similar. The small twitches didn't cease and eventually the jerks became full body spasms, sending his back smack against the man sleeping behind him. Small sounds escaped his lips, but unlike his movements, they didn't show sign of increasing.
They all had nightmares. It was a side effect of war, one that even time would never truly ease or erase.
Zack was young, his dreams were full of bloodshed and faces. Details were burned into his memory and, no matter how he tried, he couldn't rid himself of it. He'd wake, entire body trembling and eyes misting with remorse. Angeal always calmed him down and Zack took comfort in his mentor, letting him help through what was easily the hardest part of a Soldier's life.
Genesis usually reacted violently to his own plagued nights. He liked to pretend the death didn't bother him and, Angeal supposed, on some level it didn't. But the man was still human, he could still feel love and sadness, therefore could still feel guilt. Sometimes Angeal wondered if, out of them all, it bothered him the most. He would stalk off, pretending to shake off his nightmare. Angeal or Sephiroth would follow and ease the man back from the hell his mind had dug itself into. Only they were ever witness to the shaking of his hands or the desperate look in his eyes. He refused to let their youngest lovers see him like that.
Angeal took each death personally and seriously. He didn't try to forget the faces of the ones he killed, he didn't want to. Sometimes he welcomed the dreams, it meant he still felt remorse over it. It meant he was still human and not a monster. He was usually quiet, burring his head into his hands as the images of his nightmare drained from his mind. Zack usually wrapped his arms around him and brought his mind back to the present through sheer comfort of human contact.
Sephiroth's nightmares were few and far between. It was how he was raised and trained to think. Perhaps killing truly didn't bother the great general, but very few knew that even he could be tormented. He never did say what it was that plagued him those nights, he never did say anything at all. Genesis or Angeal usually sat with him until his mind had calmed enough to sleep or, on the occasion that he was violent, helped calm him down. Though, so often, Cloud would step in.
They'd all suffered those nights, they knew what each other went through.
The reaction to the dream was not common to any of them. It wasn't Zack's tormented groans or Angeal's restless shifting and twisted expression. It wasn't Genesis' near re-enactment of fighting or Sephiroth's abnormal rigidness and ragged breathing. It was Cloud. The youngest lover's face was twisted as small sounds escaped him, his arms twitched and legs jerked, trapped in the throes of a nightmare. Nightmares of a baser sort weren't terribly unusual, but the haunted look in his eyes when he was shaken awake shot down the hope. He'd experienced his first up-close kill and, the very next night, his first tormented nightmare.