Just a note: In this part of the storyline, Geostigma is something that only Cloud has, and it's fairly different than the Geostigma in Advent Children. There won't be any remnants in my story (no Kadaj, Loz, or Yazoo, sadly), but Sephiroth will be making an appearance later in the storyline, though it will not be like it was in the movie... that's all I will say. ;)

Lyric excerpts from Metallica's "Unforgiven II" and The Smashing Pumpkins' "The Beginning is the End is the Beginning", respectively. I do not own these songs, nor do I make money from them; they are purely there to set the mood.
Tseng/Rufus, Rude/Elena, Reeve/Scarlet; implied Rufus/Rude.

An hour later, Reno was still in a drinking mood, and had started downing another bottle of rum. Cloud was sharing the bottle with Reno, but had also started on the hot sake' that Tseng had ordered for them. His stomach started to flip and flop, and before he knew it, he was praying to the gods on his knees in the bushes outside of the hotel. He lay in the grass beside his vomit for some time before nodding off to sleep. He was awakened just a few short minutes later by the sound of Reno pissing on the dried leaves near the bushes, the splashing jarring him out of his drunken stupor. "Ohhhhh.." Cloud moaned, sitting up and holding his head with one hand. Reno laughed at him from nearby. "Yo. Cloud. Time to wake up, sleepy-head!" he jeered, saluting him with the bottle of rum in his free hand. Cloud watched as his lover chugged the bottle and finished it off, throwing it against the brick wall and hooting with glee as it shattered. Zipping his pants, he walked over to Cloud and helped him stand. "Reno, Reno I don't feel so good, love," Cloud mumbled, his head lolling to the side. Reno kissed him on the side of his head and took his arm. "C'mon baby, gonna get you back to the room. Everyone's crashing with us tonight, so we gotta make sure we get to the bed first," he told Cloud.

"Hmm, I thought Reeve and Scarlet were in another room already," Cloud mumbled. Reno nodded then groaned as he remembered vaguely that Tseng had told him earlier that they were all sharing a room now. Something weird was going on, and he couldn't put his finger on it. "Yeah, they're in OUR room. Fuck. There goes the bed," Reno cursed. He spit out of the corner of his mouth. "Fuck, Cloud," he slurred. "Really wanted to lay your hot drunken ass down on that soft bed tonight and fuck the hell out of you." "Reno!" Cloud exclaimed, then laughed. "What about the bathroom, remember? An hour ago??" he said. Reno stopped and yanked Cloud's hand to his crotch and watched as Cloud's eyes grew wide. "Ohhh..." Cloud said, remembering, looking up toward the sky: the mako-enhanced rejuvenation. "So, you're hard and that means you just have to fuck," he said, groaning. "Ah, you're teasing, Spiky," Reno said. "That's the idea," Cloud retorted.

Laughing softly, they made their way into the hotel and to their room. Outside the door, they heard grunting and a woman speaking softly. "Uh...." Cloud whispered. "Maybe we should come back. Sounds like they're.. busy." "Oh, fuck that!" Reno hissed and threw the door open. Scarlet was splayed on the couch with Reeve on top of her, obviously doing to Scarlet what Reno wanted to do to Cloud in the bed at that moment. Neither of them bothered to stop what they were doing and only gave a short glance at them. Reno rolled his eyes at Cloud sarcastically. "At least they're not in the bed, yeah?" he said, and grabbed Cloud, carrying him through the doorway. He grunted and kicked the door shut behind them.

"You know, you're kind of heavy," Reno quipped, and Cloud groaned. Reno dropped him on the bed and began hastily removing Cloud's clothing, not giving much concern for the open layout of the hotel room, knowing damned well they could be seen from anywhere in the room, the only enclosed area being the bathroom. Turning the light off over the bed area for a bit of posterity, Reno dropped his clothes in a pile along with Cloud's and slid under the sheets easily, curling up and placing his hardness against Cloud's turned back. He ran a hand down Cloud's spine, feeling the man shiver beneath his touch, and let his fingers trail down between his ass, slipping a finger in, then a second one. He hummed in happiness as he found the blond man still wet from their earlier escapade, not hesitating to lift Cloud's leg and grabbing a hip to bring him closer to his throbbing, aching cock. He entered his lover slowly from behind and hissed as Cloud's tight hole wrapped around his dripping flesh. Cloud reached a hand behind him and grasped one of Reno's asscheeks, absent-mindedly digging fingernails into the heated flesh. Reno hissed again, moving faster and wrapped a sweaty hand around Cloud's cock, giving it quick pumps. Cloud's moaning was making him speed up his movements inside of the blond, feeling the need to come and come fast. He didn't know why, but when he drank or was high, he couldn't control his orgasms very well, so he had to just let it go whenever the time came. He was lucky enough that Cloud never took too long to come, and was relieved when he felt Cloud's muscles clench around his flesh. He panted and felt sweat drip from his brow, then felt himself careening and plummeting toward fulfillment. He came inside of Cloud then, with a cry and a quick nip to the back of Cloud's neck.

He had claimed his lover once more.

They lay silently for some time after, and Reno thought that Cloud had fallen asleep. Instead, he found that Cloud was very much awake, and saw his hand moving underneath the blanket. He lifted the blanket, and in the dim light coming from the area where the couch and table were, he could see Cloud scratching his arm. A darkened spot had formed on his upper arm.

"Hmm, what's this?" Reno asked. Cloud stopped scratching and said, "Not sure, but it burns like hell." "You should stop scratching it so much, then. This skin is too beautiful to be marred," Reno chuckled and placed a hand on top of Cloud's. He sighed in contentment and said, "Dunno how I got so soft lately. Must be your influence," he told Cloud. "Yeah but i'm not too soft myself, you know. I can drink and cuss with the best of them. And you happen to forget that I can kick some major ass, too," Cloud said, laughing. It was true. Cloud wasn't exactly as soft-spoken as many people had made him out to be, but he was for the most part shy and quiet. Moody, even. Reno was always explosive and rowdy, but now, with Cloud, things seemed different. He could relax and speak soothing words.... he could care. It made him uneasy but happy at the same time. It was nice to relax and have someone take care of him - and vice versa.

The idea of becoming a married man scared him to an extent, though he had secretly always wanted to settle down. He eventually felt Cloud's breathing ease and knew that the blond had fallen asleep. Reno hoped that the dark spot on Cloud's arm was just a strange bruise or something, and didn't give it further thought as he felt the arms of sleep embrace him warmly, tugging him down into the depths of darkness.

In the morning, he awoke with a strange feeling. His Turk senses were sending off alarms in his head, though he wasn't sure what was wrong yet. Cloud was already awake, and met Reno's eyes with a smile. Reno leaned, shifted over and kissed him on the cheek, then headed for the bathroom, mindful of their guests in the room, and closed the door this time. He came out of the bathroom minutes later and saw Cloud waiting for him, and eased himself back into bed with a soft groan. His body ached from last night. With all the alcohol he had consumed, he felt like a truck hit him. He really didn't want to move from the bed today, but he knew he would have to eventually to get them something to eat. He noticed, with shock, at how Cloud's mood had quickly changed from smiling at him minutes earlier to a worried expression and shaking so badly it made the bed shake. "Cloud?" Cloud looked slowly over at him, his eyes filled with fear.

"Lay beside me, tell me what they've done..."

"Reno, I have to tell you something about Hojo...." Cloud drifted off in thought, and he could tell Cloud was terrified. "Tell me, Cloud. I love you. I'm not going to hide, nor laugh, or anything but listen and care for you," Reno assured him. Cloud let out a nervous laugh, and began his awful story. The details were still a bit fuzzy, but he told Reno what he could, awful details of pain, suffering and torture under the hands of that psychotic scientist. Days of being forced to stay awake, being prodded like an animal, burned, cut open, injected with unknown substances. When Cloud was finished, Reno was shaking as well. They held each other for a while afterward. Cloud broke the silence by stating, simply, what Reno had been thinking himself: "But you already knew these things, right?"

Reno sat up, but did not pull away from Cloud. "Yes, but never firsthand. Gods, Cloud! What else is there? There is something you're not telling me," he pried quietly, trying not to let the others hear, but he knew they had been eavesdropping the entire time. He settled back down beside Cloud and held him. They didn't speak to each other for at least an hour, Cloud crawling back into his hole of hiding.

Tseng broke the silence. "Reno." Reno sat up on the bed, realizing that he and Cloud had fallen asleep. Cloud was still out like a light, and Reno got out of bed and joined Tseng at the table. He was drinking a bland cup of black coffee, and held a second cup out to Reno, a gift from the disgusting coffee pot in their room. Tried as he might, Tseng could not get the damned thing clean enough, but they needed something strong to settle their nerves. Tseng had overheard the entire conversation and he was shaking as well when Cloud had finished his story of his time under Hojo's captivity. He had read the reports, but had never heard the story firsthand. Hearing the words fall from Cloud's lips got underneath his skin and left him uneasy.

"Tseng, what do you know?" Reno asked quietly, noting that the others were still sleeping. He also didn't want to wake Cloud. He didn't want any interruptions.

"Well," Tseng began. "Cloud told you everything correctly. His details were a bit screwy, but he was pretty much correct. I did not want to talk to you about Hojo, though. You need to know why we all followed you here."

"Sir? You followed Cloud and I?" Reno felt himself become agitated. Perverts! Tseng shook his head. "Not the way you're thinking, Reno. The mark on Cloud's arm. It's what we've started calling Geostigma, though Cloud is the only one we've seen this happen to," he said. Reno cocked his head, not understanding. "It's… kind of an emotional disease brought on by the amount of Jenova cells in his system. All of the sadness, Cloud's inner demons raging, unspoken memories… If he does not get them out, it will kill him."

"What?!" Reno exclaimed as quietly as he could. Tseng lowered his eyes. "I'm sorry, Reno. This is something Cloud will have to take care of on his own. None of us, not even you, can truly help him," he said. "There is one thing you can do, though. You can keep encouraging him to talk. Keep getting closer to him, make him trust you unconditionally, and eventually he will open up completely to you."

"Tseng, Sir," Reno said, unsure of how to say what he felt. He felt his throat tighten and felt the need to cry, but he held it in for a moment longer. "Tseng, thank you for letting me know." He stood up and offered his boss his hand. Tseng stood up, and taking Reno's hand in a firm grip, pulled him into his arms for a strong hug. "Reno, you take care of Cloud. And you take care of yourself. Your friends will help with the rest, if something dire were to happen."

Reno pulled away and went to the bathroom, closing the door. He slid down against the wall and allowed himself to cry silently as he felt the world closing in on him.

Cloud was not stupid. He was not sleeping, either. He had heard the conversation between Tseng and Reno, and he knew Reno was in the bathroom. He sat up in bed and looked at Tseng, who nodded and tilted his head toward the door. "Go to him," Tseng mouthed silently. Cloud nodded once and went to the bathroom door. "Reno," he called softly, knocking once and entering the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Reno sat with his back against the wall, his hair even more disheveled than what it usually appeared to be, his face reddened and stains of salty tears leaving their tracks down his cheeks. "Reno..." Cloud sat down and reached out with both hands, his fingers trailing lightly over Reno's cheeks, wiping the tears away. Reno's body shook with emotion; the tears kept coming.

"Cloud, you heard didn't you? You know, don't you? Aren't you afraid? Why can't you just talk to me, let it all out? Do you want to die, is that it?" He let loose the barrage of questions quickly but quietly, choking on his voice as more tears surfaced and slid down his face. "Reno, I would be lying if I said that I wasn't afraid of what this disease could do to me, now that I know. But please understand that there are just some things I can't talk about right now, no matter how badly I want to," Cloud replied. He held Reno, and suddenly found himself crying as well, but lifted his head high and with the bravest voice he could muster, said, "We just have to take care of each other, Red. No question about it, and--"

He stopped talking and felt his body seize up. He fell sideways onto the floor. His wrists curled in and his body shook uncontrollably, his breaths coming out in sharp gasps. The blackened mark of the Geostigma dripped black ooze onto the bathroom floor. Reno jumped up quickly and began to shout for his boss.

"Tseng! Tseng!"

The head of the Turks fled to the bathroom door with a rush, not sure of what he would find. He heard urgency in Reno's voice, and he did not ignore a fellow Turk's call for assistance. Rude and Elena did not either, and soon followed suit behind Tseng. Flinging open the door, Tseng bolted over to Cloud and wrapped a towel around the blond's arm. Rude and Elena stood in the doorway staring at Reno like he had lost his mind until they noticed Cloud, blackened blood seeping through the towel, his mouth open in an "o" of pain - a scream caught in his mouth, unable to form. Reno's face was still streaked with tears that Cloud had not wiped away, his hair still all out of sorts.

Cloud's seizure stopped. The bleeding stopped and Tseng and Reno breathed a collective sigh of relief. "It hurt," Cloud said, his voice raspy. He sat up slowly and looked around at everyone. Much to Reno's surprise, Cloud began to laugh. Reno paused when he looked over and saw what Cloud was laughing at: All of the Turks were standing there, all of them in different states of undress except for Tseng. Elena had a thin sheet wrapped around her, and Rude had a pillow hiding his frontal nudity.

"Yo, if you all were intending on protecting or helping someone, it would be hard to do without clothes on," Reno said, trying to crack a joke to relieve the tension in the air. Elena laughed nervously and Rude coughed to stifle an embarrassed laugh. Tseng chuckled himself. Reno heard Rufus call out from behind Rude and Elena, "At least you're not on this side. Rude's ass is hanging out. He'd better not bend over. If he does, I think Elena might have to shoot me." Tseng gave his lover a look. "I'll deal with you in a minute, Mr. President," he said, smirking. Elena gave Rufus Shinra a look as well, but hers was a heated look, none too pleased at the president of Shinra, Inc. hitting on her boyfriend. "Cool it and keep it in your pants, President. You had your chance," she said, then added, "And I must say, from what I've heard, you definitely tried." Rude coughed again. Everyone turned to look at Rude and Rufus. Tseng now gave Rufus a daggered look. Rufus held up his hands, "Now hold on, that was a long time ago, Elena. A long time ago."

"Hello? Guys? I really don't care to hear about who was getting a piece of ass from my partner, or the lack thereof," Reno interrupted sarcastically.

"Will everyone just SHUT UP??" Scarlet screamed from the floor where she and Reeve had made their bed last night. "Sleeping here, people!" Reeve groaned. "Scarlet, shut your mouth. You're the only one being loud in here," Reeve said. Scarlet gasped in shock at his tone, but was quickly quieted by Reeve kissing her. Rufus rolled his eyes at the two on the floor, knowing full well that Reeve had probably kissed her to make her shut up. She was just about as talkative as Elena; the only difference was that Scarlet was bitchier.

Tseng groaned and Reno waved everyone out of the bathroom. When the door was shut again, Reno removed the towel from Cloud's arm. "Hey, it stopped bleeding," he said. Cloud nodded. "Let's get you back to bed, okay?" Reno tossed the towel onto the floor and picked Cloud up. When he had helped him settle in bed, he said, "Wait for me. I'll be back in a moment." He went back to the bathroom to clean up the blackened mess. With disgust, he took the towel and promptly tossed it into the garbage can. He washed his hands repeatedly; he couldn't get the feeling of the sticky mess off of his skin.

Cloud lay in bed, memories of his past coming back to haunt him. He shivered and rolled onto his side. No matter what he did, he could not get the thoughts to stop. Reno came back to the bed and laid down beside him, grasping Cloud's hand and resting his head against the blond's turned back. Cloud released Reno's hand, turned to face him, and wrapped his arms around the red-headed Turk's neck. "Thank you, Reno. I love you. I know you're trying to help me," he whispered, trying to calm himself down. "Hey, hey. It'll be alright. We'll figure something out soon," Reno said.

Reno kissed Cloud's cheek and nestled his face into his hair, to smell that familiar scent of vanilla that he had come to love in such a short time. His face drifted down to Cloud's ear, and there he whispered words so quietly that they were certainly only meant for Cloud to hear:

"Time has stopped before us. The sky cannot ignore us. No one can separate us, for we are all that is left."

Cloud took in a sharp breath. Oh, gods. That song.

His mind drifted back to years ago, a lazy day at Shinra Headquarters. Cloud, just a small, young infantryman back then, had been hanging around in the hallway. Not going anywhere, just wandering. He heard singing, and he stopped where he was and turned in the direction of the sound. Who was this? His ears led him to a small room down the hall, and he crept around the doorframe and spotted Reno singing along with a song on his radio. Cloud had hidden behind a potted plant in the room, basking in the sound of Reno's voice, the Turk hitting all the right notes. When Reno heard a rustle in the direction of the plant, he had stopped singing and turned around... and Cloud had frozen. Reno was staring directly at him. But he wasn't. He hadn't seen Cloud. ....Had he?

Reaching further into his memory of this occurrence, he suddenly remembered Reno flashing a smile in his direction, a wink, too, and turning back around to begin singing again.

That was the day the red-headed Turk had stolen his heart. And Reno had known all along.

Cloud looked at Reno, who was now sporting tears in his eyes again. As he felt the pang of tears rushing to the surface of his own eyes, Cloud sniffled. "You knew," he said, and Reno nodded his head. "Yeah. I knew it was you. I saw..." he snickered, "....I saw your hair poking out from behind the top of the plant." His snickers led to gut-wrenching laughter, and Cloud joined in with him. They laughed until they were exhausted, both of them knowing they were trying to forget what had happened just minutes earlier. After the laughter settled, Cloud rolled over and straddled Reno. "Oh! Hey!" Reno exclaimed, surprised that Cloud was on top of him. Cloud bent down and kissed Reno. "I love you, Reno. My lover. My friend. You are going to be my savior, believe it or not," he said seriously.

Reno didn't quite believe it himself, since only Cloud could control what he talked about with him, but Cloud believed in him - and that's all that mattered. If only he could flip a switch and make the memories flow out of Cloud. Only time would tell.