If You Don't Have a Smile
Warnings: Alternate universe. Language (Seriously? Welcome to fanfiction dot net! Stories rated PG have cussing in it!). General crackiness. Much ado about nothing?
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters found here in. They belong to their rightful owners. I am merely a humble Clouffie servant, trying to spread the unconventional love.
End 3: JUMBLE TILT
The world is incomprehensible.
Beyond the boundaries of our minds lies a cavernous void, the likes of which we cannot comprehend, merely for the fact that our capacity to understand the abstract falls far below the actual expanse of the metaphorical universe.
How does it come to this?
He isn't sure, but staring at the slightly disgusting sight of a girl wolfing down his entire supply of pudding while making pornographic-quality moans of delight doesn't seem to be helping the thinking process.
He tries to ignore it, instead focusing on the wilting daisy in a dinky vase by the kitchen window. Patients were always giving his mother flowers of some sort. Little kids, mostly, with bouquets tattered and shorn away by their constant abuse from tiny, fidgeting hands; they must have thought being nice to the blonde doctor-lady would get them out of the hospital faster, or maybe have her change her diagnosis from terminal to common cold. Often-times he found the things in the trash, but, occasionally, he'd observe a daffodil or some lilies clipped short and precariously balanced in the chipped, blue test-tube of a vase, dripping water from a hairline crack in the side.
"That's a pretty crappy-looking flower ya got there, Spikey," the girl quips, smacking a dented container of banana pudding onto the scarred tabletop, only to replace it with a cup of raspberry-chocolate and mint.
"Whatever," he mumbles, turning away from the pathetic figure. He crosses his arms and resumes staring in a sort of horrified fascination at the amount of pudding he hadn't realized his mother had stocked in the kitchen.
"Gawd, are you a broken record or somethin'?" she whines, all the while tearing eagerly at the foil lid of the unfortunate treat, "Ever since we got back it's been 'whatever' this, and 'whatever' that! Hey, look, a distraction! 'Whatever.' Oh my gosh, rape! 'Whatever.' Sweet moogle pompoms, there's Elvis! 'What-the-frick-ever!'"
He shifts around uncomfortably, half so because he's painfully aware of the fact that he isn't the most expressive of individuals (the term apathetic floats at the edges of his mind); and half because she is spewing globs of liquidated pudding towards his general direction.
His response to her claim would usually be met with a resounding 'whatever,' but for the sake of salvaging his dignity, he opts to leave the suddenly claustrophobic kitchen, shoving past the rickety kitchen table without preamble.
The girl sputters (consequently firing more pudding onto the floor), before snagging as many pudding cups as she can carry in her arms and hightailing it into the living room, where he has made himself comfortable on a recliner near a window. The putrid green of the sky is slowly ebbing into twilight, a multi-colored affair with strings of neon blue and orange coupled by small pearls of pink cotton.
She tosses the pudding onto a coffee table placed in front of a couch near where he's sitting, several skittering across the scratched glass only to meet the floor when their slippery track ends. She follows this by flopping onto the couch, the hinges moaning at the rough landing.
"Jeez, this place is really old. Everything's all creaky and stuff," this complaint is met with a stony silence from him, and the air tenses as he hardens his gaze at the window. He can see the outlines of his reflection in the large pane, and a blurry portrait of the girl using his couch as though it were her own throne.
But, can anyone really say they fully understand the universe? It's vast and dark; all knowledge and light consumed by distance and time, culture bled away into history only to return as merely a piece of an ever expanding whole.
Don't we know everything until we learn something new?
"Heeey, is there something interesting out there?" the girl draws a pudding cup towards her prone form, tearing the lid halfway off before glancing at the spoon held loosely in her grip. With a shrug, she tosses it with a wince-worthy clatter onto the table and proceeds to drink instead, tipping the container back like hard liquor.
"Are you ignoring me?" she tries again, a dollop of pudding resting like a squat beetle on her nose.
He chooses to say nothing and instead turns his face fully away from the window to intensely glare at a painting on the wall.
When he continues on with the unnerving silence, she finally catches the hint that something might be wrong. She gazes forlornly at the pudding on the table before hoisting herself up and walking over to stand behind him.
She gives his shoulder a definitive poke and asks, surprisingly quiet, "Hey, are you angry with me?"
He snaps and slaps her hand away, reeling up in his chair.
"Jerk!" she shoves him back, accidentally cracking his head against the wall, "Oops."
"Dammit," he growls, standing and rubbing his aching head, checking to make sure there isn't any blood. There is a dent in the wall.
He whips around and glares at her, "What the hell is your problem?"
She returns his glare, raising herself up on her toes in order to try and match his considerable (at least compared to her) height, "Same thing, buddy! What the hell is up with you? You're acting like some moody girl!"
"Could it be the nuisance standing in front of me, I wonder?" he barks back, and in his mind he's a bit startled by his attitude. He never yells like this, showing his frustration outwardly and so unrestrained, not even to the 'bullies' at school, "What the hell are you on, thinking you can just waltz in here and act like everything is frickin' okay?"
"Frickin'?" the girl murmurs out.
"Shut up!" the girl looks like she is about to protest, but he charges onward, "What right do you have to be here, telling me what to do? You were DEAD just a couple hours ago! You stalked me home! You went through my fridge!"
He grabs his head in frustration, "Why am I even thinking about that? Let's focus on the fact that you ROSE from the DEAD! Who does that?"
"The great ninja Yuffie, of course!" she says it with such a chipper smile that he's stopped in his tracks, the jumble of questions about to be asked falling from his lips in an ungraceful 'guh.'
"W-what?" he stutters.
Her eyes light up, and suddenly she's five feet away from him, posing like some wannabe superhero with her fist on her hip and her other hand pointing high to the sky, "I am the GREAT ninja, YUFFIE!"
Yuffie chances a glance to her audience, only to find him wearing an expression that could compete with a rock.
"Bow at my feet…?" she finishes.
"You're crazy," he finally says, after the silence stretches on for longer than a minute, "No, wait. I'm crazy. Yeah. This, this whole thing is just some crazy delusion. I'm lying in a coma somewhere and this is just some morphine-induced dream."
"Aw, no, sorry emo-boy!" she smiles and skips over to him, poking his forehead, "As much fun as it would be to see you go sit in a corner and write angsty poetry with blood from your slit wrists, it's my job to inform you that you are not, in fact, crazier than any other person around here. You're actually probably saner than most. Maybe."
This can't be real.
It shouldn't be.
But it is.
He smacks her hand away, glaring at her and stepping back from her close proximity, "Fine. Let's pretend that you're real for a second. What the hell do you want from me?"
"Want from you?" she looks confused for a second, "I don't want anything from you. Okay, maybe some extortion, but really, I'm here FOR you!"
He raises his eyebrow, waiting for her to get to her point.
"Nothing? No? Okay, let's put it in simple words for the little brainiac over there," she rests her hands on her hips again and takes a deep breath, puffing herself up as though trying to look more regal or convincing, "You know how earlier I said that I was an angel?"
He nods, "Yes. I promptly ignored you, because that's impossible."
"Yeah, well, I used to thinks so, too. But, here's an update Spikey: It's true. There is something that comes after death. There are people, angels, watching over the worlds, I-I mean, world. And even if it doesn't seem like it, we are there, trying to help," Yuffie takes another deep breath.
"The deal is, I've been assigned to be your protector, or well, uh, something like that."
"So you're saying you're my…'guardian angel?'" he asks, eyes and voice disbelieving.
"Yup, pretty much," she scratches her head feeling awkward, "So, uh, you're kinda stuck with me. For like, as long as it takes, which is I don't know how long."
I didn't want to believe you, and yet, at the same time, I did.
For me, the universe had just upended itself.
"This isn't real. I'm going to wake up eventually," he says with conviction.
"Yeah, yeah. Just keep believing that. Whatever confirms your existence and makes you feel more like a man. Jeez, crazy teenagers," she sticks her finger in her ear before wiping it on her dress, "Anyways, so where am I sleeping?"
"S-sleeping?" he blinks at her unbelievingly, "No. Just no. You can't stay here."
"Think again, Spikey. I ain't got nowhere to go!" she looks at him, widening her eyes and pouting, though she resembles more a fish than something to be pitied, "You wouldn't leave poor, little ol' me to fend for myself. Out there, with the…monsters?" she's proud that she manages to well up a tear in her eye.
He grimaces, "No. There's no room. No way."
"Pleeease?" she widens her eyes until they're practically bulging.
"I mean it: there are no rooms. There are only two rooms to sleep in, and you can't be on the couch. I don't know if mom would even allow this!"
"Awww, poor emo-boy has to check with his mommy to make sure a giiirl can stay in the house?" she laughs obnoxiously; he can feel the pinch of an ever-growing headache coming on.
"N-no, it's not that."
"Then what is it?"
His eye twitches, "Where would you stay? There's no place for you here!"
"Well, I'm your 'guardian angel,' Spikey," she returns her face to normal and grins, "I'll stay with you."
And as illogical as it is, he can't bring himself to turn her away.
"You're not sleeping in the same bed as me."
"Then it's the floor for you!"
"Think again."
She backs off, "Fine, sheesh. Spoilsport."
If I had known what would happen when a little part of the universe had unlocked its secrets to me, would I have really accepted you?
Could things have turned out differently?
They're walking upstairs when she turns around and almost knocks him over in her haste.
"I almost forgot," she starts, "Uh…"
"What?" he growls out, still not entirely content with the thought of this girl being in the same room as him, and trying to show it wholeheartedly.
She smiles sheepishly, "What's your name?"
He can't quite keep himself from slamming his head into the wall.
My name is Cloud Strife.
I used to be a loser, with parents who were never there, below-average grades, and an abysmal opinion on life and the human race in general.
It's not so different now: I'm still a loser, my mom is still never there, school's a living hell, and I still think the world is a shitty place.
But… well, now I'm a kid trying to build a barricade around his bed while his new, crazy, and totally-a-halluciantion roommate/stalker is building a nest in his closet, making his clothes smell like death rolled over.
Now that I think about it, the universe can keep its secrets. In fact, if this is the result of learning, the universe can go fuck itself.
Done! Uh, sorry about the crappy chapter guys. You know this had to get out of the way. Now that Yuffie is officially here, things just keep getting more crack-tastic. Which is kind of a nice break from all the Cloud angst from the previous chapters, even if it's only me who appreciates it.
Sorry for it being so rough, I just couldn't seem to pull anything out right. I'm no good at confrontation chapters, sorry! And I hope they're in character; kinda just feeling around, since this AU is really weird and characterization has to go all over the place for things to move along. Hope everything is making sense, too…Consistency is key, but it's also a bitch, and keeping everyone in the dark is actually hard. As is remembering that I'm writing this story in present tense.
Yeah. So. Thanks to Kaikai PANTS, Anna-Sky Valentine Nox, and Filipina Shortaay for reviewing! You guys really make me blush. Hope this chapter didn't disappoint. :)
I don't know how long the next chap. Will take, since I'm kinda lost on what to do from here. Uh, regroup and think out a plan!
