Title: Prisoners of War
Author: XpaperplaneX
Beta: urplesquirrel on LJ, aka Doom Squirrel on FF dot net
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: SephirothxCloud
Genre: hurt/comfort, romance, slash
Warnings: mentions of rape/aftermath
Disclaimer: I do not own FFVII and make no money from this work.
Summary: Cloud and Sephiroth are taken prisoner by AVALANCHE. No one, least of all themselves, could have expected what it would set in motion.
The lovely Urplesquirrel has volunteered to beta for me! Hooray! Thank you so much!
Edited and updated as of 26 August 2010.
XXX
Cloud woke up to the sun shining as brightly as it ever does in Midgar and the sound of an alarm going off. He blinked blearily as he started searching for the source of the noise, but settled for studying the thing his right arm was attached to instead. It was hanging over his bed and had weird spring things attached to each finger holding them upright and in place. He couldn't move his hand at all. He tried tugging his arm downwards and started to panic when that didn't work either. Where was he? Why couldn't he move? Cloud kicked at the blankets covering him, trying to get free as gut-wrenching fear flooded his sleep-addled mind.
A man in his late-twenties walked into the room and Cloud froze. The man opened his mouth to say something and Cloud started screaming. He didn't even know what he was screaming; get away, help, where's Zack, where am I, why am I here… he just kept screaming. He suddenly felt his heart rate slow down and the panic began slowly bleeding from his body.
"Cloud? Cloud, hey, what's up?" the man was talking to him as he stepped back from doing something with the IV stand next to him. "Are you feeling a bit calmer?"
"Mmm hmm," seemed like a good enough answer.
"Can you tell me where you are?"
The man seemed to think that he should know the answer to that question. He looked around. White bed, white sheets, nasty yellow walls with generic paintings, little buttons on the bed, IV bag attached to his arm… "Hospital," he felt quite proud of his very scientific conclusion.
"That's right, you're at the ShinRa Military Hospital. My name's Rick, I'm a nurse here. How are you feeling?"
"Thirsty." Now that he thought about it, Cloud's throat felt really dry and scratchy, like he had shouted far too much the day before. The day before… the mission with General Sephiroth. It all came flooding back to him like a tidal wave. The memories crashed down around him and he was drowning in the pain and fear and humiliation. He gasped for breath but his lungs wouldn't hold the air.
"Cloud! Cloud!" Someone was shaking him. The man's face swam into view, Rick, was his name. "Cloud, just breathe. Take a deep breath, you're safe now. Everything's okay."
'Breathe,' that's what Sephiroth had told him. 'Try to relax as I tear you apart from the inside. Fuck me faster and moan like a wanton schoolgirl.' But that wasn't right, was it? Sephiroth hadn't wanted it either. He said he was sorry and held his hand. He tried to make it not as bad. He only asked him to do those things so they could escape, right?
A hand on his shoulder interrupted his thoughts. Rick looked concerned as he held out a plastic cup with a straw in it. "Here," he said. "Take a few sips."
The water was nice and cool on his parched throat. It was also somewhat calming. Rick held the cup patiently until Cloud remembered that there was nothing wrong with his other arm. He grinned sheepishly as he took the cup from the nurse. "Thanks."
"No problem," Rick chuckled and got up. "I've got some other patients to check up on, but if you need anything just push this button here and I'll come running. And if you start freaking out again, bang on it a bunch of times and I'll come running even faster."
Cloud grinned and nodded. "I'll try not to freak out again."
"Good to hear! I'm a terrible runner. Oh, your friend, Zack, wanted you to know that he'd be by later in the morning." With that, the nurse was out the door and headed off to his other duties.
Cloud placed the cup on the little table next to his bed and settled back into the pillows. Zack was coming by, that was good; he wanted to see his cheerful mentor so badly. He vaguely remembered waking up last night and seeing Zack's face, but he had been so out of it. Those were some good painkillers. Speaking of which, those were some good painkillers. His hand didn't hurt at all; there was just a kind of throbbing reminding him that it was there. Nothing else hurt either, now that he thought about it. He lifted up the sheets to take a look at his body. His ankle was wrapped in an elastic bandage, but it didn't look swollen. There were no cuts or bruises on his legs and when he felt his back there was just smooth skin. He didn't want to be caught touching himself if someone walked in, but he had a feeling that his butt was probably healed too. He blushed at the thought of someone touching him there to heal him. That was embarrassing.
But that meant that the doctors had used materia to heal him! How was that possible? Materia was never authorised for use on the regular army. It was much cheaper in the long run to just train new soldiers. Or so they had been told… how exactly did that math work? It wasn't like materia disappeared after you used it. Cloud shook his head; that line of thought was going nowhere fast. Point was, someone had to have offered to pay for his treatment. He knew Zack would have been willing, but the guy was always broke. He split everything he earned between random kids in the slums and his parents back in Gongaga. What little he had left over he spent on girls. He even ate in the army cafeteria because it was free! He didn't have any other friends who might have been able to afford… unless… Sephiroth?
Cloud thought. Was that something Sephiroth would do? Maybe he was feeling guilty because he hadn't given the men the information they wanted and let Cloud get hurt because of it. He did say he was sorry a lot. But still, it wasn't something he would have expected the general to do for some no-name grunt. He thought some more, trying to remember everything that had happened. He remembered being upset at the thought of getting blood on his idol's coat and Sephiroth laughing and telling him ShinRa would buy him a new one. And then he had woken up and someone had been touching him. That was right! Sephiroth had healed him! Not completely, but the man obviously thought Cloud was worth using his own personal materia! Cloud got a little misty-eyed at the thought. That was like a dream come true!
A dream come true. Did he really just think that? Disgust washed over him. But, he rationalized, it was true. He had always wanted to meet the general. Not like that, of course, but he couldn't deny the crush that had been there ever since he saw his picture in the newspaper when he was thirteen. And a small part of him was glad that Sephiroth had been the one to do it. He could well imagine the sort of pain that the other men would have caused him. Sephiroth had a least talked to him, whispered that it would be okay and held his hand. He would have gotten no such comfort from anyone else. And he couldn't help but wonder what it might have been like if it hadn't been rape.
The door opened and Rick was back, bearing gifts of Jell-O and morphine. Cloud smiled.
"I didn't freak out," he stated proudly.
Rick beamed while injecting the drug into his IV. "That's great," he said. "Do you feel like talking to someone? There's a doctor here from the psyche ward who would like to talk if you're feeling up to it."
Cloud hesitated; he really didn't want to have to say it out loud. That would make it so much more real. Thinking about it was bad enough. But maybe the doctor would be able to tell him what he was feeling was normal. Or maybe the doctor would say he was sick and call him a pervert and tell everyone how Cloud had enjoyed being forced on his general like that. He'd tell them all about how Cloud had gotten hard, that he had really wanted it… Cloud had started gasping for air again.
Rick was shaking his shoulder again and Cloud managed to pull himself out of his thoughts. "Cloud, listen to me," the nurse was saying. "You don't have to talk to anyone just yet, but the longer you wait, the harder it's going to be. Doctor Tallion is a great listener and he won't judge anything you say. You'll feel a lot better once you get it out in the open and can start moving on, trust me."
Cloud slowly nodded. "Okay, I'll try."
XXX
Zack rolled out of bed at what felt like far too early in the morning and glanced at his clock. Figures, he thought, far too late. Grumbling, he stumbled off to the shower. Today… today he would get his answers. Cloud had woken up last night, but had been far too drugged up to be anything resembling coherent. And after seeing him lying in that hospital bed, he couldn't have brought himself to ask about what had happened even if he had been capable of answering.
He had left after Cloud had fallen asleep again and asked Julie to tell him that he'd be back in the late morning. When he got back to the barracks he had encountered wild tales of Sephiroth flying into a rage and destroying the VR room. The way some of the Thirds told it, you'd think there had been an apocalypse. He had gone to the general's apartment and found him absolutely wasted. He had refused to let him in, claiming that Zack shouldn't be seen associating with monsters. That was what had finally convinced him that Sephiroth was indeed the one who raped his student. But it also convinced him that neither party had been willing. Still, he had to talk to Cloud and make sure. He didn't want to say anything more to Sephiroth about it until he had found out Cloud's feelings on the matter.
Poor kid, for something like that to happen to him, with Seph, no less! It was just over a year ago that Zack had met him, all spiky hair and big blue eyes. He had stood out to the lieutenant because of his determination. He was smaller and weaker than the other soldiers, and he knew it, but he was willing to work twice as hard as everyone else to make up for it. When Zack had offered to be his mentor, he had been thrown; completely unable to imagine why anyone would think he was worth extra training. He tried to convince Zack that it would be a waste of his time but Zack had persisted until he finally wore him down.
It had been several months before he got past the mental barriers Cloud had developed after years of being picked on and looked down upon. And a couple more months before the shy boy was able to admit that he had a crush on the general. While that sort of thing was hardly uncommon among the troops, Cloud's crush seemed different. For one thing, he was far more interested in Sephiroth as a person not just a war hero. Zack had found that most people tended to forget that their leader was human too. Cloud always loved hearing about Seph's little quirks, like how he jumps whenever his phone rings and he's not expecting it. Or how he always picks out the bell peppers from his food but never remembers to order it without. Small things that made him less perfect seemed to make Cloud like him even more. Zack had been planning to introduce them after this mission. And now… Zack punched the wall of the shower leaving a big dent in the tiles. Everything had been ruined.
Zack stepped out of the shower and toweled himself off. He quickly dressed and grabbed a bite to eat before heading out. He wanted to go see Cloud now, but he had things he needed to get done first. The first order of business was finding out how the investigation was going. He jogged over to the main building and hit the elevator button for the forty-ninth floor.
The very first thing he noticed upon stepping out into the busy hallway was the massive amount of engineers and maintenance staff. They seemed to be clustered around the training room with a lot of traffic to and from the elevators. Heavy machinery was going and Zack could hear a lot of cursing and yelling. 'How the fuck did he manage this?' seemed to be a popular question. Maybe those Thirds hadn't been exaggerating as much as he thought. He popped his head into the briefing room and sure enough, there was Director Lazard looking extremely stressed.
"Fair!" the director noticed his presence. "Get in here!"
Zack put on his best 'it's not my fault' face and slunk into the room. It was a long conversation. Zack tuned out most of the yelling about Sephiroth's behaviour and how much he was costing the company. He did pay attention, however, when Lazard finally got around to telling him about the investigation. The Turks had apparently gathered a lot of information from the building where Cloud and Sephiroth had been taken. They had determined that it was AVALANCHE and believed they had the location of a second base. Lazard was sending some Firsts to investigate that, along with the Turks. Zack wasn't allowed to go, much to his disappointment. He was 'too emotionally involved', Lazard claimed. It was just as well, he supposed, he wanted to be able to be there for Spiky. At least Lazard wasn't cutting him out of the loop entirely.
Zack was eventually allowed to escape after promising to find Sephiroth and make him give a report. But when he checked his PHS, it was nearing lunchtime and he decided that Sephiroth could pout a while longer. He swung by Cloud's barracks and grabbed some spare clothes and a toothbrush, then headed out to the hospital.
XXX
Cloud was poking at an unidentifiable pile of mush on his plate, thinking about everything he and the doctor had talked about. It was difficult opening up to a stranger like that, but the man was really persistent and asked questions in a way that made him want to answer. And at least he hadn't called him a pervert to his face; he had even been unexpectedly understanding about the feelings Cloud was still pretty certain were wrong. He really wanted to see Sephiroth; there was so much he had to ask him about. So many doubts and fears that could perhaps be put to rest if only they could talk. But what if the general didn't want to see him? He had passed Cloud off to Zack pretty quickly yesterday and Rick had thought that only Zack had been to see him last night. Was Sephiroth disgusted with him? He wouldn't blame him if he was. He had been useless; he had begged Sephiroth to make it stop even though he had promised himself he wouldn't and then he'd gotten an erection! He hadn't even been able to walk on his own afterwards. The man had had to carry him while he was trying to fight. He couldn't believe he had been such a burden! Why had the general even put up with him?
He felt like dirt, the worst kind of dirt there was. Sephiroth had done so much for him and had been so kind and now Cloud wanted more? That was beyond selfish! He had no doubt washed his hands of the little trooper who had soiled them by now. Who was Cloud to expect him to want to talk about it? But… maybe, just maybe Sephiroth wanted to talk about it too. From what Zack had told him about the man, it didn't seem likely that he would get to see a counselor. And Dr. Tallion had said that it couldn't hurt to ask. If he asked Zack to see if Sephiroth would mind coming to see him, the rejection would probably be easier to handle. Zack wouldn't tell him Sephiroth's exact words if it was something hurtful. He could go on with life believing that the man was simply too busy to see him and that would be that. He was a general, after all. They led busy lives.
Cloud made up his mind and had just finished off what he could choke down of his bland hospital lunch when he heard Zack's cheerful voice in the hallway. He seemed to be stopping to flirt with everyone and everything. The crash carts must be blushing by now, he was sure. Thinking it was best to be on the safe side, he gave himself a booster dose of morphine before the door crashed open and a mountain of presents walked through. If he looked closely, he could make out Zack's hair just barely peeking over the top. Yep, morphine had been a good idea.
"Hey Spiky!" Zack's voice was a bit muffled. "Brought ya some stuff!"
"Yeah, I can see that," Cloud snickered as his friend fumbled around. "There's a chair to your left you can put it on."
Zack felt around with his feet and dumped the load of goods. "Much obliged!" He turned to face Cloud, "How are ya?"
"As good as can be expected," Cloud shrugged. "Dr. Stewart says I'll be here about ten days before they can take my hand out of this thing," he gestured towards the contraption holding his arm up.
"Well then, I guess it's a good thing I brought you everything you'll need while you're stuck in hospital hell!" Zack practically bounced to the overloaded chair. "We have flowers, some secretaries sent those, we have chocolates, courtesy of your dorm-mates, we have porn, also courtesy of the dorm-mates, but you might find it a bit scary so I'll just have to take it for you. We have cards, books, magazines and movies of the non-naughty variety; I'm sure I can scrounge up a DVD player for ya. And I'm totally willing to go kidnap some other patients if we need more players for cards, whadd'ya say?"
"I say thank you very much… I think. Especially for taking the porn. But please don't kidnap anyone, how about we just play Gin or something?"
"Sounds good, Spiky." Zack fished out the cards and started shuffling. "So the doctor was telling me you were talking to a psychologist this morning?" Zack had actually stopped by to talk to Dr. Stewart before going up to see Cloud. She had confirmed that it was Sephiroth's DNA they had extracted from the rape kit but Zack wanted to hear it from Cloud.
"Yeah, he was pretty nice," Cloud fiddled with his cards. "We talked about a bunch of stuff."
"Like what?" Zack prompted as he lay down three eights.
"Oh, you know, the usual stuff. Why I joined ShinRa, whether or not I want to stay in the army, what I'm going to do if my hand doesn't heal properly, that sort of thing."
"That's it?"
Cloud shrunk down in his bed and tossed a run down on the little table. "You already know about what happened, don't you? Dr. Stewart told me you had asked about the rape kit. She wanted to know if it was okay to give you the results. I figured it would be easier for her to tell you." Cloud fumbled with his cards and dropped a couple on the bed.
"Yeah, I know that much, but I guess I just want to hear it from you. Hear what really happened, because I'm still guessing about most of it."
Cloud fiddled with the cards some more before putting them down and getting a sip of water. He played with the hem on the sheets and poked at the plastic adjustor on the IV line. Without looking at Zack, he whispered, "They forced me on him." He pulled at the springs holding up his right hand and flicked at some imaginary lint. "They- they made me give him a blowjob to make him hard and then they forced me onto his lap." Tears were falling freely now and Zack silently handed him a tissue. "He didn't want it either, if that's what you're thinking. He tried to comfort me and told me what to do to make it hurt less. He held my hand." Cloud's words were coming out in stops and starts between sobs and Zack reached out to hold him.
The cards lay forgotten between the two young men as they embraced. Tears gathered at the edges of Zack's eyes but didn't fall as Cloud sobbed his heart out. Eventually the tears tapered off and they separated.
"Thanks," Cloud sniffed and blew his nose. "I needed that."
"Anytime, Spike," Zack's voice was extremely gentle as he spoke. "I really mean that, you know."
Cloud nodded his understanding. "How is Sephiroth?"
"He tore apart the VR room last night and got drunker than I ever thought possible. I've never seen him so upset. He called himself a monster."
Cloud's eyes went wide with horror. "No! No, he shouldn't think that!" He was frantically waving his good hand and rattling with the trussed-up one in denial of that statement. "I need to talk to him, Zack, please. Will you ask him to come see me?"
"Is that a good idea? I mean, he didn't have much of a choice, but he did have one. He could have talked."
"No he couldn't have, Zack. You of all people should know that. If the general's got a secret the bad guys want, he can't tell, no matter what. Dr. Tallion said it would be okay to see him if I wanted, we talked about that a bunch, actually. There's some stuff I really want to ask him so…" he let his voice trail off.
"All right, Spike, I'll talk to him," Zack stood up and ran his hand through his hair. "If you're sure. But I want to be there, no arguments from either of you."
Cloud blanched. Asking Zack had seemed like such a good plan; he hadn't thought that Zack would want to be in the room. He couldn't ask what he needed to with his mentor there! He trusted Zack, but that was too much. And even if Zack said he wanted to help, he was sure that didn't mean he wanted all the details. It was too late to protest, however, as Zack headed out the door. "See ya later, Spiky!" he called in his booming voice.
XXX
A/N: A lot of this was based on my own experiences with hospitals. I tried to capture the random way you think when you've just woken up from being sedated and you're pumped full of drugs. It's not easy playing cards with one arm! And I'm guessing it's even harder when you're nervous and distracted. Kudos (do people still say that?) goes to my many specialists for kindly volunteering their believable doctor names. Tallion is pronounced tie-yon btw, I always want to pronounce it the cereal box French way. I hope they don't mind starring in a yaoi fanfiction but I figured they should do something useful with their lives. Not that I'm bitter and angry, oh no.