"Zack...Zack!"
Waking up is not what I'm best at. Whoever was calling me, or shaking me, or whatever they were doing, I just rolled onto my stomach and grunted. I was supposed to have the tent theoreticly to myself, so whoever was in here didn't belong here. And since they didn't belong here, they'd eventually go away, right? I folded my arms under my cheek and yawned once, still not opening my eyes. I'd been having a real nice dream, I'd drempt I'd found an island that nobody'd ever been on before. Had the whole place to myself, to explore and head across. There was someone else in the dream, one of those dream friends you're sure you know in real life but you can't put your finger on who it really is. It's not really important, I guess, it was just a nice dream. And I was ready to go back to it, oh yes.
There it was again, that shaking and talking and whole come-back-to-wakefulness thing. Whoever this was wasn't ready to give up so easily, I guess. I played dead again while they kept talking to the back of my head. "Come on Zack, please, help me study now, tell me anything, please..."
Oooooh riiiight...It must be Cloud then, he was the only one who would actually want me to help him study. Anybody else would have to be absolutely nuts. Besides, not anybody else really wanted to join SOLDIER in this group. Okay, maybe then I'd have to get up. If I didn't, he might go into some sort of angsty withdrawl thing and not talk to me again. Arg, but it was such a inice/i dream...I started to open my eyes and move around slightly, and Cloud chose that exact time to put his ice cold hands on my very bare upper arms. OH GOD THE COLD THE COLD AUGH!
Well no point in going back to sleep NOW that I was halfway on the other side of the tent, finishing up a flailing fit and practicly squashing the little blonde guy. Sometimes it really is astounding how in such a short amount of time you can find yourself in a very shocked half awake pile with someone you hardly know. But that's okay, you know, so long as you trust them. Come to think of it now, Cloud might have been the person in my dream. It would sort of make sense, in a bizzare Cloud-like way. He invaded my dream to follow me and then invaded my awakeness to get me to help him out. I just made absolutely no sense. And I was still sitting on top of him. Oh wait! The buster sword! Oh crap...I rolled off Cloud about as quickly as you can when you sleep with a massive sword on your back and you've just been woke up by very very very cold hands. I'm talking Sephiroth-eye cold here. Well maybe my landing on top of him fixed that.
Cloud was straightening up now onto his knees and shaking his head, looking pretty confused. I guess for most people it would have been pitch black in the tent but I had two advantages...One was Cloud's flashlight he'd brought with him and the other, was, of course, Mako eyes. When you get drenched in Mako, you go a little crazy at first, because you're not used to being opened up to this little well of information you'll never understand. For some reason, though, the whole process of mako infusion leaves you with eyes that glow faintly no matter where you are or when. I guess the first SOLDIERs were scared of it, but now it's a fairly common sight around the world. It helped see in the dark, if nothing else. Cloud was caught in his own flashlight beam, sillouetted like a actor on a stage against the side of my tent. He put a hand to his forehead and looked confused. Damn, I hope I didn't brain damage the guy or anything. Sephiroth was probobly right, the buster sword was just a ilittle/i heavy to someone not used to its weight. "Hey, you okay now?"
Sitting back on his folded knees pretty heavily, Cloud kept rubbing at his head. His other hand wandered over his arms and stomach, checking for cuts from my buster I guess. I didn't think he'd been scratched up, but the flashlight distortion made it kinda hard to tell. When Cloud did answer, his voice was sort of shaken and far away, like someone coming out of shock. Actually, it wasn't ilike/i someone coming out of shock, it iwas/i someone coming out of shock. Memo to self- I am not a skinny teenager anymore. "Y...yes..."
I smiled and sat back, folding my feet together in front of me and holding onto my toes. Great, he wasn't hurt. Maybe a little shaken or squished, but not hurt at least. Despite the fact that he was still staring kind of blankly into space, and that he'd woken me up from a very. very. nice. dream...I wasn't mad. Maybe the dream actually meant something, though it wasn't likely, cause they almost never did, but if it did, it was a better idea I be awake and talking to Cloud, right? At least I thought so at the time. "So, what do you need?"
Cloud blinked and looked at me, finally pulling back and sitting like a normal human. He looked genuinely confused, and was blushing again. How did he make it this far if every time someone was nice to him he locked up like a little girl? I cocked my head before he had a chance to speak again and tried to get a better look at his face, but Cloud looked away imidiately. Huh, talk about jittery. He put a hand to his face when he talked, nearly covering his mouth. Kinda hard to hear him when he mumbled through his hand, but I made it out. "Need...?"
At least he was talking again. Smiling, I reached my arms back behind my head and stretched with my elbows in the air. I had no idea what time it was, or how long this was going to take, and it didn't really matter. I could carry on one sided conversations if I needed to, especially with a little input on the other side. "Yeah, well you wouldn't have come in here in the dark unless something important was going on, right? Must be cold out there, man, your hands are like ice. Is there something going on you need help with, cause it must be pretty late. Do you know what time it is anyway?" Cloud slowly shook his head and blinked, the flashlight reflecting on the darks of his pupils as he watched me from the corner of his eye. "Oh well, doesn't really matter, right? The other guys didn't freak out and kick you out of the tent, did they? Someone's gonna get it if that's what the situation was." I paused a minute to think back to the original train of thought I had going. I knew it involved the reason he was in here, and I probobly would have known why that was, but unfortunately my brain sleeps a few more hours than my body after I wake up. "So anyway, what iwas/i it you needed?"
If it was at all possiable for a guy at the most two years younger than me to sound timid, Cloud managed to pull that off with intense skill. He dropped his hands finally but he was so quiet it was like he was afraid someone was going to walk by and catch us or something. Whoa, maybe he had nosey parents growing up, always listening at the door during sleepovers. I wonder if Cloud ever really had a sleepover, or if he was completely outcaste. "I was hoping...it's kind of an awkward hour, but if you would help me study for SOLDIER..."
I flopped backwards onto the ground with a light slap to my own forehead, the buster clanking under me and flattening out into its own little portable cot of a self as I hit the ground. "Jesus, that's all Cloud? I'd help if I could, but I really don't have any of the books or any stuff like that, you know? Besides, it's not something that studying up in the middle of the night is really going to help. At leas t that's what I learned when I was studying for it. You forget it all by morning."
"I don't need to know everything," Cloud's voice picked up kind of abruptly, like he was getting wound up over something I'd said. I could hear him shuffle across the nylon floor of the tent and when I moved the part of my arm that was blocking my view, I could see he was crawling closer. Maybe that should bug me, but it didn't. I mean it wasn't like Cloud was someone I considered dangerous. He acted more like he might jump and run off if iI/i moved than anything. So when he tucked his feet under him and leaned on one arm next to me I didn't really do anything but look back up at the ceiling. Anything to calm him down and make him feel at home, right? At least I thought so. "I just want a few tips, hints, anything..." I could hear Cloud moving his hands around like he was looking for something to do with them, but couldn't find anything nearby. Maybe he should carry papers with him just to rustle them. He sure was nervous around me. That was a pretty sharp contrast from his withdrawn attitude towards everyone else. "Just...anything you can tell me..."
I moved a hand to scratch the back of my head. We'd been on the road, or fields, or whathaveyou for a few days now and I hadn't had time to wash exactly. When you've got long hair, that can be a kind of a problem. I was a little used to the feeling but it still felt itchy at times so I still scratched. "Can you think of something more specific than that? I mean there's a lot of little details that jump to mind, and not all of em really connect. Like do you want to know rules, or training or something? That's pretty boring standard stuff, personally. It's probobly the most drug-out part of training-"
"What's it like?" I blinked twice when I realized Cloud had not only just interupted me the same way Sephiroth did, but he'd sounded excited. Now that was a new one on me. I'd heard stoic, deadpan, emotionless and nervous out of this guy, but excited had me doing a double take at him. Hello double shock, he was actually looking me in the eye. He had very pale blue irises, almost like Sephiroth's eyes, only a little less...uhm...planned out, I want to say, but how can you plan out your eyes? Cloud was talking faster now anyway, darting his eyes back and forth across the tent, maybe indicating stuff that wasn't there, like my experiences filled up the room with invisable peices of furniture. Wow, what a weird thought. I could be lying on my childhood. No, wait, that was just the buster. "To just ...be one of them, to have mako inside you, to wander around from town to town and have everyone know...even if you don't want them to, what's it like to be-"
I started laughing out loud and accidentally cut him off. Cloud actually drew back slightly and brought a half-clenched fist to his lips again, and started blushing again. I shook my head and managed to shut myself up, staring up still. "It's not that much different than being the tough kid nobody'll play with in school, you're still an outsider." I rolled my head to the side and looked up at him, grinning. The colour across his face started to fade again as he looked down at me. I kept explaining. "You have the power to beat up just about anyone you want when you're in SOLDIER, but that scares off a lot of people. They also start thinking you're above them, so you wind up wandering around prettymuch on your own. If you're not used to that anyway, that is. Sephiroth for instance, take him. I don't think you could convince him to make best friends with anyone if the fate of the world depended on it. But guys like me, we like to have someone to talk to from time to time."
"You can always talk with me, Zack," Cloud's voice seemed to have jumped out of his throat and he pulled back and looked down almost imidiately in response. Shocked or ashamed or something at what he'd just said, he sure seemed silently sorry. He'd probobly intended to keep that thought inside. Jesus he sure was a closed book. I flopped a hand over and patted his knee and smiled back at the top of the tent. His head jolted upwards and the red started to spread across his cheeks again but I was starting to get used to that. Frankly, I was starting to enjoy the company of a blushing Cloud to any one of those blushing giggly teenage girls, and by a long long shot.
"I'd rather be talking to you than one of the other guards anyway, Cloud," I glanced from the corner of my eye at him again. He seemed sort of transfixed or in a state of shock. "At least you've got common sense enough to iwant/i to talk. The rest of them just wanna joke around. Which is fine, but life's not all joking, and sometimes you got something more important to say. Anyway, that's the other thing about SOLDIER. You get shuffled from one outfit to another. Like two months from now? I'll be with another group, probobly never see you or the other guys ever again. So you try to develop disposable friends, but I'm not the kind of person who just drops friends and moves on, you see what I mean?" I blinked at him and he nodded slowly. When I kept talking, he slowly lowered down onto the floor of the tent and lay on his stomach, head resting on folded arms watching me. Skittish little blonde guy, hanging on my every word. Why wasn't I creeped out by this? Eh. "Know...at this point it's you I'm more worried about. You don't get along real well with the other guys, and guards sort of need to form cliques. You'd actually be better off in SOLDIER."
Cloud's voice was more released and quiet than before, but not so much nervous. "I don't think I'd get along well there either..."
I made a piffing sound between my lips and half-heartedly dropped a fist onto the top of his head. Cloud winced a moment while my fist rested in the nest of blonde hair before opening his eyes and smiling slightly. Bringing my hand back behind my head I kept talking. "It's not like you're going to be ialone/i, Cloud. I'm not going to leave you wandering around by yourself, especially after Mako. It can mess you up, that stuff. Some people are even allergic to it. Considering the amount used on SOLDIERs nearly posions us, it's not something you do without planning for the aftermath. Mako makes you see things, stuff you'll never really understand in the corners of your head you kept dark and never walked into. Unless someone's there through the whole thing keeping you straightened out, you can go really crazy. It's one of those times you really gotta trust who you're with not to mess with your brain. I guess you don't know anyone else who'd stick with you through that, so once you're in, I'll take some time off and help you through training. Yeah, that makes sense. Fact, let's talk to Sephiroth tomorrow. If anyone can get your foot in the door, it's him. What d'ya say, Cloud?" I looked over at him again, but it figured I wasn't getting a response. His eyes were shut and he seemed pretty dug down for the night. Smirking, I turned back towards the top of the tent and shook my head. I stretched once, hands behind my head, and closed my eyes.
Waking up is not what I'm best at. Whoever was calling me, or shaking me, or whatever they were doing, I just rolled onto my stomach and grunted. I was supposed to have the tent theoreticly to myself, so whoever was in here didn't belong here. And since they didn't belong here, they'd eventually go away, right? I folded my arms under my cheek and yawned once, still not opening my eyes. I'd been having a real nice dream, I'd drempt I'd found an island that nobody'd ever been on before. Had the whole place to myself, to explore and head across. There was someone else in the dream, one of those dream friends you're sure you know in real life but you can't put your finger on who it really is. It's not really important, I guess, it was just a nice dream. And I was ready to go back to it, oh yes.
There it was again, that shaking and talking and whole come-back-to-wakefulness thing. Whoever this was wasn't ready to give up so easily, I guess. I played dead again while they kept talking to the back of my head. "Come on Zack, please, help me study now, tell me anything, please..."
Oooooh riiiight...It must be Cloud then, he was the only one who would actually want me to help him study. Anybody else would have to be absolutely nuts. Besides, not anybody else really wanted to join SOLDIER in this group. Okay, maybe then I'd have to get up. If I didn't, he might go into some sort of angsty withdrawl thing and not talk to me again. Arg, but it was such a inice/i dream...I started to open my eyes and move around slightly, and Cloud chose that exact time to put his ice cold hands on my very bare upper arms. OH GOD THE COLD THE COLD AUGH!
Well no point in going back to sleep NOW that I was halfway on the other side of the tent, finishing up a flailing fit and practicly squashing the little blonde guy. Sometimes it really is astounding how in such a short amount of time you can find yourself in a very shocked half awake pile with someone you hardly know. But that's okay, you know, so long as you trust them. Come to think of it now, Cloud might have been the person in my dream. It would sort of make sense, in a bizzare Cloud-like way. He invaded my dream to follow me and then invaded my awakeness to get me to help him out. I just made absolutely no sense. And I was still sitting on top of him. Oh wait! The buster sword! Oh crap...I rolled off Cloud about as quickly as you can when you sleep with a massive sword on your back and you've just been woke up by very very very cold hands. I'm talking Sephiroth-eye cold here. Well maybe my landing on top of him fixed that.
Cloud was straightening up now onto his knees and shaking his head, looking pretty confused. I guess for most people it would have been pitch black in the tent but I had two advantages...One was Cloud's flashlight he'd brought with him and the other, was, of course, Mako eyes. When you get drenched in Mako, you go a little crazy at first, because you're not used to being opened up to this little well of information you'll never understand. For some reason, though, the whole process of mako infusion leaves you with eyes that glow faintly no matter where you are or when. I guess the first SOLDIERs were scared of it, but now it's a fairly common sight around the world. It helped see in the dark, if nothing else. Cloud was caught in his own flashlight beam, sillouetted like a actor on a stage against the side of my tent. He put a hand to his forehead and looked confused. Damn, I hope I didn't brain damage the guy or anything. Sephiroth was probobly right, the buster sword was just a ilittle/i heavy to someone not used to its weight. "Hey, you okay now?"
Sitting back on his folded knees pretty heavily, Cloud kept rubbing at his head. His other hand wandered over his arms and stomach, checking for cuts from my buster I guess. I didn't think he'd been scratched up, but the flashlight distortion made it kinda hard to tell. When Cloud did answer, his voice was sort of shaken and far away, like someone coming out of shock. Actually, it wasn't ilike/i someone coming out of shock, it iwas/i someone coming out of shock. Memo to self- I am not a skinny teenager anymore. "Y...yes..."
I smiled and sat back, folding my feet together in front of me and holding onto my toes. Great, he wasn't hurt. Maybe a little shaken or squished, but not hurt at least. Despite the fact that he was still staring kind of blankly into space, and that he'd woken me up from a very. very. nice. dream...I wasn't mad. Maybe the dream actually meant something, though it wasn't likely, cause they almost never did, but if it did, it was a better idea I be awake and talking to Cloud, right? At least I thought so at the time. "So, what do you need?"
Cloud blinked and looked at me, finally pulling back and sitting like a normal human. He looked genuinely confused, and was blushing again. How did he make it this far if every time someone was nice to him he locked up like a little girl? I cocked my head before he had a chance to speak again and tried to get a better look at his face, but Cloud looked away imidiately. Huh, talk about jittery. He put a hand to his face when he talked, nearly covering his mouth. Kinda hard to hear him when he mumbled through his hand, but I made it out. "Need...?"
At least he was talking again. Smiling, I reached my arms back behind my head and stretched with my elbows in the air. I had no idea what time it was, or how long this was going to take, and it didn't really matter. I could carry on one sided conversations if I needed to, especially with a little input on the other side. "Yeah, well you wouldn't have come in here in the dark unless something important was going on, right? Must be cold out there, man, your hands are like ice. Is there something going on you need help with, cause it must be pretty late. Do you know what time it is anyway?" Cloud slowly shook his head and blinked, the flashlight reflecting on the darks of his pupils as he watched me from the corner of his eye. "Oh well, doesn't really matter, right? The other guys didn't freak out and kick you out of the tent, did they? Someone's gonna get it if that's what the situation was." I paused a minute to think back to the original train of thought I had going. I knew it involved the reason he was in here, and I probobly would have known why that was, but unfortunately my brain sleeps a few more hours than my body after I wake up. "So anyway, what iwas/i it you needed?"
If it was at all possiable for a guy at the most two years younger than me to sound timid, Cloud managed to pull that off with intense skill. He dropped his hands finally but he was so quiet it was like he was afraid someone was going to walk by and catch us or something. Whoa, maybe he had nosey parents growing up, always listening at the door during sleepovers. I wonder if Cloud ever really had a sleepover, or if he was completely outcaste. "I was hoping...it's kind of an awkward hour, but if you would help me study for SOLDIER..."
I flopped backwards onto the ground with a light slap to my own forehead, the buster clanking under me and flattening out into its own little portable cot of a self as I hit the ground. "Jesus, that's all Cloud? I'd help if I could, but I really don't have any of the books or any stuff like that, you know? Besides, it's not something that studying up in the middle of the night is really going to help. At leas t that's what I learned when I was studying for it. You forget it all by morning."
"I don't need to know everything," Cloud's voice picked up kind of abruptly, like he was getting wound up over something I'd said. I could hear him shuffle across the nylon floor of the tent and when I moved the part of my arm that was blocking my view, I could see he was crawling closer. Maybe that should bug me, but it didn't. I mean it wasn't like Cloud was someone I considered dangerous. He acted more like he might jump and run off if iI/i moved than anything. So when he tucked his feet under him and leaned on one arm next to me I didn't really do anything but look back up at the ceiling. Anything to calm him down and make him feel at home, right? At least I thought so. "I just want a few tips, hints, anything..." I could hear Cloud moving his hands around like he was looking for something to do with them, but couldn't find anything nearby. Maybe he should carry papers with him just to rustle them. He sure was nervous around me. That was a pretty sharp contrast from his withdrawn attitude towards everyone else. "Just...anything you can tell me..."
I moved a hand to scratch the back of my head. We'd been on the road, or fields, or whathaveyou for a few days now and I hadn't had time to wash exactly. When you've got long hair, that can be a kind of a problem. I was a little used to the feeling but it still felt itchy at times so I still scratched. "Can you think of something more specific than that? I mean there's a lot of little details that jump to mind, and not all of em really connect. Like do you want to know rules, or training or something? That's pretty boring standard stuff, personally. It's probobly the most drug-out part of training-"
"What's it like?" I blinked twice when I realized Cloud had not only just interupted me the same way Sephiroth did, but he'd sounded excited. Now that was a new one on me. I'd heard stoic, deadpan, emotionless and nervous out of this guy, but excited had me doing a double take at him. Hello double shock, he was actually looking me in the eye. He had very pale blue irises, almost like Sephiroth's eyes, only a little less...uhm...planned out, I want to say, but how can you plan out your eyes? Cloud was talking faster now anyway, darting his eyes back and forth across the tent, maybe indicating stuff that wasn't there, like my experiences filled up the room with invisable peices of furniture. Wow, what a weird thought. I could be lying on my childhood. No, wait, that was just the buster. "To just ...be one of them, to have mako inside you, to wander around from town to town and have everyone know...even if you don't want them to, what's it like to be-"
I started laughing out loud and accidentally cut him off. Cloud actually drew back slightly and brought a half-clenched fist to his lips again, and started blushing again. I shook my head and managed to shut myself up, staring up still. "It's not that much different than being the tough kid nobody'll play with in school, you're still an outsider." I rolled my head to the side and looked up at him, grinning. The colour across his face started to fade again as he looked down at me. I kept explaining. "You have the power to beat up just about anyone you want when you're in SOLDIER, but that scares off a lot of people. They also start thinking you're above them, so you wind up wandering around prettymuch on your own. If you're not used to that anyway, that is. Sephiroth for instance, take him. I don't think you could convince him to make best friends with anyone if the fate of the world depended on it. But guys like me, we like to have someone to talk to from time to time."
"You can always talk with me, Zack," Cloud's voice seemed to have jumped out of his throat and he pulled back and looked down almost imidiately in response. Shocked or ashamed or something at what he'd just said, he sure seemed silently sorry. He'd probobly intended to keep that thought inside. Jesus he sure was a closed book. I flopped a hand over and patted his knee and smiled back at the top of the tent. His head jolted upwards and the red started to spread across his cheeks again but I was starting to get used to that. Frankly, I was starting to enjoy the company of a blushing Cloud to any one of those blushing giggly teenage girls, and by a long long shot.
"I'd rather be talking to you than one of the other guards anyway, Cloud," I glanced from the corner of my eye at him again. He seemed sort of transfixed or in a state of shock. "At least you've got common sense enough to iwant/i to talk. The rest of them just wanna joke around. Which is fine, but life's not all joking, and sometimes you got something more important to say. Anyway, that's the other thing about SOLDIER. You get shuffled from one outfit to another. Like two months from now? I'll be with another group, probobly never see you or the other guys ever again. So you try to develop disposable friends, but I'm not the kind of person who just drops friends and moves on, you see what I mean?" I blinked at him and he nodded slowly. When I kept talking, he slowly lowered down onto the floor of the tent and lay on his stomach, head resting on folded arms watching me. Skittish little blonde guy, hanging on my every word. Why wasn't I creeped out by this? Eh. "Know...at this point it's you I'm more worried about. You don't get along real well with the other guys, and guards sort of need to form cliques. You'd actually be better off in SOLDIER."
Cloud's voice was more released and quiet than before, but not so much nervous. "I don't think I'd get along well there either..."
I made a piffing sound between my lips and half-heartedly dropped a fist onto the top of his head. Cloud winced a moment while my fist rested in the nest of blonde hair before opening his eyes and smiling slightly. Bringing my hand back behind my head I kept talking. "It's not like you're going to be ialone/i, Cloud. I'm not going to leave you wandering around by yourself, especially after Mako. It can mess you up, that stuff. Some people are even allergic to it. Considering the amount used on SOLDIERs nearly posions us, it's not something you do without planning for the aftermath. Mako makes you see things, stuff you'll never really understand in the corners of your head you kept dark and never walked into. Unless someone's there through the whole thing keeping you straightened out, you can go really crazy. It's one of those times you really gotta trust who you're with not to mess with your brain. I guess you don't know anyone else who'd stick with you through that, so once you're in, I'll take some time off and help you through training. Yeah, that makes sense. Fact, let's talk to Sephiroth tomorrow. If anyone can get your foot in the door, it's him. What d'ya say, Cloud?" I looked over at him again, but it figured I wasn't getting a response. His eyes were shut and he seemed pretty dug down for the night. Smirking, I turned back towards the top of the tent and shook my head. I stretched once, hands behind my head, and closed my eyes.