Chapter eight
A very rumpled cadet desperately searched his room. He checked in his bed, under the mattress, in Zack's bed, just to be sure, all over the floor, in duffle bags, in the closet, in the dirty laundry…
It was nowhere. He began to panic.
He heard a familiar voice. "Spike, are you going to any a' your class-es…" Zack stared at him from the doorway, water bottle in hand. "What's wrong?"
"I lost it!" Cloud exclaimed miserably.
"Yeah, I can see that…"
"Shut up, and help me look!" Cloud sifted through the scattered laundry.
"It'd help if I knew what we were looking for. Not your runaway mind?"
"The knife Sephiroth gave me." Cloud ground out, sitting back on his legs and looking disheartened at all the unprepossessing junk scattered around.
"Oh," Zack empathized and sat down on the floor beside him. "Hmm, that's not too good." Then he smiled a bit. "You could ask him to get you another one."
"No!" Cloud's eyes went wide. "I can't tell him that I lost it the day after he gave it to me! What would he think?"
"That I took you to a bar and you were tired and smashed?"
"I wasn't drunk at all, you know that." Cloud sounded almost regretful.
"You could tell him I lost it for you? Yeah, he'd believe that." Zack grinned.
"But it wasn't your fault." Cloud groaned. "And I'm not very good at lying."
"I guess you're not." Zack offered him the water and Cloud took it gratefully. "Did you look everywhere around here?" The dark haired man inquired.
Cloud nodded. "Everywhere I can think of…" He looked at the clock and almost choked. "Oh God, what if he wants to fight today? What if he decides to teach me something about it and he asks? What the hell am gonna say?!"
"Hey-hey, calm down. He won't eat you, at least not… heh-heh…never mind. We're gonna figure this out. Now, where do you remember seeing it last?"
"Um, I can't think of anything after we…left Sephiroth's apartment."
"Okey dokey, then I'll just ask him if we can look!" Zack brightened and sprung off the floor.
"No." Cloud jumped up and grabbed his spunky friend's wrist. "What if it's not there? I'll have to admit that it really is lost. I can't do that yet…"
Zack's smile actually faded. "You mean you want to get in there without him knowing?"
"Well…is it even possible?"
Zack scratched his head. "Erg, I do have the pass code for the case of 'unspecified emergencies'. But he said I wasn't allowed to use it, unless his mother was with me, or I was like, impregnated by an alien entity or something."
Cloud's expression went blank.
"Yeah, I don't know where he got that idea, I had nightmares for a week…what must that bastard's mother be like?"
"…"
"The idea is that if I use it for non end-of-the-word situations something bad is supposed to happen to me. Seph really values his privacy."
Cloud looked at the ground and shuffled his feet. "Yeah, well I don't want you to get in trouble…"
Zack looked at his miserable friend sympathetically. He really was push over.
As was his habit, he grabbed Cloud by the arm and began pulling him down the hall. "Well it's not like he ever gets off work before ten. There's not really any chance of him catching us…unless he has surveillance on the place. Hah, I wouldn't put it past him!"
Again Cloud began that fateful journey via elevator. "Thanks Zack."
"Don't worry about it. Then again maybe you should worry, since you're going up there too… You know what happened to the last guy caught sneaking around Seph's apartment?" Zack paled at little.
Cloud swallowed hard and shook his head, thoroughly disturbed by his friend's sudden change in demeanor. "Did he kill him?" He asked.
"No…that was the problem."
Elevator dinged.
"Okay, let's get this over with." Zack said, sweat drops beading on his forehead. He dragged at the cadet, who seemed to have become stuck to the wall of the elevator.
"What was he doing in there, anyway?" Cloud asked.
"Seph refused to say. And of course the other guy…couldn't."
The code was punch in and the door opened.
Nothing awful happened.
"Heh, not so bad." Zack pulled the cadet in behind him and closed the door surreptitiously. "Now where'd you leave it?"
Cloud hurried to check under the dinning table and chairs. On his hands and knees he examined every inch of the surrounding and floor and the seats of the chairs. After a minute he gave Zack another piteous look. "It's not here."
Zack sighed loudly. "Well where else could it be?"
Cloud looked around and noted that not a trace remained of the miniature party last night, not so much as a single dirty plate. "Um, everything's already been cleaned. If it was here, it would have been found…"
"Ah," Zack brightened again. "Maybe it's lying around here somewhere out of the way…"
"Who do think does Sephiroth's cleaning." Cloud asked from the floor.
"Good question. The way he keep's this place bolted and won't let anyone in, I wouldn't be surprised it he did it himself. But let's see if it's here. You check the study like library thing and I'll check the bedroom."
Cloud did as suggested and found all sorts of books that perked his curiosity, but none of which he dared to touch. No beautiful polished daggers that could say belonged to him (he found a few that didn't).
He came out of the library almost at the same time that Zack appeared from the other side of the apartment.
"Anything?" Cloud asked.
Zack looked disappointed. "Nothing. No shag carpet, no mirrors, no bondage gear-that surprised me-nothing pink or fluffy, absolutely nothing!"
"Um, that's not really what we were looking for…" The blond reminded, his voice a little skewed.
Zack smiled wickedly. "Sorry Spiky, no silk sheets either."
Cloud snarled. "Be glad I can't kill you in Sephiroth's apartment." He hissed.
"Oh, but…"
Zack was interrupted from a farther inappropriate remark by the sound of long measured footsteps in the hall, footsteps which could only belong to one person.
"Fuck."
"Sephir…?" Cloud was swiped into the bedroom before he could blink, the sound of code numbers being entered ringing in his ears.
"Oh shit, what now?" Zack spun around looking everywhere. "Closet." He threw Cloud in the closet and shut the door quietly as possible. Then listened.
Nothing. Then a tapping sound. Even footfalls seemed to be approaching; they stopped at…the bedroom?
There was no doubt, the bedroom door opened and then footfalls stopped around the area of the closet. The General was so close that Zack could hear the swish of his coat. It reminded Zack of a cheap horror movie.
Zack could hear what sounded like fingers drumming on wood. But if he could hear that… Sephiroth's hearing was even better... And… Oh, shit!…
The door swung opened to the roar of, "Zackary! If you…" The displeased General stopped suddenly, his eyes shifted from Zack and the piercing gaze fell on the traumatized blond cadet at his side.
Cloud made a strange squeaking noise and fell down.
"Hey, Seph!" Zack smiled. After all, it wasn't like his was scared of Sephiroth or anything…
As everyone knew, the General had lovely, slightly glaring, hate glazed, green eyes. On this occasion however Zack steadfastly affirmed that they had in fact, acquired a tinge of red. This was later dismissed of hearsay or perhaps hallucination.
Sephiroth's eyebrow twitched. "Zackary, what are you doing with that cadet here?" His voice was low and controlled. And a chill ran up Zack's spine. It sounded an awful lot like 'I'm going to rip you limb from limb and use your corpse to decorate my apartment', but no, Zack was sure that wasn't what he had said.
"Don't say it like that." Zack whined.
In a rare display of violence, Sephiroth grabbed Zack by the shirt collar and 'removed' the man from his closet.
"Whoa! Now don't do anything you'll regret, buddy!" He voice was a little hoarse, as he was being strangled with his own shirt.
"I have thought the matter though thoroughly, and I do not believe that the regrets would out weight the satisfaction of harming you."
Cloud moaned on the floor. In all honesty he hadn't fainted. A stray object had fallen from the shelf of the closet and hit him on the head. It was a surprisingly sharp, painful object.
Sephiroth looked in the direction of the injured blond, then snarled at Zack and put him down. He snapped on the light had swooped down on a knee to examine the boy, hissing as he did so.
Zack looked horrified. "Oh my God, Cloud! He's bleeding all over!"
"If you become hysterical, I swear I'll kill you." Sephiroth pulled a shirt off a hanger and after ascertaining the amount of damage to Cloud's torn scalp, ripped the cloth to pieces and bound the shreds around the blond head.
"I'm not hysterical, damnit! But cadets are like fragile! They get injured and shit!"
"That is not calm, Zack." Sephiroth gathered Cloud in his arms and rose. Calmly.
"Do you have any Cure Materia, Seph?"
"No."
Zack followed the Sephiroth out he door his apartment. "No? You're the friggin' General; you should have all the Materia you want!"
"I said I didn't!" Sephiroth strode down the hall with a bleary but conscious cadet and kicked the elevator button with his knee.
The elevator knew its master well and opened immediately. Zack frowned; it never did that for him.
"We are going to the hospital and then if need be, I will find the Materia."
The elevator also moved faster in the presence of the Mighty General Sephiroth and very soon they were in the hospital.
"What the hell do you keep it your closet, Seph?"
Sephiroth carefully deposited Cloud on one of the beds, snapping his fingers for a nurse. "More then I care to think about, Zackary!" He then proceeded to terrify a nurse and procure the attention of four, count them, them four members of the general staff of physicians. Cloud was very well looked after.
"I'm going to get that Materia, normal human's take forever to heal." Sephiroth turned on his heal.
"I…"
"You are going to stay here."
"Yeah, sure." Zack said to know in particular.
……………………………….
Cute, blue cadet eyes fluttered open.
First they saw an astoundingly uninteresting white ceiling. Then an almost as unexciting white wall, then another wall-Cloud was already getting bored-then at last a Zack. He was leaning against one of said dreary walls with his arms cross and head tilted back, looking as though he had fallen asleep standing up. It appeared the uneventful room had a similar hypnotic effect on him as it had on Cloud.
Cloud tried to speak, but his throat was dry and only released a pathetic croaking sound. But it woke Zack up.
"Hey, Spike! Y'okay?" Zack lunged for the bed leaned on the side, looking at Cloud.
Cloud opened his mouth again, then gave up and simply nodded.
"You don't have amnesia or anything, do you? Can you remember what happened?"
Cloud thought for a minute then turned a truly astounding shade of scarlet and closed his eyes as though in pain.
"Ah-ha…" Zack nodded. "But it wasn't that bad really. Maybe I should tell someone you're wake? But Sephiroth is coming back with the Materia and all the doctors are in hiding. I heard a story once about what he did to a doctor who he thought wasn't satisfactory… Anyway, he says the Materia they keep around here could as soon kill you as cure you. I don't know what that's about, but he said it was 'recycled'. And here I always believed in recycling… They say it's good for the environment and lord knows That has enough problems as it is."
"Um, Zack, I'm fine, really." Cloud assured.
Zack smiled and the room was lit with very healthy sunshine. "Good. Have some water." Zack could be very perceptive when he wanted to be and had heard the scratchiness in Cloud's voice.
"Thanks." Cloud tried to sit up and winced at his bandaged head, but he eventually managed with Zack's help.
"Heh-heh, you saved my life again, Spiky, you know?"
"Eh? How did I do that?" Cloud drank half the glass of water and lay back down.
"Well, every time Seph is hell bent on killing me, you disappear of get in trouble. 'Cloud-in-danger' is the best form of self defense I've ever come across!"
Cloud was scowling at Zack when Sephiroth whisked into the room, and in his distraction the cadet nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Ah, I see you're wake." Sephiroth began working the cure without any farther discussion and Cloud felt his torn skin heal almost instantly.
The General snapped his fingers again and the sacrificial nurse came scurrying in. With a look from Sephiroth she deftly removed the bandages and as the wound had already been cleaned and the bleeding staunched earlier, only the slightest trace of blood implied that he had ever been injured at all.
Zack smiled and ruffled Cloud's hair. "Perfect! But Seph you really got to be more careful about the stuff you keep in your closet."
"It is not designed for habitation, Zack. It's time you learned that!"
Cloud cringed at the tone in Sephiroth's voice.
"Well you didn't raise so much of a fit last time. What the hell or you so pissed off about?" Zack shrugged and held his hands out to illustrate his honest bewilderment and harmlessness.
Cloud thought about that. Why the hell did the General seem to expect to find Zack in his closet?
"I perfectly intend to explain that to you, in great detail." Sephiroth looked down at Zack and snarled.
Cloud felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Then he did something he never would have imagined doing and interrupted the General. "It was my fault, Sir! I asked, him to."
Cloud stared at the floor miserably. But after all, he was just a cadet and he didn't even know if he would make a good SOLDIER. Zack already had a wonderful career started and it would be a crime if something happened to it now.
Sephiroth turned around with an eyebrow raised. "You?"
Cloud paled, swallowed and nodded. "I…misplaced the dagger you gave me last night, and I wanted to find it back without having to tell you." The spiky haired cadet continued to stare down at the floor.
"Hmm…" Sephiroth valiantly struggled to overcome the smile which tugged at his lips and kept his voice cold and dispassionate. "It isn't that I'm not displeased…" Damned smirk. "…I am however struck to the humor of the situation. It seems that I unknowingly lied to you…"
Cloud looked up at the change in Sephiroth's voice and his eyes widened. The General had produced an elegant dagger from apparently…nowhere, and twirled it around between two fingers in an odd way, miraculously never loosing grip, though it now appeared blurred to the naked eye.
"…I told you that this gift wouldn't hurt you, but it seems to have found a way. This is what hit you. I had found it this morning and placed it aside intending give it back to you later…" Sephiroth stopped with the twirling. "I return it to you now."
Cloud blinked and reaccepted his gift.
"I don't know, I think its bad luck." Zack commented.
"I am willing to confer responsibility for the situation, entirely onto Zackary." The General continued matter of factly.
"You're heartless." Zack pouted.
"Yes, I am."
Cloud looked worried. "What are you going to do to him?"
Sephiroth paused thoughtfully and then smirked. "We'll see..."
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