tell all by frooit
ffvii au - zack/cloud
part fourteen
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Status: Deceased - Location: Withheld
He does not escape at this time.
The nurses and the surgeon are frozen, the professor scrubbing at his face, gurney tipped, instruments scattered, IVs felled, tubes torn free, juices dripping (from his arms, from IV bags), machines flat-lining, leather restraints on the floor, fluorescent bulbs overheard snapping, flickering, cheering him on, and in his hand, a scalpel.
It looks good.
No, it looks great.
And then the guards burst in, and there's twice as many as the two he'd seen before. They peg and rush him immediately. The spearhead gives him a full body check, his friends behind joining in, barreling in, a human train.
He reacts valiantly, hunkering down to shoulder the blow, stopping them dead on impact, but he can't yet take the four, the five, now six bodies pushing back, driving in all at once, determined to bring him down. It might look like a football huddle to an outsider, a little shoulder bumping before the snap, something harmless, but this is life or death.
Come what may, he's grinning in their clustered faces, teeth bared
(without covering, naked, nude)
wild and vicious. It's a smile, a battle glaze, a learned tactic not unused by him in the past. He wouldn't tell Cloud this, wouldn't admit it out loud to anyone—not even as a prayer, a last word, not anymore—but, to his eternal shame, he strikes fear in the hearts of men. Enemies have cowered and retreated just at the sight of him. Given proper motivation, Zack was a monster enough on his own without mako infusion. He knew how to lose himself, to go a little mad. On the up and up, back in the day, whenever that was; a legend pending.
He is otherwise blind now. Visibly blind. One eye little more than a gauze dressing, the other still taped closed. All those clever colour cues mix and smear like city lights at night across windshield, becoming a confusing mist, a toss up of locations, bodies and items.
He loses Hojo in the nauseating mix. He loses his footing. He loses the scalpel. He loses the fight. The guards bring him down, both sides swearing and clamouring. They tenderize vulnerable ribs, wrench arms, bar his neck, kick at the backs of his knees. They're able to crush him to the floor long enough for a nurse, or Hojo, to administer a potent sedative. It has to be a real cocktail, potentially lethal to someone untreated because he's a damn brick wall, a tank, un-fucking-stoppable.
The needle burns when it sticks.
He hisses.
(...it's charring, searing, scorching...)
Alternatively, the fluid inside the syringe is ice water, drawing out his strength, eating away his precious adrenaline, leaching clarity from his consciousness. It hits him like a mega-ton hammer and he's shattered, struggling slowed, fight muted. Those bricks crumble, that tank metal bows, and the guards pile off, one by one, two by two.
Caught staggering between states of awareness, out and in, Zack is only able to watch from the floor, seeing shoe covers and boots, pant legs, and surgical smocks crowding in, rushing away, and there, his glorious mess beyond, now only a rumour of his almost success. As they (a small army of men), hoist him upright—as Hojo and crew float back into a see-sawing view—he loses it.
No more glimmer, no more shimmer, the plug's been pulled.
He's done.
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Status: Captain 2nd Class - Location: NCB2, dormitory
In the end, Cloud doesn't get much out of Tifa. She's a brick wall, insisting he read the contents of the file rather than pressing her. Everything she's told him, every lie and false fact, she repeats and repeats. The only new piece of information he's able to glean is about his training, and that starts tomorrow, bright and early, get some sleep.
She says his name one last time, just to spite him. A dagger point of a goodbye.
He's glad to leave the room when the debriefing grinds to its end. So glad, he's temporarily relieved to see Reno and Vegas waiting for him in the hall, collectively leaned against a wall, checking their cell phones. They look up in unison when he clicks the door shut.
After the initial relief, he waits for the grudge to wash over, some kind, any kind of hate or disdain for the two, his surrogate bodyguards, his keepers, but nothing comes. He doesn't have the capacity, he's all poured out. He allows them to lead him deeper into the base, farther away from wherever Zack could be, from contact, escape, liberation, freedom. The base is more lively here. Officers pass, soldiers jog by, rooms branch off into facilities filled with workers. Reno again runs like a faucet from the mouth, both Vegas and Cloud tuning him out.
When they come to the dorms and his room after a winding walk, he expects them to stand guard outside. Vegas instead, key card enabled, unlocks the door and they enter with him. They start turning on lamps, every lamp, and then they split to check the bathroom, the small kitchen, the closets, looking for anything amiss probably, or any person(s) unwelcome.
Cloud waits in the center of the room. Thankfully, it's quite big, actually two rooms connected. Once they come back to meet him, he pounces, preemptively saying he needs to lie down. They nod together, as usual, and drop down into a sofa. Reno, sickeningly, smiling away.
When he's alone (to a degree) at last, behind the closed bedroom door, Cloud sinks to the floor and doesn't move for an age. An Iron Age. A Bronze Age. He remains there crumpled, folded, emotionally reeling, starving for comfort, unable to release tears, curse, or even throw a raging fit. He stays still, a little out of exhaustion, a little out of stubborn will. He's tired of this, tired of the weakness, tired of the fear, just damn tired.
His legs are pins and needles when he gets to standing again. He's almost headed back down to the floor they're so bad, but he makes it to the bed's edge. His sudden weight causes the cushion to sag accommodatingly. It wasn't entirely a lie that he wanted to have a rest. He needs one, needs a lifetime of sleep, but, and with good reason, he doesn't feel comfortable enough to here. He's not so sure he'll wake back up, and if he does, that he'll even be in the same place, or of the same mind. Thankfully, before any decision is needed, a knock comes at the door.
"Yes?"
"It's Reno. Coming in."
It's unusual that he announces it even if he doesn't ask. Turks, that's what he's assuming they are, defy nearly every rank system in Shinra (sans the real big guys). They are a secret police: enforcement by force. Even if he is a captain now, Cloud doesn't have the clout you'd imagine. He's still very much fair game.
He sits upright, arms at his sides, relaxed but ready for a threat. Deep down, not newly confirmed, he trusts no one. No one but Zack. And maybe that's foolish too. A weakness admitted: he can't help but doubt certain memories becoming thinned.
"Sleep well?"
"Not exactly," he admits, tone flat.
"Oh?" Reno is busying himself with something on the wardrobe closest to the door. Some knick-knack. He slunk in like a cat and closed the door behind, making very little noise. He hasn't proceeded farther into the room.
That's about when Cloud realizes he's not only there to check up on him. No, he has an ulterior motive, a personal agenda. That generally means bad news for him. All anybody ever seems to want is to cause him harm. Maybe he's speculated this before, but is that really how the world works? Is there that little to count on, look forward to, and to trust? Is he that miserably unlucky? The answer is, as it was before, as it will always be: yes, all of the above.
"What do you want?" he presses.
Reno sets the gleaming metal knick-knack, an ugly modern sculpture, back in its resting place. He moves away from the door to stand knee-to-knee with Cloud, who, uncomfortably, now has to look up to retain the eye contact.
The advantage is leaned in Reno's favour. He accents this knowledge by grinning his grin, toothily. It looks good on him, made for him, but Cloud won't trust it. He's never not missed an opportunity to smile at him, come to think of it. He figured it was a front, a personality defect, but now it seems to be something else, not far from a hint or promise.
"You have got to be the finest thing we've ever had to bodyguard."
It takes a second for Cloud to register what was said. When it does finally click, a little lopsidedly, it's a dopey thought process to the tune of: What? Oh. He's hitting on me. He's hitting on me? And then, despite himself, despite the whole situation, the tiniest smile pulls at his lips, just there, at the very corner.
He's tired, he's hungry, he's hardly present, and this (a genuine pass) doesn't happen too often, so give the kid (he is only eighteen) a break. To be perfectly honest, to always come back to the beginning, Zack was the first to honestly flirt with him. Zack was the catalyst. And no, it doesn't feel great using past tense when referring to him. It carelessly slams him back to reality.
"Are you done?" Cloud pushes, expressing exasperation.
Reno's smile never fades, never falters.
"I've got plenty more, y'know, but my tongue's better used other places." He comes to rest on his knees, terribly close now but not yet breaking that preciously thin barrier of personal space. "Could help ya sleep," he offers, narrowly whispering it, the insinuation not lost.
"No…" Cloud responds softly, a touch vacantly, looking beyond him. Those eyes are a lighter blue than Zack's and lovely (light, shallow, like coastal waters, blue and turquoise), but not as patient and understanding and mesmerizing (and as dark a blue as blue can get, as deep as raging ocean, as changeable as a storm) as he knows them to be. "No," he repeats more firmly.
"Light fondling then?"
He looks him square in the face now, his own blank. "You're persistent."
"It gets the job done," Reno shrugs. "Generally." He rocks back onto his heels. "I like you. Hard to get. Timid. Mysterious. Find that sexy, y'know. Real sexy. I can work with that. I can work that out. Fortunately, for both of us, Vegas doesn't share my tastes. He likes the ladies. Same look though, which is funny. He's always been—"
"Reno."
His bodyguard quiets.
Cloud deadpans, "Get out of my room."
"You must have a boyfriend, yo." He's scooting back to throw his arms up dramatically.
Cloud is then compelled to decide his next words carefully, confidently. It took him less time to determine Reno's tactics but he comes unwittingly to a true turning point. He renounces his doubt, his trepidation, his inaction, and his painful past with the simple phrase: "I do."
"Stars in your eyes," Reno muses.
"Huh?" Cloud truly is tired. A little slow on the pick up. Can feel his head wanting to droop and his jaw slackening. His breathing is steady, even, and the lamps are seeming to darken and dim of their own accord. Time is strenuously thick.
"He must be something," Reno confirms, no longer crowding in but sitting lazily on the carpet in front of him. "He puts stars in your eyes. What's he like? Where is he? Shinra? What rank?"
"He's…" And Cloud can't continue.
He's not for anybody else. He's for him. Even if he isn't. Even if Zack only liked him for a short period of time, just a thing he had to work out of his system. Even if he's dead, dead, dead (don't let him be, don't, don't, don't do that to me again) that time was still all for him. Every record he has, every interaction, every insinuation, every act of intimacy they shared. His. One and only.
Reno stares.
Cloud starts to give him something, a white lie maybe, mouth dropping open and hanging, because no matter what he does (thanks, mom), he's a notoriously nice guy. Can't not, even if he doesn't remember how to be good, morally just, upstanding, not an inch. He wrestles for a response, jaw working, but he doesn't have to worry. Vegas comes in and breaks up the party.
"I knew it."
"What?" Reno replies a little too quickly.
"Get out."
Vegas pushes the door open, it knocks the back wall firmly. He cocks his head.
"Out."
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Status: Head of Science and Research Departments, Shinra - Location: Shinra Headquarters - in surgery
The conjunctiva (outer covering of eye) is removed with blunt scissors (A).
Hojo is not naturally an existential man. A large majority of his curiosities and scientific endeavours have come from twisted versions of models encountered in others. Morals turned upside down, metaphors mocked, poetic justices applied. His work on Subject Z is no exception.
He is aware of the specimen's past, his apparent plans, his companion's unfortunate injury. It was all just too perfect not to acknowledge. Evil, he has been told, lacks the ability to create, to produce. True evil cannot bring life, it can only rape, deform, and defile life existing.
The four rectus muscles are removed from their attachments to the eyeball (B).
He wonders: they say the eyes are the windows to the soul. Does that mean this soul will then die, isolated? What will happen to it trapped in darkness? Is there some place it will go? Is there a safety? A lock down mode? Will it fully regress? Atrophy like a muscle? Or will it rage and war?
And just how to define a soul….
The optic nerve is severed (C), and the eyeball is removed.
Purely a concept? A fabrication? Or tangible? Like a viscera? Something you could hold? Something you could crush? And what sort of data will he compile with this round of testing? How long will it take for these wounds to heal? How much more mako will this body take?
He has deliberately taken liberties with the subject's treatment. He's only flesh and blood. At every turn he is challenging him to break, to die, to give in. Every procedure to come is going to test the limits of nature, bend the fabric of genetics, forge something terrible and unique.
The socket is evaluated after removal of the pressure dressing (D).
Shinra wants a new weapon, something with a twist.
If the edema has disappeared, the sutures are removed (E).
This should give them a twist.
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Status: General, SOLDIER 1st Class - Location: Withheld
The playback is grainy but discernible.
No. 8's black box was discovered two days ago on the continent. Sephiroth and the Director watch it now, not for the first time. The Director is proving a point, a painful point, and Sephiroth has never liked those. He likes it even less when his superiors chastise him for decisions he would have made repeatedly. No matter how many times he explains his position on the matter (Zack needed to be stopped, he'd gone rogue, end of story), the Director won't listen. That's typical of course, but no less infuriating.
"You squandered valuable resources, men, and a priceless prototype."
"It wasn't a prototype."
"My point still stands."
Sephiroth sighs.
"You need to stop this," the Director warns. "As much as you might think it, we don't have unlimited men. There isn't some mill spitting them out ready for battle. They take training and housing, and that takes time and money." He has his hands folded, perched on his immaculate desk, his expression deceptive, calm. He almost looks his age: ancient.
"I generally don't care what my men do in their free time," he continues, expression breaking to become pointed, knowing, "but, when their careless actions reach my ears—when I have to sign off on massive clean ups and cover-ups—there is no excuse. You're losing your freedoms. You're being reassigned. Wutai will have to wait."
Sephiroth remains unreadable. He's boiling inside. The Director has never approved of his orientation or his methods. He knows about certain relations because Shinra pays him to know. It's been a point of strain between the two of them for as long as he cares to remember. Rightly, his personal life is none of his business, but now he's given him the perfect reason to punish him for it, the perfect reason to tighten up that choke chain he's got around his neck.
"I want you here to oversee your pet project."
The Director waits a beat. He doesn't get the reaction he was most likely digging for.
Sephiroth alludes naught.
"Turn the debacle into progress, General, or you won't keep that title for long. You know, personally, how we deal with retired SOLDIERs. Imagine what would happen to a dishonorable discharge. Hojo needs guinea pigs and my Turks are restless."
That gets a sneer.
The Director is outwardly pleased. "Now get out of my sight." The pleasure quickly turns to a scowl.
His gunblade, a wonder of a weapon, hangs on a wooden plaque behind him. It's a triple-barreled, triple-cylindered revolver married to a razor-edged sword, one wicked curve curling at the end. He called it—when it was still just a gun, when he was still just a Turk—Cerberus. This new version is known as Hydra. This is why he's famous, why he's SOLDIER's Director, why Sephiroth ultimately respects him.
He is SOLDIER mythos.
"Director."
Sephiroth growls his farewell.
Still, he'd love to test that reputation.
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Status: Deceased - Location: Withheld
Take two.
Fitting, because when he comes around again, for the second time, the world all too bright and glaring, too intense and unbearable, he knows, down in the pit of his empty stomach, to the depths of his shredded heart, they've taken the other eye and he will never see naturally again.
At the very least it's of little immediate negative consequence when there's a mako light show to fall back on. Raw Lifestream, processed mako, and fragments, wisps, like ghosts in the machine. He must be pumped so full of the stuff he'd glow in the fucking dark.
(fireworks at a parade, volcanic eruption)
And the voices.
(...endless, warring…)
Yeah. A side effect. He's been hearing those guys since the beginning, since waking up to Hojo's experiments. They started mild enough, indifferent, and he ignored them, but now they're louder, demanding action. Some skirt the familiar, all of them distracting and digging. The result isn't obedience, or fear, it's an even deeper longing for Cloud.
He would pray to see his face, to hear his voice, for a chance to hold him close, his boy wonder. He longs to be there for him. It's fully his duty, his purpose. He would pray every hour of his waking existence if he thought any good would come of it. His track record isn't that great though and that's breath better saved.
He will make another promise.
He will no longer buffer or filter. He's going to speak his mind from here on.
He is absolutely sick with a certain emotion, drugged by it, beaten down by it. An emotion he is wary of naming or acknowledging because of previous experiences (he never knew he was so sensitive). But when he gets out of here, because that's what he's going to do, when they meet again, no matter the location or how many people are present, he's going to tell him, because life's too damn short: I'm an idiot. I'm in love with you. And then he's going to kiss him hard, for as long as they both can stand, and all will be perfect, and shining, and right.
(...focus, focus…)
He stops, shuts off the tap.
Resets, listens and looks.
It's painful, pushing Cloud down and away, but it's necessary.
The glare melts away into a room. A room abuzz with machines, lamps, wires, cables, and tubes. A nurse is standing at his bedside. She is meticulously checking over a file, assessing his IV drips, and his bandages. He's restrained again, a collection of electrodes covering his scalp. The sedative is wearing (perhaps sooner than they expected, perhaps to their complete surprise), but he will wait. No need for a repeat of last time. Sooner or later someone will make this easier. Then he'll be free to rampage, to revolt, to tear the place apart. He'll find Cloud and fix this shit storm.
Waiting might not be as easy as hoped. A newcomer has arrived. And here's an aura no better than a smudged in bruise, no more graceful than a walking hematoma. Its owner's identity is not a surprise to Zack. No, more likely serendipity.
"Look at this sad image," Kunsel opines.
The nurse reacts quickly. "You can't be in here," she warns. "You need to leave. This is a restricted area." She sets down her pen on her clipboard, very severe expression brewing.
Zack watches, getting a touch of that voyeuristic thrill.
(...be dead before he leaves…)
(...tear his eyes out…)
(...smash his knees…)
The voices rave.
Kunsel steps forward.
(...no, save that for hojo…)
(...no, no, no…)
(...kill him now, kill him now…)
It's getting crowded. Not yet practiced enough to block so many frenzied cries vying to be heard.
(...watch out!...)
Like a ray of light spearing through clouds, a pressure builds where his left eye would be. It's little more than a prod but an animal-like terror too wild to catch and contain lodges itself where his rational mind was moments ago. He seizes and howls into his audience's collective faces, restraints snapping and straining. Both Kunsel and the nurse reel back, terrified.
Zack quiets and lies still.
Kunsel is looking regretful, like a child caught in the act.
(...he's afraid of you…)
(...they all are…)
(...they should be…)
"Was that…?" Kunsel begins, rather shakily, until he sees it.
His ghost of a grin.
Kunsel then scoffs, furious, and rushes in.
"I'll give you a grin," he spits, pure venom, grabbing for a scalpel.
"Stop," shouts the nurse. "Stop, you can't do that! You need to leave."
But he proceeds, blinders firmly on.
"I heard your boyfriend—"
He doesn't get beyond that point, the words stick there in his throat where Zack's fingers have clamped them. If he wanted to he could end his little games, his backstabbing, snuff him out with the flex of a few muscles, turn him blue to match that living hue he's got tagging around. Can't breathe with a pinched windpipe. But he needs him.
An airy oh is all the nurse has for the scene. She was on the move as soon as he reached out. She dropped her work, nearly tripping over herself. She's gone now, alerting someone, anyone. He'll have a few minutes before the cavalry arrives then.
He tugs Kunsel to his level, close enough for a peck. He doesn't say anything. Discouragingly enough, he can't. His mouth won't open, his tongue inert. That's well enough. He's enjoying watching him squirm and wince, every flash of panic, every rumour of pain. He eats it right up, compounding that vengeful, hungry fire burning in his blood like a bad fever.
"Where…?" he finally grates, granite on granite.
He has to let up the grip for Kunsel to respond.
"Eat sh—"
He quickly returns it.
Kunsel squeaks appealingly.
"Where?"
Zack is numb. His forehead, his lips, his jaw, his cheeks. Probably spent all he had just to bust that one restraint to snatch him up. But Kunsel doesn't know that. Kunsel doesn't know Zack is concerned he won't be able to stand, let alone run and hide and fight. He doesn't know his head is starting to throb and ache and the colours he's grown to read and discern in place of input from his eyeballs are pulsing, distorting crucial outlines, making it harder for him to act.
An alarm sounds far off, now nearer, now right outside. Even noise leaves a halo glow.
Zack has stayed too long.
"Goodbye, Kunsel."
"Wait!" Kunsel coughs. "Wait. The… cont… conti… the con…"
"There's nothing out there!"
Zack loosens his fingers.
"There is!" Kunsel wails, voice cracking. "Th-there's a base! An underground base!"
"How do I know that?"
(...it's truth…)
He talks over it but Zack only hears...
(...truth… truth…)
(...kill him anyway, kill him, make him pay…)
He has to mentally tune it out.
Or else he might.
(...kill… kill him...)
He might.
(...pay him back…)
(...for Cloud…)
His fingers tighten.
(...do it, do it…)
He releases Kunsel, arm recoiling.
(...get up, get up…)
He likes this next suggestion and complies, the restraints seeming to melt off as he rises to stand. He is relieved to find two steady but bare feet underneath him. The swirl of colour cues shift and recollect, becoming crystal. Think a TV screen with the contrast too high. It's something to get used to, but it beats the shit out of otherwise perpetual darkness.
There's Kunsel, moody as a black eye, on the floor at his feet, clutching his sore throat. The desire to crush his former friend's skull is no less rampant. He did him plenty of damage already, otherwise he'd be retaliating, spitting vicious remarks, not helping his case any.
Zack brushes by. Kunsel's magenta haze, his living aura, it lifts and curls smoky as he does, spreading like a sea, like reverent worshipers too fearful to touch.
(...now go…)
(...go, go, go, now…)
He strides ahead, bursting through the double doors to reach the corridor outside. A trail of blood leads a shivering line behind him. He'll need to clean up. He'll need to find some clothes too, and his lighter, his boots, his smokes.
Oh fucking hell, do I need a cigarette.
About a handful of cigarettes.
A volley of them.
After all this is over, maybe he'll buy Cloud and himself a tobacco plantation. They'll live out the rest of their lives sitting on a porch, drinking tea and watching the sun go down. Zack can smoke his lungs black and die in the bed they'll share for years, and years, and….
"Hey!"
This guard has a gun. He's got it trained right on Zack's bare head. He can tell this because that's his view square down the wispy black barrel, that's a bullet in the chamber.
"Stop or I'll shoot," the guard roars, all business. He's about as young as Cloud looked when he first found him fighting off bullies a millennia ago.
"You don't want to do that," Zack suggests, putting a hand out, supplicating.
"Don't move!" The kid-guard barks.
He remains.
The guard is nervous, but he does finally draw closer, making to apprehend him. He lowers his firearm, going so far as to holster it, bringing out a pair of handcuffs in place. Unfortunately, he has misread the situation, as anyone would have, seeing only a blinded escapee. He reaches for Zack's raised hand, slow and steady, as if handling a spooked animal.
Zack absolutely takes advantage.
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