This is my...third chapter this month? I hope you all haven't gotten used to this, because I am making no promises. I've simply been inspired. It is time for me to thank all of you who gave me things. See below for my delighted raving. The sweets got me through the initial move-in depression. I know I may have missed one or two of you ( I think you sent things on other stories) but know that I appreciate everything you give me.
From Lysiaamazon- Monkey Bread. I had no clue what it was, looked it up, made it at my aunt's house, and fell in love.
From UkeGlomper- Vegan chocolate chip cookies. It's always good to know that my addictions can be good for me.
From d0rkgoddess- fudge. Oh, ye who believes in the simple pleasures...I love you.
From LoLoChan- award-winning double chocolate chip cookies. Mmm...sugary goodness in my veins.
From aakahasha: cookies. One can never have enough.
From Toons- Vanilla cake with pink icing and little sprinkles shaped like Cloud's head. I'm not sure if I ought to eat the spinkles or beat Cloud's head agasint the wall, but I love it all the same.
From KajaKataMaran, my dear and darling devotee- Billy-the-bookcase from Ikea, a jar of pickled herring, and I'll even throw in a maypole or two. I'm guessing you're from...Sweden or Denmark, or somewhere thereabouts.
From Kanpa- large package of Final Fantasy VII school supplies. I needed these. The boys can keep me company wherever I go.
From UkeGlomper- Lemon drop cookies. I love lemons!
From KomiKitty- An Interwebz. Yaaaaaay! A playmate! And by the way, dear, I'm guessing the poor man wne through one, perhaps two walls.
This is horribly long already, but I'll simply leave it at this: if yo uhave questions about a certain someone's behavior, ask me. I wil answer your questoins in great detail.
"So," Vincent sighed.
"Huh? Ow!"
"Don't complain- you're lucky he didn't do more damage than he did," Vincent muttered, smoothing disinfectant over a deep set of puncture wounds in Cloud's shoulder. "I've seen him take a real bite out of people."
"This has happened before?"
"No."
"Then wh-"
"Once, we had a trio of assassins that were targeting Rufus. They were captured, and it quickly became clear that they had been hired. No amount of interrogation would get a word out of them. Tseng asked me to loose Chaos on them and see what that would do. I did, because I was still new and wanted to do anything to please Tseng and encourage him to keep me. Chaos raped all three of them, and killed one after he learned that the man was a mute. When he was dead, Chaos consumed his flesh, and he took pieces out of the other two."
Cloud twisted out of Vincent's grip to stare up at him.
"You let him out?" he squeaked. "On purpose?"
"I had not yet learned how life was here, Cloud. I was raised to a life of servitude, and I adored Tseng. He was my world. His acceptance was all I lived on. I would have done anything to please him. I didn't truly understand Chaos then, either. We were still waging a war with each other then, and letting him out was an easy thing."
"And Chaos killed one of them," Cloud said softly. Vincent nodded. "Did you get the information?"
"I did. I learned who we were dealing with, where they were located, and why they were targeting us. And then I forced Chaos down. I haven't let him loose deliberately since then. I'm sure you understand why."
"Yeah, but…didn't you know how bad Chaos was?"
"Yes. But I wanted to please Tseng. Love makes us do many things, Cloud. Any kind of love, and any kind of thing. I would have cut my heart out if Tseng had asked it."
Cloud sat still, thinking about this, while Vincent returned to treating Cloud's injuries. Most of the damage was on Cloud's back, with a few straying onto his arms and legs, as well as a neat set of teeth marks in the back of his neck.
"Vincent?"
"Hmmm?"
"I'm sorry. About telling Zack and not telling you I had."
"You were threatened. It's understandable."
"He didn't say anything about me telling you what I'd done," Cloud said softly. "That was all me. I thought you'd get angry if I told you."
"I am angry."
"But-"
"Cloud, you were raised in the kennels, weren't you?"
"Uh-huh."
"You've never ticked someone off when they didn't yell and hit you."
"Right."
"I don't get dramatic when I'm angry. It makes it easier for Chaos to get loose." Vincent stuck a bandage over a scratch. "I prefer to contain it and use the force to further my own ends."
"What?"
"It means, Cloud, that I don't let anyone know I'm angry until I'm going to do something about it. For example, when I'm about to hit their skull broadside with a cast-iron griddle. Or when they're about to run full-tilt into a web of razor wire."
Cloud froze. He turned around slowly, looking up at Vincent.
"What did you say?"
"I was kidding about the wire," Vincent said easily, smiling. The smile didn't reach his eyes. "I rarely have access to razor wire. The griddle actually happened, though. I broke all the bones in the right side of his head. He died in seconds. A very messy way to die- I really didn't know my own strength."
"Chaos?" Cloud ventured.
"No."
"But-"
"I told you that you are an anomaly, Cloud. Before I met you, I was sure it was impossible to come out of the kennels or any serious auction-house without severe anger and violence problems. Reno has them. Sephiroth has them. Even Zack can't always control himself. I can't either."
"But, Vincent, you-"
"Happen to be a very good actor. Did you think I was so calm and content that I'd let your poisoning me go without being angry? Did you honestly think I wouldn't want to punish you for revealing my secret to Zack? Do you believe that after sharing one mind for years, Chaos and I haven't rubbed off on each other?"
"N-no," Cloud whimpered. He scooted back on the bench, wanting to put some distance between himself and Vincent.
"Apparently you did. You're too trusting, Cloud. If I was like Sephiroth or Reno, I could have killed you a dozen times. I could have hurt you in ways that would make anything you experienced in the kennels seem mild. I am the only man in the harem who has suffered more than you- and I learned from it. I use everything to my advantage, something you should learn before Chaos gets loose again. Find somewhere else to spend the rest of the night- our door will be locked."
He dropped the roll of bandages on the bench and stalked to the door. There, he paused and looked back at Cloud.
"You also ought to learn how to quit when you're ahead," he said acidly. "Continual apologizing will anger even the calmest people."
Cloud finished caring for his wounds and curled up on the bench, utterly overwhelmed.
I should have known. Not everyone can be like…like who? Tseng, maybe. Evyn? I hardly ever talk to him, so I don't know. Chuck was a sarcastic jerk when we met, but he never got angry at me, or tried to hurt me. Zack? He didn't really do anything when he made me tell…he just said he'd let me fall, and that isn't really bad, but I don't know any more. He was yelling, and he really did seem serious. I want to go home.
Home. Funny that he was thinking of the ClearWater Kennels as home now, after longing to be away from them for so long. Without meaning to, he pictured the place: A low building that sprawled in a small valley in Nibleheim, built of stone. One wing of it was high-ceilinged and grand, built to accommodate the tastes of the clients who came to have slaves paraded before them. The residential areas were set into the ground- to make it even harder to escape, the areas housing adults and teenagers were built like mazes that shifted on mechanical belts according to a schedule none of the salves
could grasp. If you were over eight years old, you lived away from the adults. Small children were caged together in groups of twelve, one from each month of the year, and the cages were kept in stacks according to year. A master could have his or her pick of a year or a month, as though they were fine wines in a cellar. As you grew older, your cagemates lessened in number, until, but the age of thirteen, you shared a cage with only one other. At thirteen, you also moved to another part of the warren, one that kept the teenagers. Training began then, the sexual part of it. Servitude had been taught to them as soon as they were old enough to learn, along with the basic education they were required to receive. ClearWater was too high class to skimp on that. The warren was all damp stone, kept warm by massive heaters that rattled and hummed most of the year. It was humid- only vigorous cleaning and religious application of sealant kept mold and mosses from growing.
The move to the adult areas happened when you turned eighteen, provided you were male. Girls were moved when they turned sixteen. If you had some kind of attribute the kennel masters wanted, you were put into the breeder's cages, to be paired off with a suitable woman. Otherwise, you went into the bachelor's cages and continued to learn about the world you were being trained to join. That was if you hadn't been bought already and left to be trained for something in particular. Bachelor's cages housed one and were hardly tall enough for you to sit up in. they were stacked only one high now. If you weren't bought, you would remain there until someone bought you or you were taken away for some other reason.
It was a harsh, cruel world. You slept under a single blanket with your arm as a pillow. Food was simple and only enough to keep you healthy. Masters were sadistic, guards were perverted, and trainers were whatever they wanted to be. Even the breeding mothers were distant, because they knew they couldn't keep their children anyway. Better to keep them from getting attached, so there was no need for painful separation when they grew old enough to be put with the other toddlers.
An unpleasant existence, but it was home all the same. He'd been born there, the product of an experimental tryst between his mother and a stud rented from another kennel. He'd been raised there, running around his pen with a horde of other children his own age. He'd been educated there, sitting on a bench at a long table and taught until his handwriting was nearly perfect and he could spell, read, and do math. He'd been trained there. And he had been bought there. Nineteen years of his life spent in one place.
I miss it. I'd rather have another session with Lucas. At least I know he's going to be cruel
--
Reno entered the bathroom for an early shower and found Cloud asleep in a nest of towels on the floor. He stared at him, particularly at the bruises that had blossomed while Cloud was asleep, and smirked. Leaning down, he pinched Cloud's arm, hard, and waited.
Cloud woke up with a yelp. He saw Reno bent over him, grinning, and did the first thing that came to mind: he hit him. Perhaps it was because of his increased exposure to violence, or the instinct he'd honed in the kennels, or the training he was getting now, but Cloud brought his feet up and out, a direct shot to Reno's stomach, and didn't even try to control his strength. The redhead tumbled into the wall with a stream of curses.
"What the hell?" Reno screeched as soon as he'd gotten his feet under him again. "What was that for?"
"You pinched me," Cloud said sulkily, crossing his legs and pulling a towel over his lap.
"You were sleep on the bathroom floor," Reno said acidly. "And you're an ass." He patted himself down, checking for serious damage. "Since when do you kick like that, anyway?"
"Same reason you act like a spoiled brat when I make you bleed," Cloud retorted, in no mood to swallow Reno's attitude.
"What?"
"Instinct. You want to kill me, so I have to hit first, and hit hard."
Reno considered this, then laughed.
"What happened now?" he asked.
"Huh?"
"There's no way a little kid like you is gonna start acting his age overnight without something happening. What was it?"
Reno settled on the bench and leered at Cloud.
"Fus-fus finally quit being so sweet and screw you into a wall? Someone else screw you into a wall?"
"Er…n-"
"Bet it was Vincent," Reno snorted. "He always acts like some kinda saint. He's no better 'n the rest of us. You look like shit."
"I-"
"C'mon, I need a shower. Coming?"
Reno got up and started to undress. Cloud stayed put and stared at him until he stopped and looked back at Cloud, his shirt half-off.
"What?"
"You're as bad as Sephiroth, acting like that," Cloud pouted.
"Uh-huh…and how am I like him?"
"You both act like you have a split personality."
"I do not!"
"You hated me yesterday!"
"Yesterday someone hadn't given you what you had coming. You got yours and I didn't have to do it, so why do I need to stay pissed at you? Now let's shower before breakfast starts."
Cloud hesitated, then dropped his towel and followed Reno. His logic made sense, in a strange way, and all he had to do was stay on guard. He could take Reno on, if he had to. He was sure of it.