Sorry it's been so long, folks, the chapter was just.....dragging along for awhile. I hope you enjoy what we have so far, and I assure you that things are just getting busier as we go.

Here. Have some backstory, why don't you?

And vote in my poll!

Late that afternoon, Cloud crept into Tseng's quarters to report on his shots. He hadn't counted on Reno being there as well, happily entwined with Tseng on the couch.

"What is it, yo?" Reno asked, leaning backwards over the back of the couch to look at Cloud.

"I just wanted to talk to Tseng for a minute, but you're busy, so I'll just-"

"I can spare a few minutes, Cloud," Tseng murmured, out of sight behind the back of the couch. "How did the shots go?"

"Shots?" Reno repeated.

"Mako," Tseng clarified.

"You're taking Mako shots? Why?"

"You didn't think he could pick you up and throw you under his own steam, did you?" Tseng chuckled.

"But-but-"

"Is it really that surprising?"

"Why d'you want more enhanced guys in here? Aren't Seph and Vince enough?"

"He already had Mako levels high enough to warrant shots before he arrived. Get back down here."

Reno dropped gracelessly off the back of the couch, landing on Tseng with an audible thump. Tseng grunted.

"What's your score, yo?" Reno asked lazily.

"Twenty-two."

"Twenty two?"

"You can come in, Cloud," Tseng murmured. "There's no point in you just standing in the door and talking when you can't even see us."

"How the hell did you get a score like that? I'm only a seventeen and I show! Your price would've been hiked if anyone knew!"

"He's from Nibleheim. There are a number of open flows in the area, resulting in high levels of tolerance and unusually large amounts of Mako naturally occurring in area residents. For the last time, Cloud, get over here where I can see you."

Cloud shuffled around to the foot of the couch. It was a perfect spot to look right up the line of Reno's back, which obscured a good portion of Tseng's bare chest and nearly bare legs. Tseng levered himself up on one arm to look at Cloud over the back of Reno's head.

"Thank you. Did you have any side effects?"

"Well….yes."

Tseng raised one eyebrow.

"And that was?"

"I went blind."

"Blind?" Reno sputtered before Tseng could say anything. Cloud nodded. "Fuck, Cloud! Why're you taking the shots if you were stable without them?"

"So I stay stable."

"And blind is stable?"

"Reno," Tseng cut in. "Please."

"Don't please me, yo! I know what that shit can do to you! I lived through it, remember? And it screwed you up, too! How can you put a kid like him through that just because some doctor says it's what he needs?"

"Doctor Shendo-"

"It was a doctor that made Sephiroth what he is! Some certified college graduate honestly thought he was doing a good thing doing all those things to an unborn baby and creating an unholy force that's been reduced to sleeping with his superiors because no one knows what to do with him!"

Cloud flinched, starting to back away. Reno reared up, twisted, and grabbed at Cloud's wrist to stop him. Once he had a good hold, he pulled Cloud back to the couch.

"Get a second opinion," he said softly. "Trust me. I was on glow for years. I lived a Mako nightmare. There's not enough of you to hold together if you overdose."

"Reno, all we're trying to do is stabilize his levels so his body can adjust and possibly hide his changes. Being here and being with Rufus has got him fluctuating. We're not raising the levels."

"He went blind," Reno growled. "That's a very good sign. Down in the slums, we called it being power drunk, 'cuz you were too far gone to register anything you were seeing and too high to care about it. Like being drunk as hell on the strongest booze the planet has to offer and having someone tie a blindfold over your eyes, turns off all the lights, and then tell you it was all okay because it happened to everyone. I saw people die, Tseng. I saw a good friend gunned down with a smile on his face because he heard the shots and thought they were firecrackers and we were up to our usual tricks."

"Reno-"

"And I saw what you looked like after they tried to get it into you!"

Cloud looked at Tseng.

"What's he talking about?"

Tseng frowned.

"That's not important, Cloud. Right now, we need to-"

"I want to know," Cloud said quietly. "Reno's just trying to help me. I think it'd be good to know everything I can."

"But it isn't-"

"It is," Reno insisted. "They'll only tell him so much down at the Clinic. They can't just up and tell every poor bastard who walks in the door that there are possible side effects and reactions they never dreamed of. Stuff that'll kill you, or worse."

"Fine," Tseng groused. "Let me get up. This is too serious a topic for me to be discussing with a naked redhead lying on me."

Reno pouted but did as he was told. He settled cross-legged at the end of the couch, patting the spot beside him for Cloud, not bothering to cover himself. Typical Reno.

Tseng took a minute to collect himself, finger-combing his hair back into a semblance of neatness, straightening his boxers, and cracking his knuckles. Cloud waited patiently for him to be finished.

"I can to Midgar intending to join SOLDIER," Tseng said quietly. "It was a dream of mine, as a child. I was fast and strong and learned quickly; I was everything they asked for in a recruit. They took me without question."

Cloud nodded, wide-eyed. Tseng had been a SOLDIER?

"When a recruit is over the age of sixteen on joining up, he goes straight to boot camp. Six weeks of training later, he returns to Midgar for testing. I thrived in camp. Hard physical labor and verbal abuse didn't faze me. I worked hard and I came out ahead. Then we came back and tested. I passed the written exam. My grade on the physical exam was good. I was healthy and young, and I was in. Two weeks after that, my group had our first Mako shots. I….reacted badly. Very badly."

"More detail than that," Reno interrupted. "He has to know everything."

Tseng sighed, one hand going to rub the crook of his elbow, where Cloud knew the needles for the shots went.

"It turns out that living in a country where raw Mako rarely comes into contact with humans made me susceptible to a number of problems the other recruits, all from Mako-rich areas, didn't have to bother with. I was ultra-sensitive to the Mako; you could say I had an allergy to it."

"What happened?" Cloud asked softly.

"I got sick. Very sick. I spent a couple of months in the hospital before they transferred me to security because they didn't want to lose me."

"You're no help," Reno growled. "You aren't telling him anything."

Tseng rolled his eyes.

"You tell him, then. You know I hate thinking about it."

Reno shrugged.

"Sure." He turned to face Cloud. "I can't say what happened when they gave Tseng's group the shots, since I wasn't there, but I can tell you what happened a little over a year ago, 'kay?"

"Sure."

"'bout a year ago, some genius in the Science Department thought it would be a good idea to retest Tseng, see if years of being around high Mako levels had done anything for his resistance. They gave him the shot, and nothing happened. They decided he was fine and made an appointment for him to start taking regular shots, so he'd have the benefits all the other SOLIDER candidates had. He was fine until he got back to his quarters. I was there, waitin' for a nice afternoon of being played with 'til I couldn't take anymore, and he just staggers through the door, the color of an old newspaper and shaking like a leaf. He just dropped onto the couch with me. When I got up the guts to touch him, he was hot. Not fever hot, more like mug of fresh coffee hot. Not natural."

"I didn't even recognize him," Tseng said softly, eyes closed. "But I told him not to call a medic. I didn't know what they would do, or if there was anything they could do."

"So I did what I could, y'know? Managed to drag him into his room, got his suit off, and put him to bed. Then I waited. 'bout an hour later, he was sicker than I'd ever seen anyone, even someone on withdrawal. Puked until there was nothing left, then puked blood. I called help when he started fighting to breathe."

"Tseng?" Cloud asked, voice high. Tseng nodded.

"All true," he whispered.

"I'm not done," Reno said.

"There's more?"

"His heart stopped on the way to the hospital. It took four tries and more voltage than any sane doctor would wanna use to get it going again. They sedated him, and it didn't work right. They called in the Science Department after he had a couple of seizures. Spent more than a month under surveillance, and had a couple more seizures, couple of close calls…..a panic attack."

Cloud looked at Tseng, praying for him to say something that would reassure him. It couldn't happen to him….it hadn't happened to Tseng. It couldn't be true.

Tseng's eyes were dark and sad. They hid nothing. Cloud shivered and hugged his knees to his chest, suddenly frightened.

"I was tested again a couple of weeks before you arrived," Tseng murmured softly. "Not a full dose. It was diluted, just in case."

"And?"

"I spent a day in the hospital and another four in my quarters, too sick to do much more than lie there, hurting too badly to sleep."

Cloud slipped carefully off the couch and moved to sit between Reno and Tseng.

"Could that happen to me?"

"No," Tseng said quickly. "Not exactly."

"Why not? What makes us so different?"

"Cloud, I had no Mako in me. Not a trace of it. You have more than should be possible. You haven't died yet- I've been told that most people who have my problem don't survive childhood. That I made it this far in this environment is considered a medical miracle."

Cloud pushed his head under Tseng's arm, desperate for comfort.

"I don't want it to happen to me," he whimpered. "I don't want this. I never wanted it. Why is it always me?"

Reno stretched out against Cloud's back and shoulder, stroking his hair in an oddly affectionate gesture.

"You'll be fine," he said quietly.

"How do you know?"

"I survived withdrawal from glow. D'you know what glow is?"

"No."

"It's a Mako-based drug. Illegal in every country in the world. Dealing it lands you the death penalty. Possession is years in prison, no parole. It's a liquid you inject into your veins, just like Mako. You get a high like no other, and temporary strength and senses just the SOLDIERs. It's…..really addicting. I took it for a little over six years, then went cold turkey right before we lost our boss. I was too weak to fight back when they took me to the auction house. Ever seen someone going through withdrawal?"

Cloud shook his head.

"It varies from person to person, and depends on what you were taking. For me….first thing that happened was my body tried to reject all the extra slag Mako I'd taken in- that's what they make glow with, the part leftover after they use everything else. That meant burning fever, puking 'til I had nothing left, coughing up what felt like bits of my lungs but was really shards of Mako and blood from where they scraped on the way up…..a lot like Tseng. Then my body figured out that there was something missing. Something that had kept it going when I didn't have food or sleep or medical treatment. Three of my brothers pinned me down while I screamed and begged and fought to get out and find a dealer. We all used drugs, but I and the boss were the only ones on glow. We were the only ones who dared. I dropped at least thirty pounds, all burned off from fever or consumed to keep me alive while I starved and dried up because no one knew what to do for me. I shook so hard I couldn't even breathe sometimes. I saw things. Dunno if they were a part of the Mako, or just my fucked up head telling me how bad I'd screwed up, but I saw stuff you wouldn't even see in hell, it was so cruel, and things so beautiful I would have killed myself right then if I could only go to them. Tried to, in fact. Galen got to me before I could do more than miss my wrists and cut my leg. And y'know what? Even after all that, I know that if someone showed me a vial of glow, I'd do anything to get it from them. Anything. Even though I know it almost killed me. That's what Mako can do."

"That's not very reassuring," Cloud whispered haltingly.

"I'm getting to that part," Reno said flippantly. "Since I got put into the circuit, I've been told dozens of times that I'm a stubborn ass. Some of the guys even told me that back when I was a street kid. I was stubborn enough to survive getting off the most potent drug on the Planet, but I don't have the guts to stand up to Sephiroth. You do. You'll survive whatever they throw at you."

"Then why did you tell me all this?"

Reno smiled grimly.

"I never said you'd come out of it unscathed. There are worse things than death, Cloud. I know. I've been there."

Cloud took a couple of gulping breaths, then dissolved into silent, frightened tears. Reno settled his weight more evenly over Cloud's back and buried his face in his hair. Tseng shifted, worming his way under Cloud until Cloud was the center of a warm, comforting sandwich.

He cried himself to sleep.