I'm currently working on something else but, while waiting for the 'twist' to hit me, I wanted to do this too. It's partially because I've been looking up 'Yondaime' images online (lala495063 has a heartbreaking 'Yondaime and Naruto' vid on YouTube by the by) but mostly it's the fault of Iskra revoir who long ago asked me to write a 'young Cloud' ficlet for her because her Tifa plushie needed someone since her Cloud plushies (short of the 'game-time' one at least) seem shy about snuggling. 'Kid Cloud' however has been surprisingly hard to catch to write down for me and even now I'm not entirely sure about how this turned out. Sorry, Iskra, 'young Cloud' is wiggly but hopefully this is plushie enough. ;) I'm going to leave when in the timeline this comes as up for grabs.
His Dad
By TamLin
His dad was the strongest dad in the whole wide world! He rode a black chocobo called Smoke and he killed monsters for a living. There were little villages all over the continent – no… all over the world! – that knew his dad's name and cheered whenever they heard it. Sometimes… sometimes on cold winter nights around the pub they'd tell stories about his dad and how brave and strong he was. How – how his dad had saved the village and the people and – and the mayor's pretty daughter from marauding monsters…
He hopped off his bed and went to the bookcase to pull out the dictionary. It was heavy and he dropped it in the middle of the worn wooden floor and sat down in front of it to look through.
He didn't know what 'marauding' meant but it always seemed to have to do with monsters and so he figured it must be bad. His mom said you shouldn't use a word if you didn't know what it meant though so he scowled and ran his finger down the small print on the pages, looking for what he wanted.
How did you spell 'marauding'?
Mannequins were giant dolls?
Marauding was: 'to rove or raid in search of plunder'.
He kind of liked the sound of that and he rolled it around in his head. He wanted to go marauding. It sounded dangerous and fun. His mom was still outside in the garden and so he went marauding into the kitchen looking for cookies. He wasn't supposed to have cookies before dinner but he thought that was the point of marauding. He marauded and marauded but was left without cookie plunder. It was when he turned around to go look up 'cookies' in the dictionary to see if it would give him a recipe so he could make more that he remembered what he'd been doing in the first place. Hefting the book up with both arms he carried it carefully back to the shelf.
He'd been thinking about his dad.
His brave dad. His noble dad. His strong and bold and powerful dad.
His dad who was better than Johnny's dad.
For some reason telling himself stories about his monster killing dad didn't seem that satisfying anymore. Johnny's dad owned the general store and he gave Johnny a whole gil once a week for helping sweep it out. Today Johnny had bought candy with it and shared it with his friends…
A swipe of his arm over his eyes was enough to prove he wasn't crying and he crawled back up onto his bed and rolled over to look out the window. He hadn't gotten any candy and he'd acted like he didn't care. He wasn't going to ask and beg for it like the other boys had. He was better than that. His mom said that weak people asked for things, strong people did it on their own and he'd certainly never heard his mom ask anyone for anything even when Mrs. Lockhart next door was cooking something that smelled really good and all his mom had on the stove was the same soup they'd had yesterday. Sometimes, if he put on just the right act and showed up at just the right time, Mrs. Lockhart would see him and ask him over for snacks in the afternoon.
She made the best cookies… which was probably why her little dark haired, dark eyed daughter that Cloud so secretly adored had turned out so pretty and sweet…
His mom made really good cookies too, he staunchly defended in his head, feeling disloyal and guilty. It made him want to go outside and disappear into the woods around the village but he was grounded and his mom said he couldn't go play outside today. He rolled over on his stomach and fiddled half-heartedly with his wooden soldiers.
He hated being trapped inside!
If his dad was here –
If his dad was here he'd probably be mad at him too…
He hadn't meant to run through Mr. Macon's flowers in front of the inn. He'd just – he'd been in a hurry and he hadn't been paying attention. He'd been fighting monsters in his head and –
And you'd think he'd done something unforgivable the way Mr. Macon had carried on and on!
They were just flowers for pity's sake!
He'd ended up grounded all the same. And now he was stuck inside with nothing to do all because of some dumb flowers.
His mom had been really embarrassed.
He felt guilty about that…
If he had a dad he bet his mom wouldn't have had to feel embarrassed.
He buried his face in the crook of his arms and shut his eyes tight. 'Cause he didn't really have a dad. As much as he wanted to pretend - his dad wasn't a monster slayer. He just… wasn't. He wasn't here, he wasn't part of their family, he wasn't interested in hanging around. He wasn't going to tell Mr. Macon to shut up about the flowers, he wasn't going to make everything okay for Mom, he wasn't going to come home and…
He just wasn't.
His dad was one big 'wasn't'.
His dad had always been a big 'wasn't'.
His face set in determination in the shadow of his thin arms. He wasn't going to be a wasn't. He was going to be a was. And he'd come home and he'd make sure nobody yelled at his family about flowers and he'd –
He'd take care of them.
Even if he didn't know exactly how… he'd find a way… he'd take care of them…
****
"Cloud?"
The sound came from the doorway and he barely kept himself from spinning over automatically to face it. He barely remembered in time that he'd fallen asleep on the couch and if he rolled over, he'd roll right off and onto the floor and that threats didn't usually whisper his name in little kids' voices in the middle of the night.
Why was he sleeping on the couch…?
Right. Tifa. Gone for the weekend. Kids and him – on their own. With a grunt he sat up and focused on the archway to the steps and the upstairs rooms. Denzel, flyaway hair even more flyaway than usual, stood hesitantly in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot. Cloud's internal clock informed him of the impossibly late hour even as he swung his long legs off the couch and scrubbed a hand through his hair.
The males of the family never slept well on the rare occasions Tifa was gone. Cloud couldn't even bring himself to sleep in their shared bed without her warmth there…
At his silent waiting, Denzel fidgeted and then shuffled over. Without a word, he crawled up onto the couch next to Cloud and scooted into the shelter of the larger man's side. Cloud wrapped an arm around the child and didn't ask.
He'd had enough nightmares to know what they looked like on someone else.
With a sigh he shifted backward. Sometimes Denzel just needed a sheltering body in order to get back to sleep but when he sat back this time, Denzel went with him but stayed stiff and forcibly awake.
That bad of a nightmare, huh? His arm tightened just a bit more around the boy's slim frame.
A real dad would know what to do to make everything right.
Without Tifa by his side to silently encourage him though, Cloud felt lacking. It didn't matter how many times she told him that simply being himself was enough for the kids… he knew he should be doing more for them. Denzel gave a sigh and unconsciously, Cloud echoed it himself.
A real dad would do… whatever it was that real dad's did to make the leftover, sick, shaking, clammy-stomach-fear go away. A real dad would know what to say to make the bad memories of the past stop bubbling up in the empty darkness of the night. A real dad would know how to make the tinges of green… or in Denzel's case, black… stay away from the edges of their eyes when they weren't paying attention.
In the shelter of his body, tucked in against his warmth, unnoticed, Denzel started to relax. Together they sat in silence in the dark for a little while, the two Strife males, and… it felt pretty good. Finally, Cloud looked down at the top of the kid's head – and, was it hypocritical to think automatically that the kid needed a haircut?
"Come on," his voice was low as he scooped the boy up and settled him onto his back. They were probably both too old for piggy-back rides but when Denzel's thin arms wound trustingly around his neck, something in Cloud relaxed. With a grunt, he headed for the kitchen.
"What're we doing?" Denzel's muffled voice came from between his shoulder blades and the corner of Cloud's mouth twitched upward. His answer was succinct.
"Marauding."
Lockhart hands still made the best cookies. Even, Cloud thought smugly, if her last name wasn't Lockhart anymore…
