Chapter 26: Can You Stand The Heat?

-o0o-

Summer's weren't an issue in Midgar. They had air conditioning.

Right?

-o0o-

At first this was one chapter idea, but then it became two.

Disclaimer: Characters belong to their respective owners and franchises. You know the drill.

P.S. For those who are confused about the chronological order of this chapter, it's set probably several months before the previous chapter. Some chapters are linked together, but the timeline can jump all over the place.

-o0o-

The tower's air conditioning broke.

In the almost always overcast city of Midgar, this wouldn't have been an issue.

Except it happened during the middle of the hottest summer Midgar had ever seen, the last time it ever got this hot was when the plates were being constructed.

Of course this meant that the tower, being the tallest building in Midgar, had almost full exposure to the sunlight, the thin layers of cloud seeming to make their torment only worse.

Normally the company that installed and maintained the Shinra Tower air conditioning would have been rung up to come and fix it, but their employees were all being run ragged as a good 50% of Midgar was suffering the same fate.

Which left it up to Keith and a few bunch of his more appliance-repair experienced janitors to try and repair the already shoddy air-con system.

He told the President the system needed an upgrade, but as usual . . . did he listen?

No.

The heat was so unbearable that even the most obnoxious, fashion crazed secretaries threw their hair up into messy buns, rolling up their iron-pressed sleeves regardless of the wrinkles it would cause later on, and helped scavenge for every single fan the tower possessed.

The mail department suffered horrendously, and the Weapon's Department gave up all attempts at getting any work done, their workshops were literally scorching hot.

The idea of even turning on a blow torch was enough to cause heat-stroke.

The SOLDIER cadet instructors cancelled all physical classes, and decided to focus on the theory based classes.

The cafeteria didn't even try to turn on the stoves, deciding to (for once) splurge a little and served up cold salads, anything offered was raw (even the barely passable coleslaw was devoured).

The Turks didn't even blink at the blatant breaking of uniform protocol as none wore the standard dark-blue suit, sleeves were rolled up as high as the material allowed, and Reno went a step above when he borrowed a secretary's skirt and only Veld raised an eyebrow at the crop top Reno had managed to dig up from Gaia's-knows-where.

Some of the more adventurous Turks did follow his skirt approach, and in the heat, none of them blinked an eye.

Even the Costa del Sol born employees were struggling to cope in the sweltering heat.

The only person who seemed to be enjoying himself; was Zack.

Given he grew up in the tropical town of Gongaga, this was like home to him.

If anyone had the energy to be pissed off, they would glared at Zack who wandered the building in his full SOLDIER uniform. But they were just trying to survive the heat, and didn't notice his chipper attitude.

However, there were two people in the building suffering more than most.

And that, was of course, the two that grew up in where?

An isolated, almost full year round snow covered town.

Nibelheim.

-o0o-

Keith was dying.

Figuratively of course.

He could deal with the heat of Costa del Sol, that was bearable and had tons of cold drinks. Plus the ocean!

But this, this heat that Midgar hadn't had in over 30 years, was testing every little piece of patience he had in him.

Here he was, working in the bowels of the building where the air conditioning's main controls were, the master switch one could say.

He, and his dedicated group of engineer inclined underlings, had been down here for an hour too long, trying to figure out what in the name of the Goddess had killed the whole system.

By the time half an hour had passed, they had all been sweating buckets, so by the time a full hour had passed, they had all stripped down as far as they could but clothed enough to satisfy the safety codes.

Which wasn't much to be honest.

Keith was already pushing it by only having his janitor jumpsuit zipped up to his hips and the sleeves of the upper portion tied around his waist, leaving only a tank top to cover his torso. He had already gained a few minor burns on his arms; it wasn't just the air conditioning's main system that was housed in the basement, but many other systems, like plumbing, electric and of course heating.

And to make things worse, the complete moron who installed the air con system placed a good majority of the lines that let out the returning air near the lines for the heating system. And as it was the returning airflow-lines that connected to the dehumidifier that was the issue, he had to get in very close contact to those heating pipes.

To make it basically torture, those pipes weren't . . . let's say they barely met the safety requirements, but the President didn't want to shell out the cash to make them truly comply.

But as his underlings were normal humans, and he was the only 'enhanced', as their boss and friend, there was no way he was going to let them be in that position.

So he let himself get burned, even though he was sure he was going to pass out from heat stroke at some point later on.

The only thing that made things bearable, was that he informed Angeal to watch over Cloud. At least someone could keep an eye out for his 'younger brother', Keith already knew Genesis would be hiding in the bowels of a theatre building in LOVELESS Avenue, Zack would be rejoicing in the heat.

Sephiroth . . . would most likely be defending his chocolate stash.

Given the lukewarms states of the drinks in the 'cold' vending machines, there was no way Sephiroth would be pried away from his freezer.

Omael was far too busy attending to the specimens in his lab, and as always making sure Hollander's specimens' weren't suffering from the heat wave either. Hollander was, mysteriously absent from work *cough*vacation*cough*, and so instead of leaving his lab in the hands of his incompetent interns, Omael had left Sam Holt in charge of his personal labs.

Leaving Angeal, the most sensible of the lot, as the only person he could depend on.

Keith had reminded himself to check in with Angeal on Cloud's condition every hour, but after the first ten minutes, that had flown out of his head entirely.

"When I'm done here, those gutter-brained, pigeon-liver'd - " His mutterings turned into a slew of Nibel swears that made Fletcher flush despite not even knowing what the curses meant, as they all attempted to find out where the air filters were located (because the damn person who installed the original system forgot to give them the blueprints).

They had come to the conclusion that the only reason why the system had broken down, was because the President, it was always the President, had decided that the systems didn't need their yearly servicing.

As Keith had been rather more swamped with the various other incidents over the years (namely being Hollander), the air conditioning systems servicing had slipped his mind.

Given his position and the crap he had to deal with, no one could really blame him for missing that.

And he didn't know much about the system anyway, at Nibel they didn't need an air con, they needed heat.

So the conclusion they came up with to fix the problem?

Find the filters, clean them, and hope that did the trick.

Except it came down to the pipes being…. unique.

All the other systems in the building, all passing through the basement, meant space was tight. So the airflow-lines had to be custom-made to fit in along with everything else.

If the reason why the person that installed the system did it so poorly was because they were fed up with trying to make it work in this maze of pipes and wires, Keith's hatred for them would ease up a little.

But right now, he was more focused on cursing them out while his skin got singed.

"Thou leathern-jerkin, crystal-button,knot-pated, agatering, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Mideel-pouch!"

Keith's cussing made all four of his underlings look to him in confusion, seeing that yet another patch of skin was a scorching red, and he had punched another hole into the wall.

"Um, boss, why don't we take a quick break? We've been down here for four hours."

Even the 2nd Class Costa del Sol born SOLDIER who had been casting small Blizzards to help cope with the heat was looking worn out, and a break sounded splendid right now.

But if Keith left, he knew he wouldn't want to go back in.

It was getting hard to even string a sentence together in his mind though . . .

"Alright, five minutes. Then we get back in."

Edwards, the SOLDIER and the other three janitors all sighed in relief, and they began to pick their way out of the maze of pipes.

However, as Keith had been wedged between hot pipes in a very cramped space for almost four hours, his body was not up to the task.

So when his knees buckled underneath him, and his entire left forearm made contact with a boiling pipe?

He let fly all the curses he could think of, in Nibel, Shakespearean (Genesis' fault), and every other language he'd picked up during his time employed by Shinra.

He was in pain, and that pain had to go somewhere other than through an electric pipeline.

"You starvelling-you eel-skin-you dried neat's-tongue-you bull's-pizzle-you stock-fish! O for breath to utter what is like thee! You tailor's-yard-you sheath-you bow-case-you vile standing tuck! When I find the joder with mierda for brains who made this forpulte mess, I'm gonna drag that fittetryne, that Мудак and let him know exactly what a branding iron feels like, that Блять! Ah, Ебать, I forgot to call Angeal . . ."

It was at that moment, as Keith gasped for air, after the immense rant that had his underlings scramble back in fright, that he realised how little air he actually was intaking.

"Someone, someone call Omael . . ."

As his vision faded, the only thing he could think of, was he was going to get the President to fix the basement or he was going to murder the man.

-o0o-

Cloud was not okay.

Angeal, who Keith had asked to keep an eye on him, was supposed to get a call every hour, so Cloud knew Keith was alright. As someone who had also suffered growing up in that accursed mountain town, Cloud was just as concerned as Keith was about the stifling heat.

It had been four hours, not one phone call.

And given how Keith was down in an enclosed area, with all of the other's systems that kept the building running (barely), the heat would unbearable for a normal person, even with the SOLDIER's who were casting Blizzards spells, he couldn't imagine how Keith would be handling things.

At first, Keith had been just one of the staff in the Tower to him, a janitor in a blue jumpsuit.

Eventually he learned like all the other cadets, Keith wasn't one to be messed with, the rumors spread pretty quickly.

And then he had his first run-in with the feared Head Janitor.

Some fellow cadets from another squad had been harassing him, per usual.

Cloud didn't like any attention, and so let himself be bullied rather than react like he normally would have back in Nibelheim.

Break a few bones, steal a few supplies, scare the living daylights out of them . . .

So he had suffered in silence, while testing how much damage he could deal with.

And then Keith showed up.

To be honest, Cloud was more focused on the fact this guy was the spitting image of someone he had heard of back in Nibel. Someone he got compared to a lot, and his mother only managed to fill in a few gaps.

He got more information from the weird vampire guy living in the old Shinra mansion.

Although every time he asked why the vampire guy, who he called Vin, hated alcohol, the red-eyed man shuddered and muttered a name under his breath.

That name, had been Keith.

Keith, was a common name, and so when he was told the rules when he first became an official cadet, the name of the janitor he should not, piss off, Keith Kogane, didn't mean much to him.

But now he had seen the man in person, compared him to the descriptions in his head from both the townsfolk, his mother and Vin, it turned out, that this Keith? Was that Keith.

After seeing his bullies get so easily cowed, being given hot chocolate and a safe place to hide if need be . . .

Well, he took what he could get.

And he wanted to see why Keith was so important to Vin.

Eventually he got swept up in the habit of most of the staff that actually had common sense, seeing Keith as a father figure. He ended up calling Keith 'Baba', and often found himself wondering what life would have been like if Keith had been there in Nibel with him.

He found himself more and more drawn to Keith's office, just any time he could get during the week, to be in his presence. Someone who knew exactly what it was like to live in Nibel, an outsider stuck in a racist town.

Cloud found himself easing up around Keith, so much that he let his false mask drop, little by little.

Keith wasn't bothered at all, it was as if he had been waiting for Cloud to let down his walls, and in return, Keith was doing the same.

Keith was more than happy to show his flaws, when he needed to rant, fully rant with curses and drinking, he asked for Cloud. He couldn't go to Sephiroth because he didn't need to let Seph learn those swears, and if he went to Omael it would feel all wrong because Vincent wasn't there.

Cloud was the only other one beside Omael who knew how much Keith missed 'Vinnie' and was dying to get out of the Tower, let loose a little, take the vacation he sorely needed. But the Tower would literally halt in its tracks, it went crazy when Keith wasn't around to keep it going, the literal heart of the company.

So he was glad to be the one person Keith could go to; like one brother to another.

That's what they were.

Brothers.

And there wasn't anything in the world that would make Cloud give that up.

So when Keith hadn't called exactly like he had promised?

Cloud knew something was wrong.

He was right.

-o0o-

Sephiroth had one sole focus.

To protect his chocolates from melting.

But the moment he got a call from Omael, telling him to get to the President's office pronto, he knew something was terribly wrong.

As it was the President though, he had to unfortunately change his attire (the skirt and crop top where a small slice of heaven in the heat) to the thinnest pair of pants he could find, and a button up. He didn't even give his boots a glance, just throwing on some jandals he had lying around (Zack's fault probably) and headed out.

He ran into Tseng along the way, the Turk's Second-in-Command looked absolutely furious. Apparently Tseng could tell he wasn't clued into the situation given the confused expression on his face.

"Keith's in the infirmary."

Sephiroth halted in his tracks.

"What."

"They had to used Blizzard materia on his arms, once they've got his temperature low enough they can put him in an ice bath."

"The."

"The pipelines down there are a mess, Keith's tried for years to get the President to fix the systems down there."

"F*ck."

Tseng apparently now realised how icy Sephiroth's tone was, almost running into Omael who came around the corner.

Both of them wisely moved out of the way when Masamune flashed into existence.

"This is a declaration of war."

The President's screams were sweet, sweet, music to their ears.

Even the guards were too tired from the heat to be bothered to move.

-o0o-

In the end, the President promised to hire someone to take a look at the mess in the basement.

What they didn't know was the most competent of those he hired would take one look, turn back to the President, ask "What were you smoking when you hired the guy that designed this?!" and flee before even the Turks could stop him.

By the time Sephiroth had calmed down, joining Omael and Tseng to make their way to the infirmary, Cloud was already there along with a pinch-faced Angeal. Zack had gone down to help Edward and the other janitors with the pipes; the moment he saw the condition Keith was in he wasn't letting his Dad go back down.

Seeing as their only option was to punch a hole into the pipes to even find the last few filters, Zack was more than happy to punch a hole. The President could pay for the damages out of his own pocket, Tseng would assure that.

Genesis had dragged himself out of the theatre the moment he got the text from Angeal, bursting in a split second after Sephiroth, and began to ask what he could do.

Given Sephiroth's emotions, he was not in a fit state to use materia, and so Genesis took over casting, building a thick layer of ice over Keith's burn riddled arms before declaring he would deal with the heat problem and sped off to the roof. Angeal reluctantly left to make sure Genesis didn't go overboard, leaving them with a deadly silent Cloud.

"Um, he's cool enough to put into an ice bath now." A meek voiced nurse announced, Sephiroth and Tseng almost leapt forward to help but found Colleen Holt shoving them back, stating she had the medical qualifications, not them.

She only allowed Cloud to help lift Keith into the ice bath they had set up in a private room, they all felt a sense of relief as the deep red flush on Keith's skin began to lighten.

"He should make a full recovery, and with a little Materia, no burn scars." Colleen was happy to inform them, before slipping out and placing a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door handle.

They all made themselves comfortable, sitting as close as they could to the ice bath to check Keith's color as well as gain a little relief from the coolness the bath provided.

It was only a few minutes later that they felt a surge of magic encompass the building, and the following chill that swept through the halls.

They would later find out that Genesis had summoned Shiva and iced the entire outer layer of the Tower.

That, at least, dealt with the heat.

-o0o-

Keith . . . felt cool.

Huh. That last thing I remember . . .

Why was he looking at the white plastered ceiling that he knew belonged to the infirmary?

"He's awake!"

" . . . . Cloud?"

Where was his uniform? And why was his skin damp?

"How are you feeling?"

That was Tseng.

" . . . Um . . . kind of . . . my brain feels like mush."

"Probably because of the heat."

"How much do you remember?" Omael had a calm expression on his face, but Keith knew that look. Omael was seething on the inside, on the verge of lashing out at the next person to piss him off.

"Uh, I meant to call 'Geal . . . we really need to get blueprints- " He turned to look at Tseng.

"Can we sue whoever installed the systems down there? We couldn't find the blueprints, I don't even think there were blueprints!"

Normally his raised voice wouldn't have been an issue, but the door flew open and Colleen Holt was storming in.

"He needs rest. Not an interrogation the moment he wakes up!"

She was shoving Tseng and Omael out the door, Sephiroth was a silent statue in the corner of the room, glaring at a spot in the floor as if it had personally offended him.

Angeal was standing near him, keeping an eye on Genesis who was out cold on a cot next to him, looking like he was sleeping off magical exhaustion. Probably a summon given he wasn't even flinching from Colleen's shouting.

"Why. Are. You. So. Reckless."

Keith froze, slowly turning his head towards the person he should have expected to be there in the first place.

"Cloud."

Yeah, his little bro was pissed.

"You. Were down in there. For four hours. I was close to passing out after the first hour, and only in half the heat of what's down there. According to Zack."

Speaking of Zack . . .

"Uh, is this a bad time?"

The Pup in question, was poking his head through the door, a strained smile on his face.

"Wait. Four-four hours? It was that long?!"

"Keith, how much do you remember? Edward said you started swearing in a different language." Zack slipped into the chair that Tseng had been forcefully evicted from, resting his arms on the bed as he stared at Keith's arms as if searching for something.

"Bits, and pieces? Finding out the heat pipes are right next to the air-con system? Worst. Mistake. Ever. We really need to sue someone for that. Filter's were the issue, the Pres is so stingy, he didn't pay for yearly maintenance. He could have, and we wouldn't have this problem."

Sephiroth began to mutter darkly under his breath, Keith could hear the President's name mixed in with a few swears that Keith felt the urge to grab a bar of soap to wash Seph's mouth out with.

"What else?"

"Burning . . . burning? Dritt!" Keith shot up, which he regretted immediately as his head rung like a church bell tolling, a hand was pressing him back down, silver strands indicating it was Sephiroth who had moved from his silent vigil.

"Your arms are fine. Genesis saw to it himself, even though he was an idiot doing so after summoning Shiva." Sephiroth's voice was tight, as if he was fighting to keep himself from shouting.

Keith could see Genesis out of the corner of his eye, the auburn haired SOLDIER almost looked dead but his chest was rising, indicating he was breathing. From what he could see of his arms, there was not a single mark.

And he remembered feeling burns on almost every inch of skin on his arms, and he was sure his entire left forearm would have had 1st degree burns.

But his arms were are smooth and unmarked as they had been before that morning.

Hang on . . .

"Shiva? Gen summoned SHIVA? In this heat? She didn't curse him did She?"

"No. Genesis was furious when he heard what happened. She understood why he was so desperate to summon Her." Angeal spoke up, placing a yellow ball of fluff and a familiar large purple lizard who were both eager to see Keith was alright, on the bed.

Cronkle made a very annoyed grumble as he settled onto Keith's chest, Mini-Cloud chirping where he made his perch in Keith's hair.

"I'm good guys. Sorry for scaring you." He would have pet both, but he literally had no strength in his arms.

"No working. For a week. Colleen's orders. I will sit on you if I have to." Cloud sounded determined, and Keith knew Cloud would follow up on that promise.

Well, if it was Colleen's orders, he wasn't getting out of it

A week off didn't sound bad though.

"Alright. But I'll need root beer."

"No problem."

-o0o-

Omake

Tseng, along with many of the Turks, were more than happy when they found the man who had been put in charge of designing that maze of pipes and wires.

What they didn't expect to find out was that the man had been given an impossible budget and a ridiculously small amount of space. It was literally a miracle that he even got everything working; even he didn't expect it to last more than five years.

The accusations that he had done everything he was told to; he kept on budget and used all the space allotted, so he didn't expect the President of Shinra to go back on his bargain to not 'disappear' him if he kept to the requirements; was a little shocking.

This; was good blackmail to use against the President.

If it was anyone other than Keith who had been hurt in the incident, the Turks wouldn't have gone to this extent.

But it was Keith, and given how important the janitor was to the Turk Company Internal Information Network, the Turks were out for blood.

Seriously, they got more info from Keith than their actual sources. And that was INCLUDING Second-Class Staff Sergeant Kunsel from SOLDIER Logistics.

It would seem they needed to keep an eye on the President and how far he was willing to go to keep his money for himself.

Unfortunately, the next incident involving Hollander provided that information. There wasn't a limit to how far Shinra Senior would go. He even had his own heir afflicted with the tainted Mako, without any care at all.

The sad thing about it all, was that when they needed to use that information, there had been quite a lot.

Far too much for a single man to atone for.

-o0o-

A/N: This all happened because at the time, my house was sweltering hot and I had to pull out an electric fan into the lounge. And then my mind decided to go: What if the air conditioning in the tower broke?

As I have no idea how an air con works, I went to the internet. And also for the foreign swears.

The second chapter idea was about Keith and Cloud's relationship evolving. ChaosBalance pointed out in the last chapter Cloud was seen as Keith's little brother, and remembered he called Keith 'Baba' in the Nickname chapter. So to rectify things, I planned to dedicate a chapter into explaining how their relationship changed, but it ended up in here instead. I think it went well, so I'm happy with the end result.

LiulfrLokison out! :3