Warnings: AU and absolutely no explanations as to why the storyline's so screwed up. No real plot. OOC actions taking place right, left, and center. Slight yaoi. Actually, check that, quite a lot of it. Drag shows and thermodynamics references. Too many personal jokes.
Square owns the characters and most likely a good chunk of the world. Lyrics belong to Gackt.
Notes: Catt, this was entirely, undeniably, and completely your fault. This one's for you.
***
Quick recap:
Cloud can see odd things.
Vincent is strange.
Hojo is sadistic.
Sephiroth takes a shower and irritates Zack.
***
A man was walking down the street in a certain slum. He stopped in front of a run-down church and smiled to himself. It had once been lively and a community gathering point but over time he had gotten bored to death since nobody ever walked in and the flowers inside had gone carnivorous, thanks to a side-effect of Meteor. Hence, he had decided to leave it. He wondered if anyone had been in it lately.
He entered it, and was immediately amazed at how nice it looked. "Hmm… somebody must actually have been in here recently!" he thought to himself with glee. "In fact, maybe they're still here!"
He enthusiastically opened the vestibule door.
Men dressed in black were standing inside. Identical men. Holding extraordinarily nasty-looking guns that had blackened spikes, sighters, glowing buttons and other protuberances literally dripping off that made it quite clear that anyone on the receiving end of the gun was going to regret ever being born.
One black-clad man spoke. "You are Strife."
The man wasn't sure whether it was a question or a statement. "No, I am not," he responded.
"You lie," another replied.
Well, the man thought to himself, that answers that question.
"Where is it?"
"Where is what?"
"The head, you fool."
"Umm... I don't know?"
"Do not trifle with us. If we do not receive our quarry, we will be most displeased."
The man began to sweat. "I really have no idea what the hell you're talking about."
"You have failed us, Strife. Prepare to die."
"But I'm not Strife! I have no idea who this guy is! NOOOOOOoooooo---"
*blagh*
***
Strange things tended to happen on Wednesdays at the Seventh Heaven.
In order to fully appreciate that fact however, it would be necessary to note that at the newly built-up and renovated Seventh Heaven, there were three recognized major activities: drinking, fighting, and drag shows. Other less official traditions included getting smashed and trying to sneak into the top-secret, underground AVALANCHE lair, (which was generally not recommended, as those who tried could and did get caught and bounced out on their asses by Tifa) stealing chocobos and taking joy-rides, throwing things out windows, burning chairs, and having intense and philosophical conversations with the save points.
Some might ask why all these activities show a strongly destructive slant. Tifa had once entertained the conjecture that it was due to the natural desire of the inebriated in their natural habitat to hasten the process of entropy and the universal trend towards chaos, but she had decided it might also just as well be due to the fact that drunken people like to break things.
At any rate, one had to consider what the Seventh Heaven was all about. Alcohol, obviously. Drinking in Midgar was actually a different process from drinking anywhere else on the Planet. Due to the fact that Midgar had been pretty much flattened during the dual Diamond Weapon and Meteor attack, there had been a marked upswing in the distribution of grain-alcohol and the equally popular, although slightly more sordid, "meteorshine" productions. The production of meteorshine was generally considered quite whimsical and acceptable in the face of Midgar's urban and destructive spirit, but it this might have been because the people who engage in it had had their abilities to reason destroyed as one of the side-effects of actually drinking the stuff.
So, with plenty of alcohol in hand, the folks of Midgar were ready to tackle any problem, mostly through ignoring them in a drunken stupor. And the Seventh Heaven was more than happy to provide all varieties of these drinks. Knowing this, the next activity was wholly understandable, seeing as alcohol almost invariably comes hand in hand with violence. The fights at the Seventh Heaven ranged from the bills to who got the last drink to who it was that Tifa had smiled at more to stolen materia…
But, there could be no doubt that the true attraction of the Seventh Heaven lay in it its nightly shows. After hearing about Aeris' and Cloud's escapades in Wallmarket, and with her own knowledge of what went on in the Honeybee Inn, Tifa had reached two simple truths: people like to do strange things and they feel a lot better about it if other people are doing it at the same time. Truth Number Two was that everyone who doesn't like doing these things will often pay to see it so they can either satisfy their voyeurism or heckle it.
Hence, the "Wow! Whoa! …Women or What? " Wednesday night drag show.
It was a slow day, but that in itself wasn't unusual. The bar tended to pick up at night when the show actually started and the beer started flowing and the performers started prancing. For the place to only have less than half a dozen patrons around two in the afternoon was quite average. For Sephiroth, Zack, and Cloud to be the only three in the room at this time was also quite average. It always took them at least the six hours before the first show started to manhandle and threaten Cloud sufficiently to the point where they could force him into the performance dress.
From his place lying down on the bar-top, Cloud yawned and grumbled. "I don't see why I have to do this. I'm the only one who goes out and works in an office each day and brings home an actual paycheck. All you two do is go and intimidate people into giving you bribes to get into the Honey Bee Inn."
From his position spread-eagled on the floor, Zack watched the blades of the fan turn, doing absolutely nothing to dispel the heat in the air. He grinned up at Cloud and shrugged. "I don't do that. Seph does. All I do is act in my naturally charismatic way and people can't fork over the gil fast enough."
Nearby and the only one of them actually sitting on a chair, Sephiroth fanned himself with a drink coaster and occasionally adjusted his clothing. The leather pulled away from his body in slow, wet, suctioning sounds, much in the way a stuck boot sounds when being yanked from the mud. He yawned as well and stretched slowly. "Face it, Cloud, you just don't have the intimidation factor to be a bouncer."
Cloud reached blindly for the dish of complimentary peanuts to throw. "I might if you'd let me," he replied testily, "I have some experience, y'know. I did that body-guard stint, that's not so different." Having found the peanuts, he began to intermittently munch a few and toss them at the other two men.
Sephiroth batted them away with the coaster absently, never missing a fan-wave. "You also have experience with drag, which neither of us do and the ability to fit into a size four." He smirked. "You wouldn't want to disappoint your fans, would you?"
Zack chimed in. "The waist, the face, the build…" He snickered and drew suggestive curves in the air with both hands.
"The complete lack of breasts or anything else that qualifies someone to be female," Cloud snapped back, lobbing a few of the larger peanuts with vicious intent. He looked back down at a few sheets of paper on which he was trying to plot out the evening's show tune and dance steps and how to accomplish said steps in high heels.
Zack leered, undeterred. "You wanna prove that?"
"The last time I checked," Sephiroth remarked, leaning back in the chair, "the whole point isn't to be female, only to look like one. Otherwise, it's just being a transsexual, you know."
Cloud went red and then green. "I didn't want to think about that." A short pause later, he mumbled, "It wasn't like I had a choice about it or anything. You didn't tell me Aeris was so... insistent."
Zack grimaced. "Yeah, well. I try not to think about what she would've had me doing if fate hadn't intervened."
"Whatever. So, since we all have some type of job, legal or not, why should I do this?" Cloud retorted.
"Entertainment purposes. For us."
Since fuming didn't make a lot of noise, silence descended over the group again. The only noise to be heard in the bar was the scribbling of Cloud's pencil as he continued laboring over the evening show and the slow rattle of the ceiling fan as it ground in endless circles, occasionally getting stuck.
Rattle. Whir. Click. Release.
Rattle. Whir. Click. Release.
Rattle. Whir. Click. Release.
Rattle. Whir. Click. Release.
Rattle. Whir. Click. Release.
Rattle. Whir. Click. Release.
Rattle. Whir. Click. Release.
Rattle. Whir. Click. Release.
Rattle. Whir. Click. Release.
Rattle. Whir. Click. Release.
Rattle. Wh--
"Make it STOP, Zack!!"
Whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…
"What 'm I supposed to do? I'm the one lying on the floor! Make Seph fix it, he's taller."
Click.
"Just because the rest of you are height-impaired does not make me a handyman. I'm not getting up."
Release.
"Then I'm not dressing up!"
Zack blinked in dismay. "Because of a broken ceiling fan?"
"No!" Cloud shouted, and then reconsidered. "Yes! Just… just DO something about it! I can't THINK with that noise going on, much less choreograph a dance number!"
Sephiroth sighed and kicked out at Zack, catching him in the shoulder. "Do it."
Zack got to his feet, grumbling. "Buncha prima donnas, the whole lot of you. You owe me big for this and I mean to collect..."
***
"Ahh, sweet success… Soon we shall reveal ourselves in full and uncensored glory."
"…"
"What?"
"…I think they have public decency laws against that."
"No, you ninny. I meant that in a matter of days, our plans will be complete and we can go public with them. At last we shall reveal ourselves to the world. At last we shall have our revenge."
"…"
"NOW what?"
"I think that line's already been used and copy-written somewhere else. Is it a good enough line to risk alerting the Crossover Gestapo?"
"Well, is there a BETTER way to say it?"
"How about, 'in the near future, we will unveil our plot to the global community and we will derive great satisfaction there from'?"
"Hnn. It'll do. Make it so."
***
"…WHY, oh WHY can't IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII?"
As Muuki and Big Bro finished their duet, applause and slurred catcalls erupted from the left corner of the bar where all the body-builders, clad in garish leotards, were already three sheets into the wind.
Cait Sith, acting as announcer for the evening, bounced up and down from his perch on the moogle and shook his megaphone frantically. "Thank you! Let's give a warm round of applause to our performers this evening for a stunningly… unique rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow!"
Much hooting and cheers and gil waving from the left corner.
"All right, y'all, simmer down. We've got some more performances up before it's open microphone and I'm sure they're all raring to go!"
From the wings, Cloud groaned. "Great, he's in cowboy mode tonight…" He plucked at his outfit and scowled. "And I am definitely not 'raring to go' in this…this thing."
Sephiroth followed his gesture with a critical eye. "I like it."
The thing in question--- the long, red, sleeveless, silk Wutaiian dress with a high collar and slits rising all the way to the upper portion of the thigh ---shimmered shamelessly under the shared scrutiny.
Cloud pulled at the slits. "I'm cold. There's not enough fabric to it."
"There's enough to keep things interesting." Zack grinned, swatted his ass, and sent him stumbling onstage, arms pinwheeling as he fought to keep his balance while wearing the high heels.
Pausing only to scowl back at Zack and Sephiroth and to give one final tug to the slits of the dress, Cloud stalked up to the microphone. "Music," he ground out and obediently, the opening notes of the song began to spill out through the speakers.
As the two of the few males in the room not wearing female garb and as close friends of the performer, Sephiroth and Zack remained backstage to keep an eye on things. The bar was busy and it seemed like the entire room was filled with corsets and hoop skirts and fishnet stockings.
Sephiroth nudged Zack's shoulder. "Look. Over there."
Zack followed his gaze and immediately blanched white-green as he saw Palmer, wrapped in yards and yards of frothing pink chiffon, successfully trying to chat up an aquamarine taffeta-encased Heidigger.
"Oh… my… God…" Zack turned his head, shut his eyes, still saw the horrific scene and wondered if it was possible to gouge out one's mind's eye. "I think I'm going to be sick."
Palmer giggled coyly and batted his lashes; Heidigger's eyes glazed over in Epic Lust. There was a three-chair radius around them in the bar that had people piled up in every single seat otherwise, necessitated not only for their girth but also on general squick principles.
Cloud had started singing onstage, although his gritted teeth made the words a bit stilted. "Kimi wa seijitsu na moralist… kirei na yubi de boku o nazoru. Boku wa junsui na terrorist… kimi no omou ga mama ni kakumei ga okiru…"
Sephiroth, deadened to sights like the ongoing flirtation from his years of growing up in Hojo's lab, was calmly watching Cloud. "You're missing the best part of the show, you know. You can hear him sing any time, how often are you going to see him dressed like this?"
Zack kept his eyes shut. "I can't look until they're stopped," he moaned. "You're a masochist, have I told you recently?"
Sephiroth idly glanced over and shrugged. "It's over. Wallace kicked them out."
"Remind me to send him a drink, " Zack mumbled as he cautiously looked up again. "Say, red really does look better with Cloud's complexion…"
Onstage, Cloud was relaxing a little more and getting into the act, mostly attributed to the sake Zack had forced upon him right before getting dressed, claiming it would 'put him into the spirit.' His hips swayed a little, the slits divulging more than usual. "Aishite mo ii kai? Yureru yoru ni arugamama de ii yo… motto…. Fukaku… Kuruoshii kurai ni nareta kuchibiru ga tokeau hodo ni… boku wa…kimi no…Vanilla."
"I can't believe you wanted to pick white," Sephiroth scoffed, "Haven't you realized by now that white only looks good when complemented with large amounts of black?" He took a moment to admire his own clothing.
Zack rolled his eyes. "I'm not the one who got sidetracked by the bridal dresses in the wedding department, now was I?" He suddenly glared at Sephiroth suspiciously. "Unless there was something you were planning for him that you've been keeping from me…?"
Smirking, Sephiroth flicked back a strand of hair from his face. "Green has never been a good shade for your feelings, Zackary."
No sooner were the words out of his mouth when several things happened simultaneously, the most noticeable being that the lights went out, Cloud's voice cut off abruptly, and people began to scream.
Tifa was shouting over the pandemonium of shattering glass and falling chairs and clattering of high heels. "People, people, calm down! I'm sure it's just a simple power outage, please remain calm!" Then, after a brief thoughtful pause, she added, "No refunds!"
Suddenly, as quickly as they had gone off, the lights came back on. Automatically everyone glanced to the stage, including Sephiroth and Zack.
The stage was empty and Cloud was gone.
***
Somewhere else, sometime later….
Cloud woke with a pounding headache in a hazy mess of rumpled silk and a nagging suspicion that since he generally wasn't wearing anything when he went to sleep, this was not in the norm.
He blearily opened his eyes and gazed around at the unfamiliar walls. Yep. Definitely not the norm. Unless Sephiroth or Zack had managed to
He sighed. "This is," he vowed earnestly to himself, "the absolute last time I let them mix the drinks without knowing what they put in."
Trying his best not to actually look at what he was wearing, Cloud stood up and dusted himself off, continuing to talk out loud in order to reassure himself. "S'pose I might as well find a way to get out of here." He turned to look for one of the mysteriously floating red arrows that always seemed to denote the exit paths. He had no idea why they were there or how they appeared but… No use knocking it, amazing the motivation you could find while stranded in the middle of nowhere in a dress that would look most at home on a sleazy street corner in Wutai.
There was someone standing directly behind him.
Throwing himself backwards, Cloud shifted around, groping ineffectually for his absent sword. "Holy…! Who're…? What're…? Where…?" He sifted wildly through his Expressions of Extreme Alarm to find one suitable for the occasion. The figure continued to watch him, with an air of expectation.
Having run through the whole list, Cloud took a deep breath and stepped back. He finally settled for "Who the hell are you?"
It is an interesting fact that important and seemingly obvious questions, such as, "Who was my father?" and "What did you do during that war you always make indirect references to but refuse to talk about?" and "What's your secret recipe for making spaghetti sauce?" always seem to be asked at a very convenient time. For example, it is an amazing coincidence that TV ads for Prego or Ragu always occur exactly when a child just happens to ask their parent what recipe they use to make their special sauce.
Many philosophers have spent great amounts of time pondering this question. Some claim that it's simply in the quirky nature of the Universe to always arrange things so that they make a great story. Others believe that its Observer's Prejudice--improbable events are more interesting and are more likely to be noticed and remembered than routine ones.
Others chalk it up to the media. At any rate, the law had just been proven again, for as soon as Cloud asked this question, the figure's head fell off and rolled a little ways into the shadows.
Cloud shrieked (as would anyone) as the cause of this skittered to a halt at his feet; the knife looked long enough to gut a Vlakarados. A group of people emerged from the dark and another man with long dark hair and a suspiciously spectral look to him nodded to them from behind the headless body.
"Excellent, Turks. Now kill the boy."
Cloud didn't need to be warned twice. He threw himself to the floor and rolled out of the room as a knife swished over his head, missing by inches.
"He is rolling out of the room. Use the handgun, Elena."
He got up and managed to dodge the various bullets by noticing that they always seemed to strike at exactly where Tseng was pointing.
"He is too fast. Use the machine gun, Rude."
Cloud cursed to himself and ran, a stream of bullets following behind him. He made it to a door set in the wall and started to open it.
"Use the sixteen ton safe, Reno."
Cloud paused. Sixteen ton safe?
He threw the door open and stepped back. A giant safe hit the ground with a loud THUD.
"Excellent work, Reno. You have killed him."
Marveling at the Shinra, Cloud hid behind the corner and listened to the footsteps of the Turks as they moved around and then approached him, sounding as though they were dragging something heavy along.
He heard Reno muttering as well, "Sweet Shiva, like we needed a metal cage, indeed. It fits into this plastic bag easily enough, and we won't look half so suspicious carrying it down the--- wait... holy shit!"
Tearing sounds.
Biting sounds.
Cursing sounds.
Ringing sounds--as if a pot was being slammed onto the floor.
He heard Reno pant out in triumph, "Gotchya! Try biting through THAT, you stupid fuc---"
Hitting sounds.
Elena's voice rang out, surprised and alarmed. "What the...hey, not you too! Guys, behind you! Rude!"
Electric zapping sounds.
Shooting sounds.
Punching sounds.
Grunting.
Reno again. "Damn, man... Good thing you brought along plenty of rope, Rude. 'Lena, see if you can channel Tseng and tell him we got the target."
Their footsteps slowly faded away down the hall, although he could still hear a faint thrashing and crinkling noise. As soon as he thought the coast was clear, he tentatively sidled out into the hall again, ignoring the canon rule that you never return to the place where the violent action has taken place. Then again, he was secure in his status as a Main Hero and knew that he couldn't be killed off or maimed until later on; besides, anything was better than huddling like a scared chicobo in the corner.
He was in such a hurry, he failed to look ahead of him and consequently went sprawling when he tripped on something large, soft, and moving.
"Ow! Dammit!"
Rubbing his posterior, Cloud promptly sat down again when he realized he had just tripped over a tied-up headless body that was surrounded by the shreds of a plastic bag. The same figure he had presumably been talking to. And which was still moving, despite the obvious incapacitation of missing its head.
Unlike the Final Fantasy Eight progeny who would follow him, Cloud was not as given to having internal conversations and debates with himself in order to settle his typical problems and angst. However, as previously stated, motivation only depends on the situation and Cloud had a stunningly good go at mental self-arguing which ended up in his decision that passing out would be the best course of action.
When he woke up a short time later, he had another try at telling himself that he didn't know the slightest about who he was, where he was, and what he had tripped over but was unable to thoroughly convince himself. He then pretended that he was dead but this illusion was spoiled by the fact someone was graciously helping him to his feet.
Ill-temperedly clinging to his rescuer's arm, Cloud steeled himself to come to terms with his situation and to not sound incredibly surly when he thanked whoever was helping him out of blissful unconsciousness. "Well, I suppose it was nice of you to---Aughh!"
Cloud screamed again and pulled away, since the arm he had been holding belonged to the same body he had seen decapitated and tied up. A second glance showed that the strands of rope and bits of plastic were still clinging to the figure, obscuring his view of who the person was, even if he could have told it without the head.
The little reminder of the fact that there was no head spurred his processes. He decided a third glance was out of the question and started to take off running.
But before he could bolt after the Turks, who, even if they were trying to kill him, were a normal and familiar part of his life (even the killing part) as opposed to his sudden rash of impromptu introductions, was seized by the wrist.
The body gestured broadly towards the hallway and did some pantomime, only mildly hindered by the rope and the fact it had no facial expressions to utilize.
"You… you want me to follow you?"
The body tugged again and pointed. Cloud, despite his instincts, followed because he was a believer in that it was never good to deny a decapitated body what it was asking for. Up the hall, take a left, down the hall, take two rights...finally, they stopped before a door.
"Are we there yet?"
The body turned and faced him.
"So are we?"
It stood for a few minutes. After that, it took a black pen out of its pocket and wrote on its arms, "Sorry. I spent the last few minutes trying to nod at you. Yes, we are here."
Cloud swallowed hard and pushed the door open…
TBC…
