Faded Dreams, Falling Like Rain
A Final Fantasy VII Fan Fiction by Sarah Digna Yudlowitz
Dream . . .
Dream of death . . .
Dream of moonlight . . .
Legal Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII and all of its characters belong to the company of Squaresoft. I do not claim these
characters or the concept of the game for my own. This work is not to be distributed, sold, or posted anywhere without the
consent of its author. Comments and encouragements are always welcomed, as they are a part of the enjoyment of writing Fan
fiction. Please take this into consideration while you read the following fiction.
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Author's Note: Hey! Look! ANOTHER chapter! Aren't you folks lucky? Three chapters have been updated in three days.
And guess what? Cloud doesn't throw up in this one! Hehe, Cloud could be Stan from South Park, we'll never know.
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Chapter Thirteen
"You look . . . so much like Lucrecia," Cloud heard distantly as he woke up. From the scent of
the air in the room, and the darkness that seemed to cling to him, he could tell that it was
somewhere near Midgar. Had he been asleep that long? No, not really. He remembered the
beginning of Vincent and Lilith's reunion conversation. Cloud flinched . . . reunion. But this
was a joyous occasion. Vincent sounded so . . . happy, for once. Cloud smiled to himself. He
had had a dreamless sleep because of the sleeping pills he had taken. In a way, it was scary,
because he had always had dreams, and not having one made his sleep uneasy . . . like death. It
was exactly like death. He tried not to think about it right now. He decided he'd fall back
asleep, to see if his mind would make up for the dreamless hours he had been asleep.
Zack smiled at Cloud as he entered the shower stall next to him. The boy was just undressing,
and seeing Zack slip into the shower completely naked, on the first day they had met made
Cloud stiffen. Would this be what a SOLDIER life was like? Zack seemed like he was the most
popular in the miliary right up next to Sephiroth. It had only been two weeks since Cloud had
arrived at Shinra . . . and he was still having trouble with this shower thing. It was natural for
him to have a problem with it. He hadn't even kissed a girl . . . let alone seen anyone else
naked. Granted, these soldiers were his same sex, and he shouldn't have a problem with it
because he had the same . . . equipment, but some of them were men . . . and he couldn't help
but stare. He felt very inadequate, very young and . . . small (in more ways than one). Cloud
decided he'd stay there, his shirt half way over his head. He didn't care if he stank from
fighting practice. Suddenly, he saw Zack's face peep from the sliding door of the stall, and he
was grinning at Cloud, the water dripping from his wet raven hair. It stuck to his neck
intimately.
"Come on, Cloud! You do this every day. Just get in the shower. No one's going to look at
you. I already claimed you." Zack's grin was wide. Cloud pulled his shirt back on and stared
at Zack's face levelly, quizzically.
"What do you mean, 'claimed me?'" he scrunched his face up, not liking where this was
going.
"There are a lot of divas in SOLDIER, man. You know, fags? They like fresh meat. Poor
recruits, I pity them. Of course, when I came here, it was the same. But I liked the attention. I
still do. Cloud's face scrunched even more. He didn't quite understand. In Nibelheim, no one
talked about such things as sexuality. His mother talked about sex as it was an exclusive thing,
like a bar that wouldn't take you in until you were of age. His mother also never explained it
very well . . . she used words like "flower" and "honey" and it always made Cloud's head hurt
when he tried to get past her strange way of talking to him. He loved his mother, though, and
he felt homesick just thinking of how he'd abandoned her. But she thought of him as a baby,
her baby. He had thought he was a man . . . until the first day in SOLDIER.
"What's that? Fag?" Cloud frowned, hugging the material of the Shinra grunt uniform to his
chest. Zack laughed, and it almost sounded cruel.
"Wow! You surprise me every day! Hey, where'd you say you came from?"
"Why should I tell you? You haven't even explained to me what 'fag' is," Cloud harumphed.
Zack laughed even more.
"It means you like other men," Zack said.
"Well, what's wrong with men? Why wouldn't I like them? They're okay. But women scare me
. . ."
"You're interesting, Cloud," Zack shook his head. "Now . . . take your shower. I promise no
one will look at you. Except me, of course." This immediately made Cloud's cheeks turn red.
"No! My mother said that no one could look at me without my permission!" Cloud
counterattacked. Zack laughed again. Cloud thought him rather annoying.
"Well, if I let you look at me, can I look at you?" he proposed. Cloud froze again. He turned
even more red.
"But, I already saw you . . . when you were walking into the shower."
"I guess you have to pay up, bub," Zack grinned, winningly. Cloud didn't think it was
possible, but he felt his cheeks grow even hotter. He got even more annoyed.
"No!" Cloud said stubbornly, and slammed the screen separating he and Zack shut. The older
boy barely had time to get his head back into the stall. He stood, cocking his hips, hands
placed over them, and he snorted. He had designs for this recruit. He had seen innocent, but
this took the cake. Deflowering Cloud would be rather . . . well, interesting. As he continued to
wash, he saw the outline of Cloud's body as he stripped from his clothing, and set it outside
the stall. Zack wouldn't be surprised if someone came and stole his uniform; the higher classes
were like that to recruits. He continued to watch as Cloud turned on the water, which fell
down on his hair, making it considerably more flat, but still holding its spiky shape. Zack held
back a snicker. He had never seen hair that naturally took that shape, for sure. He needed to
apply lots of hair spray, and afterwards, he felt very much like an olde rock band singer. He
had his own little followers, too, but none of them were women. Nope; not at Shinra. Zack
inwardly wondered if Cloud would drop his soap. The idea was plausible. He did notice,
however, the little bulge at Cloud's outlined crotch. Zack raised a brow, thinking to himself
that maybe Cloud would be easier than he thought.
Cloud woke up grimacing. That wasn't a good dream at all! If anything, it reminded him of
how much of a jerk Zack was when he met him. Sex and fighting seemed to be the only thing
that he was concerned with. He remembered that nighte that he had finally let Zack teach him
what sex between two men; two people was . . . and he had remembered that it meant
something to him . . . and he thought it meant something to Zack, too. But he soon found out
from a sarcastic, jaded third class boy that Zack had used him. It was only a bet. Zack had
gotten money for taking his virginity. It had made Cloud so upset, that he thought about
leaving . . . he was beginning to do very poorly in his classed as a grunt, and slowly . . .
ascending in rank became meaningless to him . . . until Sephiroth, The Great Sephiroth,
suddenly appeared in the empty gym Cloud was in, staring at the Shinra sword they had given
him. Most of the recruit boys had heirloom swords, passed through generations of fighters . . .
but Cloud's only family was his mother; everyone else was dead . . . everything they owned
destroyed. He was feeling particularly sorry for himself, and when he heard the clearing of a
throat behind him, he was almost inclined to ignore it . . . until he noticed that the aura that
person was giving off was rather . . . important. When he turned around, he dropped the sword,
nearly stumbling to the ground.
And that was his first battle with Sephiroth, his idol. He seemed so sad . . . so wrong in this
Shinra building . . . in that guise of General. It made Cloud respect him even more . . . But it
also made him realize that he had came here to be like The Great Sephiroth, and if he was not
happy with whom he was, would Cloud be happy in his position? He wasn't even happy as a
grunt . . . but that had been Zack's fault.
After that encounter with Sephiroth, everyone had been particularly mean to him-- even the
other recruits-- and he had to share a room with six of them! He took showers with all of them
ridiculing him . . . pointing out things about his body . . . and some of them offered him gil if
he would give them head. Cloud was beyond miserable, until one day, when he was putting his
uniform back into his locker, Zack showed up, pinning him against the locker so that he
couldn't escape. At first, Cloud panicked, stiffening. Then he used a move on Zack he had
learned in one of his classes that evening. Even though Zack was now a second class soldier,
he let Cloud hit him, and only smiled. Soldiers were used to pain, and Cloud hadn't even done
the move right.
"What do you want?!" Cloud had shouted, hissing venom. Zack only continued to grin. Zack
could do many things, but consoling someone he had hurt . . . he simply didn't do that well.
"I don't want anything, Cloud. I just want to protect you."
"Don't you mean that you want to fuck me? You already did that once, and I won't let you do
it again," Cloud elbowed Zack, and kicked him in the crotch, scrambling away with his things
once Zack had backed off from him. In actuality Zack had let him. He really wasn't hurt
physically, but his pride was. He had just come to apologize, to say that he would spread it
around that Cloud was none of the things people were calling him. Zack should have known
that he would react like that. He was very young, and he didn't need to be treated like this.
When Zack found Cloud again, he was in the gym, alone, crying in the corner, his sword
abandoned near the punching bag. When he realized someone else was in the room, he looked
up, and immediately froze.
"Get away from me!" he had screamed. Zack only advanced.
"Please, Cloud . . . I ain't gonna hurt you."
"You already did," Cloud said curtly. Zack frowned.
"I know. Look Cloud . . . that's why I came here . . . because I hurt you . . . And I'm sorry I did.
If this was anyone else, I don't think I would have cared, but . . . I like you."
"So, you're a fag?" Cloud retorted, using the phrase Zack had in the shower a week ago.
"I guess," Zack said.
"Are you a diva fag?"Cloud pressed. Zack paled.
"Uhm, I guess . . ."
"How do you know you're a 'diva fag?' There are no girls here."
"Uh, I don't know . . . I just . . . am . . . and stop calling me that."
"Why? You admitted it! You're a DIVA FAG!"
Zack turned the most amazing shade of scarlet that Cloud had ever seen.
"You look like a tomato!" Cloud laughed. Hard. Cloud had almost felt sad for Zack when he
got his Just Dessert when Sephiroth wanted nothing from him but meaningless sex.
Knocking came from Cloud's door. He wiped the foolish grin spreading on his face off and
came to it, never mind that he was in his boxers.
"Cloud?" The voice behind the door was Vincent's. He could hear the shower running in the
room next to his, meaning that Lilith was taking a shower. Cloud held back a blush. He
opened the door. Vincent was standing there, wearing black jeans, and a T-shirt that said
Loveless in faded silkscreen, the face of the girl on it equally as faded. Cloud remembered that
play from when he saw the huge billboard as he bought a flower from Aerith the first time he
had met her. Vincent noticed the way Cloud was staring at the shirt, and he shrugged casually.
"I found some clothes in the room, and I washed them downstairs. Here's some for you," he
said, and he handed Cloud a faded gray shirt that said, "Love me, love my attitude . . . Or GET
LOST!!" and very faded and ripped stonewashed pair of light blue jeans. Cloud narrowed his
eyes when he read the T-shirt. Vincent laughed shortly. "Ready to go into Midgar?"
"It's not going to be pretty," Cloud frowned.
"From what I've heard, it never was," Vincent reassured, but Cloud got the image of a
body-strewn wasteland into his head . . . and that was all he could think about when he took a
shower and dressed.
