Errands weren't exactly what Cloud had been expecting when he'd been told he was going to accompany Zack. In fact, what he'd figured they'd entail was a trip to the bank, or the food store, or picking up text books. Instead, they involved going to various offices across campus and seeing if on the second day of classes, anyone had any shredded paper in their wastebins.
To Cloud, this made absolutely no sense.
"Look..." The heavy wooden doors Cloud was pushing open ahead of Zack for the ten hundreth time creaked on their hinges. Once again, nothing. "Why the hell are you doing this?"
"If I told you it was because I was an art major, would you believe me?"
Zack was trailing behind, seeing as since both the science building and the registrar office had yeilded nothing, and Cloud was begining to skulk by the doors being the last to enter and the first to leave. The sophmore was still feeling awkward, slightly. It couldn't really be helped. While he was generally on his sleeve and loudly out in the open, he still didn't like having others point that out. Once people deduced for themselves the way he acted, felt, and existed, they would usually offer up something on themselves. As it stood, he still knew nearly nothing about Cloud. Damn, Zik has this thing about causing problems and then walking out on them. Leave it to him to get someone ready to kill you, then just stand up and walk out, and leave that person to go nuts and tear down walls and burn things. Then he just moves on and takes over the world while they're being a distraction. Not fair, the white haired bastard, because some of us put more effort into world domi....I'm babbling again. Great. He did his best to smile, shrugging. "Would you believe me if I said I was an art major?"
Cloud looked back again, shaking his head, pausing on the steps before the building. His eyes were a dim blue, tinged around the edges with grey, and clear. Zack gave himself a mental slap before he lost track of his thoughts. Again.
"Nah? Why not. I'm eccentric, ain't I?"
Cloud smirked slightly and laughed, a choked off sort of snort that shook his shoulders. "Just because that's the way the teachers on campus decide what you must be majoring in doesn't mean it's right."
Zack put his hands into his pockets, feeling the worn down fabric of his jeans on his skin. He had to keep them tied on, the jeans, they had been two sizes too big when he bought them last year, and it might have been his imagination, but they seemed to have gotten bigger over the summer. He scuffed at the pavement with the toe of his sneakers and looked across the small campus road. "Well, what d'you think?"
Shaking his head, Cloud shrugged. Zack watched the blonde and noticed the spikes in his hair had changed their arrangement over the night, and that they continued to change when he shook his head. They weren't gelled down, they weren't even distinctly arranged. Cloud must have just gone at his hair without a clear aim, and had found that magical middle ground where bed-head was going to suffice for the entire day. Stop it, Zack thought to himself. Cloud held up a hand, the sleeves of his sweatshirt covering his hand up until the knuckles, and pointed down the campus street. "I think you could try the medical office. They might have shredded old records."
Zack grinned. "By jove," With two fingers, he pretended to adjust a hat he wasn't wearing. "Watson, you're a genius." He felt relieved to see that Cloud was not only smiling slightly, but shaking his head at him.
The suspicion on shredded medical records proved correct. In order for the nurses to make room for the freshman, the charts of the previous year's seniors had been shredded. Normally, the secretary informed Cloud while Zack raided the shredder's plastic trash bag, the records would have been shredded before the start of the new year. However, the school was switching to a new server and the ensuing intranet confusion had made it hard for the mini-hospital to communicate with the rest of campus. So they were lucky, he reminded them as Cloud was hastily trying to back out the door without saying anything. Zack, trashbag full of shredded disease records wound around his left hand, was dead set on humiliating Cloud instead, and waved freely to the secretary.
"Good night, America, and all our ships at sea!"
"Do you ever shut up?" Cloud dug his hands into the pouch of his sweatshirt as they left the medi-building, glaring in to the side, away from the elder student.
Zack couldn't help himself. Other people were the biggest source of amusement that had ever been invented, at least that was the way he felt. So in direct response to Cloud's question, he screamed and threw himself onto the slope of muddy grass alongside the sidewalk, using the bag of shredded paper to pillow his impact, and began wrestling with the bag. Cloud, somewhat shocked, stopped walking and turned to watch what looked for all the world like a seizure, or a very violent fight with a plastic bag of paper shreddings. Tiny strips of some alumni's medical records went skittering over the wet grass as Zack rolled over and over, thrashing with the plastic, screaming at random intervals. Just as abruptly as he had flung himself down, the dark haired student jumped up, hands on the edge of the trashbag, and resumed walking with a cheshire grin towards the freshman.
Unable to respond for a moment, Cloud just stood and blinked. With a shake of his head, he managed to spit out, "What the hell was that about?"
Zack, his pants and teeshirt mottled with mud, thumped at his chest. "The evil papery villian would have had me, had I not defended myself." He continued grinning and resumed walking back towards the campus center, and in the direction of the dormitories.
There was a very blank pause from the blonde as Cloud attempted for all his life to comprehend what the hell had just gone on inside Zack's obviously deranged skull. He couldn't quite tell if Zack was insane, or eccentric, or trying to impress him...or what. He had the impression, though, that the older student did this for everyone who would give him a reaction. Cloud tried to clear his head as he resumed walking, tried to regain the jaded outlook he'd had when he first arrived. "So what do you need this crap for anyway?"
"Gonna dump it off the roof of the campus building."
"What?!" Cloud managed not to laugh this time, but sounded completely and utterly in disbeleif. He raised one eyebrow skepticly as Zack looked over his shoulder.
"Yeah. We're gonna climb to the roof, and dump it off."
"You're kidding me, right?" Cloud's voice had dropped into monotoned, his head inclined forward in disbelief. When Zack's only response was to begin to whistle and increase his pace, Cloud felt a little person inside his head fall over in frustration and disbelief. "You're not kidding, are you?" Zack looked over his shoulder and grinned, his bright blue eyes reflecting dangerously. "You're serious, aren't you? Jesus christ..."
Cloud didn't have time to continue doubting Zack's motivations, because Zack took that moment to break into a run. Cloud, not wanting to be left behind, didn't make any effort to call him back, but instead took his hands from his pockets and broke into a run after the sophmore. The wet ground was draining downhill and onto the sidewalks, making them pool with water and reflect in some places. Cloud's sneakers hit a puddle seconds after the ripples had begun to subside from Zack's feet, the murky water cascading up and soaking into his shoes. A few students on their way in and out of the campus center stopped to watch the hyperactive duo as Zack slammed with his shoulder into the double doors of the campus center, slowing down for no one and nothing as he went. Cloud caught the door before it had time to close, held it open a fraction of a second with his left hand, and continued to chase after Zack.
Up the stairs that lead through the levels of the center, Cloud felt the impact of his sneakers on the solid floor more painfully than outside. Past the mail room, past the book store, past the cafeteria Zack tore with no signs of letting Cloud catch up to him. The blonde was almost certain he could catch sight of Zorn and Thorn watching him from the mail room window, was absolutely positive he saw the reflection of a scar in the glass of the bookstore window as he went past, but didn't have time to stop and think about it.
On the third floor, Zack skidded on his wet sneakers into a thin hallway built to hide the restrooms and janitor's closet. Cloud hit the wall before stopping, rolled against the plaster until his back was to the janitor's closet, and leaned there panting with his eyes shut. Zack had dropped the bag of paper in the corner and now stood doubled, hands on his knees, gasping for air as well. It was Cloud who first got his breath back.
"Some...fucking errand," He lay his head back against the door, rolling his eyes to the side to glare at his darker haired guide. Zack looked up and flashed him a smile, shaking his head.
"It's the stairs that're the killers, isn't it?" He took a deep breath and let it out with an exhaulted sound, straightening. "Think they put so many stairs in this building to keep us from running all over the place. Or using shriner cars. That'd be the way to get to class, if you ask me. With the fez."
Cloud rolled his eyes back in his head. "Zack, shut up."
"But like I said. We're gonna throw this off the roof." Zack stretched his arms and stepped closer to Cloud, waving to the side. "So outta the way, kid."
Obediently, Cloud slouched forward and lazily threw himself against the other wall, turning to lean there. He slouched against the slick surface, his feet stuck against the floor and propping him up, though they seemed to be slipping. Zack opened the janitor's closet and propped the door open, kicking a wedge underneith that came from inside the closet. Cloud could see the closet's contents, could smell it clearly. Gallons of bleach, powdered soap, paper towels, a mobile bucket and mop, liquid soap for the dispensers, toilet paper...It didn't really look all that different from a hallway closet in anyone's house, except for the excessive amounts of the contents. Zack hooked the toe of his sneaker under the rim of the wheeled bucket and guided it out from inside the closet, humming and staring down as he did so. Cloud had the distinct impression that this wasn't entirely a reality to the sophmore, that it was all a surreal little game.
"What are you doing?"
"Going to analy rape you with the mop handle. They say it's quite relaxing, kind of like shoving an eggplant up your ass. Can you chill out for fifteen minutes?" Zack tsked at him and kicked the stop back into the closet, watching the door swing itself shut. Kicking the bucket noisily to the end of the hallway, he looked down a moment and then back to Cloud. "You ever skateboard?" Cloud shook his head, and Zack smirked. "Yeah, me neither. And it'd probably be a really bad idea to skateboard on a bucket anyway."
Zack turned the bucket over, sticking its wheels into the air and spinning one with his index finger until it made a satisfying little whirring noise. He put one foot on the overturned edge, testing it. The plastic bucket bent a little, but not substantially. He turned to the blonde. "How much you weigh?"
Cloud shook his head and shrugged, shuffling his feet to keep from slipping further down the wall. "I dunno...one fifty. One fifty five. Something in there."
"Right, be careful then, cause this thing might not hold you." Zack stepped onto the bucket, his feet on the edges, and reached upwards to the ceiling. His fingertips brushed a string there Cloud had not noticed before.
The blonde watched the now visable string dance around, trying to avoid Zack's fingers. "But you're bigger than me, you-"
"I weigh less." The staircase that folded into the ceiling came down with a spring-loaded groan, resting three feet off the ground and leading upwards into a dark maze Cloud could only imagine. Zack hopped down from the bucket with one hand on the wooden hanging stairs and moved around to the front, hoisting himself up on it. The springs groaned and the stairs shook slightly as he did so.
Cloud watched him climb. He thought about how it was strange for them to be doing this, for two students in the middle of the day to climb to the top of a building and dump a bag of paper down. He thought, this makes no sense. This is going to get us in trouble. This is going to get people thinking things about us.
Then he realized that that was exactly the point Zack was proving, even if he didn't intend to be proving it. Kicking away from the wall, Cloud hurried to make the short jump onto the stairs, hearing them growl under his weight. Zack crouched at the top, probably in case the stairs broke. Remembering the warning, he hurried into the darkness. Zack backed up, and vanished into the shadows. Neither one of them had a light. I had no idea the school would have built such an empty crawlspace...but I should have guessed...They probably didn't need to go up here after construction. The stairs, with no weight to hold them down, snapped upwards with a crash like a screen door and made Cloud jump out of his thoughts.
With the door shut, everything was dark. Cloud heard Zack's voice calmly instructing him from ahead. "Hold your hands out and sweep ahead of you. Don't wait for your eyes to adjust, there's not enough light that you'll get used to it."
Cloud hissed back, but stretched out his arms like he'd been told. "What the hell do you think you're trying to do?"
"Get you to the roof, unless you're afraid of getting gay germs. Know, they multiply in the dark. Turn off the light, and when you turn it back on, POOF! Billions of-"
"I'm not afraid of you."
"Good, because if you were I'd have to stop stalking you." Cloud felt his fingertips brush against something. It took him a moment to realize that the thing brushed back, that it was Zack's arm sweeping outwards the same as his own in the dark. Cloud stopped moving, and felt Zack's arm stop too. From the darkness ahead and slightly to his right, he heard the other student speak. "Kick me around for this one later."
In the dark, from somewhere, Cloud felt Zack's other hand close around his fingertips tightly, palm tucking into palm. He felt panic, anger, confusion for a moment, wanted to pull back and snap out what the fuck did Zack think he was doing, what the fuck did he think Cloud was...but with all quick flashes of emotion, it passed into a numb feeling on his mind of a sort of shock. He could feel the sophmore pulling him forward in the dark, their pace agonizingly slow. Zack was whispering to him as they walked, but Cloud was barely noticing. There was a pricking feeling up his spine, pacing between his shoulderblades, and he wasn't entirely sure he liked it.
Beyond the low thudding sound of their sneakers on plywood over fiberglass and the rustling of the trashbag full of paper, they made nearly no noise. Zack's voice whispered that they were passing over the bookstore, and needed to keep quiet unless they wanted to be caught. Cloud was in no position to argue, nor did he want to. They crept in silence through the labyrinth of crawlspaces above the campus center, half crouched over in places, Cloud forced to put his trust in what to him seemed like the blind leading the blind.
The plywood made a thumping sound the further they walked, Cloud's skin pricking with the inherant fear of being unable to see. He tightened his fingers around Zack's hand, unable to bring himself to look to either side, to turn and look behind him, to face any darkness other than that in front of him, just in case something with glowing red eyes was there behind them. He had to break the blackness with sound, or he felt like he'd go crazy. "Hey, about last night-"
"Don't worry about it. Look, let's not bring that up, okay?" Zack's voice was oddly deadpan, and didn't sound like it belonged to him.
"It's not that..." Cloud went quiet a moment, trying to put his words in order. It was harder to speak while conciously trying to not sound like his former self than it was to just spit it out. He gave up. "I don't know what might have happened. I'm sorry for being an asshole."
There was a slight tug on Cloud's hand, probably from Zack shrugging. "It happens to the most mediocre of us, you know? It's fine." His voice was still strange, flattened out. Just voices moving in the dark, the crinkle of plastic, no faces to attach to the sounds, the situation seemed surreal. It wasn't fun and games anymore, it was detatched from voluntary chaos. "It's fine."
More silence followed, unnatural. The blonde broke it, surprised at himself. Normally he wasn't this outgoing, and he knew it. "Hey...what did you do to Seifer anyway? He seemed pissed, but-"
"I didn't hit his face hard enough for anyone to notice. He's got too much of a complex to admit he got his ass beat down by me anyway."
"I can't really remember-"
"You don't want to."
"You kicked him, right? You were throwing him around, I sort of remember...I sort of remember..." Cloud felt his voice trailing off as the fuzzy string of backwards memories lead into one another and the events of the previous night began to come into colour. He could hear Zack sigh in the darkness, and could feel his face burning with anger and emberassment at his own actions. No wonder he was only a toy to them now.
"I told you I don't want to talk about it. You shouldn't either, so let's not bring it up, alright? Besides, it's up ahead."
Cloud could feel his voice drifting away, distracted, his mind on a completely seperate track than the one he was pretending to run on. "How can you tell, if you can't see?"
Again, the slight tug on his hand as Zack presumably shrugged. He could feel the older student's grip had loosened since he'd brought up the previous night, but couldn't decide what it meant or why. It felt like their roles had been completely switched, like he should be the one pulling back and avoiding conversation, but he wasn't. Zack's voice was begining to edge slightly with it's normal tones again, but just barely, as if his proximity to light had an effect on his mood. "I've been up here a thousand times before. 'Specially at night, you ought to see it sometime. I really hadn't planned on doing this, but since you started it..."
I started it? Cloud thought skepticly to himself. He's the weirdo who had to go off like Speed Racer up three stories with a bag of shredded paper.
"Anyway, normally I'd have brought a flashlight or something up here. It's sort of a mess, cause nobody uses it half the time except students. It's a nice hidey-hole."
Now, very faintly ahead and above, Cloud could see the edges of light trying to worm into the darkness from around the edges of black paper, probably taped to a skylight. He shook his head. "What've you got to hide from here? I mean, it's college, isn't it?"
Zack barked a laugh, now Cloud could see his silloute faintly outlined ahead and slightly to the side, shaking his head. "You really are a froshie. Sometimes you still have to get away, Cloud. From roommates, or class, and sometimes from your friends."
It was suddenly very obvious to Cloud that what he was hearing was not information Zack told to anyone. "How many people really know about this place?"
The sillouete shrugged. There was a rustle as the plastic bag was put down. Cloud could see Zack's shoulders clearly now, blocky and sharp, the folds of the older student's shirt hanging loose off of them. Zack was thin, his cloths standing out simply from the shape of his body. "You and me, the maintenance people, and probably a few others. It's nice though, if you could see it. I used to draw all over up here," Zack waved his shadowed free hand around. "I thought maybe I'd be like a caveman or something, and people could learn things. So there's some stupid crap on the walls up here. But, I figured I should leave something behind, you know? In case we were taken out by a meteor within the next fifteen seconds." Zack backed up, twisting and looking over his shoulder, half his face barely lit from the escaping slivers. "What would you do, if you knew you had fifteen seconds left to live?"
It felt as if the floor had dropped out from below Cloud. It was one thing to say those words, and to be joking. It would have been different if Zack had said those words without looking back, because his eyes, barely reflecting light, said that Zack was serious. There were no humerous undertones, no lame excuse to ask for dates, no spontanious commentary directly after to throw everything out of context. Cloud stood, silent, watching the sophmore's shadowed face, saying nothing.
There was a different silence that held on between them. It was the uncomfortable silence between a mirror, the silence you craved for but hated all the same, because a mirror couldn't lie. Cloud felt like he could hear the echos of whatever Zack had said here to the walls in the past, to whomever had been here in his place. Their eyes indirectly studied eachother, both knowing how close they were to crossing one line too many. It was Zack who spoke, his voice cut and empty. "You don't need to be holding onto me any more."
It wasn't as if there was an easy response to that, in any way. Slowly, Cloud let his fingers slip away until his hand was free, and he let it hang limp at his side. Very faintly in the dim light, Zack smiled. Cloud, secure inside his heavy sweatshirt, felt sick and dirty. He couldn't understand why.
The plastic bag full of paper crinkled as Zack bent to pick it up, stood, and turned his head towards the skylight. With two fingers, he felt along the edge of the window's outline until he presumably found the latch or lock and sprung it open, more light spilling in from the edges of the blocked glass. Zack pushed the skylight open, sunlight and cool air flooding the crawlspace and illuminating the scrawled figurines on the walls. Cloud couldn't help but look at them, although he couldn't see in any detail. The bodies were distorted, limbs out of preportion, the styles constantly changing. There weren't many, those that were visable only took up small areas on parts of the walls. It was no great art, nothing fantastic or amazing, but Zack was right. It was a mark, even if it wouldn't survive forever.
Zack himself was perched outside the skylight, leaning inward and smiling in such a way that Cloud wondered if the Zack he had spoken to moments ago still existed. The darker haired student waved his hand and motioned for Cloud to climb out into the light, and the blonde scrambled upwards.
The sky was smeared with greys and blues, a messy pallet of someone who would never pass for a true artist. For a moment, the two of them stood, taking in the smokey sky, breathing and remembering light and colour. Zack, plastic bag in hand, sauntered coolly to the far edge of the flat rooftop, and held the plastic by its edges in front of him. Cloud joined him, his palms flat on the metal guardrail that jutted up a half a foot away from the edge. Over the railing, the plastic bag was lifted, overturned and shaken.
The paper shreddings drifted outwards aimlessly, fluttering in all directions and spinning end over end. Some went on end, some went on flat, fluttering in a direct snowfall towards the double door entrance. A student with a thin black tail and dark hair looked up at them as the paper rained on him, but didn't say anything or motion at all. Cloud turned from watching the fluttering white slivers and studied Zack's expression, which had gone empty and drifting.
The faintest gust of wind carried the shredded papers across the campus center lawn, but nobody was watching.