"Can't we just hide in the attic? You know, wait for them to go past us and then sneak back down?" Cloud was leaning against the lip of the building's concrete rail, propped up on a diagonal by his hands and looking down over the edge.
Zack shrugged, his body slumped over the edge and his hands dangling into space. "Don't know. It's not like I've done this before."
"You haven-" Cloud's eyes flew wide. "You son of a bitch!"
"Golden retriever, actually. Fine breed, show quality. Had her shipped all the way from hawaii strictly for breeding purposes." Zack looked up at the blonde's face, which was twisted somewhere between complete unwilling belief and disgust. "True story, swear to god. I have my papers on file."
Cloud threw his hands into the air. "You know, this wasn't how I planned on spending my first day."
Flopping onto his back and staring skyward, Zack smirked to himself. "But can you think of a better way?"
"Yeah, about twenty. Jesus Christ it's not even two thirty and we're prolly already going in for a JC." He folded his arms against his chest and hissed through his teeth, tilting back his head and looking upwards. "If you told me a year ago I'd be here now, I wouldn't have believed you."
Zack laughed at that and sat up. "Well sure, that's cause I'd be some random S.O.B. off the street telling you your future. Besides, you can never look at where you are now and say it's going to lead to where you will be." He flicked one lingering scrap of paper off the edge of the concrete and watched it flicker downwards. A few people were still pausing to look up at them. Zack figured either whoever was sent to get them would be waiting by the entrance to the crawlspace, or would eventually come onto the roof. It was comfortable up in the open air anyway, though, and he didn't particularly want to wind up going to them. "The ticket to our future is always open."
Cloud shoot him a glare. "Quote Trigun at me again, and I'll kill you."
"Touchy," Zack raised his hands and grinned. "Lemme guess, someone in your high school kept claiming to be Vash-like, and it pisses you off by association?" Cloud snorted in response, but his eyes half-crinkled up at that. Zack lowered his hands. "Knew it. Know how? There's one in every school. Nobody's like Vash."
Cloud shook his head as the crawlspace skylight flipped itself open and some severly irate sounding voices echoed out from within. "I don't know, I think you've given us enough crappy luck to count."
"Hey, the building's still standing, isn't it?"
"Get over here!" Cloud didn't have time to respond, because the owner of at one of the irate voices was hauling himself out of the crawlspace and up onto the roof, coming towards them with his hand outstretched and a severely dangerous look on his face. Zack winced and shoot Cloud a glance that he couldn't understand beyond we're in trouble. But he already knew that.
The man was followed by two other teachers, workers, whoevers, both of equally displeased expression. The man brushed two dangling black bangs from his eyes and glared over the edges of a pair of specticles. His entire face was pinched up, one of those faces that was far more accustomed to scowling than anything else. Deffinitly not good, Cloud thought to himself. Not. Good. At all. Very bad. In fact, that was one of those faces that would call home on you and make you talk to your parents. He could feel any previous good humor freezing up in his stomach when the man spoke, his voice equally scrunched up and angry. "Knightblade? That comes as no surprise. And who are you? Get out your ID. Give it over."
Zack put a hand to his forehead as Cloud fished his ID from his pocket and handed it over to the man, who snatched it from his fingertips hard enough to make them sting and scrutinized it through his specticals. The other two adults were flanking him, glaring down at the two students. "Cloud Strife, eh? Well, what a wonderful welcome." His voice made it obvious it was anything but that. "Follow me."
The two students looked at eachother, and Zack gave a pathetic shrug. It wasn't as if they really had a choice. It was obvious that they weren't about to jump off the roof, and they couldn't exactly run past the adults and escape because by now everyone knew it was them on the roof. Cloud gave a slow withering death glare, and they followed, because there was no other option.
"Well, Knightblade, you've been back less than fourty-eight hours and you're here already."
The office they stood in was part of a modified church on the campus grounds, transformed some time years ago into the office of admissions. The ceilings were still high, voices still echoed, and everything was sectioned off by glass walls that weren't there originally. The desks were old, but the glass tops that left a sheen on them made the wood look new and polished, even though Zack knew from his own experience of several hours waiting in these offices that they weren't. He was used to waiting on the blue cusioned back-less chairs that lined the entrance hall, listening to everyone's voice echoing off the walls, talking about nothing that made any sense to him.
Things hadn't changed inside the building, from Zack's point of view. It was the same woman looking at him with a tired expression on her face and the same scuffed up slate floor. He could see something, though, when the woman leaned forward. He decided to bring it up.
"Hey, you guys got new chairs."
"Zack, please keep your mouth shut for a minute." She rubbed between her eyes and spoke up, her voice betraying the exhaustion. "All right, why did you do this?"
Zack spoke again, almost reflexive. "See, I was watching muppet babies-"
"Cloud," The woman cut Zack off sharply, redirecting her question. "I'd like your version of the story, if it makes any more sense than our well known friend Mr. Knightblade."
Cloud, slumping half heartedly, shrugged. His hands were hidden in the pouch of his sweatshirt where again and again they turned over his ID, the one that the grim-faced teacher had taken from him and returned only once they were inside this glass walled cage. "It's...we were looking for ripped up paper, so-"
The woman cut him off again, glaring at Zack who was looking up at the ceiling, following the beams still visable there with his eyes. "Zack, you didn't bring your turtle back on campus did you? We had this discussion mid-term last year, and I'm not willing to have it again with you." He shook his head, still looking ceilingward. "Then may I inquire why you were picking up shredded paper in the first place?"
To Cloud's surprise, Zack didn't have an immediate or flippant answer. If he had known him better, he might have realized that faced with the glass-topped desks in the converted church was one of the few times Zack couldn't come up with a blaitent rediculous lie on command. If he'd been here the year prior, however impossiable that was, he would know that Zack had spent a good portion of his free hours inside this building. He would have also known that the first time Zack came into the glass walled building, he had tried to go off on his tangents every other sentance, and nearly wound up expelled as a result. It was not a near-experience he was looking to repeat.
But Cloud didn't see that, or know that. All he saw was Zack, who although he was orbiting planet what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-you, seemed to be a generally goodhearted person and a friend of his struggling to find some sort of explanation. When the dark-haired student brought his gaze down to the woman at the desk, Cloud could see that his eyes were darting around the desk for anything that could offer an explanation that wouldn't land him in trouble...and decided to help.
"Actually, I was the one getting the paper."
Both the woman and Zack turned to Cloud with very different expressions. The woman seemed geniunely shocked that this wasn't Zack's doing, which of course in actuality it was, and Zack seemed completely horrified that Cloud was trying to take the fall. Something about the way he was looking at Cloud was going no no no, shut up shut up but Cloud wasn't paying attention to the looks he was getting out of the corner of his eye. There was a pause before the woman inclined her head forward. "..Really."
"It was for some party that's supposed to be happening later on this week," Cloud improvised, his hands flipping the card over and over in his pocket as he felt the hairs on the back of his neck sticking up. He felt the shudder trying to get loose from between his shoulderblades but forced it to sit still, at least until he was done. "For...uhm..."
Zack wanted to slap his forehead. No, he wanted to slap Cloud's. He was not going to try to bullshit in this place, not going to try to bullshit his way out of here, not going to try to name a name to take the heat off himself stupidly because he was a freshman and didn't know anyone yet and-
"Seifer."
Aw, fuck, yes he was. Zack bit his tongue and forced himself to keep from stomping, or cursing, or anything else that could give either of them away.
"Really," The woman seemed interested now, her eyebrows went up. "Well, thank you very much then, Cloud." The blonde stiffened slightly when she called him by his first name. Shouldn't she be getting huffy and calling him Mr. Strife? "Although that still doesn't explain why you felt the need to climb three stories and dump them all over campus property. However, we will deal with this at a later date, as I am assuming you two have classes to go to...?"
Neither of them wasted time with further arguments or bickering, both understood the fact that they were in no position to do anything. So they nodded, turned, and bolted from the building into the damp grass outside as quickly as was possiable without breaking their necks.
As soon as his sneakers hit the half-grass half-mud, Zack grabbed hold of Cloud's arm and wheeled him around, staring him in the face.
"What the hell were you thinking? Are you stupid?"
"What? You were the one standing there with your mouth open like a goldfish!"
"Yeah, but...Christ...Do you know what kind of shit we're both in now?"
"Bull. Less than we woulda been if you told the truth. The way she talked to you, think you have your own record."
"That's not the point right now...Jesus, didn't you know any dealers in high school? Don't you know what you're getting into slinging Seifer's name around like that?"
"So you're the guru on not getting into deep shit? Excuse me for wondering, but who dragged us onto the roof in the first place?"
"Look...Don't get pissy with me. I'm not here to take your shit." Zack held up a finger in Cloud's face, glaring. "And I'm not interested in getting dragged into crap again for you either, got that? This isn't magical fun and games land. You're gonna learn that the hard way."
Cloud glared right back, his eyes icey flames. "What makes you think I don't?"
"The fact that you threw them onto Seifer's trail in there, for one!" Zack waved an arm at the building. "Maybe you're not so aware of this, but he's got more buddies than just Kuja, and he can make you sorry."
"Sorry like you'll be for kicking his ass?"
Reflexively, Zack slapped himself, dragging his fingers down along his face in frustration. "Look, this isn't about what I did. Once again, that's crap I'm going to take for your sake. But what you did in there was stupid! It was just plain stupid, Cloud."
Cloud closed his eyes, inhaling, trying to calm himself down. The two of them stood a moment, eyes closed, before Cloud looked up. "Well, nobody has to know it was me who said it." Zack peered between his fingers, his expression doubtful.
"...Right...sure. We can keep this between us, and you still won't wind up a smudge on the sidewalk. What time is it?" Cloud shrugged. "Well, I gotta make another trip to the medical center real quick for more paper. Then I got classes 'til nine..."
"At night?"
Zack dropped his hand and shook his head, looking at Cloud in mock disgusted disbelief. "Yes, at night. D'you think this is high school or something?" Cloud gave him a look that read don't blame ME and took his hands from his pockets, spreading them in a parody of vulnerability. "Anyway, if you wanna stop by after then, I'm over in Alexander, second floor, first door by the stairs on the left end of the hall. I think the number's two eight-teen, but don't quote me." Cloud nodded knowingly as Zack found himself backing away from the blonde, more in the direction of the health building. He waved carelessly. "And hey, be careful."
"Me? I'm not the one who's got the campus mafia out to kick their ass!" Cloud smiled and shook his head, turning in the direction of the classes, wondering if he'd be early or late.
Neither of them saw the student clad in black reclining luxeriously against one of the pine trees that grew around the building, just out of their original line of sight. Neither one saw him flick his silvery hair, straighten with a smirk, and move soundlessly in another direction.
One of the most interesting and somewhat depressing things about college is that once you enter, all your preconceptions of the place will abruptly fly out the window. Or, in some cases, run you over in a ninteen eighty five ford pickup with torn seats, and leave your mangled body by the sidewalk for someone to find five years later. The problem is that many people enter college with high hopes, and what they've read in books or heard from friends. But college does not have open minds, it does not have understanding teachers, and it does not by any means prepare you for the real world. The first week is learning that college is just a highly pretentious, overpriced, haughty version of high school that will make you rip your hair out. It isn't that you can learn things in college you didn't learn in high school- because frankly, the Yanimamo are not important to someone working as an executive in TV. College is not nessicary for it's 'knowledge.' College is nessicary to find a place in the working force of modern times, because without a degree, you're nothing.
Sadly, with a degree, eighty percent of the time, you are still nothing.
Cloud was about to learn this via a crash course entitled 'creative writing.'
The class was rowdy for the first five minutes after they should have already begun, mostly because the teacher wasn't there yet. Cloud sat at the far end of the classroom, tucking himself into one of the desks. They were weird, pre-built things with a flat surface that seemed to sprout from the arm. For some reason, it wasn't what he'd pictured a college classroom to be like. He'd expected a lecture hall, or long tables where you spread your notes all around you like a sea. He'd expected, maybe, all those dusty classrooms you see in movies that take place on college campuses. But it felt and looked exactly like a more run-down version of high school. Hell, they're even forming little cliques...
Sure enough, on the far side of the room, several of the girl students were already banding together and waving their hands in a small area between their bowed heads, giggling and babbling. One or two stuck by the male students, prodding them and mocking them while the guys responded accordingly. Cloud shook his head and put his elbows on the desk, burying his face in his hands.
He didn't look up when the teacher entered, or respond when people began to inch their desks into a more classroom-appropriate state. He wanted the class to be over with already, because it felt harsh and strange. He'd gone through grade school, middle school and high school with essentially the same people. He may not have had a huge amount of friends, but at least he had people he could talk to in classes. It was starting to strike him that college was like being taken to your first day of school all over again, only now you were too self concious and nervous and conflicted inside to blindly throw yourself at someone and ask to be friends. He wanted to be back outside. To...
Cloud's thoughts were interupted when someone prodded his arm with a stack of papers. Even through the fabric, he felt their edge prick him, and lowered his hands. The red haired girl on his left was stretching across an empty desk and shaking the papers somewhat anxiously. He wasn't exactly sure when it happened, but the teacher was standing in front of the class by an old desk like the one in the glass-walled building. He was frumpy, and probably going on about something Cloud was obviously not hearing. He flopped one arm down and took the papers, pulling one off the top of the stack and passing them onward.
A sylabis. Cloud dragged his eyes over it a few minutes. The teacher's name was Tellah. This was Creative Writing. No shit. It met on this day and that day and this many stories counted for this grade and this that the other thing...Tellah was talking about how in order to write dialog, people should evesdrop on one another. Cloud stuck the paper under his elbows and folded his knuckles against his forehead, staring at the shadowy words. His stomach hurt. Too many assignments, way too many dates, too many things his grade depended on. Even though they were all split up, every single one seemed to be worth too much. He could feel pain scratching away behind his eyes.
None of it mattered, he told himself. It was stupid and inane and all the assignments were overly juvinille and biased and the same crap he'd done in high school. None of it mattered, and they all mattered too much, and the class was dragging on, and Tellah was saying writing was very important and he would be checking a journal they kept.
Damned if he was keeping a journal...
Someone hadn't showed up for class, and Tellah called their name a few times over. Sidney Highwind, Sidney Highwind, oh, I guess he isn't here. Cloud dug his nails into his scalp and continued to stare at the paper. The letters had a glossy finish, fresh ink, and he thought they must feel like plastic. Staring in close, he could see where the ink had seeped into other fibers. He wanted to have something else to do, to concentrate on, but his backpack had nothing in it but his schedual...He wanted a distraction, he wanted the class to end. He wanted to go someplace else.
He wanted to see Zack again.
Cloud thought his head was going to shatter and spatter on the paper, seeping along the same threads of pulp as the ink, when Tellah took in a long sigh and announced the class had ended. Letting go of his hair, Cloud swept the sylabis into his backpack and swung it over his shoulders. He'd never look at that again, he sure. Nobody in the class said anything or looked at him when they pushed past eachother into the hall, nobody held the door or asked him what he thought of Tellah when his sneakers hit the concrete steps. Cloud watched the cracks in the sidewalk and his sneakers swinging forward over them, the slight fray on the ends of his jeans. His hands were in his pouch again, turning his ID over. College was new, but it wasn't new at all. It was just forgotten, and he was changed.
Maybe he was stupid trying to act like someone he'd never been. But Zack was the idiot who had obviously pulled some stupid stunts the year prior...so what did he know?
He knew how to make Cloud not feel like he was completely cut off from the rest of the Human Race, for one.
Looking up, Cloud was certain he could hear electricity in the wires that criss crossed the campus road. A couple of starlings covered the wires, making their peculiar cries and taking off in billowing clouds when something startled them. He sighed, and continued walking.
Days were still days, and there wasn't an option but to go through them and do the best you could in the process. If they meant anything at all...
When classes finished sometime after five, Cloud wasn't feeling remotely as high-spirited as he had with Zack. Even though the dark-haired idiot had gotten them in trouble, and started arguments, and ranted like a schizophrenic, he had somehow tapped into good moods Cloud had forgotten he'd posessed.
He didn't want to go to his room, his keys felt alien when they hit the lock and turned. They weren't his house keys and it was starting to strike him that here wasn't home. No shit, Strife. Stop being an idiot... At least Vincent wasn't in, he saw when the door finally let itself be opened. There was something that continued to gnaw at his stomach when he looked into their room, though. It was his own fault for it, but Vincent's side of the room was the one he first saw when he came in, making it feel even less like his own living space. Throwing his backpack onto his unslept-in bed, Cloud wondered if he'd ever get used to this.
Well, there wasn't any point to thinking about it. He was here, at college, there was no getting out of that. He had even less desire to go back home and listen to his father call him an idiot for four years while his mother stood stoicly by. It made him want to hold his head just thinking about it. Show me hell, and this is granted as Eden...Oh fuck it...I need to stop thinking. Running a hand through his hair Cloud thought about the boy he left alone in the airport bathroom. Would someone have taken him home, would someone have talked to him in class? Forget it, I know the answer. It's always been 'no,' and it always will be 'no.'
He needed a shower, that was a solution. A bad one, because he knew standing alone in the bathroom wasn't going to stop him from thinking. But at least it wasn't standing in a room that didn't belong to him. And besides that, he felt dirty, and was wearing the same cloths from yesterday. Rubbing the spot between his eyes, Cloud let out a sigh. He wanted anyplace but here so badly, he could taste it. Actually, that's probably hunger...haven't eaten since morning... He moved awkwardly around the bed, crouching and rooting through the still-packed boxes he'd shoved underneith. Kicking one roughly with his hand clamped around a grey handle, Cloud freed a scratched and battered cheap CD player with half-peeled off stickers along its exterior. Bands he hadn't even known at the time, but had gotten stickers of for free at the store. Most of them he hadn't even turned out to like, but...
Flipping the lid of the player up, the same old mangled CD bobbled on its axis inside. Flytape. EP. Cloud rooted through more boxes until he had a handful of clean cloths and a container of shampoo, and left the room with the door ajar, his sneakers making the dormitory floorboards squeal. Leaning his back against the bathroom door, he swung inside, feeling something inside gradually begin to turn off.
Plugging the CD player in and propping it up on the tilted wooden bench along the shower stalls, Cloud threw his clean cloths on the floor and began to shed the cloths from the day prior. His sweatshirt landed in the same pile as the clean cloths, the teeshirt he'd worn underneith and his jeans flying and slumping lifelessly on the bench against the player. Gradually, the bassist of the band on the CD started, although the track skipped lightly at first. Cloud waited with a hand against the fiberglass side of the shower stall a moment, listening to see if the player was going to continue to cooperate. The guitarist joined in, and he dropped his hand, satisfied.
I can see us wired in summertime.
Riding our bikes, commiting the same crimes.
Cloud left his boxers on until he'd pulled the curtain shut. He didn't know why he felt so paranoid about his own body in this place. Probably because it wasn't home, he thought to himself. The floor was cold and damp, his hands getting a shock of cold when his foot brushed his thumb. The blonde cringed to himself, trying to let the music take his mind off the completely alien shower, and tossed the boxers over the edge of the stall and hopefully clear of the water. The pipes inside the walls squealed when he turned the water on, Cloud could swear he felt the wall itself shudder before the spray hit his back. He hunched his shoulders and gritted his teeth, adjusted the tempurature until it was slightly more bareable, and flattened his palms against the wall, letting the water run down his back.
...Okay. So. He'd gone to his classes, and he was absolutely sure there was no humanly possiable way to pass half of them. Was it that other people cheated through this, or was he just stupid? He was probably stupid. No, that didn't quite figure right. As much as he wanted to stand there and insult himself, it wasn't exactly going to work. Hell, he may have not gotten absoloutely stellar grades in high school, but something he'd done in applying had gotten him a scholarship somehow. So...
Something musta been not quite right with you.
We're all a little crazy but we keep it inside.
Fuck it. College wasn't for him. Cloud looked up into the spray of water, feeling it hit his hair and run against his scalp. He ran his hands through his hair roughly, feeling it go limp under the water and seeing droplets flinging against the walls. Even with all the dizzying paranoia that he was letting get loose in his head, it felt good to be standing under the warm water.
It felt nice to wash his hair, because he hadn't realized how dirty it'd gotten, or how strange it felt to have all the odd cuts brushing against his hands at the same time. The song hummed onward, Cloud's mind wasn't even registering it anymore, he'd heard it so many times. But if he shut his eyes, he could pretend he was at least back home, and that was good. Even if he couldn't do well in the classes, he told himself, he would be alright at least for one term. That was the way it was in college nowadays anyway...The teachers and schools wanted to look good, so they gave you good grades, even if your work was crap...right? Who cared, there were probably a few professors here like that. The soap made his skin feel tight, but it was something familiar. An oasis. He was alone in the bathroom, everyone else either in a class or at dinner like sane human beings, but he had this time and place to himself.
I think I broke the top strings off adolesence,
I can feel our laces break as we jump over that great fence...
It would be okay. It was going to be okay. It would be...
"Hey, Strife, you in here?"
Banging door. Thump-clink of steel toed boots. Voice magnified off the tile walls the same as earlier today. Oh, shit. Think, Strife, Think. You can't say it isn't you, your cloths are right there, same ones as before. Stay quiet and he's going to get pissed and that's deffinitly not something we want. Fuck, fuck, fuck. There really isn't a way out of this one...he could have at least waited...why the fuck is he in here at this time anyway? Out of time..."Yeah."
He could hear Seifer pass in front of the speakers of the CD player, the music waivering around the other student. Between the water hitting his skin, hitting the floor, hitting the walls and the music, Cloud could barely hear. It didn't seem to matter too much, because a moment later Seifer had the music cut off and was speaking plently clearly enough to be heard over the water drumming on Cloud's skull.
"Shame you didn't show up at dinner. Me and the guys were waitin for ya. So, what happened with that, hmm?" Cloud tried not to listen too closely, tried to believe that the tile walls were echoing and distorting the voice, but it was pretty damn obvious. Seifer was not exactly wowed by him at this moment. But how was he supposed to know that? Nobody had told him to show up to dinner, he was tired, he was beat down... "Well, I guess I can forgive you this once."
There was no way in hell he was going to be able to finish showering with Seifer talking to him, he knew that right now. His hands were already gripping the knobs, knuckles white. The muscles in his arms felt tight. Trying to keep from shivering. Hands shaking, he shut off the water and stood dripping. Shit, shit, shit. "S-" Don't stutter, you fucking idiot! "Sorry bout that. I didn't know you needed me."
Seifer's voice dropped the harsh edge just slightly, like someone lowering a sword, but it was still in their hand. "Ah, it wasn't simply a matter of need, Cloud. We enjoy you around." Cloud fished a hand around beyond the curtain barrier until he caught hold of his towel hung on one of the wall hooks and pulled it inside, wrapping it around his waist. Seifer paused a moment while the towel disappeared, and continued when Cloud emerged. "...I do anyway."
Hell, that was a pass. This is not going to be a repeat, no way, I don't ...I'm not...Not in here. No way. Not with him. Hell, like I could fight him off if he really was determined. Yeah, right... "I'll...try to make it from now on. I just don't usually eat dinner." Brilliant lie. We are so dead. Cloud found himself fiddling with the edge of his towel without noticing, and forced himself to stop. This was not. Good. "What's happening?"
Seifer didn't seem to be the least bit affected by the fact that Cloud was standing in front of him in a towel. Hands splayed on either side of him on the slanted bench, Seifer stared with a horrificly disturbing calm expression. "Glad you brought it up," He addressed at length, propping one foot up on his knee. "You wanted an errand, right?" Cloud nodded obediently. "Good, get your pants on."
Cloud hesitated a moment before picking his clean cloths off the bench and begining to dress, dropping the dusky blue towel on the floor. It didn't matter, he reminded himself. It wasn't anything Seifer hadn't seen before.
GOD. DAMNIT.
Seifer didn't move, only following Cloud lazily with his gaze out of the corner of his eye. Cloud could see now that the way Seifer was sitting was strange, propped up gingerly...probably still feeling the beating Zack had given him. But this wasn't the same. Kuja had come to him, Seifer had trusted him, just so long as he didn't bring up one to the other he should be okay. He should be good, fine, even if it also meant being their toy...Hopefully just a windup toy that ran across the room. Cloud didn't want to keep thinking and bent to pick up the dirty cloths bundling them under his arm. Seifer waited, his eyes still tracking the dripping blonde as Cloud reached to unplug his CD player, coiling the wire around his wrist.
"Let's go then." Cloud's fingers had barely closed on the handle of the CD player before Seifer was on his feet, hands pushing back the white trenchcoat that obscured most of his body and nestling into the pockets of his black jeans. Cloud looked him up and down a second before choking off a sigh. Great...yeah...Seifer was deffinitly capable of beating his ass down. How had Zack gotten the better of him? Christ, Zack weighed less than he did, he'd even said it.
And why, why, why, did Seifer have to be just that tiny little amount taller than Cloud, because it mattered in situations like this where he was hunched over carrying a CD player and an armload of laundry, towel and shampoo. No escaping this, anyway. Turning away from Seifer, he pushed the bathroom door open and wandered into the hallway, hearing the boards squeak again behind him as Seifer caught the door and followed. Cloud could feel the emptyness of his stomach suddenly, and he wasn't sure if he was thankful for it or wanted the feeling to go away. His room wasn't far, but now Seifer knew where it was...Forget it, he reminded himself. He must have known where it was in the first place, if he knew to look for me here.
The CD player went on the bed, bounced slightly. Dirty cloths landed on top of it. Keep it mechanical, keep it cool, don't think and don't panic yourself. Seifer was leaning in his doorway, looking around the room as if assessing it for his own living arangement. Cloud looked at the floor and shut his eyes, kicking fear back down into his stomach where it couldn't touch his brain. "Alright, ready."
"Keep up." Seifer pushed away from the doorjam and turned his back. Cloud followed.
They exited the dormitory, crossed the grass area around the freshman student housing. Past the classrooms, heading clear across campus to a house that, while the door wasn't exactly torn off its hinges, had deffinitly seen better days. Seifer flicked a cigarette he'd lit while walking from between his fingertips, not paying attention to where it landed on the sidewalk. Cloud couldn't remember seeing him actually inhale from it, or not. The elder student cast a glance at him, his voice disinterested.
"This is my place, right? You need anything, you come here," Seifer raised a finger, "If you're in trouble, you stay clear of here. Got it?" Cloud nodded sullenly. "Excellent. C'mon then."
The steps grumbled violently when Cloud's sneakers hit them, the nails holding them together probably having rusted about fifteen years ago when previous occupants graduated. Biting back a sigh, he noticed a faded sign hung besides the door that read 'eco-living.' Heh...That was almost funny, in a terrificly demented sense. He wasn't going to stay, he told himself. He was going to stick around for five minutes, and leave. He at least would be able to tell that to Seifer. A moan from the door greeted the two blondes.
Looks can be deceptive, and the interior of the house didn't match its run down exterior. Inside, the walls were papered or painted, the floor carpeted and kept relatively stain-free, considering it was a college campus house. The furniture was worn down, but not dead, and there was music. Life. Not like at the party the night before, but normal life. Normal music. For a sick moment, Cloud thought his fear was going to break out and he was going to have to hide it somehow, because the eco-house made him feel disgustingly homesick. Slouched in a chair at the far end of the living room, against a wall between two stairwells that probably lead to the same place, a face Cloud was all too familiar with lazed. The eerie eyes locked onto Cloud from underneith feathery white bangs, and he knew he was doomed.
"Well, well. It's nice to see you again, Cloud." Kuja put a tension on Cloud's name that scared him. Deffinitly not hostile. But not...good. There was something in the way he was staring this time that didn't have the same sexual aura as before. "I wasn't sure if you'd be able to make it," His voice drolled onwards lazily. The tight black fabric of the pale man's clothing shimmered in an unreal irridecent way in the house's lighting.
"Seifer caught up with me," Cloud was speaking without thinking. Good thing too, because if he'd thought, he would have wound up saying something stupid or biting his tongue.
The taller blonde nodded and turned an abrupt right, through one of the house's ground floor doorways and motioned over his shoulder for Cloud to follow. Although Kuja's eyes pinned him against the wall with their half-lidded gaze, Cloud broke himself away and followed Seifer. The room adjecent to the main hallway was the kitchen, somewhat cramped and with archaic appliances, but not bad at all. Cloud couldn't help himself and poked at one of the plants lurking behind the sink, sucking up the scant sunlight filtering in from the far wall. Seifer looked over his shoulder from where he stood and smirked.
"Like I said, you ever need anything, you come here." Turning again, Seifer opened one of the cabinets and ran his fingertips along a row of canned food until he hit one that, for some magical reason, looked different to him. Lifting the can, Cloud saw it was actually cut open at the bottom and inside was something you had to be a bloody idiot to not know was deffinitly not baby asprin.
Cloud would have started panicing furiously. He would have probably been stupid, and gotten into trouble, and stuck around until the next morning and repeated mistakes over and over, but fate had something else in mind. Seifer picked up a sandwich baggie with the little white pills and dangled them in midair, shuffling the others under the can again with a free hand and not looking at Cloud. "You wanted to be trusted, so here ya go. Now listen," He closed the cabinet and turned, lowering the baggie. "You fuck this up and get caught, I had nothing to do with it, and we will not be doing buisness again."
Without knowing any other reaction to the situation, Cloud snatched the baggie from Seifer's hand and pocketed it. He could feel his heart beating against the fabric of his clean shirt. "You told me before, I haven't forgot."
Seifer's hands went into his pockets again. Serious faced, the other blonde nodded to him. "Better not have. Now this isn't yours. This is mine. You're holding onto it, and getting rid of it. For me."
"I-"
"Do you have a problem with that?"
Cloud shook his head.
"Nice to know. Look," Seifer's eyes wandered to the window on the far wall, where light was just starting to slant orange through the glass panels. "Best you get lost, now. I don't want too many obvious connections. You understand, right?" He barely looked at Cloud when he spoke the last line. Cloud didn't bother nodding again, his heart was beating too loudly. All he could do was thank whatever luck he had for this break. Yes, it made sense, and he was extremely glad it did, because it worked in his favor.
So he took the opportunity, didn't say goodbye, and left. Kuja's eyes tracked him out the door, Cloud could feel them like little fingertips on his shoulderblades.
"Be seeing you again tomorrow, then, Cloud." Kuja's voice seemed to chase after him mockingly as he tromped down the old wood steps and left the eco-house behind.
So what now? Dinner was probably over, Vincent was probably back, and he did not want to run into that guy any more than he had to. He couldn't go back to Seifer's. Well, he could, it just wouldn't be good. He couldn't keep wandering around outside. Once again, he could, but it felt like he was wearing a glowing red sign for any campus security or local cop on their way through to pick up on. Again. And this time, it wasn't as if he could get rid of the burden straightaway. And..just...crap. Cloud wasn't sure, but he was pretty damn close to sure that a sandwich baggie full of E wasn't anything he wanted to be paying for out of his own pocket. So, he had to get out of the open.
He could go up to Zack's room, it wasn't too far to the sophmore dormatories...He could even see them from where he stood. But...Hell, who says he has to know. It'll just be safer. Get somewhere that you won't keep calling attention to yourself, and it'll be fine. Taking a deep shuddering breath, Cloud headed for the dormitories.