Knock, knock.
It isn't the unsteady rattling coming from behind the front door that woke him up; rather it is the force of a stray pillow flying straight for his face. Awaking with a jump he sits up in the dark and hears Zack murmur something muffled within his bed sheets.
Yawning, Cloud asks "what?"
"Door!" Zack states before drifting back to sleep.
Cloud grunts under his breath but throws his duvet aside none the less. Leaning over the side of his bed he feels around the bedroom floor, picking up whatever clothing he lays his hands on, and quickly pulls on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt as he opens the door and approaches the front door.
Knock, knock.
"If it's Shin-Ra," a half-asleep Zack calls, "tell 'em to fuck off."
This makes Cloud laugh a little, but he knows Zack is right- it could be Shin-Ra guards waiting outside to drag them off. The clock above the sink reads 03:26, so theoretically Shin-Ra could come and go without being seen. The Knightsguard brothers would have retired to their apartment one night, and have never been seen again. Of course, there might be blood stains on the walls, table, furniture, sink to show some signs of a scuffle, but other than that-
Cloud shakes his head to rid himself of such thoughts, and reassures himself his imagination is only getting the better of him as he's just woken up. Still, he glances at Zack's Buster Sword resting in the corner of the room before bringing his eye to the cracked eyehole.
Immediately he pulls back and unbuckles the door's double lock with haste.
"Aerith?" Understandably, he sounds somewhat confused.
Standing in his doorway, at three twenty-seven in the morning, is the slum's flower girl who he's only met three times before. She looks worn out but relieved, and perhaps a little upset. Aerith manages to force her radiant smile and waves apologetically.
"Hi Cloud," she says awkwardly.
He motions for her to enter the room, shutting the door behind her.
"I was wondering if..." she begins, not waiting for Cloud to ask for an explanation. "Well, that is to say… When I got home today, there were some Shin-Ra soldiers waiting for me, and a man called Reno was among them. So, I can't go home at the moment. I was wondering if you would… be willing to let me stay here for a while."
Aerith seems to have to force the words out, and looks bizarrely embarrassed once she finally asks him. There's a sudden clash and bang as the bedroom door flies open, and the older boy literally falls out; he hops around the living area with jeans only on his right leg, trying to pull the left leg past his ankle.
The two both laugh, happy for a distraction to break the awkwardness between them. Clearing his throat as if to regain his dignity Zack adjusts his shirt collar, and salutes the two light-heartedly. Before Cloud so much as has a chance to explain the situation or introduce the two, Zack turns towards Aerith.
"Aerith!" he exclaims, extending an arm to the younger girl.
She giggles lightly and steps casually into a warm embrace. "Hello Zack!"
Watching the two exchanging smiles, Cloud stands in the background even more confused than he originally was.
"You know Zack?" she asks him.
"You know Zack?" he fires back bewilderedly.
Standing between them Zack feels it's his place to give an explanation to the perplexed pair.
"Well, well. I see you two know each other already, so no need for a formal introduction then. Cloud, Aerith is my old-girlfriend, from about a year ago," Zack pauses; for an instance he's sure he see a wave of jealously ripple across the blonde's face. "And Aerith, back when I was in SOLDIER Cloud worked with me on some missions. We've been living together for a few months now."
Cloud turns away from Aerith and Zack and busies himself filling the kettle. Pulling the jar from the cupboard he dunks an extra spoonful of coffee beans into a clean mug. Aerith and Zack talk for a while behind him about nothing in particular- how they've been, and oh, it's been a few weeks since I last saw you, how's work going for you? The water comes to a boil and the chiming of the spoon against the mug doesn't quite cover their voices. Cloud feels an arm wrap around his waist.
"You're addicted to that stuff," Zack comments.
Cloud shrugs it off and turns to Aerith who is now seated on the sofa. "Aerith'll be staying with us for a while."
Her face lights up and she's quick to show gratitude.
"Thank you! It's alright with you, isn't it Zack?"
"Eh?" he asks over his shoulder, filling two more mugs with hot water. "'course it is."
Cloud snatches one of the mugs off of the side and hands it to Aerith as he flops down on the far end of the sofa. There's silence for a while as they drink, and then, as usual, Zack is the one to break it.
"Now Aerith, what we're offering you here is the finest – and I really do mean the finest – sofa to snooze on in the whole of Midgar."
Although not sure whether to take him seriously or not she's content with whatever she can get. After all, she's turned up at a near enough stranger's house to bed for shelter at an ungodly hour, and they haven't so much as asked why a company like Shin-Ra are after her. Heck, a tatty old sofa beats having to sleep out on the poverty stricken streets; Aerith is a smart girl, and knows exactly what goes on after hours in the back alleys.
Cloud on the other hand does not seem as satisfied with Zack's plan, and while he suspects that he's not being completely serious, he sighs and stands up. Stepping into his room he flicks the light on and picks up a pillow and his sheet which he promptly tosses onto the sofa.
"You can take my bed. There should be a spare duvet in the wardrobe, and I left a pillow on there."
Zack laughs at him and puts his empty mug down on the draining board. "Good man, Cloud. I'll take the sofa tomorrow night, and we'll work like that."
Aerith seems to like Cloud's idea much more than Zack's, and is quick to hug Cloud gratefully. His body freezes up at the strange and unexpected contact – for once it's not Zack's touch - and with a great deal of discomfort puts his arms spasmodically around her waist.
"Stay as long as you need," Zack chimes in.
After goodnights are exchanged and Cloud and Aerith detangle themselves the blonde arranges his duvet and pillow on the sofa. It's far too small to sleep on: it only has two seats, and when he lays across it his knees hang over the edge, while the wooden arm digs into the back of his neck. Shifting around he doesn't quite manage to get comfy, but closes his eyes anyway as Zack and Aerith disappear into his room.
The door closes behind them with its custom creak and Aerith looks around, silently unimpressed. She glances down at the beds and raises an eyebrow.
"You and Cloud sure do sleep close together," she comments as she just about manages to squeeze between the two beds.
"What can I say," he replies as he throws her a bed sheet from top shelf of the wardrobe. "I'm irresistible!"
Aerith laughs at him as she makes her bed – well, Cloud's bed – and kicks off her boots. She hasn't spoken to him properly for around a year, but she's happy to know he's still the same old Zack. They've ran into each other once or twice in Midgar since Zack's moved here, but never really had a chance to catch-up. Laying down she tries to comprehend everything that's happened today: the Shin-Ra grunts at her house, having to run to Cloud, ending up sleeping less than a meter away from Zack…
"Ah, so we get to spend all night together," Zack says with a wink.
"Lucky you," the flower girl replies before turning onto her side away from him, trying to hide a smile.
---
As Zack leaves the next morning Cloud flops off the sofa after a night of broken sleep and sinks into the now deserted bed. Aerith doesn't sleep for much longer after being disturbed by the two boys and sets off to find the joint bathroom on her own. She pretends that there's no discomfort in the rusty tin bath, the cold water, or the way she has to crawl back into the clothes she's slept in- not to mention worn the previous day.
It takes five more hours for Cloud to wake up, and Aerith begins to wonder if sleeping in 'til one pm is a regular occurrence. He awakes to the smell of an almost half-decent breakfast that Aerith's rummaged around to make, and vaguely wonders what she wants. Half way into his meal she blurts out that she really, really needs him to go over to her house.
He agrees uncertainly and darts out into the hot August streets. Luckily the house is not difficult to find; it stands out like a sore thumb in the slums. It's a pallet of soft pastel colours blooming flowers; small, but cosy. Her mother, it turns out, is not as instinctively warm to Cloud; she greets him with a glare, demanding that he let her daughter go. For a few moments he's confused, but then realises Elmyra assumes he's part of the Shin-Ra.
A few minutes later he leaves with a rucksack full of clothes and a letter for his new roommate.
The arrangement works well enough for a while.
Zack's working pretty much everyday now, and Aerith is quite often out. When Cloud asks her she says she's going down to the Church- a concept that's lost on him, and so he spends a good few days nose deep in books trying to find out exact what a Church is. Some days he visits it with her, although he does find the tranquil atmosphere makes him even more tired and his head floods with thoughts.
They go shopping together too. Unexpectedly, Aerith turns out to be a surprisingly good haggler in the marketplace, and so Aerith does the talking and Cloud stands back and carries the cheap plastic bags.
Yet at the same time the arrangement is falling apart as soon as it starts.
In the beginning Cloud and Aerith share a room every other night, and so inevitably the flower girl is woken up by his terrified screams. She gets up in alarm and kneels by his bed, and he awakes with a violent shudder, falling back into her worried arms. Neither of them talk to each other for a few days.
She questions Zack about it, but he just shrugs naively. "Cloud doesn't like to talk about these things," he explains. "You'll just have to accept that."
From there on he slowly explains everything about the incident to her. Everything that he knows, that is. He tells her about the tubes of mako, the second-hand oxygen forced into the back of their necks, the injections, the experiments, the way he had to watch them drag a barely-conscious but somehow screaming Cloud away into the back recesses of the lab, and most of all, the way the screams would suddenly stop.
On the sixth night, however, Zack loses his last nerve and in a sudden flush of annoyance he pulls the duvet and pillow off of the sofa and charges into the bedroom. The younger two roommates don't wake up even when the door slams behind him, and so he claims Cloud's bed.
An hour or so later Cloud wakes up to feet greeting him.
"Zack!" he whispers irately. "What are you doing?"
"Ugh… sleeping. I couldn't take that sofa anymore. You understand, right?"
He doesn't want to admit it, but he understands perfectly. He'd rather share his creaky single bed with Zack every night then have to sleep on that damned sofa again. Cloud makes a disapproving noise and says something about not liking feet before shifting over as far as he can without hitting the wall.
Taking this as an invitation to move the black-haired boy pulls himself and his pillow up to Cloud's end of the bed. Cloud protests even more, and pushes Zack back as he makes himself comfortable next to him.
"Hey now," Zack murmurs under his breath as he clamps his hands around the blonde's wrists and settles himself.
Cloud is still somewhat annoyed but lets Zack push him in back down onto the bed, accepting that he's going to have to sleep with his friend from now on.
"Since you're awake," Zack continues, "we might as well talk."
"Now?" Cloud doesn't sound happy.
"Why not? We've needed too for a while."
Something tells Cloud that this is the conversation he's been dreading, and he shifts uncomfortably in the bed covers. His fingers curl into the sheets and Zack continues almost eerily seriously.
"What do you dream about at night, Cloud?"
"… why ask questions you already know the answers too?"
"I figured as much."
"Mmm," Cloud says softly as he turns away from Zack.
Zack's voice raises and he sounds angry. "Mmm? Its that all you can say? After all I've done – after dragging you across two continents and the sea on my back, after getting you back to health, after providing a living for you and a roof over your head – you still won't tell me anything? I'm your friend, damn it Cloud!"
"Look," Cloud interjects shakily, "what happened to you there was very different to what happened to me, I can't even begin to talk about it, and I... I..."
For a few moments the bedroom is silent once more.
"Cloud…" Zack whispers more calmly as he wraps an arm around Cloud's waist and pulls him closer. "I'm sorry. I guess I wasn't thinking."
Cloud turns to face the older boy, letting the arm drape around him.
"Why is it always you taking care of me?"
If it wasn't so dark Cloud would have seen him blush. "If I didn't, you'd be doomed- you're like a little kid! You know, you can just ask me to stop if-"
"No," Cloud says quite surely. At some point it seems that Zack's wrapped his arm tighter and tighter around him. It's oddly comforting for him, however much he hates depending on Zack. "Thanks, Zack."
Out of an unexplainable impulse, possibly caused from the rare closeness of their bodies, Zack looks down to the boy and quite regrettably presses is lips onto Cloud's. It lasts only a few seconds – a few seconds too long – and after that nothing is said. They're not uncomfortable- merely confused.
Aerith doesn't even ask what on earth happened when she wakes up in the morning to see a tangle of limbs hanging out of Cloud's bed.