A "Random Final Fantasy 7 Yaoi Pairing Generator" crackfic. Zack and Cloud escape.
Break
Cloud hasn't said anything for five days. Zack shouldn't be worried yet. When Rufus... After Rufus, Cloud didn't speak for three days other than to respond to his name in roll call. He'd been quieter since then. Zack had finally been making progress, getting a few smiles out of the blonde, when they'd been sent to Nibelheim.
He knows it's mako poisoning. He remembers his first mako shower, when he made Soldier, and how painful it was. His skin had felt like it was being electrocuted, every cell jolted into hyperactivity, every nerve ending a thousand times more sensitive than it had been. Hojo's tanks were worse, because the scientist didn't have to give them back to the army in useable condition, but after a while the nerves deadened and the mind stopped processing pain so well.
They told all of the new Soldiers about the symptoms of mako poisoning, so they would be able to monitor each other. Fatigue, disorientation, temporary dulling of the senses as the brain responded to the overload of stimuli by blocking it out. A few guys reacted badly. They were nauseous and shaky, and could stop in the middle of a sentence and stare off into space for hours. But they all got better after a few days. Zack heard the horror stories, they all did, about the first few groups in the program, before they came up with the sensitivity tests. His roommate's friend had an uncle who'd gone catatonic for a week. He'd been coming out of it slowly, but his wife had died in a car accident. He fell back into the coma and never woke up. Eventually his brain shut itself off and he died.
Cloud's results had shown sensitivity to mako, Zack remembers, but within acceptable levels for the program. Zack can't imagine how painful it must have been, getting more than a Soldier's dose day after day for years, without even having a tolerance built up to it like he did. He knows Cloud is tough, but he can't blame the kid for giving up. It's hard not to let go and withdraw from your body, when all you have to look forward to is an eternity of torture. Zack made it through, for the most part, because he had to be there for Cloud. He lost himself for a little while towards the end, until Cloud had started screaming and given him a reason to come back.
What reason does Cloud have now? His town is... gone. His idol is dead by his own hands. For all Zack knows, Cloud isn't even aware that they are free.
Zack has to give him a reason, then. This time, he can fix it. He will fix it.