Disclaimer: I don't make money with this fic and characters belonged to Square Enix.
Love
The unsolved questions, the sorrow those nightmares had brought were far from him, and for the first time after the last battle, Cloud could say he did not care for that reverie anymore. Sephiroth was dead, they won, and he was alive. Cloud, finally, was making peace with his ordinary life, accepting and embracing it because it was good.
Tifa was worried and still believed that talk to someone would be better than fill his brain with powerful Shinra's chemistry. Cloud assured her that he was fine, and if he had known about the existence of those pills before, it could have saved them a lot of trouble. The pills changed for better their relation inside the bar, they were close again, and Cloud was taking part in their small family. He bought a truck, and the kids helped to paint 'Strife's Delivery" on it. In the end, everything was fine. Magic pills, no dreams, no Sephiroth, demonizing his chance to have a life.
Cloud was coming back from Mideel's clinic, with a new bottle of pills, walking through the parking lot to get his bike while looking over his messages on the phone. He was thinking about check the new club Reno told him. Not that Cloud enjoyed Reno's company, but even the miracle of becoming socialized those pills were doing for him. Suddenly, Cloud felt a piercing headache, white spots blurred his vision, and he fell in the parking lot. Along with his phone, the bottle of his medicine crashed in the ground, scattering the pills across his fainted body.
Shaking his head, pissed off to had lost the medicine, he thought he had tripped on something. The headache was still there, but it weakened now. Cloud cursed and tried to get up, but instead of the parking's concrete floor, there was dust and small black rocks. He veered his head and his heart raced. At his side, with a peaceful expression, his long hair cascading over his naked body, gorgeous to the point of making Cloud whimpered, Sephiroth. He stared at him, head leaned over one arm, his toned muscle jumping at sight.
"Find me, Cloud."
"You are dead, please not again, Sephiroth…"
Sephiroth got closer to Cloud who gasped, feeling a huge ache on his head. The young didn't move, quietly stared back at him, feeling the salty taste of his tears falling through his cheeks to drop on his mouth.
Sephiroth touched his face, drying the tears with his cold fingers, but solid, alive. He smiled at Cloud, who busted out in tears, crying like a child. The violent soldier from his last vision or whatever they had previously, disappeared, showing just a broken-hearted boy.
"I love you so much Sephiroth, it's an endless hurting, I know this is why you are here. But you are dead, please stop this, let me live."
Sephiroth got closer, and kissed Cloud's lips, kissed his tears, breaking the kiss to caress his face. Cloud closed his eyes, still sobbing, short breathing to hear Sephiroth whispering on his earlobe.
"You know, I'm not dead. Please, Cloud, find me, only you can save me."
Sephiroth touched Cloud's ribs and he yelled in pain, waking up inside the hospital, in a white room surrounded by his doctor and Vincent Valentine, leaned against the door. Probably, it was some side effect of the medicine, the doctor would run some blood tests, and Cloud was free to go, though, pills suspended until the results of the exams were ready. Cloud just nodded a 'thank you' and silently left the facility with Vincent, not speaking a word until they reached his bike in the parking lot.
"I drive, you hang on."
Vincent had the keys and he did not offer much space to objections, sitting in the bike, and rewinding the engine. Cloud had a distant look, still lingering at Sephiroth's words "You know I'm not". He was feeling revolted with himself, and by the fact that the pills were of no use at all against Sephiroth or his sick mind. He blacked out from nothing in daylight to have a vision with Sephiroth. This shit had not ended yet. His frustration was visible, and he thanked for his luck to be Vincent there and not Tifa. Still, he had a problem; he did not remember when he ended up in the hospital's room.
"How did you know I was here?"
"You blacked out with your phone in hands and dialed my number. The hospital guessed, you were talking with me and dialed back. Where do you want to go? Seventh Heaven?"
"Not really."
Vincent headed to the Grasslands, he knew Cloud would need time alone, and the ride was a refreshment for his friend. They stopped near a cliff where a lonely gas station, in the middle of nowhere would be good for a cold beer, and perhaps, give Cloud a mood to speak what was going on. Cloud accepted the pause, descended the bike, entered the shop, and bought two beers, handing one to Vincent. They stayed in silence for some time, watching the quiet green landscape, the hills bathed by the faint lights of the sundown. Vincent made the first talk.
"So, pills?"
"Insomnia. It seems it didn't work for me."
Cloud was back to his old gloomy personality, what he was living awake since the past months was actually the dream. There was no escape from his nightmares with Sephiroth. He would never leave him, and Cloud would never be free again. His mind refused to abandon him. "You are so screwed Cloud Strife, broken with no fix available." Somehow, Cloud knew Sephiroth was alive and trapped in some kind of private hell, what he did not know was why he was there too, watching, and being punished as well. He should be in heroes' nirvana, not living in that hell after had eliminated Sephiroth and Jenova's threat.
"It really never works, but the effects were amazing."
Cloud gave a faint smile and veered his head to Vincent.
"What really works Vincent? I don't know what to do."
Vincent knew it had much more there than Cloud wanted him to know, but he would not force his friend to speak. Valentine wanted only a confirmation of what was really going on. All the events he had recently witnessed, oddly linked in ways that makes a man like him afraid. It was true what happened, coincidentally Cloud dialed him, but Vincent still caught him in the parking lot, and the man heard Cloud say Sephiroth's name several times.
"I don't have the answers, but I believe if it's inside you, so you can control it."
The red-eyed man said it while tapping over the protomateria on his chest. Vincent Valentine was living proof of control for Cloud. The demons inside the man worked for him, not against Vincent. The measures would have to change. Cloud stood from the floor, finished his beer, and nodded at Vincent.
"I wish you to find a solution, but till there have another one, I'll drop you back at Seventh Heaven. I have to go that way."
"Ok, guess you are right again…Tifa would jump on my neck because of those pills, better stay relaxed."
Vincent chuckled and Cloud went back to store grabbing more two beers.
"Are you staying with us?"
Vicent twitched on his spot, giving a sip on his beer.
"I'm heading to Icicle Inn, but I'll stay the night. Peasants related some singularities at Northern Crater and I want to take a closer look at it."
Cloud narrowed his eyes, watching the landscape, and nodded to Vincent. Curiosity speeded upon his heart and he drank his beer in a large gulp.
"Which singularities?"
Vincent watched Cloud with the corner of his red eyes, giving another sip on his beer.
"Green mist, snow, avalanches in the middle of the night. Peasants told about green light expelled as lava out of the crater. They got scared."
Cloud's phone ringed and he blessed Reno for that, immediately hanging on he started to talk with the Turk just to avoid looking at Vincent. Cloud was lost on his thoughts, that he could not think about what he saying to Reno, just complying at his words, "It can't be possible. I won't fall for this."
When he hanged off Reno, they finished their beers and did not touch the subject anymore after a pause. Vincent let it out as an irrelevant mission, and Cloud would treat it in the same way.
"Let's go? I have to meet Reno soon."
Once at home, Cloud went to his room and there, straight to the shower. Intrigued and scared to show Valentine his emotions, he committed himself with Reno and already regretted it. He wanted to research about the singularities Vincent told him.
"If it's inside me, maybe I shouldn't be doing this, and all I need is to live a healthy life. I'm young, single, and not so ugly, and I'll have the right for fun."
Cloud sighed, and better thinking, he turned off his computer, took off his boots, pants, shirt, and went to the bathroom. He jumped back at the sight in the mirror. Below his chest, on the left side of his ribs, he had a wound. Five fingers were hand-printed on his flesh in purple bluish as a recent bruise.
Cloud deep breathed looking at his reflex and closed his eyes, heavy tears rolling down his cheeks, and blurring his image in the mirror.
