"No, no, not like that," Zack says. He plucks the strings of the guitar again, slower. "Like this. Duh, da, do-do-do, da—"
Cloud tweaks his lip, and the music coming from the record player in the window sill changes to match. It reaches the end of the new phrase, and skips where they left off.
"Yeah, that's it! And the next part goes… uh." Zack rubs his forehead, trying to nail down the memory. It's hard, when so much of reality has fallen away. He plucks the rest of the song, tapping his foot along with it.
"That sounds awful," Cloud wrinkles his nose and frowns.
"You just don't like minor keys," Zack says, playing the whole thing together. "See, it mirrors the major key of the first part. The song's about melancholy—feeling sad even when you're supposed to be happy. The middle is supposed to feel out of place."
"I liked it better before," Cloud pouts.
"Well, not every song is for you," Zack smirks. Cloud completes the song on the record, despite his complaining.
Setting the guitar on the coffee table, Zack stretches out on the sofa. It puts his feet over the book in Cloud's lap, and the other man narrows his eyes. He pointedly moves the book back on top.
"That's what this place is missing," Zack muses, despite a frosty fog dimming the windows where sunlight had just been. "We've got all this stuff, but there's no… I don't know… texture. Everything happens because we make it happen."
"I'm trying to read," Cloud grunts.
He's read that book at least ten times, but Zack lets it go. Sometimes he ignores Cloud's warnings just to bring some life to this place. An argument is better than boredom on restless days, but he isn't feeling that bad today. He flops his head to the side and observes the home they've built together.
Cloud can make anything here, so long as he knows what it is. His lost memory has been an obstacle, but with Zack's help and a lot of time they've amassed a cozy amount of clutter.
The downstairs now has a table for two, complete with placemats and an electric kettle. Houseplants freshen up the windows under simple white cotton curtains. They only cook if they feel like it, so the dishes in the sink are mostly for realism.
A roaring fire burns perpetually in the large hearth by the sofa, devoid of wood to fuel it or a poker to stoke the flames. The scent comes and goes depending on Cloud's mood, never overstaying its welcome.
In any other circumstance it would be a marvel. A rich, detailed world constructed entirely from thought and feeling, as solid and real to them as anything outside. But it's not a magic trick right now. It's their only refuge from darkness and madness, and that makes it a glass cage. A prison just as confining as the upside-down capsule in the sky.
Books and art supplies fill the mantle because it's too big for the two photographs they've conjured—one of Zack's parents and a blurry, indistinct impression of Cloud's.
Aerith and Tifa could be there, arguably they should be, but they've arrived at a unanimous, unspoken agreement not to bring either of their old flames up. In all likelihood, they'll never see either of them again anyway.
Twin easels stand near the largest window, half-finished paintings waiting to be picked up again someday, or maybe never. They realized mid-way through that they were out of wall space to hang them and it felt a little bold to add another room when they only just finished the living room.
Their earlier attempts at painting march an orderly line up the stairs, ugly despite the fact that Cloud could make them perfect.
"It's about the memory," he had said when Zack suggested cheating.
"These flowers look like buttholes, man. Do you really want to remember me painting anus flowers every time you come downstairs?"
"I especially want to remember the anus flowers." Cloud had said, eyes glimmering. Zack shook his head, opening his mouth to argue, but then Cloud turned his palette over and rubbed wet paint down Zack's shirt with a mischievous look. "Oh no, I got paint on you. Now we'll never get to finish this incredibly important argument about butt lilies.
"Shame," Zack had said, catching on, before painting a blue line down Cloud's nose and lips. "Oh no, my hand slipped. I guess we have no choice but to try out that shower we just put in."
"No way around it." Cloud agreed, his voice low and molten.
Sex in here isn't anything like sex out there. There's no spark—no burning rush without flesh and blood urging them on—but it's still fun. It's still a massive ego boost to look at Cloud and see desire pouring out of his eyes.
Laying bored on the couch, Zack considers instigating a reenactment. It would break up the monotony. There's no way Cloud is actually enjoying that stupid book that Zack cobbled together from scraps. It has more plot holes than the road to Midgar has potholes.
He sits up to make an overture, but fate chooses that moment to interrupt his plans.
A great rumble shakes the foundations of the house, the roof turning translucent as their bodies lift up from the cushions.
"What the—" Cloud looks up at the cylinder in the sky like he had forgotten about it. Zack can't blame him, he hasn't thought about their grim reality in a long time either. It's easy to get lost in this place, where everything is nice and they're fully in control of everything.
Cloud reaches out his hand as gravity reverses and starts pulling them into the air. He grabs it, watching the house fall away with a keen sense of loss.
They fall into their bodies like chunky, cold soup. After so long away, reality is too sharp to look at directly. Cold, slimy, heavy, damp.
Water sluices off of Zack's naked body as gloved hands drag him out of the tank.
He never realized how muted the memory world's approximation of sensation had been, not until actual reality returned. It's too much, all at once, and he feels Cloud feeling the same.
Searching for him with foggy eyes, Zack's gaze lands on a withered husk with claw-like fingernails and blonde hair grown out to his waist. With a shock of clarity, he sees himself through Cloud's eyes, looking very much the same.
Holy—how long were they in there? A long time. Long enough to look like those feral kids that were all over the newspapers when he first left Gongaga, the ones supposedly raised in the woods by bandersnatches.
Cloud reaches for him mentally, and Zack grabs him like a lifeline. Old fear comes back like a ghost, as painful and consuming as when they first felt it. Where are we going, what do they want, why now, why now, why now—
A grinding motor shakes through his eardrums, and Zack recollects the sound. A big, metal mouth opens up in front of them and emits an exhale of toxic fog. The Cradle.
They're carried across a room that bears no signs of a fight. The walkway is solid and scuffed from use. Pods line either side in a more regimented pattern than before, straight rows on either side with hairless human specimens inside.
Tattooed numbers mark each of their shoulders and hands. Zack stares in horror as their sightless eyes follow him, vacant but alive like Cloud's had been.
The second blast door shuts with hiss, and then they're back in the white tiled place getting hosed down like it's any other day. Guards in three-eyed masks shave them both bald and clip their nails to blunt ends. Zack is too weak to do anything but watch Cloud shiver and shake.
The guards start roughly dressing them until a SOLDIER strides in and orders them off. He removes what looks like a riding helmet and shakes out a frankly ridiculous mane of hair.
Zack's body unclenches for the first time in twenty minutes. "Roche."
"In the flesh," Roche says, kneeling down to assess he and Cloud's sorry state with only minimal pity staining his face. "I would not leave the care of dear old friends to an inferior."
The idea of being dear friends after one conversation strikes Zack as a little sad, but that doesn't diminish the comfort of knowing they'll be guarded by at least one trustworthy person. He fumbles with the wad of clothes the guards left on the wet floor, and Roche does the same with the bundle in front of Cloud.
"Are you well?" he asks Cloud's hunched figure. "I can assist you."
Cloud shakes his head, but takes the offering of pants. It's humiliating, but they both manage to dress themselves with a bit too much effort. He crawls in Zack's lap without a lick of embarrassment the moment they're both decent, and Roche does a valiant job of ignoring it. When Zack coughs into his hand, he unhooks the canteen from his belt and offers it to him.
It's not entirely a good omen, being treated gently.
In Gongaga they had a tradition of honoring cows before the slaughter. They gave them warm baths and extra food, a kind of ritualistic pampering to thank them for their meat. He detects a similar reverence in Roche, though it's hard to pick out why. A sixth sense, maybe. He accepts the offered drink anyway.
He nods at the 1st Class belt on Roche's waist. "You've done well for yourself."
"Our recruitment never recovered after the mass desertion." Roche shrugs. "And the Turks are spread too thin dealing with Avalanche to recruit by force."
"Avalanche… Those three guerillas and a goat hiding out in Xinzhou?"
"Their forces number in the thousands now, with cells in every major city," Roche says. "It's been determined that someone very wealthy is bankrolling their actions. Rumors point to someone in within the Shinra elite, due to some suspicious circumstances surrounded an attempted assassination of the President. Those are just rumors, though. You can imagine how it's affected the organization."
Not knowing what to make of that, Zack nudges Cloud and makes him take the canteen. They bicker silently until Cloud relents and drinks.
"Sounds like a good time to be mistaken for dead," he deadpans. "I use to hate those Internal Affairs audits."
"I have no complaints." Roche clasps his hands at his waist and flicks an errant hair out of his face. It's the most obvious bullshit Zack's heard in a while.
He remembers the glances the SOLDIER used to send him, and the jibes he had received from the rank and file. He must have a good reason to stay, because Roche has the stench of a deserter rolling off of him.
"How…" Zack wasn't sure he really wanted the answer, but he had to ask. "How long has it been?"
"Since your stasis or since your death?"
"Since my parents got a letter."
Roche turns his head to the side, his back straightening uncomfortably. "Four years."
"Four—" Zack swears. Cloud shrinks further into him, hiding his face in his chin and clutching the canteen to his chest. Thoughts pass between them too quickly to parse. "And Hojo wants to continue the experiment now? Why?"
The SOLDIER clears his throat, and tips his head in apology. "I'm afraid that's above my payscale."
"Right."
Someone's always watching in the lab. Roche already went too far telling Zack this much. He screws the cap back on the canteen and holds it out. The SOLDIER puts his hand up.
"Drink all of it. Prolonged stasis causes severe dehydration."
Zack lifts his brows. "I'm good, really."
"As the officer responsible for your health, I must insist."
Frowning, Zack unscrews the cap and sniffs. It doesn't smell like anything, or taste abnormal. Roche nods obligingly. He lifts the canteen to his lips and tips the remainder back. Something small and metal tumbles unexpectedly into his mouth. He coughs, nearly choking on it.
Cloud's face darts up in alarm, and Roche comes quickly to kneel beside him.
"Are you alright, Subject Z?" he asks. It doesn't escape his notice that Roche took the only position that would block Zack's face from the cameras.
He covers his mouth in time to keep the object inside while he coughs. "Fine, just—went down the wrong tube."
"Very well." Roche stands.
Zack fakes another cough so he can reposition the thing into a more comfortable place along the inside of his cheek.
"T-Thanks," he manages to say without sounding weird. The SOLDIER nods, looking every bit like the consummate professional and not the saboteur he'd just shown himself to be.
"I am merely performing my duties as ordered," Roche says meaningfully. "Please, take the opportunity to stretch your legs. Professor Hojo will request you shortly."
He lets himself out, leaving Zack there with a lapful of Cloud and a mouthful of metal. Tracing the shape with his tongue, he wonders what Roche is playing at. It's long and thin, like an old-fashioned key.
Avalanche, assassinations, interdepartmental espionage, that's his old life. He barely remembers what it's like to be outside, let alone sniffing out sleeper agents and chasing guerillas out of their hidey-holes. Just thinking about the situation is giving him a sympathetic headache for all the paperwork the middle managers must be doing.
All together, it makes for an inspiring picture. Revolts rising up in every city, the Turks spread thin, SOLDIER understaffed, and the Shinra brass preoccupied with spying and scheming on each other. It's a mess to put it bluntly. A clusterfuck beyond any he might have imagined, happening simultaneously on multiple fronts.
It's a golden opportunity, a confluence of events which could realistically enable him and Cloud to escape without the full might of Shinra coming down on them.
Hope feels like a forbidden emotion. It's bright now, certainly, but if the moment passes or something stands in their way? If they let hope take root just to lose it again—he couldn't survive that a second time. It would be the last straw for both of them.
Cloud mouths at the smooth metal of Zack's collar like he'd often done in the tank, and Zack finds his own comfort in the rough prickle of Cloud's scalp.
Can they even survive out there anymore? They haven't walked more than fifty steps in four years. He panics just thinking about Cloud being taken from him, and he's so weak he can barely walk. Is that the description of a man who can outrun Shinra, even with all the odds stacked in his favor?
Closing his eyes, he pulls Cloud inside his mind and shares the thoughts with him, feeling for the other man's opinion. It's a mix of hope and apprehension, tinged with longing for the simple life they'd imagined in their heads.
Zack hums, and nods. " Sure, we might fail. But we'll always have that. No matter what happens out here, they can't take the house from us. So we might as well try, right? Try to be free and see if we can't scratch out something real."
Cloud presses his nose to Zack's pulse and breathes, his heart rate finally coming down from the frenetic pace it's been keeping. They make the decision almost unconsciously, thinking as one as they've become accustomed to.
If there's a path to freedom. They owe it to themselves to try.
Roche must be confident, to have risked passing them some kind of contraband. It's not much to go on, but it's all they have left. When the time is right, they'll just have to jump and hope the landing is soft.
Following Roche's advice, Zack eases Cloud off of him and walks circuits around the clean room. The weakness is more a matter of balance than strength. His body seems as healthy as when he was put in, it's just not used to doing what it's told anymore.
Cloud watches him with rapt attention from the floor, shooting thoughts and feelings like paper airplanes in primary school. He accepts them in the spirit they're intended, walking until his legs feel steady enough for squats.
He does a handful before moving on to lunges and push ups. Cloud's lip turns up as his movements become stronger and smoother.
"Always with the squats," he says. It's a barb, but laced with fondness.
Zack does the next rep with a little extra sass. "You'll eat those words when these toned quads carry your ass out of here."
"With pleasure," Cloud thinks back, surprising them both when it comes out firm and nakedly sincere.
He believes they can do it. Really, truly, down to his bones. That gives Zack the fire he needs to push through the pain—a fire that burns right up until Roche returns to take them to Hojo.
"Ready?" the SOLDIER asks.
Zack lifts Cloud, supporting him on one shoulder and shuffling towards the door with as much confidence as he can muster. He shifts the key to the side, and speaks as clearly as he can around it.
"Bring it on."