If You Don't Have a Smile

Warnings: Alternate universe. Slight language. Uh, angst, I guess. Bit of a weird psychological moment towards the end, so expect some brain pain.

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters found here in. They belong to their rightful owners. I am merely a humble Clouffie servant, trying to spread the unconventional love.


End 4: DOWN LIMBO

I feel different today.

Nothing's really changed, as far as I can tell, but still…

It's a nice feeling.


He wakes up the same as ever, shrill trilling of the alarm clock at his bedside table a familiar invader upon his sleep.

But really, it's not so much awakening as it is dreaming while sitting up in bed; then dreaming while walking; then dreaming while crashing into a wall.

All things considered, it could have been worse, he decides. He picks himself up off the floor and trudges over to the tiny bathroom built into the side of his room, the old, worn carpet catching the callouses on the bottoms of his feet.

Quickly going about his morning routine, he exits back into his room, only to stop dead at the sight of a bundle of sheets emitting something that sounds like a cross between a growl and a snort every few seconds. He knows what lies under the sheets; some strange hallucination that he's been suffering from for the last few days, that just won't go away.

He thought that by accommodating the creature it would disappear, back into the recesses of his mind to come about again when he was old and grey and a bit more than half-way to crazy anyways. He bites back a sigh of resignation and trudges over to the bundle of cloth, examining the strange ball that the supposed angel had curled herself into. A lock of raven-black hair peaks out from under a rumpled fold, and a stray foot sticks out directly opposite of it.

Without hesitation, he kicks the side of the ball. When the ball only flutters briefly back and forth, he kicks again and sends it crashing into the mirrored closet door, earning a pained grunt and what sounds like the slurred mutterings of a sailor.

Obstruction taken care of, he rifles through his closet, and procures a short-sleeved white dress-shirt and blue, plaid-patterned pants.

He cautiously sniffs the material as he walks away from the closet, detecting faint hints of rotten meat among the fresh scent of detergent. It's disgusting, and he honestly considers just going in some casual clothing from his dresser drawer. Then again, it would be too conspicuous. He throws the clothes on his bed and searches around before resting his eyes on a bottle of air freshener. It's probably entirely wrong to do so, but he sprays a copious amount of 'spring rain-scented' chemicals onto the clothes and prays that it'll hide the odor of death that his unwanted guest has unintentionally spread to his garments.

Satisfied, he dons the slightly damp articles and begins to head out the door when he hears a commotion and the annoying squawking of Yuffie. He turns to see her attempting to extricate herself from the tangled cocoon of bedding.

"Wait," she says, kicking her leg spastically, "Where ya going?"

"None of your concern," he mumbles before he exits the room, slamming the door shut behind him. He trudges down the stairs and makes it to the threshold of his kitchen when Yuffie manages to catch up, throwing his bedroom door closed with more force than necessary and sliding down the banister like a professional surfer.

"Oh, but it is, Cloudie!" she admonishes, brushing past him; he catches a whiff of her dress and has to cringe.

He continues into the suddenly crowded room and edges around the table, heading for the coffee percolator, "Hey Cloud, where's the syrup?"

He merely grunts and raises an eyebrow questioningly, before turning his full attention to the cold pot of coffee, left by his mother in her early rush to work, left on the stand.

"Eh? Oh, nevermind. Found it!"

He grabs a mug from the overhead cupboard and reaches for the pot at the same time, actions so ingrained that they're thoughtless to his numb mind. He turns away from the coffee machine, only to be met with the sight of Yuffie, along with a stack of crackers, an apple, a jar of orange jelly, and the aforementioned bottle of syrup, all arranged in a messy line-up at the table. Yuffie is eagerly alternating between spooning heapfuls of jelly over the tops of several crackers and pouring a river of syrup across the expanse of a chipped plate (one which he sure wasn't in that condition before).

"Uh…," he tries, but is quickly interrupted.

"If you're gonna ask me to share, then no way, Chocobo-head! This is mine, so you can't have any!" she punctuates the end of her sentence with a decisive squeeze of the syrup bottle.

"I wouldn't want any, anyways…" he looks away, face stony. At the sound of her chewing, he turns back, and has to ask, "Is that all you're going to eat?"

She looks at him quizzically, scrunching her eyes slightly, a string of syrup-coated jelly smeared along her neckline, "Well, duh!"

"But it's junk."

"It is not!" she looks shocked and quickly swipes her finger through the pool of slop on her plate, "This is totally a balanced breakfast! See? There's bread, and, uh, jelly's a fruit, right? And, uhm, vegetables. 'Cause syrup comes from trees."

He isn't quite sure what to say to that, and instead eyes the apple, "And…that?"

"I gotta keep my awesomely slim figure, y'know?"

He sighs and turns away fully, intending to grab some bread (he'd toast it, but the thought of spending any more time around this lunatic is enough to deter even his most stalwart resolve) and vacating the premises.

Yuffie watches from the table, licking her fingers and dipping more crackers into the remains of her breakfast-concoction, "So, uh, what's happening today, papa-bear?"

He flinches at the name, but otherwise ignores her, spinning the bread bag closed and cinching the tie-wrap around the twisted plastic tightly.

"Heeeeey." Sigh. "Hey. Hey!"

He turns to leave, exit choreographed to a cacophony of 'hey's.' Yuffie moves after him, chasing him to the foyer where he's putting on a pair of worn loafers.

"Where are you going?" she asks, toeing a scratched leather high-heel into the middle of the hall.

"I'm going to school, what does it look like?" he says gruffly, grabbing the displaced shoe and shoving it back into place.

"So not cool. Can't you skip?"

"No," he answers flatly and stands up. He peeks through the window imbedded in the door and observes the presence of pink clouds in a slowly reddening sky. It'll be good weather today, then, and a low chance of invasion.

He opens the door to step out, but stiffens as he hears Yuffie move to do the same.

"What are you doing?" he asks quietly.

"Uh, going to school, dummy," she replies, shoving past him, but then yelping out a strangled 'hey!' as he drags her back in roughly by the elbow, "What the hell's your problem?"

"You are not going to school with me," he says, and pushes her to the edge of the hall with a shove to her shoulders.

"But—"

"No! Stop following me!"

She tenses and puffs out her cheeks, looking indignant, "Follow you? That's my job, idiot!"

"I don't need you! Whatever made you think that I did was obviously wrong!"

She opens her mouth to retort, features twisted into rage and something behind her eyes that he can't quite read, but it seems she can't bring herself to voice her objections and instead only manages to choke out, "Jerk! You're such a jerk!"

The weak protest does nothing to him and he merely snorts at the poor attempt, "And you're just a pest. Just…," he hesitates and looks away from her, "Just stop. Go home to wherever the hell you live and stop bothering me. I don't know how you did the things you did yesterday, but it was obviously a trick. I'm done with you, now get out."

Yuffie's face takes on a livid red hue, fists clenched harshly to her sides and knuckles bent to bone-white extremes.

She looks at him with hatred, "Maybe there's a reason you're alone."

She shoves past him in the small foyer and throws the door open, leaving in her wake the glory of a clear morning.


Yes, the same as always.

Nothing ever changes.

The span of a human life is merely a drop in the bucket. In order to even register on the scale of the world, the universe, millions and billions of years have to pass. What seems an unfathomable amount of time to us is merely a blink in the views of the infinite and ever-expanding scale of time.

For all that we put meaning into our lives, we never do truly realize how pointless everything is. Will the woes of a cheating house-wife or the life-dedication a man has to saving others' lives be remembered one million years from now? Will it have changed the universe?

We are nothing in the grand scheme of things. No one is remarkable enough except for a select few to even register within the loose and disjointed hivemind that comprises the human race.

If this is true, then what's the point in living?


Class today seems strangely quiet. A couple of students are missing, and he can hear the whispers of his peers as the rumors begin to form about where they could be.

It doesn't matter to him; if they were stupid enough to allow themselves to be caught by those things, then maybe they deserve whatever happened.

The bell rings, hammering into his head like a nail. He gathers his books automatically and looks around, only to see everyone coalescing into groups which then form a herd at the door.

Disgusting.

He waits for them to press through, then heads out himself, ignoring the teacher's call of 'goodbye.'

They're all so disgusting.

He walks through the halls, slowly clearing of students as they head home.

They're a waste of skin. Pathetic little bugs scurrying around without purpose.

He makes it to his locker, dropping his bag to the ground as he reaches forward to fiddle with the lock. The lock, old and abused, takes a couple tries before releasing. He reaches inside to take out some papers when the locker door violently shuts, rusty metal cutting violently into his skin and pressing forward like a sledgehammer against the bones of his forearm.

"Hey, Strife."


Is it wrong of me to hate others for the fact that the lives they think are so important, so much more consequential than mine, are merely disgusting lies impressed upon them by society?

I can see them for what they really are. Worthless. Trash. Do they honestly think the universe gives a shit about them?

We're all the same in the end. We're all just bags of meat and bones tied together by electrical signals.

Everyone dies.

We'll live and die, and no one will ever care because we're only inconsequential years within the span of millions of millennia.


As his head is slammed into a locker and the sharp loop of a lock-hole digs into his eyelid, Cloud goes someplace else.

He pretends he's under his bed, hidden in the cool darkness; just like a little kid staring up at the wooden beams supporting his bed. He sees a spider and then it shifts to a circus that his father took him to once.

He's balancing on a tightrope and he can see his father at the end of the line, waiting for him. He looks blurry, like an old brown photograph, but it's enough to spur him forward, only to step off of a bus and get out his umbrella, one of the tines broken but still manageable.

The bus rolls away and he's left to stand in a puddle, staring down at his reflection in the grey flagstones. He looks harder, tries to see himself, and finds the glass of water sweating beads of moisture a little too distracting. He pushes it away to see the window more clearly, observing the presence of pink clouds in a slowly reddening sky. It'll be good weather today, then, and a low chance of invasion.

He looks harder to see the cross, riddled with bullet holes. There's something missing, he's sure, and then he catches sight of his father's name and dates scrolling underneath, medals and honors littering the stone like tacky décor.

But god, Yuffie won't stop touching him and it's enough to make him reach out for the flower of a small child. It looks ugly, better throw it away. The vase is bleeding again.

He honestly doesn't know why he keeps saving it, gluing it back together time and again. Nothing ever lasts. He takes some tape, tries to wrap it around the whole thing. It's not helping.

He keeps bleeding.


I'm not special, either; only aware of the fact that I'm not.

I'll die as worthlessly as I was born. Just as my father before me, and his father before him.

But somehow, thinking that, knowing that it's the very core of truth itself,

It makes my chest ache.


Disgusting.

Maybe he won't get up this time. It certainly seems easier than standing.

I hate them.

His head is pounding.

Pounding like a roar, a wail. Over and over again, in sync with the beating of his heart.

Then he comes to realize that the sirens are screaming their death knells.

I hate them all.

Maybe he can't get up this time.

Certainly doesn't seem worth it.

Maybe there's a reason he's alone.

It. Hurts.

I hate them. So much. It hurts.

His head is falling in, he's sure. Thunder and collapse, that's all he can hear within that maelstrom of solemn warning signals. It's shuddering to a stop, dead on train tracks.

His heart is breaking to the thrum of glass falling to the floor a few rooms over.


Nothing changes.

Certainly not me.

Only in the remnants of my dreams could I dare to hope of such atrocities.

I'll always be alone.


You're a jerk, Cloud! Sheesh, that's why you have no friends. Somehow, I've managed to mix up my feelings on this chapter. First, it was supposed to be showing some more of Cloud's character; in the last chapters we've really only been exposed to one side of Cloud. Now we realize that Cloud kinda isn't that innocent in the asshole department. Yuffie was supposed to get a lot of sympathy, but then the school section ran away from me, and made me switch my thoughts on Cloud. Now we know that Cloud is a jerk, but also really vulnerable, so he's actually a jerk 'cause he's tired of people stomping all over him.

My question is, can you readers sympathize with Cloud? Can you see both sides if the coin and take it in as a whole? Hope so! I tried to pack some emotion into this so that those feelings could be conveyed. I hope it worked; kinda got distracted while writing this cause I was chatting with someone over something really funny, which kinda messed with my focus on the angst. Hope you guys catch the references from chapter one. This is a cycle; also, I just really like repetition of important lines or points in a story, makes it seem more meaningful somehow. Hope you guys see it that way, too, instead of just annoying.

Now we see: Yuffie plus Cloud equals Crack. Cloud plus No One Else equals Angst Buckets.

The equation has been solved. And, seriously guys, the chapters aren't SUPPOSED to be this long. Sorry!

Thanks to Kaikai PANTS, Anna-Sky Valentine Nox, and Filipina Shortaay for reviewing again, and within the same day of posting! Wow, you guys are amazing! Hope you guys like this chapter, even if it is a bit choppy.

I might not update for a week. I'm going to try and focus on writing a chapter for my two other stories, so sorry guys! But, if you're a fan of At a Walking Pace, you should be pretty happy. :)