Max had anticipated having to jog to keep up with Nero's much longer stride, but he checked his pace so that he could walk a half-step behind her, hovering at her elbow. She couldn't decide if he didn't know where the coffee shop was, or if Veld's approval of their little excursion somehow merited her as the one in charge, at least where coffee was concerned. Although she was used to people doing slight double-takes at her hair color- she really needed to recolor it, the brilliant Alice blue had faded to a pleasant periwinkle, but would soon be closer to a powder blue and then an unattractive gray-white- but more than the average number of people were rubbernecking as they went past.
Above her, Nero hunched deeper into the hooded sweatshirt he'd donned now that combat practice was over. If not for the respirator jutting out from the deep cowl of soft fabric, he might have been any other new recruit. He kept his hands shoved deep in the front pocket, and his gazed fixed firmly on the floor. He might not be scared or embarrassed, but he sure as hell wasn't comfortable with all the attention. To reassure him as well as to mess with anyone trying to stare out of the corner of their eyes, Max slipped her hand through his elbow. Nero started briefly at this, and looked down at her in some confusion. Max just grinned and led him through the open doors into the cafe.
The glorious smell of fresh coffee and sweet sugar filled the air, and Max inhaled dreamily. If ever they made a coffee shop scented candle, she would buy it. A couple of other people looked up and then hastily away as Max led Nero over to a vacant table and dumped her backpack on a chair. Seats claimed, she turned her attention to the menu board.
"So, what do you want?" she asked Nero.
He looked up at the meticulous chalk printed menu with something like alarm.
"I don't even know what most of that is," he mumbled behind his respirator.
"Well, you've had plain coffee before, right?" It might be overcompensating, but she had no idea how sheltered from fun, normal things like lattes and movies and pop music Nero had been down in Deepground. Best to start small.
"Yeah," he nodded.
"Okay, well all this is coffee- either hot or cold- with milk and flavors added; vanilla, chocolate, caramel, that sort of thing. You can just have plain coffee if you don't like fancy stuff."
The look of vague horror had not left his face. "What are you getting?"
"I like mine black and hot," Max replied. "Good for keeping up and alert during late night study sessions." It was also how former Chief of the Turks, Veld Dragoon took his coffee, but Max wasn't about to admit who her favorite Shinra figurehead had been. Most of her age group had swooned over Sephiroth and his friends, but Max had always preferred the Turks.
"Okay," Nero nodded. "That sounds good."
"They have a really good dark roast," Max went on, leading the way to get in line. Nero followed right behind, and leaned to inspect the pastry case.
"You hungry?" she asked. "They have pastries, fruit, sandwiches… Get whatever you want. My treat."
Behind his mask, the smile he gave her seemed amused, but he didn't disclose whatever he thought was so funny. Nero let his eyes sweep over the case of treats once more, then turned and shrugged. "I'm okay."
Sure he was. Guys his age tended to have the annoying ability to eat whatever the hell they wanted, as much as they wanted, and not gain an ounce. Also, Nero was a SOLDIER. The odds were high that he was, in fact, snackish and just trying to be polite. Deciding that a true friend pretended that they wanted the dessert and then let their friend eat it, Max ordered two black coffees and a slice of cake with two forks. After a moment's thought, she also ordered a cup of ice and snagged a drinking straw before leading the way back to their table.
"Careful," she warned as they sat down. "I got some ice in case it's too hot. I always have to wait at least ten minutes before I can drink it. I grabbed a straw too, if you want."
"Thanks," Nero told her, and unwrapped the straw, plunking it into his coffee. He took an experimental sip and squinted.
"Too hot?" she asked.
"No, it's just a lot stronger than I'm used to," he said, eyeing the contents of his cup. "It's really good!"
"Good. Have some cake," she smiled, sliding the plate of cake closer to him and taking a bite herself.
"Okay." Undoing one of the catches on his mask, Nero took a fork and poked at the cake experimentally.
Max operated under the rule that if it wasn't chocolate, it wasn't dessert. The cafe's triple chocolate torte was not for the faint of heart- or blood sugar- but she had confidence in Nero. Cutting off a tiny bite, Nero maneuvered it under his mask and into his mouth. She had the satisfaction of watching his eyes drift closed, a low "mmm…" escaping through his mask.
"Good?" she prompted.
"Wow…" was all he managed at first. "This's really good!"
"Good!" Max let him snack in peace for a few minutes. One should never get between another person and their chocolate. After a moment Nero remembered that she was there, and offered her a somewhat sheepish look. "Sorry. Here, you have some."
Max took a companionable bite of cake, chewed, and swallowed before asking: "So what were you doing in the training simulator? You thinking of joining the WRO?"
"No," Nero replied. "I already tried the regular army and...that didn't work out. Veld and Vincent thought I might do better with the Turks."
It wasn't easy to suppress a twinge of jealousy. Another bite of cake helped. Max had long fangirled the Turks while her contemporaries were drooling over SOLDIERs. Sephiroth was unbearably cool, but operating on your own wits and skill without mako to bolster you physically was a whole other level of badass in her mind. The university degree she was currently pursuing was important, she knew that, but some part of her still entertained vague, deluded hopes of wearing the distinctive blue suit herself.
"So you were really kicking butt in the simulator," she said. "How'd you do the thing with the shadows? Can you show me?"
"Oh, er, well, I um…" he stammered, glancing around at the half-full cafe. "Maybe later? It might freak someone out. The shadows just do what I want them to. I'm not sure I could really explain it."
"It's a Deepground thing, then. Were you some sort of secret weapon?"
"I don't think so?" He didn't sound convinced. "They just tried something different with me. My brother and sister were given light mako, I was given dark. I guess it didn't work, because they didn't try it again."
"Looked pretty effective to me," said Max, stirring her coffee to cool it off. "Must be nice to have both a brother and a sister. I always wanted at least one, but I'm an only. Are they trying out for the Turks, too?" Sometimes it seemed like everyone got the chance to try, except her, which was so not fair.
Nero paused, sipped his coffee, stared intently at the table top. "No," he said, voice low and flat. "I haven't found them yet."
"Hey, I'm sorry," she said. Why hadn't Veld mentioned that? "Well, they're looking for them, right? I know there was talk about going in to find any survivors. If they're anything like you, they must be okay. They're probably helping out the rest of the survivors."
"I don't know," he said without looking up. "I haven't gone looking for a day or two. I'm worried about them. I mean you're right, they're both way stronger and smarter, they're probably fine. I just… I'm worried. I can't help it."
"Yeah, I get that. I'd be worried if it was my family." She leaned toward Nero, lowering her voice. "Nero, are you...I guess this is none of my business, and you can say so if you want to….but are you related to Vincent? You look so much like him - what I can see, anyway."
Nero shrugged. "I dunno. That's kinda what I thought, but there's no real way to tell. Both he and Veld have been really nice, though."
"Veld's cool. I've known him forever. Vin is okay, even if he is a little squirrelly sometimes." She pushed the cake plate toward Nero. "You finish it. It's too rich for me."
"Okay," Nero agreed, only too happy to comply. "May I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Are you a JANE?"
Max blinked "A what now?"
"A female SOLDIER."
"Women don't go into SOLDIER. They can't handle the treatments, everybody knows that." She smiled so he wouldn't think she was being snarky. "At least as far as I know. Why would you think I was a SOLDIER?"
"Well, Argento's a JANE, and so is Shelke. Some girls can take it, though you're not wrong, most of them can't." Having finished the cake, he put down his fork and pointed at her ponytail. "Your hair."
Automatically, she put a hand up to touch her hair. "What about it? Did I get cake in it?"
"No, it's blue, almost the same color as Azul's." He leaned sideways, trying to peer behind her bangs. "Your eyes aren't glowing, though…"
"Oh, you mean like a SOLDIER's?" She widened her eyes, grinning. "How's that? Never mind, they won't glow. The blue on my hair's just decoration. I like to color it. Might do green next time, or maybe purple."
She drank the rest of her coffee, peering at him over the rim of the cup. His eyes glowed, as hers did not; deep gold, like ancient coins. Imagine giving a baby dark mako! And yet it didn't seem to have hurt him; quite the opposite. Except…what she could see of the skin around his mask did look a little rough and scaly.
So did his hands, now that she looked more closely. Tentatively, she touched his hand with one finger. "Does this hurt?"
He flinched at her touch, more from surprise than pain. "No," he told her, the response automatic. Max gave him a sceptical look and then eyed his hands more closely. His nails and fingertips were blackened as if they'd been burnt, or suffered a minor case of frostbite. Like someone with chilblains, his knuckles were cracked and crusted with dried blood. The unscarred skin of his hands was dark and rough compared to that of his face. He definitely needed to moisturize.
"I'm not so much with UV rays," he said by way of an explanation.
That fit with what little she knew of Deepground. An underground complex of laboratories, research facilities, and combat training grounds, it was said that Deepground's denizens never came up to the surface unless ordered to.
Combine that with dark mako, and shadows...it clicked.
"I guess SPF 50's not gonna do the trick, huh," she mused. "You need to stay in the dark, or at least out of direct sun. Do you still need mako treatments? 'Cause there's not a lot of it around, although I happen to know they've got some in the WRO labs, for research."
"I've got mako," Nero said, pulling his sweatshirt sleeve back to show the ragged edge of some sort of undergarment. "Weiss calls it a 'wet suit', which is true. It circulates dark mako over my skin. My hands are just messed up 'cause I tore the sleeves off. They used to be a lot longer." He pushed the hoodie sleeve back down. "If I need more dark mako, I know where to find it. There's lots of it down in Deepground."
Talking with Nero was definitely more educational than any of her classes. She should be taking notes. He could almost be an extra-credit project all on his own.
"Hey," she said, an idea popping fully-formed into her mind. "You know what, the lab could totally whip up a gel or something you could use on your hands. Especially if we could get more mako so they don't have to use their limited supply. In fact…"
She glanced around. No sign of Veld, not that she'd be likely to see him if he didn't want to be seen, but surely he had better things to do than spy on Nero and Max. He knew she could be trusted not to do anything stupid.
"We should absolutely get some more dark mako," she decided. "What do you say?"
"Um, okay," Nero seemed a bit nonplussed at this suggestion, but stood and grabbed his empty coffee cup. Without further comment, he strode out into the hall, trusting that she would catch up. This time he didn't check his pace for her, and Max had to trot to keep up with him. After a moment, Nero stopped in front of a propped open door, the tall square of wood casting a deep wedge of shadow behind it. Turning, he offered his hand.
"You might want to hang on."
Max took his hand, his skin so rough and prickly it didn't feel real, and let him pull her toward and then into the shadows. Her breath stopped in her throat as the darkness closed in on every side. Looking over her shoulder, she could see the narrow slice of brightly lit hallway slowly receding as Nero pulled her along. Panic surged up inside her and then her boots crunched on gravel. A dim purple light rose up, outlining stalagmites with an eerie luminescence. Their footsteps echoed loudly off of distant walls, and water dripped, magnified, in the distance. The cool, damp air confirmed her suspicions: they were in a cave.
It took a few impatient seconds for her eyes to adjust. Max peered through the gloom, trying hard to pick out each individual detail. There was more than just organic stone down here. Indeed, quite a lot of it seemed architectural, though it was hard to be certain. Nero had stored a few personal items here: a couple of airtight food storage containers, a small stack of books, and a neatly folded blanket that was so thin and ragged she would not have given it to a dog shelter.
The blacklight glow of the dark mako drew her forward once Nero had dropped her hand. A pond of dark mako sat in what she assumed was the center of the cave- it was hard to tell, the walls receding into blackness a few feet out- illuminating the cave in unearthly indigo light. Nero crouched down and scooped the coffee cup through the surface, filling it with dark mako. Turning, he handed it to her.
"Like I said, there's lots."
She took it, belatedly wondering how she was going to explain where she'd gotten it. Waltzing into the lab with a mug full of mako, especially dark mako, would generate a lot of questions.
Well, her professors were always urging their students to be creative. Maybe she could pull a Dragoon and just tell the lab supervisor that it was classified information.
She set the mug down carefully on a flattish rock. "We don't have to go back right away," she told Nero. "If you want to just jump in there for a bit, I'll wait."
"Thanks," Nero said, turning his back on her. The darkness descended upon him, enveloping him like a cloak and then rushing away just as suddenly, taking his clothes with it. He stood for half a breath, gray-white skin stark even in the low light, before diving in. Max could only stand and stare, one hand pressed over her mouth. She could feel her eyes stretching to their widest, her cheeks burning. It wasn't that she was a prude, but she hadn't been expecting random nudity. To be fair, it was unlikely he'd had a pair of swim trunks under his jeans, but she had somehow not seen that coming. Shaking herself, Max approached the edge of the pool and looked down.
Nero had yet to surface. It was difficult to tell how far below he was, the inverse silhouette of his body easily visible yet indistinct in the purple-black liquid. He appeared to he washing his hands, rubbing his arms, probably in attempts to soothe the damage. After a moment he looked up and laid his arms flat against his sides. Legs held together, he undulated rather than kicked as he ascended, and Max found herself looking for a fish's tail.
Just beneath the surface, he smiled up at her, showing sharp teeth. His mask hung around his neck, floating slightly. Good Gaia, he looked like Vincent.
"You look like a shark in there," she said. "A really cute shark." She studied his face; in the murky light, details weren't as easy to pick out, but the shape of his nose, the way he smiled, the tilt of his head as he looked up at her, all said "Valentine" as clear as could be. So much for Veld's attempt to be vague about it; anyone could see the resemblance if they got a look at him without his mask.
"Are your hands healing?" she asked, kneeling down to get a better view.
"Better," he said, the word seen if not heard. Nero held up both hands which were still in rough shape compared to the rest of him, but were considerably better than they had been. Pulling his mask back up over his mouth and nose, Nero rose above the surface and shook his hair back like a swimmer.
"I don't know why Deepground went for external exposure, but this is what works," he commented, watching his skin visibly pull itself back together.
"That means a mako-based gel should work to help heal your skin when you get too much sun exposure," said Max. "Is there anything you're allergic to? I have some ideas for emulsifiers, but I wouldn't want to add anything that will make it worse."
Nero shook his head. "Light mako's the only thing that makes me itch. Dark mako makes my siblings itch. Dunno why. You'd think they'd be more compatible, but they're not. Please don't go to any extra trouble, I'm okay, really."
"It's no trouble. I work in the labs anyway. They're always messing around with dark mako, trying to find new uses for it." She picked up the mug, tilting it a bit to watch the purple liquid slosh. It had an odd smell, less oily than light mako, more earthy and astringent. "It will make a good side project. I'm trying to earn as many credits as I can so I can finish my doctorate program early."
"Okay," Nero agreed uncertainly, and she wondered if maybe mentioning laboratories wasn't such a great idea. "If you need more let me know. As you can see, I've got lots." Behind his mask, his cheekbones rose in a smile.
A pause. "...you're a doctor?"
"Oh, not yet. I'm studying bioengineering. I have to take some medical courses, too, because you can't mess around with the body without knowing how it works. My major's in bionics, though, not medicine. I want to work with prosthetics. Things like Veld's arm." She scowled. "That arm was innovative in its day, but now it's just pathetically outdated. It's like having a robot arm attached. He needs a new one, something that's fully integrated with his nervous system and circulatory system and…"
She stopped, realizing she'd been rambling. "Sorry. I could talk all day about bionics. Didn't mean to bore you to sleep."
His smile was still in place. "No, it's okay, I don't mind. We had tutors and stuff, but that was back when we were still pretty little. The phrase I heard all the time was 'we're not payin' you to think'." He rolled his golden eyes. "Like they were paying us at all. I'm pretty sure nobody got paid down there. Maybe the people in the labs; the doctors and admin staff. I have no idea."
The smile faded and he sank in the mako a bit, apparently regretting his own brief ramble. "Sorry. I also got told I talk too much."
"Well, that's something we have in common," Max said, sitting back on her heels. "You're gonna get all wrinkled in there, y'know. Maybe we should get back to HQ? Veld's going to be wondering where we are, eventually."
Nero's eyes widened in alarm. "Shit! You're right. I forgot!"
Hurriedly, he climbed out of the pool, shadows rushing forward and twisting round him once again. Max didn't even have time to avert her eyes. Before she could look away, Nero stood dressed in the jeans, sweatshirt- and mako suit- he'd had on earlier. With both hands he wrung out his long hair.
"Ready?" he asked, holding out one had to her. The skin looked freshly healed, the rough patches softened and paler than they had been. However, the air was already oxidizing it dark gray, turning it dry and scaly again.
"Hey, it's okay, Nero," said Max, taking his hand. "Veld's grumpy but he's not violent. Well, not unless it's work-related. He's not going to hurt either of us for being a little late."
Nero didn't reply, just pulled her along through the darkness. Max had to stumble to keep up, and didn't have time to feel claustrophobic before Nero led them out into the blinding light of the WRO hallway. Funny, the old fluorescent lighting strips had always seemed dim and dingy before this. It was several seconds before she could slit her eyes enough to see. When she finally managed to look up, Nero appeared to be having similar problems.
"I should get going," he remarked, squinting at the clock on the wall. "Thanks for the coffee. It was nice meeting you."
"You, too. Hey, I work in the labs here every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. I get a break around four o'clock. D'you want to meet me here for coffee again next Tuesday? We can trade stories about awful professors."
"I would," Nero said, smiling, and then checked himself. "As long as Veld say it's okay."
"He will." And if he didn't, she'd talk him into it. She knew her way around the old Turk. Well, most of the time. "Thanks for getting the mako. I'll get back to you about the gel."
"It's okay, really," he assured her and glanced at the clock again. "I gotta go. See you then." Rather than taking off down the hall, he ducked back into the shadow and vanished.
Max blinked, but he was definitely gone. She looked at the mug of mako in her hand, and grinned. This day had been crazier than usual, but in a good way. She'd have to remember to thank Veld.