(looks at the last posted date, aka May 4, 2021)... yeahhh i have no excuses.
As always, big thank you to silver-doe287 for beta'ing this chapter- so sorry it's been two years since the last one 🙈
Enjoy!
Vincent leaned against the wall, his leather-clad arms crossed over his chest with his head tipped down, his gaze narrowed and his lips thin and bloodless. He had promised to share some of Cloud's past with them— of Cloud Simmel's past— and yet, ever since, he had remained silent. Still. He might have been a piece of furniture, for all that he moved.
Zack's hands fisted in the bedsheets, anxiety curling in his gut. He wasn't entirely sure what to expect. He thought he had known Cloud— they had traveled together, laughed together, bought land together— but then Cloud had shot him, so he didn't know what to think anymore.
Then Vincent's lips parted, and with a deep and weathered voice, began speaking: "A handful of years ago, back when Red and I had been living in a place more rural than this, a stick-thin boy appeared at our door."
Cloud, Zack immediately knew.
"He was caked in mud and blood, feverish, half-mad, and raving." Vincent's expression tightened. "I later learned that he had been buried alive."
Zack sharply inhaled, and Barret cursed under his breath. "Buried…?" Zack started, but he couldn't bring himself to finish.
But he didn't need to. "Alive, yes," Vincent stated. "I never did find out why."
But Zack hardly heard him. Buried alive, his thoughts churned out in a weak, dismal echo, and he leaned back in the bed, uncaring when his chest twinged with pain. His wide eyes stared, unseeing, at the far wall. Buried alive. Gods above, he couldn't imagine what that must have been like. To be trapped in the dark, frantically breathing your own humid air, broken nails clawing against dry wood while the earth's whole weight groaned above you…
"Damn," Barret finally said, breaking the silence. "Must have done something terrible to deserve that."
"Perhaps," Vincent blandly agreed. "Like I said, I never did find out why."
"Cloud would never," Zack snapped, but his indignation burnt out as quickly as it had ignited. Sure, Cloud Strife could never do anything that would warrant such a brutal punishment, but as for Cloud Simmel… Now that was a different story entirely. Rumors were scarce regarding the younger Simmel brother, to the point where most believed he didn't exist at all, but what rumors there were said that the younger was merciless, a crack-shot, a poet with both guns and knives. Cloud Simmel was probably capable of a lot of things— things that Zack would prefer to remain in the dark about.
Zack's gaze dropped to his hands, clenched in his lap, the knuckles bleached of color. "And then what?" he finally asked. "After Cloud showed up at your door. Then what happened?"
Vincent turned his cool gaze towards him. "What else could I do with a half-starved child? I fed him and washed him. Bandaged his cuts and bruises. Gave him medicine with tea and sugar, and then I put him to bed to get some sleep."
Zack blinked when Vincent stopped speaking. "That's it?" he asked, just as Barret scoffed and said, "That can't have been it. You didn't get answers out of him, or nothin'? Didn't even put 'im to work?"
Vincent looked deeply unimpressed by this sentiment. "No," he stated. "He was a child, and a sorry, sickly one at that. He deserved my kindness, not suspicion. Perhaps," he added, "if the world had shown him more kindness to begin with, he would not have been buried at all."
Barret snorted his disagreement, but made no further comment.
Vincent continued, "His first few months with me were extremely difficult. When he had been gripped by fever, he ranted, raved, and cried— but when his fever finally broke, he became silent. Strange. He never cried, smiled, or became upset or frustrated. He seemed confused by the furniture— by the bed, particularly. Forks and spoons also bewildered him. Knives, though…" Vincent lightly shook his head. "Knives, he was comfortable using."
A faint shiver coursed down Zack's spine. He distracted himself from it by saying, "He was confused by furniture?"
"Yes," Vincent replied. "At the time, it made me wonder how he had grown up— I figured he had just come from a poor family. But knowin' what I know now, it is more likely that he and his older brother had been livin' on the road. Sephiroth had likely raised him himself."
Barret scoffed at the notion. "Sephiroth Simmel, raising a child? All he knows is killin', not raisin'."
"Again, in your hatred you forget your compassion," Vincent said lightly. "Sephiroth had been a child too, once. Makes you wonder what sort of house could produce two of the more prolific bandits on this side of the continent."
"Bandits? Thugs more like."
Zack spoke up. "Do you think Cloud had amnesia, after he was… Well, you know."
Vincent shook his head. "Don't reckon so. Not even amnesia could make someone forget to read and write. Way I figure it, he had never known how in the first place. But," he continued, "the boy was fiercely intelligent. As soon as his fever broke he would watch me from the bed, silent of course, his big, sky-blue eyes following me around the house. The only time he relaxed fully was when he was alone with Red. Though," he added after a pause, "I supposed it only made sense, considering they were both half-feral at the time. Perhaps they reached some sort of understandin'."
"He was probably plottin' to kill you," Barret stated. "Gut you up and string you across your own property."
Zack grimaced at the morbid description, but Vincent seemed unperturbed. "Unlikely, considering that he had been too weak to stand at the time. Perhaps he had been confused, and stayed vigilant in case I began treating him unkindly. He was probably unused to such gentleness from someone else. Anyone else— even his own brother."
Barret's chair groaned as he shifted his weight. "Perhaps," he finally said, sounding unsure for the first time.
"You weren't afraid that Cloud was just going to leave?" Zack asked.
Vincent shook his head. "No. At the start, he had been too weak to go much further than the front door. Then, when he put on some weight and regained his strength, I figured that if the kid wanted to be gone, he'd go. But he never did. For about half a year, the kid learned basic chores and such— and as he had never told me his name, I had been calling him 'Boy'. But, eventually, he finally told me his name: Cloud," he said, and Zack felt something give way in his chest. "The name surprised me, truth be told. Not sure what I had been expecting, but it hadn't been something so gentle."
"And you never found out why he got buried alive," Barret said.
Vincent leaned against the wall. "No. Cloud rarely spoke back then, and when he did, it was never regarding himself. Everything I know was pieced together from the boy's nightmares and his other— hmm. Oddities. He was afraid of the dark. He didn't like being left alone at night. He had a strange fascination with food seasonings, salt in particular. He also liked milk."
Zack hesitated, then said, "He still likes milk. And he was one of the best cooks in the Rangers." Which reminded him: "Cloud left your house eventually though, since he did end up joining the Rangers. What happened? Why would he?"
"I've been wonderin' the same myself," Barret added. "The kid seemed to have a good thing goin' with you lot."
"Ah. Yes, I like to think that he did, but—" Vincent turned to Zack— "that is also true, as he didn't stay forever. But that wasn't his fault. It was mine." He glanced out a nearby window, where a dry branch scratched against the glass. Zack waited patiently for him to continue, then: "'Bout a year after the boy showed up, I met a man named Cid Highwind while buying supplies in the next town over. Cid was a bounty hunter, and had been tracking the two Simmel brothers solo across the desert. Except, he was only tracking the older brother now, and the younger one had disappeared after a train heist that occurred a year prior. Apparently the heist had gone wrong, and quite a number of their hostages had escaped— including a mother and her small child."
Zack suddenly felt nauseous as a thought occurred to him. "You think Cloud let the hostages go, and what— Sephiroth buried him alive for it?"
Even Barret looked horrified by the idea. After a lengthy pause, Vincent slowly nodded. "Yes, I do think that, though Cloud never confirmed the truth. But when Cid told me the story, I began to suspect who Cloud truly was— that he wasn't simply an unlucky child, but rather an infamous criminal. But I also knew that Cloud was also a sweet boy, if odd in his own way, and this Cid seemed like an honest fellow, so I invited him back to my home to stay the night before he continued on."
"You invited a bounty hunter to your house, where Cloud was?" Zack repeated, incredulous.
"Yes. It was over dinner that Cid retold his purpose, and— to Cid's surprise, but not my own— Cloud offered to help him. Cid laughed at the notion, but relented when Cloud proved himself by shooting targets out back with my pistol. Dead shot, every time. By that time the next day, all four of us— Red included— were off.
"Seeing how fervent Cloud was in finding Sephiroth, perhaps I should have stopped him," Vincent mused. "But I did not, and in the end, Cloud was instrumental to our success. Five months later, we cornered Sephiroth in a small town just south of Cosmo Canyon. Only reason it worked was because we had the element of surprise, and even then…" He rolled back one of his sleeves, and Zack sucked in a sharp breath when he saw the metal, claw-like appendage extending beyond his elbow. "Even then, we did not leave unscathed." He let his sleeve fall. "No one did. Cid now walks with a limp, and Red lost his eye when Sephiroth came at Cloud with a knife, and Cloud didn't defend himself. Once the local sheriff and deputy realized who Cloud was, they tried to imprison him as well, but Cid and I vouched fiercely for him and so they gave up."
"Why?" Zack demanded.
Vincent blinked at him, as if it was an odd question. "Why did they try to arrest Cloud?"
"No, I meant… Why did you vouch for him?"
Vincent's expression cleared. "Ah. Is it not obvious? We vouched for him because we had grown fond of the boy. He didn't deserve his treatment, and we would have been sorry to see him go."
"Oh." Zack dropped his gaze, his throat tightening at the honest answer. The more he listened to Vincent's story, the more he realized that maybe Cloud Strife and Cloud Simmel might still be the same person at heart; after all, growing fond of Cloud was an easy thing to do, despite everything. "And then what?" he asked, and was grateful when his voice didn't tremble. "What happened after Sephiroth was captured?"
Vincent glanced out the window, beyond the tree branch to the dirt road weaving through the gravel and sand. "Cid took Sephiroth to Midgar to be tried and hanged, and when I did not hear back, I figured that no news was good news. But it seems that I had been mistaken."
"He sure as hell wasn't hanged," Barret pointed out.
"No. No he was not," Vincent agreed, sounding somewhat tired. "I imagine what he went through was quite a bit worse than a simple hanging."
Zack wasn't sure what to make of that statement, but he found that he didn't care much about what happened to Sephiroth. "And what happened to Cloud?" he asked, dread blooming in his chest. "What happened to him, afterwards?"
Vincent's expression turned sad. "Well, after we learned that Sephiroth was to be hanged, and Cid hauled him into a horse-drawn cell before heading off… That was the first time I had heard the boy cry, after everything. After we returned home, he startled both me and Red with a sudden long, heart-wrenching wail, and then he fell silent. Almost overnight, he had become the same boy that had showed up on my door that first night, but worse as he no longer seemed interested in living. He in fact seemed to be waiting to die, which was a strange thing to see in a child."
A child, Vincent continued to call him. Zack asked, "How old was he?" even though he was afraid to learn the answer.
Vincent glanced at him. "I'm not sure. First night I thought he was twelve or so given how small he was, but I reckon he was closer to fourteen or fifteen. He was likely around sixteen when we captured Sephiroth."
Zack sucked in a sharp breath. Barret, sitting at the table, looked equally floored. "Fourteen," Barret breathed, horrified. "Fourteen, buried alive."
Vincent shifted his weight to his other foot, and his blood-red poncho swayed with the movement. "Yes. But as I was saying, Cloud was struggling badly and though Red and I tried our best by him, I'm no father and Red doesn't have thumbs. We fumbled along until Cid came back to Midgar, and it was Cid that signed him up for the Rangers."
Zack's head jerked up. "The Rangers?"
"Yes. I can't say it was the kindest path for him as a Ranger's life could be difficult, but it brought some light back to the boy's eyes. Gave him a purpose again, a reason for being. When time came for him to go, we packed him full of supplies, told him he could return at any time, and then off he went. Never did see him again after," Vincent added after a pause, "so I figured all was well. But again, maybe I had been mistaken."
Silence reigned in the room for a while, a thick tension that settled on Zack's shoulders as heavily as any stone.
Eventually, Zack managed to choke out, "He did good."
Vincent glanced at him. "What?"
"Cloud," Zack clarified. "He did good with the Rangers. Did a lot of good, too. Even got married right before he left."
Vincent's eyebrows lifted in genuine, obvious surprise. "Married? Cloud did?"
Zack couldn't help but smile a little at Vincent's obvious disbelief. He hadn't fully believed it either, at the time. "Yeah, he got married all right. Retired from the Rangers now too, and he and his wife own a plot of land right next to mine. We were actually in the Rangers together, back in the day. He did good."
Vincent continued to stare at Zack, incredulous, but then he smiled— a faint, warm curve of his loops— and shook his head. "Well, I'll be damned. So after all of that, he went and got himself a wife. Good. Good, I'm glad for him." He turned to look back out the window, at the shadows molting underneath the bare tree. "He deserved a quiet life, a chance to settle and make something of himself." Then: "I hope he'll still have that chance, after all of this."
That sent a shiver coursing down Zack's spine. Somewhere in Vincent's story, he had forgotten about their current situation; that Sephiroth had returned and had somehow found Cloud, that Cloud had gotten himself in a lot of trouble and had never asked for his help, and now nothing may ever be the same again.
Zack helplessly turned to Barret. "What now?"
Barret was silent for a long second, and then he leaned back with a harsh sigh. "Dunno," the man said after a lengthy pause. "We need to deal with Sephiroth, that much for sure. As for Cloud… Well." He glanced at Vincent, his gaze almost guilty. "Cloud made a right mess in Corel, and he will have to answer for it. It's only fair."
Zack instinctively opened his mouth to protest, but Vincent beat him to it. "Fair?" Vincent echoed, his voice icy.
"Well, of course. Justice is justice; if you do wrong, then you deserve what's coming."
"Deserve?" Vincent's voice, already frigid, dropped several more degrees. Zack winced as he continued, "I won't argue that Cloud did wrong in this town, but you cannot believe that he did so willingly. Sephiroth is forcing his hand."
"Forced or not, he still did wrong. Though—" Barret rubbed the back of his neck— "I could be more lenient, if that is truly the case."
"You would have him hanged."
"I could," Barret agreed easily. "I might, considering what he stole from me. And if Cloud is really is the younger Simmel brother, a hangin' would likely be a mercy."
"Your sense of mercy is unfamiliar to me," Vincent stated. Barret opened his mouth to argue, but he swiftly continued, "Where I come from, if someone was being being held captive by another against their will— physically, emotionally, or otherwise— then we would try to save them. Not kill them for it, and leave their body swaying from the gallows."
"But we ain't talking about someone being held captive," Barret said, getting to his feet. Though he easily dwarfed Vincent's figure, somehow Zack got the sense that it was Barret being backed into the corner rather than the other way around. "Cloud's an adult and made his decisions. Poor decisions, frankly. He deserves to answer for them."
"Sounds to me that his decisions were made for him. Tell me," Vincent continued, turning to Zack, "where is Cloud's wife now?"
Zack blinked, caught off guard by the change of topic. "Er, likely back at his home. Why?"
"Does Cloud come to Corel often?"
"We sometimes journey here together when we need supplies back home, but… Not often, no."
Vincent nodded, as if this much was obvious. "Do you know when Sephiroth contacted Cloud?"
"I figured it had been sometime in Corel," Zack began, but then he realized: Hadn't Cloud started acting squirrelly on the way here? Hadn't he begun looking haunted, paranoid even, while they had been on the road, and had constantly been looking over his shoulder while riding? "No," he whispered as horror dawned within him. If Sephiroth had found Cloud on their route to Corel— a remote, backwater route— then he must have known where Cloud was coming from. He must have known all of it, and had been biding his time all the while, waiting for an opportunity to speak to Cloud alone.
When? Zack thought, staring sightlessly as his closed fists. When had that happened?
Vincent then said, "Would it be safe to say that, given what we know now, Sephiroth knows where Cloud lives and that he has a wife?"
Zack squeezed his eyes shut. "Yes," he breathed.
"And knowing Sephiroth as we do, would it be fair to say that Sephiroth likely used Cloud's wife against him— perhaps had even held her hostage, and promised to hurt or kill her if Cloud did not do as he asked?"
"Cloud would never let him hurt her," Zack whispered. "He'd do anything— anything— to prevent it."
"Fuck," Barret murmured.
"Fuck indeed," Vincent agreed. "In which case, you will be glad to know that I have already sent two of my colleagues ahead, to apprehend the rest of Sephiroth's crew."
"Colleagues?" Zack echoed. "Who?"
"Fellow bounty hunters," Vincent replied. "They go by the names—"
"Cid, Yuffie," Tifa began, turning to the two bounty hunters in question. "Now that this here is done—" she pointedly avoided looking at the bonfire, where Loz and Yazoo's bodies still burned— "where are y'all headed now?" Despite the smoke, her eyes remained dry.
Cid and Yuffie shared a long look, the latter noisily crunching an apple she had fished out of Yazoo's bag. Earlier, they had bandaged both Tifa and Aerith's wounds while telling them the story of how they had ended up there— that they had come from Midgar, a city across the sea, that Sephiroth and his gang had torn up the place before they had gotten here, and that Cloud was somehow wrapped up in all of it.
Cid cleared his throat as he turned back to her. "Corel," he finally answered. "We're meetin' friends out there, a man named Vincent and his wolfdog, Red."
Tifa nodded; she had already known this. "And then afterwards, you all'll head down south to hunt Sephiroth, correct?"
"That's right," Yuffie cheerfully replied. She threw her apple core into the fire, where it popped and crackled amidst the bodies. Tifa's stomach twisted at the sight. "This Sephiroth guy really sucks, so now that we took care of his crew, we're gonna find him."
"And finish the job properly this time," Cid added, like there was a story in there somewhere.
"And then we'll be rich!" Yuffie added, grinning.
Tifa scuffed the dirt with her shoe. If Cid's crew found Sephiroth, then chances were that they'd find Cloud, too. That was all she needed to know. "I'll come with you," she said.
"And me," Aerith added, shooting Tifa a hard look that said, And don't you dare tell me otherwise. "My husband Zack should be in Corel now, and besides—" she blushed, her hands lingered over her protruding belly— "I don't rightly feel safe here anymore, considering all that happened."
Cid made a face. "Can't blame you for that."
"But can you even ride?" Yuffie demanded, arching an eyebrow at Aerith's figure. "Like, won't you just— I dunno, explode or somethin' from all the bouncin'—Hey!" She rubbed the back of her head while glaring at Cid. "What was that for?"
"For talkin' nonsense," Cid told her.
"Asshole! Old man!"
"Brat," Cid replied offhandedly, and he turned to Aerith with an apologetic expression. "Yuffie here does have a point, though. You're… how to put this? You're well along, clearly, and we will be doin' some hard ridin'."
"I can do it," Aerith promised. "I've made the ride many times before, and can easily do so again."
Cid watched her for a moment, as if gauging her resolve, then shrugged. "If you say so. Reckon you would know better than me."
"When do we ride?" Tifa asked.
"Tomorrow." Cid's gaze returned to the fire. "It's going to be a tiring day, so get some sleep."
"You'll need it!" Yuffie added, far too happy considering the bodies burning just a few yards away.
Tifa curtly nodded and turned her gaze back to the fire, where the bodies burned and ash rained from the flames, then tore her eyes away once more and began rolling out her sleeping roll, already knowing she was in for a long night.
Tomorrow, she told herself as she settled in. Tomorrow, I'll find him.
Holding that thought close, she closed her eyes and hoped, futilely, for a dreamless sleep. Multiple times she woke up with phantom fingers around her throat, and given Aerith's faint gasps, she wasn't the only one. Soon she gave up on sleep entirely and simply stared at the stars, which spun merrily overhead as they twinkled in the dark. Her heart hurt watching them.
Dawn couldn't come soon enough.
So how about that Rebirth trailer?! I could not be more excited tbh, there's finally some news ðŸ˜ðŸ’™ Come yell about it with me on twitter, username Rand0mSmil3z - I also post all of my writing previews & chapter updates there, too!
Until next time 🌻
