Hey friends. Got another update for you because I basically have no life. I have no job anymore (thanks covid). Most days I have no human contact (thanks covid...just kidding, no one likes me). At least I have my health? Oh...yeah no. So, I'm not winning at life. But I'm winning at writing fanfiction, right? Uhhhh...after looking around at what else is out there right now, not really sure about that. I feel like I peaked on this site a while ago and am just figuring it out now. Maybe no one told you either lol. I really actually don't know why any of you want to read this now or what I'm even doing still trying to keep this series alive.
*Whispers from the back* "remember, it's cause you have no life?"
Oh. Yeah. Damn.
Well that was a depressing A/N. Read on if you want to read the update but do so with caution because it's also depressing. See my general warning. Some of that is in this chapter...basically every chapter really. Why are you here again?
Love all of you for still reading. It's all for you at this point. We're at the half-ish point of this story (I think). Second half promises to be more eventful and address some of those questions lingering from RoC...so it tells me.
General Content Warning: Chapters in this story may contain upsetting or triggering content including but possibly not limited to violence, consensual and non-consensual sexual references and descriptions, drug and alcohol use and abuse, references to or descriptions of mental illness, self-harm or self-injurious behaviour, and references to or discussions of suicide.
~Twenty-One~
When Reno got back to the apartment just after 4 a.m. he noticed right away the door was closed over but not completely shut. He thought it seemed weird and right away he was thinking someone must have broken in during the night and perhaps they were still inside. Slipping his keys back into his pocket, he reached for his gun in the holster under his jacket. He pushed the door open gently and as it was eased inward it whined a little on its old hinges.
As he looked into the main area of the apartment through the dark, he couldn't see anyone and nothing looked out of place. He saw that the bedroom door was closed over similar to the way the front door had been. There was no light on that he could see. It did enter into his mind that maybe Cloud was home but he'd already said he'd be staying up on the plate that night. If he'd changed his mind it would be really strange for him to not lock the main apartment door when he came home.
Walking quietly, he made his way over to the bedroom. He was holding his weapon pointed toward the ceiling with his finger off the trigger. If something startled him he could be a shoot first, ask questions later kind of guy so he didn't want to be aiming ahead of him if that happened.
He pushed the bedroom door inward with his fingertips and was ready if someone was inside. The building had an interesting mix of residents living there and sometimes people with nowhere else to go would enter the building and sleep in the halls or stairwells. He thought it was possible someone had gotten into the apartment and was just making use of the bed that was available.
Someone was using the bed. He could see that right away and within a second or two he realized that it was actually Cloud, curled up pretty tightly onto his side and facing away from the door. He was fully dressed and he had the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up, covering his head.
"Yo, you awake?" Reno asked as he holstered his gun and pushed the bedroom door open wider. He could hear something sliding against the floor as the door pushed it over the wood. Looking around the door he could see something, some kind of recorder or audio player on the floor. "Psst," he tried to get Cloud's attention without startling him awake. "The apartment door was open."
Cloud didn't respond to him. He figured he must have been pretty tired and thought there was probably no point in waking him up right then so he took a step back out of the room with the door knob in his hand, to leave him alone. As he was closing the door though a thought occurred to him. Was Cloud wearing his boots? He looked back in to check to see if he'd imagined that. He hadn't. Cloud was lying in bed on top of the covers with his boots still on his feet.
It didn't seem right. Sure, there'd been times when even he lounged around on a bed or couch without bothering to remove his shoes if he was going to be getting back up anyway, but why would Cloud do that if he was in bed for the purpose of actually sleeping.
"Hey, baby boy you alright?" he questioned Cloud then. He reached to flick on the light with the switch on the wall. No response. He looked down at the side table next between the bed and the door and saw some of Cloud's medication bottles there, open with the caps off. He had a sinking feeling then. "Oh man, tell me you're not that stupid," he said aloud to himself as he fully entered the room. "Strife," he spoke up a little louder, reaching to nudge him on the back of his shoulder.
When he still got no acknowledgement from Cloud he moved to check on him from the other side of the bed where he could see his face and check to make sure he was even breathing at that point because he was lying so still and quiet. He imagined the worst. Even from the other side of the bed, Cloud's face was still mostly hidden under the hood of his sweater and his one arm.
"Strife," he said again as he moved his arm out of the way and pushed back his hood.
Something had to be wrong for him to still not be hearing him or responding. Aside from the bruising of the healing injury to his face, his skin didn't look discoloured at all. His lips didn't look bluish so he assumed he must still be breathing, or at least had been in the last few minutes. He wasn't able to tell for sure if he still was without moving him.
Cloud seemed like dead weight as he was turning his upper body to face upward more so he could check him for his vitals. When he put the side of his face and his ear close to Cloud's mouth and nose he could feel the air from his slow exhales. He was definitely still breathing but that was the only thing about Cloud in the moment that seemed like a relief. He still wasn't waking up. No amount of Reno's shaking him and saying his name to him over the next minute or so seemed to make a difference.
"Come on, man, don't make me have to call for an ambulance," Reno said just before he could see Cloud finally starting to open his eyes slowly.
"Ssstop shaking me," he uttered groggily. "I feel sick," he mumbled to Reno with a furrowed expression and his eyes closed again. It was either an annoyed or pained expression. Maybe both.
"Sick from what, huh?" Reno asked him fast. "All the fucking pills you took?"
It took Cloud a moment to respond again. "What?" he said, looking confused.
"You have to get up now," Reno demanded, gripping the front of Cloud's sweater in his one hand and his arm in his other one. He wasn't giving him a choice as he forced him to sit up. Cloud's head hung in front of him like he was on the verge of passing back out. "Hey!" Reno spoke loudly to him. He let go of his sweater to take hold of his jaw and lift his head up. "You need to wake the fuck up, I'm serious," he told him firmly.
Cloud looked up at him again briefly before his heavy eyelids were falling shut again. His body was getting heavier again. Reno pushed his shoulders back against the headboard of the bed, letting it hold his weight while he took Cloud's head in both his hands.
"Strife! You gotta tell me which of this shit you took and how much," he said urgently. "If I have to get medics here they're gonna need to know," he told him.
"What?" Cloud said to that. "I didn't…" he tried to claim. Reno still had his head in his hands and made him look over at the side table.
"You didn't take anything from those bottles?" Reno questioned doubtfully. Cloud sighed heavily with recall then and seemed to sink against the headboard further. "Right?" Reno said to him now that it seemed they were both on the same page and Cloud's memory was jogged. "If you can't keep your stupid ass awake right now, I'm gonna have to call for help, you get me?" he said to Cloud who nodded a little with his eyes closed again.
Reno noted that Cloud was beginning to sweat a lot. Given he'd said already he felt sick, he was willing to bet his train was heading down the track towards Vomitville.
"How 'bout a trip through the apartment to the bathroom?" he suggested. "You need to get up and walk."
Cloud groaned at him in clear protest as he was being dragged up from the bed. He barely held his own weight up when he was on his feet. Reno had to heavily support his body, holding onto one of Cloud's arms around his neck as he made him start walking out of the room and in the direction of the bathroom.
"I don't need the bathroom," Cloud grumbled to him as they were shuffling toward it.
"Well, I'm thinking that's gonna change pretty soon," Reno argued.
When they reached the small room, he turned on the light and told Cloud to sit down on the edge of the bathtub, next to the toilet while he went to the kitchen to get him some water.
"I give it ten minutes," he said to himself as he imagined that was about the maximum amount of time it would take before Cloud was making use of that toilet bowl to dump his stomach contents into. He'd just made it over to the fridge when he heard sounds of Cloud starting to throw up. "Or ten seconds," he said, smirking.
When he got back to the bathroom, Cloud was sitting on the floor in front of the toilet, his one arm across the seat and his forehead resting against it. He was breathing deeply but the way his other arm and hand seemed limp at his side he looked like he may have been falling back asleep again.
"Hey," Reno said, prodding him and shaking his one shoulder again. Cloud groaned at the feeling. "You need to drink some water," he ordered.
With Cloud maintaining his position he sighed in frustration before setting the plastic cup of water down on the edge of the tub so he could have both his hands freed up to get Cloud to sit up again and keep him from passing out. When Cloud was seated with his back to the tub he handed him the cup that he barely seemed to take hold of.
"Seriously, you're like an infant right now," he told Cloud while still holding onto the cup at the same time as him, in case he dropped it. He encouraged him to drink from the cup and when he finally seemed to be managing as much on his own he left the cup with him.
Though he didn't really want to see it, he looked into the toilet at what Cloud had thrown up so far and could see what looked like some remnants of some partially dissolved tablets amongst the food. So at least some of whatever Cloud took was out of his body.
"Yo, it's nearly half past four. How long ago did you take what you took?" he asked. As Cloud lowered his hand at his side, the mostly empty cup tipped onto its side and out of his loose hold.
"In the morning?" Cloud asked back slowly.
"Yeah, in the morning," Reno replied sharply. Cloud didn't answer him as he looked around a little like he was lost or still confused. Reno crouched down in front of him then, taking his head again in a grip hard enough to be painful. He wanted it to be to hopefully get him more alert.
"Look man, you are seriously concerning the shit out of me right now," he spoke to Cloud clearly and firmly. "So, are you okay or do I need to call someone right now?"
"Okay," Cloud said to that after a moment. He had his eyes closed and had reached up with his left hand to take hold of Reno's wrist.
"Okay?" Reno said, shaking his head a little to get him to look at him. "Okay, what, idiot? Do I need to call someone?" he asked again.
"No," Cloud said to that and finally there was a little more strength in his voice. "Just stop fucking shaking me," he added sharply while trying to pull Reno's one hand away from him.
Reno let go of him and brought himself to a stand while Cloud was rubbing the side of his head slowly. "Stop shaking you?" he spoke down to him then. "I should beat the shit out of you. In fact, I might when I know for sure you're not gonna pass out again and die in your sleep."
"Whatever," Cloud spoke to that dismissively. He reached his one arm up to him. "Can you help me up so I can go back to bed now?" he asked.
Reno laughed at that. "Fuck off. I'll bring you out to the couch but you're not going to bed so you can pass out again," he offered instead.
Cloud rolled his eyes a little at that. "Look, you can wake me every fifteen minutes if it makes you feel better but wherever I am in this apartment, I'm going to sleep because I'm tired," he stated surely.
Reno stared back at him for a few seconds while he tried to decide what to do. He didn't like the idea of just letting him go back to sleep but he knew there was probably no stopping it. He looked exhausted, barely able to hold his eyes open. Whatever he'd taken had obviously been partially absorbed into his body and wasn't giving him much option but to sleep it off. He did seem at least more mentally coherent now that he'd thrown up and been sitting up for a short while.
"Fine," Reno said. "But if thirty minutes from now you look like you did when I first came into your room, you'll be taking a trip to the emergency room," he warned, not that there was any way for Cloud to control what would happen at that point.
He got Cloud back up off the floor and walked with him back toward the bedroom. He didn't really need any assistance to get there, though he wasn't exactly walking a straight line and bumped into a few things on the way there. He would have left his boots on and got back into bed with them on had Reno not pointed them out to him. He got them off but didn't bother to get out of his clothes before getting under the covers.
Reno left him some more water on the side table. He told Cloud he was leaving the door to the bedroom open, though Cloud didn't seem to care what he had to say at that point. Before leaving, Reno picked up the thing he'd seen on the floor behind the door and was able to confirm it was an audio or music player. He wrapped the corded earphones around it and set it down on the side table as well before leaving.
He'd really been looking forward to getting some sleep of his own after working all night, but he knew he couldn't let himself get any real shut eye until he knew for sure he wasn't going to have to perform some kind of resuscitation or call for emergency services. He was going to have a bunch of questions for Cloud when he was able to sit and talk about whatever the hell had happened. He contemplated calling Zack but figured that was probably the last thing Cloud wanted him to do, even if he hadn't said it.
He got up over the next few hours about a dozen times to look in on Cloud and make sure he was breathing and that he looked alright. He seemed okay, breathing more like a normal sleeping person. During one of the trips in to check on him, he noticed Cloud's phone was getting some notifications for messages from Zack starting at around 5:30 a.m. It was just after seven at that point so he decided to text to Zack on his own phone, telling him to stop sending messages because Cloud was sleeping and the notifications were keeping him awake out on the couch. It was a lie, obviously, but he thought it was better than having Zack show up at the apartment because he was worried.
It was close to 10 a.m. before Cloud was finally awake and looking to use the bathroom. When Cloud did wake up, he felt like shit. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. He had a pounding headache and felt sick to his stomach. His mouth was both dry and tasted like something he didn't even want to try to imagine. He saw that there was water in a cup next to him and drank down all of it, though it didn't do much about the taste that lingered. He needed to brush his teeth. He did remember what had happened the night before and in the morning hours but he didn't want to think about it.
Also on the table next to the bed were his phone and the music player. He wasn't so sure how it got there. He didn't remember what he did with it after listening to the recording Rand had left on it. He reached for it and slid it under the one pillow on the bed. He didn't want to look at it. On his phone he had some messages from Zack. That was it. For some reason he still expected to see something from Marco even though he very well knew he'd already blocked his number shortly after he'd gotten home. The guy had sent him some messages after he left the hotel and tried calling. His response in a single text before he did block his number told Marco to get lost and leave him alone.
He remembered he had deleted the running text conversation from his phone too. He'd done it when he wasn't thinking straight. He supposed though it didn't really matter. Marco had been a mistake. His whole damn life just felt like one big mistake.
When he got up to head out of the bedroom to go to the bathroom he saw Reno sitting on the couch, awake but clearly struggling to be. The apartment smelled strongly of coffee, like he'd been brewing and drinking it for hours. He sort of expected Reno to immediately start into him about earlier but the ex-Turk just gave him a bit of a tense seeming nod in acknowledgement before looking away from him back to the television.
Not saying anything, Cloud made his way to the bathroom where he was finally able to brush his teeth and take a shower. When he was finished and dressed he headed into the kitchen. At that point Reno still hadn't said a word. Cloud stood in front of the coffee pot for a few seconds before looking over at him.
"Can I take some of this?" he asked and Reno shrugged.
"It's your digs and your coffee, my man, I'm just the guest who's crashing," he reminded Cloud.
"Thanks," he said anyway and slid a mug that was on the counter toward the pot to pour some coffee into it. He wasn't even sure the mug was actually clean but he didn't really care. With the mug in his one hand he sunk down heavily into the chair next to the couch. "Thanks too for not making a big deal out of last night," he said to Reno without looking at him, focusing on the television screen instead. "Or this morning, or whatever."
Reno scoffed to that then. "Cause you think the deal wasn't already big?" he retorted.
Cloud shook his head slowly. "I don't even know what that's supposed to mean," he stated slowly and Reno used the remote to mute the volume on the television. He sat himself forward on the couch and turned toward him.
"What the hell happened to you last night? When I got here this morning, the apartment door wasn't even closed. Someone could have just wandered in here and stolen all your shit," he pointed out and Cloud looked back at him doubtfully.
"No shit to steal," he replied flatly.
"I dunno, the tv's not so bad," Reno argued. "You know, I've seen how you check the locks on the windows and door pretty fucking obsessively so obviously you must have been pretty out of sorts when you got home. So what happened?" he demanded to know.
"Nothing happened," Cloud said back tonelessly. "I wasn't paying attention and forgot to shut the door, huge mystery solved."
"Oh yeah, nothing," Reno retorted sharply. "Just your average night that you come home and cozy up in bed fully dressed with a stomach full of fucking tranquilizers."
Cloud exhaled with irritation, rubbing his face with his one hand. "You're making it sound like—" he started to respond and Reno cut him off fast.
"Like what? Like I found you passed out, unresponsive and on the verge of, oh, I dunno, possible respiratory failure I'm guessing. Maybe cardiac failure. I don't know, I'm not a fucking doctor!"
"Oh my god, you are making so much more of this than you need to," Cloud argued loudly. "I-I got home late, I was tired. I guess I forgot to close the apartment door. I took my meds, like I always do, and I laid down. Then I get woken up by you freaking the fuck out for some reason."
"You really think I'm gonna buy that lame-ass explanation?" Reno said back plainly. "I told you, you're a crappy liar." Cloud looked away from him then. He looked angry and Reno was sure it was because he knew he wasn't going to win the fight. "There is no way you took only your prescribed amount of medication last night, and if you did, you took something else on top of it," he stated as a fact. "I don't even need you to confirm that, because I know what I saw. You were not in my shoes this morning, baby boy, so just save the shit."
Cloud had some tears building in his eyes then. He continued to avoid looking Reno's way. "Alright, fine," he said quietly in return.
"So what the hell happened to you last night that you decided it was time to throw in the towel for good and end your damn life?" Reno asked him.
"That's not what I was doing," Cloud said through a sigh as he shut his eyes.
"No?" Reno challenged and Cloud looked at him finally.
"I wouldn't do that with you crashing here, Reno," he said truthfully.
"What's that got to do with anything?" Reno asked back fast and he shook his head.
"I just wouldn't do that to you or anyone else. Not on purpose. I wouldn't want someone I know just…finding me," he explained awkwardly. He was being honest about that. He couldn't stand the thought.
"Uh, that's kind of what happened, dumb ass," Reno countered.
"Well, I wasn't dead, moron," Cloud shot back to that.
"Not this time," was Reno's fast comeback.
"Okay, whatever," Cloud said to that in reluctant acceptance. "I'm sorry that you were…concerned, or whatever. That I freaked you out."
"Gee," Reno responded after a moment as he looked down at the floor. "That makes me feel so much better," he added dryly.
Cloud scoffed lightly at that. "Well. What do you want from me if not an apology?"
"I want to know what happened," Reno said as though it should be obvious. "How many times do I gotta ask before you just come out with it?" When Cloud stayed silent he hazarded a guess. "Something to do with ass-man?"
Cloud exhaled deeply, dropping his head back against the backrest of the chair. "No. It's about how sometimes I just get tired of the megastorm of messed up shit going on in my head every single day and wanting just a few hours away from it. Some real sleep. Some silence and escape. It's exhausting always feeling like you're never in control and it's messed up not knowing why you do what you do. Feeling like you're not the one making the decision. That whatever you feel and how you live is still in the hands of someone or something else. Like your past controls everything."
He lifted his head to look at Reno again. "It's never one thing that happens, man. There's no one event. One cause that has me wanting to 'throw in the towel.' I always want out. Some days I just want it more and it just gets harder to see why that's not a reasonable thing to chase after."
Reno struggled with what to say to that. He did understand. He'd struggled too. Had low points when he felt like it would be better to not be alive. He done a lot of self-medicating with alcohol over the years. He'd used work as a distraction, though work had become the problem eventually. But Cloud seemed a lot closer to that line he'd never felt that close to crossing. He'd only ever thought about the edge, not stood on it.
"You know, I think…" Reno started off by saying, but he didn't even know where he was going with his thought. "Fucking," he said then and shook his head. "Like, you're a persistent little pain in the ass," he came out with finally. "You are a persistent, bratty, snarky, stubborn little pain in the ass," he declared. "That's what you were when you were a fifteen-year-old military newb and it's what you are now."
"Okay," Cloud replied dully.
"You're like one of the most annoyingly stubborn little shit's I've ever known," Reno told him. "It's part of why I hated you, and why I also like and respect you today," he explained. "I mean, you can be whiny. And obviously emo," he noted. "But you are stubborn. Like just fucking determined not to back down, you know what I mean? Like you get kicked down a hundred times and unless you're unconscious or restrained you ain't staying down. Course, it makes you kind of stupid as well, but is it commendable? Hell yeah."
Reno let what he was saying sink in to Cloud, hoping it would help him a little but he seemed unmoved.
"If you endured all the shit you endured, pretty sure as shit you can sack up and endure having to think about it now," he told Cloud who did smirk a little at wording. Reno got more serious then. "You know, man, I really am sorry for helping that psychofuck Hojo torture you and Fair. Well, I'm more sorry about you, less about Fair," he said, joking a little.
"It's fine," Cloud tried to tell him softly. He'd forgiven that a long time ago.
"No it's not," Reno argued.
"You've apologized before," Cloud pointed out.
"Yeah well I'm saying it again so suck it up," Reno said. "It was the worst thing I've ever done. I hate who I was then," he admitted. "You know, having to see how hard it's been for you to deal with now—"
"Reno, it's really okay. I don't need you to—" Cloud tried again to reassure him.
"I should have done something more for you in Gongaga," the former Turk told him with tears in his own eyes.
"I really didn't want anyone risking themselves to help," Cloud said to that. "I'm sure you did all you thought you could do. What else would you have done?"
Reno nodded a little and a grin came over his face. "I could have shoved my elecro-mag rod up that dickhead Hojo's ass," he suggested. "Up Rand's ass. Up Galen's ass. Everyone's ass."
"I don't want to know where you wish you'd shoved your rod," Cloud said to that, making Reno laugh.
"So, to be clear, last night was just some kind of—" Reno returned to the real issue.
"It was dumb," Cloud said. "You don't have to worry about it," he assured Reno.
"And it's nothing to do with ass-man? Thought that's who you were chillin' with last night," Reno said, still pretty suspicious that it had be related.
Cloud shook his head. "Yeah, maybe a little. He's gone now though, so doesn't matter." He exhaled forcefully then. "We done with this now?" he asked of their conversation. "I've got someone who gets paid to listen to my 'whiny, bratty, ass' and her advice comes with less insults," he said before standing himself up.
"Guess so," Reno replied. "You better be telling her about the shit you pulled last night and working through that 'cause I hate babysitting. I don't wanna have to do it again," he told Cloud as he laid himself out on the couch then, getting prepared to finally catch some sleep. "Get the hell out my room now," he ordered.
"You got it," Cloud said as he made his way out of the living room back toward the bedroom.
He closed the door gently behind him and sat down on the bed, picking up his phone off the side table. He pulled up the number for his therapist's office in his contacts and pressed the icon to dial. He asked if he could have an urgent appointment for that afternoon. They gave him one for three o'clock. He really needed that appointment. He'd tried to downplay the severity of his actions the night before to Reno, even though the guy seemed to take it pretty seriously regardless. But, he knew how bad it was. His thoughts had been entirely self-destructive. He couldn't lie to himself about it.
It was the guilt that had him feeling unable to cope. The guilt about how he'd treated Marco. The guilt over being the way he was and not being able to control how messed up he felt. Guilt for the things Kunsel had brought up, even if he had ended up apologizing. And the final straw was the guilt he was left with when he'd listened to Rand's recording.
The first time he tried to listen to it hours earlier he'd barely made it through thirty seconds of what was on the audio file. But he'd tried a second time, to make it through more of what Rand had to say to him. He didn't know why he hadn't been able to just stop listening altogether the first time. Maybe it was just like Reno said. He was stubborn. It wasn't always a good thing.
If he was going to get through the pain he was currently in, he needed help. He was going to have to tell his therapist all the things he'd been keeping to himself. He wanted to. Anything to hopefully get in through to the next part of his life.
Sliding himself up onto the bed with his back against the headboard he took the music player from under the pillow next to him and unwrapped the earphones. He thought, if he was going to be getting help later in the day, if he was going to be talking about that recording, he needed to hear all of it. To the end.
"Cloud. It's me. It's Rand. I really hope you get to hear this. That you'll be willing to just hear me out. You know, I was raised to believe that nearing the end, if you have the chance, you should ask for forgiveness for your sins. And, I know that technically you can't absolve me of those sins, but you're the only person I want forgiveness from. I let you down in many ways and I don't know that I can live with the thought of leaving you alone in trying to make sense of the confusing world I know you must live in now, with the memories of things you don't have the reasons for."
"I know how angry and how hurt you are. You have a right to be. You deserve answers. I owe you that and more. I don't want you to think my motivations and the reasons behind my actions during the time we were together were entirely selfish. In some respects I had no choice but to do the things I did. I had a job to do and I was bound by that. There were times when I had no choice but to execute procedures during your conditioning that unfortunately meant you would endure pain, but you must know that during all of it from the first day I had responsibility of you to the last, I did care for you."
"Everything I did was because I cared about your success and what I thought was best for you. As a Keeper, I would have been nothing without you, my responsibility, my Charge. But even now, without a contract, that feeling hasn't changed. I told you I never wanted another contract after ours. I meant that. There's not much I do want anymore. The only time I felt truly happy and fulfilled was when it was at your expense. It hurts to think about how while I was happy you were pain. If the choice is between your misery and your forgiveness then I only have one option."
"There's something I want you to have, if you wish to have it…"