"The plan is simple," Zack had said.
"Nothing can go wrong," Zack had said.
Cloud knew right then that the journey would be anything but smooth. The universe loves making a fool of Zack too much to let such a brazen challenge stand. They were basically doomed the moment he said it.
First Gloria was meant to stage a scene at the front desk of the Inn, demanding to have the Turks thrown out. The Turks would run to resolve the dispute, allowing him and Zack time to escape via the hotel room balcony.
Of course, Turks would never be that careless with a pair of apprehended fugitives, but these particular Turks were happy to let them go join Avalanche and spy for them and Gloria didn't need to know that. So once again it came down to him and Zack's questionable acting skills.
Reno and Shotgun hadn't had a PHS, but they did have something called a radio flare. They dug a hole in the heel of Zack's right shoe and buried it in the rubber, hidden from sight by the thin layer of the insole. Cloud thought they only did that in the movies.
Part of him wondered if Reno was just fucking with them, but Shotgun had been the one to dig the hole. Her face had been blank and serious as she showed them the parts of the device.
"This is the call button. If you press it, the device will emit a very strong radio signal. It won't make audible noise, but machines nearby may start malfunctioning. Any sonar station in the area will be able to pick out your location, so don't use this unless you are in danger and you need to be extracted immediately. Avalanche forces will recognize this as a Shinra signal, so I wouldn't recommend using it inside their stronghold.
We will be in the area, but if we're seen then it could compromise your cover so we won't be close. Once you press the button, you should be prepared to wait up to an hour for us to reach you."
"Didn't you just say this was for emergencies?" Zack frowned at the device in her hands, watching the little red light blink. "If we're really in trouble, we won't have an hour."
"Radio flares aren't exactly the fastest way of asking for help," Shotgun had said with a placid smile. "Generally, we use them when our deaths are a foregone conclusion and we want to make sure that the department can locate our remains."
"Oh, good," Cloud said with exaggerated brightness and a derisive smile. "Hear that, Zack? With this miracle gadget, we can guarantee that Shinra experiments on our corpses."
"Not now, Cloud."
"And hey, if we're dead they won't even have to strap us down to keep us still while they cut little squares out of our skin."
"Cloud—" Zack snapped.
The room got tense and quiet for the rest of the planning, and it warmed Cloud's bitter little heart. These 'friends' of Zack's had to know he was trapped in the lab and they hadn't done a thing to get them out. They were friends with the sniffling Turk who'd taunted and beaten Cloud on numerous occasions.
These people aren't their friends and Zack should feel awkward conspiring with them. If he needs someone to remind him of that, then Cloud will be that person. If he lets Zack carry on like this then it's only a matter of time before they're both wearing black suits and fingerless gloves.
A knock came to the door shortly after that. The bellhop, requesting Reno and Shotgun follow him to the front desk. The afternoon air felt like a cold slap when Zack opened the door to the balcony.
"We could just walk out the back, we don't actually need to jump," Cloud had said, shivering in just his coat and a t-shirt. It was the one Zack had pulled on when he went into the hallway, and it smelled offensively of cherry smoke juice. Zack had traded it for his dirty old flannel, saying it would fit Cloud better. It did, but that didn't mean Cloud had to like it.
Zack zipped both of their coats and heaved their travel bag onto his shoulder.
"Sure, but it'll look more real if we do." He leaned over the balcony railing, his black hair dancing in the mountain wind. "There's another balcony just below us, and a dumpster under that. Should be safe enough."
"Isn't your ankle busted?"
"I can heal on the truck," Zack shrugged.
"Not another truck," Cloud grumbled. The more they did it, the more he grew to hate traveling. He was going to be sick the entire journey.
Zack swung them over the balcony and jumped down one level, then the next. When they landed on the dumpster, his ankle gave a sickening crack.
In a display of great dignity and self-restraint, Cloud refrained from saying he told him so.
It turned out that riding up the mountain in the back of a cube truck had actually been the better way.
From inside the metal walls, Cloud hadn't been able to see the thick sheets of ice coating the pavement or the sheer cliffs that plunged twenty meters down less than one pace from the road's ancient and rotten-looking guard rail.
The brakes of Gloria's baby blue pickup truck crunched alarmingly whenever she used them, and whenever they crested one of the many steep hills they didn't seem to slow down the vehicle's descent at all.
Despite his motion sickness and general distaste for road trips, he'd never felt any discomfort with cars themselves. They were fascinating machines that revolutionized land trade. They were efficient at moving goods that were too heavy or cumbersome for chocobos, and according to Zack he was actually pretty good at driving them.
So it stood to reason that the fear shaking through Cloud as Gloria careened down and around the Icicle switchbacks at irresponsible speeds could only be attributed to her and her deathtrap truck.
There were a myriad of reasons for this. First, the tires had winter chains hooked onto them that made a horrifying noise anytime they hit concrete instead of ice, and the sound reminded him chillingly of Hojo's baton.
Second, the speedometer did not work. Or rather, it alternated wildly between working and not working resulting in the needle springing suddenly between zero and extremely high numbers that Cloud hoped were not their actual speed.
Finally, and most alarmingly, the lights on the vehicle's dashboard did not appear to work.
Although not immediately concerning, this became the most pressing issue when the sun went down and it became impossible for him to watch the engine clock and count down the minutes until the time Gloria claimed they would arrive safely at their destination.
Cloud panicked and dry heaved through the last hour, only holding on to his gas station lunch by the pressure of Zack's fingers around his wrist. When he opened his eyes he saw darkness and snowflakes. When he closed his eyes he saw them all plummeting to their rocky demise.
Even Zack looked a little green by the time the old truck rolled to a stop in the gravel-paved parking lot of an unlit warehouse in the port town of Veidboer. The same one he and Zack came into on the freighter. They might have passed it by, who could say. All those old brick warehouses look the same.
A single unlit lantern hangs between two sets of sliding bay doors and a tall chain link fence surrounds the property. A spinning metal weathervane sticks out of the long, low-pitch roof. Gloria's steps crunch and crackle as she walks to drag the rolling fence gate shut.
"This is our rendezvous," she said. "We'll lay low here until the boat arrives."
"And how long will that take?" Cloud hissed as Zack pulled him out of the truck. His legs always spasmed and ached if he sat still too long. Zack slowed his pace until Cloud could keep up. The gate groaned and clicked as she dragged it shut and closed a padlock around the latch.
"The seas are unpredictable this time of year. Could be a day, could be a week."
"And if the Turks come looking?" Zack made a good show of looking nervous, Cloud was a little impressed.
"Then we'll hide you in the cistern." Gloria chuckles. She keys a code into a padlock on the bay doors and slides them apart for the three of them to enter.
The inside is one long, narrow room. Triangular wooden rafters span the ceiling every few meters, marking the regular distance between identical sets of frosted factory windows. Beneath, the dark outlines of wood crates and steel barrels take up most of the space.
Tracing a familiar path to a neat workbench, Gloria rustled around until she found a box of matches. With a scratch and a hiss, she lit an old gas lantern with one. Faded Wutaian script appeared out of the dim, painted neatly across the sides of the crates.
Zack tipped his head, his brows pinching. "Does that say… materia ?"
Gloria's lip quirks on one side. "Good eye. You read Wutaian?"
"Not really," he said, looking away. "We were taught to recognize the symbols for weapons and stuff during the war. So we'd know what to seize, and what might blow up and kill us if we weren't careful."
The usual mess of feelings that Zack had about the war trickled through the bond and Cloud gripped the back of his shirt. He never knew what to say when Zack talked about the war. Thankfully Zack didn't seem to want to talk about it most of the time. He would say whatever was on his mind about it, and then he'd change the subject.
Selfishly, Cloud was grateful for it. He didn't think Zack would like to know that Cloud admired that part of him, or that he wished he had the kind of combat experience that his partner did. Maybe if he did, Zack wouldn't hover so much. Maybe he'd believe Cloud when he told him he could handle things.
"So that's why you're a treasure hunter? You collect and sell them in Wutai?" Zack asked.
Gloria gave her mysterious smile and shrugged. "Something like that. Now when you move about in here, be careful not to jostle anything. The materia likes to discharge if too many of them come into contact at once. I've seen some fireworks come out of these boxes, let me tell you. Big booms."
Laughing low in her throat, she lifted the lantern and led the way down a narrow aisle between stacks of crates.
"We try to pack the boxes so they don't touch, but one way or another they always wind up rattling around the bottom. But anyway—"
Without a word, she held the lantern toward Zack with an expectant look. Curious, he took the handle.
Clapping her hands together a few times to warm them up, Gloria bent over and pushed a single wood crate several feet back. Underneath where it had been, a trapdoor was hidden in the floorboards.
"This is some real spy stuff, lady," Zack whistled. "How do I know you're not a Turk?"
Gloria laughed again, her dark eyes winking into pleased half-moons. "Honey, they wish! They couldn't buy me with all the money in the world. Old Gloria's got too much class."
Opening up the trapdoor, she revealed a hidden set of stairs and trotted down. Zack eased them down one step at a time.
The hidden room had clearly begun as an entry to the building's extensive crawl space before it was dug deeper and wider to create a small basement.
For being dark and damp, it was surprisingly homey. Brick arches had been fashioned between the structural pillars that extended into the ground from the building above, and a wood plank floor had been meticulously cut around the many intersections.
Colorful woven blankets were draped across the walls like tapestries and a hook in the ceiling provided a place for the lantern to hang. A small desk sat under the hook, the worktop nearly invisible under a massive container of rubber stamps and ink.
At least three dozen different pens and brushes stuck out of an old glass cup, and copies of official looking documents were hung from a drying line by tiny clothespins. Zack stepped them closer to it, inspecting the strange papers.
"Are those…" Zack started.
Gloria stepped between them, her smile warm but warning. "The new Wutai government has a love affair with paperwork. Visas, shipping manifests, bills of lading—you'd be amazed what it takes to make a simple delivery. But that's my part of this, nothing for you to worry about."
"Gee, where have I heard that before?" Cloud mumbled, smirking when he felt the comment land in Zack's gut and sew seeds of suspicion there. His partner pinched him in the side with a strained smile.
"In the meantime, I bet you boys wouldn't say no to a hot bath and a change of clothes."
She had them there. Cloud had felt sweaty and stale before they even climbed the mountain. After the fight and the blood and the fear he feels nothing short of disgusting.
"No ma'am, we certainly wouldn't." Zack slides the bag off of his shoulder.
"I thought not," Gloria passed through the arches and pulled aside a curtain hanging over a hole in the back wall of the basement. There was another room beyond. She tipped her head toward it and waved them closer with her hand.
They shuffled over, Cloud having to stumble over a series of futons laid out on the floor and Zack having to duck under the low hang of the arches. Gloria stepped through the hole and patted the side of a metal tank big enough to fit her pickup truck inside. It made a hollow, tinny gong.
"This here's the cistern. In the summer it collects rainwater from the roof and purifies it. This hatch—" With two big heaves she turns a metal wheel on a hinged door and it pops open. "—allows us to shovel snow in there during the winter. It's also conveniently person-sized in the event that the Suits find our hideout. Does anybody not know how to swim?"
Cloud didn't know if he knew. The only time he'd been in water deep enough to drown he'd been in a specimen tank, and drowning had been more or less the point. Zack told him not to fight it, that it hurt less if he took the fluid into his lungs quickly, and so he always had. He was a bit perturbed to realize that it might not have been a choice.
Unaware of the quandary, Zack simply answered, "No."
Gloria shut the hatch with a clang and bent over to light a fire under the tank with the match box she'd gotten upstairs.
"It'll take a minute to heat up, but once it gets going this baby will give you the hottest bath of your life. Guaranteed."
Cloud's eyes followed the gray pipes which came from the tank, first to an old style toilet with a gravity-fed tank and then to a faucet affixed to the back wall which was placed over a five gallon plastic bucket. A plank of wood was balanced across the top of the bucket which held an assortment of toothbrushes, toothpaste, and floss.
The main feature of the room was the bath, which was really a livestock water trough with a drain in the bottom.
However humble it looked, it didn't matter to Cloud. He couldn't wait to get in it. Sensing his excitement, Zack met his gaze and smiled.
"We'll be sure to mention it in our five star Trip Advertiser review," his partner joked.
"See that you do." Gloria stood up with a series of popped joints and smile. "It'll whistle when it's ready, and you just turn that knob to fill her up. Soap's behind the tub and towels are in that milkcrate. Holler if you need me."
The curtain fell behind her, leaving them alone with the crackling cistern. Already he could hear the metal starting to pop and water bubbling inside.
He'd only ever bathed in cold rivers or with a hose dousing his naked body while guards looked on, but some memories transcend facts and figures. His hands know how to clean a gun even though he doesn't. His lips knew how to kiss the moment they touched Zack's.
That night in the basement, his skin knew that baths were wonderful. Like summer but wet, like a hug spread over the whole body. Impatiently, he nudged Zack through the bond.
"She just said it'll take a minute," his partner said.
"Then put more wood under it," Cloud huffed.
"You're impossible when you're like this." Zack leaned him against the edge of the tub and got his arm free. "Can you stay up?"
"When I'm like what?" Cloud said darkly, his head slumped forward but his body managing to stay balanced on the edge.
Zack let the last of his support drop and worked his fingers under the edge of Reno's shirt, pulling it up. He paused then, giving Cloud a knowing look.
Cloud lifted a brow and Zack shook his head with a put-upon sigh.
"When you're grouchy."
"I'm not grouchy."
"You've been sighing and grumbling all day."
Because Gloria was a terrible driver and his stupid body decided not to work again. Of course he wasn't skipping and humming a happy time, he just found out that a psychotic alien contagion can eject him from his own mind and move him around like a puppet.
Moreover, he was upset about the paralysis. If Jenova ordered he could transform into a dead man and cut a hole through Zack's chest, but he can't sit or walk on his own.
He moved in his sleep last night, but he couldn't do it awake. Where's the fairness in that? What if he's just crazy and it's all in his head?
But Cloud was sick to death of that conversation. He and Zack had hashed and rehashed it in every conceivable way. It would only bum Zack out and make Cloud even more annoyed with his partner's baseless optimism and his well-meant platitudes. He didn't want that.
So he just said, "Sorry."
Zack lifted the shirt up and worked it over Cloud's shoulders and then off. His fingers traced the bandage he'd made, finding and uniting the edge.
"How's this?"
"Haven't noticed it," Cloud said honestly. He wondered about Zack's chest but didn't mention it. Careful hands unwound his chest.
The water in the cistern started bubbling boiling. The vent on the side let out a quiet whistle.
"Excited?' Zack bounced on his feet as he flicked open the vent to silence the noise and turned the valve to let the water into the tub. It cascaded out like a hot waterfall, and if only for a moment it chased away Cloud's dark mood. The room filled with steam in a matter of seconds.
"You bet," he sent with a soft smile because the water was loud and he didn't want to raise his voice. Zack slid his arms under Cloud's and braced his hands softly behind his back.
"It's gonna be hot."
"I'm ready."
It did burn a little at first, especially in his cold hand and feet, but the other sensations were so good that he couldn't bring himself to care. Zack lowered him slowly, his arms creeping up to support his neck and keep his mouth above water.
"You look a little dazed," he teased. Cloud could only blink and nod.
"You coming?"
"Oh yeah, I'm not missing this. One sec."
Weightless in the water, he moved Cloud around easily until his head was anchored on the rim of the tub and his body had sunk to the bottom. He ripped his clothes off faster than Cloud had ever seen, almost falling on his ass when his rush led to his feet getting tangled up in his pants.
He'd seen Zack's body, of course. He'd seen it in every season—clean, dirty, healthy, bruised. He'd seen it as a lab experiment, as a landscape for torture, as a shield standing between him and the guards. He'd seen it in every context except one, the one everyone else seemed to take for granted.
That night, as Zack kicked and cursed at his own pants, Cloud finally got to see it as a body he wanted to touch, a body that he wanted to touch him back.
His breathing comes shallow as Zack steps one foot into the tub, bracing both hands on the rim before lowering himself down with a blissful expression, but that might be the heat making him lightheaded.
Zack's feet brushed along Cloud's legs as he stretched out and rested his head against the other side of the trough. Cloud jumped, remembering the feeling from the stasis tank, from the way they would cling to each other with their legs threaded together.
His partner sat up, eyes roving over his face.
Cloud stared at him, gasping for air.
With the memory fresh in his mind the difference between the two Zacks was striking. His Zack was thinner, his neck a wiry cord of muscle where there used to be some bulk. His cheekbones were sharper, and his silky hair had only just started to cover his ears. When he reached out to touch Cloud's cheek, the muscles of his arm stood out like an anatomy model at a doctor's office.
There was something cruel about them looking healthier inside the lab. Something prickly and steeped with irony.
Zack leaned over the edge to grab a bar of soap and a washcloth. Wetting them both, he worked up a lather on the cloth and scooted closer to run it over Cloud's neck and shoulders.
"That's a serious face," Zack said. "Got something on your mind?"
"You."
"Me?" Zack smirked, and after a moment he did his silly little eyebrow wiggle. Cloud rolled his eyes and shoved him through the bond.
"Not like that. I mean normal stuff."
"Normal stuff like…?"
Cloud stumbled, reaching for something to say other than, 'You look sick and skinny.'
"Your hair's gotten longer," he ended up saying.
"You were thinking about my hair?"
"Yup."
"If that's all you're thinking about, then I must be doing something wrong." Zack's smile got wider and more calculating. Before Cloud could work out what he was doing, Zack knelt between his legs and started rubbing the cloth over his chest.
A wave of desire shot straight to Cloud's groin, and he had to look away to keep from embarrassing himself.
"N-no, you're doing fine."
"Just 'fine'?" Zack lowered his eyelids, his smile turning devious when the cloth passed over Cloud's nipples and made him jump.
"You know what I mean—" Cloud's brain stalled out as Zack sat in his lap and wrapped his arms across Cloud's back. The warm press of the cloth trailed down his spine and back up. Tingles sprawled under skin like nothing he'd felt before.
It was different from when they touched inside his mind. Zack smelled sweet, like sweat and soap and metal-tinted steam. His damp hair tickled Cloud's cheek and dripped water on his shoulder. His legs were hot and slick beneath the water, straddling him, touching everywhere. His mind kept snapping onto one particular place no matter how he tried not to notice it.
"Zack, Gloria's right there."
"I'm just washing your back, what's wrong with that?"
"I think—" Cloud's breath stuttered as Zack shifted his weight. "It's more an issue of how you're doing it."
"Would you rather I do it differently? Faster, maybe?"
"For fuck's sake…" Cloud's face was already flushed from the bath, so at least Zack couldn't make fun of that.
A firm hand pulled Cloud forward to lean against his partner's chest and watched the water ripple as Zack dipped the cloth and brought it out dripping. Gently, he brought it to the top of the wound and squeezed.
It stung, but not too badly. Nothing he couldn't handle. He was more bothered by the up-close view of Zack's hotel sink stitches. Zack stroked his neck and hair as he cleaned the wound with dabs and careful drags. After two more rinses he pressed a short kiss to Cloud's temple.
"How does it feel?"
"Uh—" Cloud stammered and stuttered, and Zack laughed quiet and low.
"The wound, Cloud. Geez."
Cloud sighed and looked away. "Better. Itchy."
"Good. I guess we live to fight another day." Zack laid him against the tub again and backed away, sliding off. Disappointment filled the void even though he'd been the one protesting just a minute ago. His lap felt empty now without Zack there.
His partner refreshed the soap and floated his legs up one at a time to wash them. His body twitched and squirmed on its own when the slippery cloth passed over his feet.
"Ticklish?"
"Don't." Cloud warned.
Smiling eyes threatened him, but he sent a wave of 'no' and Zack let his leg sink back into the water. The pressure between his legs had grown to the point of being unignorable, and Zack hadn't been the least bit apologetic. If anything, he seemed complacent. He kept shooting looks at Cloud while he scrubbed his own body, like he wanted to make sure Cloud was watching. As if he could look anywhere else.
"Like what you see?" Zack asked as he dipped his head back and wetted his hair. When he rose, Cloud followed a water drop with his eyes as it fell over his jaw, along the hollow of his Adam's apple, and all the way down.
He didn't think that really required an answer, but after a moment Zack started to pout. Not visibly, but on the inside. The sort of quiet, sullen pouting that Cloud hadn't realized he did until he had a direct line into his partner's true heart.
With a sigh, he gathered his energy and bid his arm to reach out. It was easier then, the water making his limbs almost weightless. Tentatively, he brought the tips of his fingers to the reddened edge of the stitches.
"I'd like it better without this," he said.
Zack worked his jaw and nodded. "It wasn't your fault."
"I know," he said, even though he didn't agree. He didn't want to fight about it. "Mine… took six weeks to heal. I didn't think about it until now, but that's a long time for someone with S-cells."
"Maybe you didn't have them yet."
He considered it. The timing. Such faint memories were hard to trust, but he remembered getting injections from the very beginning.
He had felt the nausea and the cramping. He had dreams. In those early days he'd even felt Sephiroth watching him, although of course he hadn't understood it fully yet. He'd just been a shadow then, a black stain on the Void.
Shaking his head, Cloud forced the corners of his lips up. "Yeah, you're probably right."
Feeling bold, he trailed his fingers down Zack's chest. Over the bumps of his ribs and down the ridge between his abs.
Blue eyes snapped onto his, and that might have been the most powerful he'd ever felt. Zack's lips parted, red from the steam and dewy set. Cloud wrapped his hand around him and his eyes fell shut and he sucked in a breath.
"Cloud…"
Chair legs scraped against the floor in the other room and Zack pulled Cloud's hand away. They both listened with sharp attention as Gloria stood and walked toward the bathroom.
"Quick question," she said, pausing a moment before pulling the curtain aside. "Did you two still want to be 'brothers' in Avalanche?"
Cloud's ears burned like hell. Zack sat up and crossed his arms over the rim of the tub.
"What do you mean? Are those IDs?"
"Passports." She held out two cards with their first names and description on them. "We'll take photos in the morning, but for now I need some names. Figured you might want a say in your new identities before I put them down in ink. So… brothers or friends?"
"Are those the only two options?" Zack leaned closer over the edge. "Wow you got my height right and everything."
"I've been around the block a time or two." Gloria preens.
Cloud just wanted her to leave before she noticed their little soldiers standing at attention. With some effort, he clasped his hands over his lap and cleared his throat.
"We'll be newlyweds. Coming to Wutai for the honeymoon, or whatever."
Zack's brows were high when he turned to look over his shoulder. "Is that legal in Wutai?"
"Honey, everything's legal in Wutai so long as you're willing to pay a bribe and sign fifteen forms about it," Gloria said, shoving off the wall and tapping the cards against her other hand. "Congrats on your nuptials."
"Wow we're moving fast," Zack laughed, more overwhelmed than amused. The water sloshed all over the place when he threw himself back into it. "You never even proposed to me!"
"It's just good sense. With the same last name we can change our story however we need to."
"Brothers in the streets, husbands in the sheets."
"Don't say it like that, that's gross." Cloud grimaced. Zack slid back onto his lap and draped his arms over Cloud's shoulders. The pressure on his groin brought Cloud right back to his problem, and pulled a gasp from his mouth. Zack filled the space with his lips, his tongue.
"I think it's kinda hot. Like a secret affair."
"Between fake siblings—"
"Shh, don't think about it. Don't think, just go with it."
A soft noise came out of him as Zack entered his mouth, only slightly muffled by the kiss. Zack froze.
"Boys…" Gloria called from the other room.
The ground could have swallowed up Cloud just then, that would have been fine with him. Zack slapped his hand over his mouth to silence his school boy giggling.
"It got quiet all of the sudden. You better not be desecrating my bathtub. This ain't no love hotel."
"N-no ma'am," Zack yelled a little too hastily.
Her laughter could have shaken dust from the warehouse rafters. Cloud couldn't look Zack in the eye as he extracted himself for the second time.
Somehow his partner managed not to sound awkward when he cleared his throat and spoke.
"Let's do your hair before the water gets cold."
"You mean before our host throws us out into the cold," Cloud said.
"Same difference." Zack rolled his eyes and turned Cloud around so he could lower him into the water. The strange, insulated sound of submersion wrapped around Cloud's head and his hair fanned out in the lack of gravity.
"One of these days I'll get you to myself," he said. Water fell from his hair onto Cloud's nose and down the side. Zack's fingers threaded through his hair and started working out the knots.
"Starting to think the universe just hates us," Cloud answered.
"Starting? Just now? What did you think was happening before?"
"Bad luck," Cloud hummed, lulled by the water and Gloria's easy acceptance.
It felt nice to have their relationship seen and recognized by someone. To have someone tease them gently and smile approvingly whenever they touch. He wasn't sure if he'd ever done that before, but he couldn't wait to do it again. In Wutai they would be whatever they told people they were. The thought of it was energizing, intoxicating.
Zack shook his head and wiped away the water that had dripped under Cloud's eye.
That was where the trouble really set in.
The winds shifted during the night, and the very same winter storm that dumped snow on Zack and Cloud's heads while they climbed the mountain to Icicle reversed directions and came right back down into the port.
The city shut down for three days, and the bay threatened to freeze over months earlier than usual. It took nearly a week for them to break up the ice and another three days for the harbor to catch up on the overdue shipments.
By the time their ship arrived and docked, Cloud had started to worry that none of this was real and he was just having an elaborate dream in the tank.
For their own safety Gloria didn't let them outside during the day, which would have been a sweet gesture of care if anyone was actually looking for them. Without any real threat from the Turks, it just became claustrophobic and irritating.
Finally, on the thirteenth day, Gloria declared them ready to depart. Cloud was excited until she opened up a wood crate and told them to get inside.
It looked like a kennel for an animal. The floor was covered in shredded newspaper and the walls had little holes drilled in them for airflow. Six big bottles of water and a box of granola bars were tied to the corner. It even had a big bowl for him to barf in if he got motion sick, and a box with a hole in the top that he would not be shitting in, no matter how bad things got. He made Zack promise to do the same.
She said it should be a few hours, but the amount of provisions told another story. It took the full power of Zack's puppy eyes to get Cloud inside, and he got so tired of his apology kisses that he'd forbidden Zack from touching him for the rest of their time in the crate.
That was yesterday morning. By his best guess, it's now the following afternoon. Time is difficult to gauge via the light that comes in through twenty-four tiny air holes. And there are exactly twenty-four. He's counted them over and over to pass the time.
In the past he would have retreated to his mind and spent the hours in relative comfort, but he doesn't feel safe there anymore. Now that he knows there's a world of darkness under the house, standing in it feels like stepping on cracked ice.
Big, brown mounds of dirt cover where the holes had been, but the grass refuses to grow there. When he puts his foot down on a pile, he doesn't trust it to hold his weight.
And so he stayed in reality through the day and most of the night. He and Zack took turns sleeping.
In retrospect, he understands why Gloria was so direct about baths and hygiene. This would be torture if either of them smelled.
They're in some kind of warehouse, an echoey room with concrete floors. During the day it's full of people chattering and shouting. Large machines clank and grind as workers use them to lift and move the crates.
Gloria said their paperwork would be pre-inspected by a customs official, but that they shouldn't need to open the crate. Apparently, the box is marked as a gift of livestock for the new Wutaian Prime Minister, and such a parcel can only be inspected by the palace guard.
It didn't escape Cloud's notice that she gave Zack a hunting knife anyway.
"If anyone but me opens this crate…" she had said with a stern glare.
Zack had unsheathed the knife and traced his eyes over the serrated edge.
"I'm sure it'll be fine. You know what you're doing," he had said.
He hopes it's an unnecessary precaution. The clothes Gloria bought for him were nice and soft on his skin—the sort of airy, colorful things that people wear on beach vacations. He doesn't want to lose them to bloodstains so soon.
His shirt is especially nice. It's a navy blue button up printed with white, red-tailed cranes. The edges of the sleeves are stitched on both sides, perfectly smooth. He's taken to rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger, a soothing gesture that seems to quiet his mind when he's overthinking.
He never realized how rough the lab smocks were until his fingers touched this shirt. Now he's a little obsessed, and worries that might make him weird. Yesterday, he almost asked Zack to touch it, just so he could ask him if it really was that soft. Thankfully Zack had gotten on his nerves and driven him further into his corner of the box before he could embarrass himself.
That's what he's doing when the first workers arrive for the morning shift—sitting in his corner and rubbing the hem of his shift between his fingers.
It starts as a distant, metallic clatter. The opening of a hangar door, which had scared him half to death when it shut with a bang the night before. A few muffled words drift through the structure. The lights go on with a click and an electric hum.
Zack flinches beside him as light pours in the holes, and his hand closes around the knife. Through the bond, Cloud sends him quiet, safety, calm . His partner exhales deep and purposefully.
Neither of them break the silence. There's nothing to talk about, really. Just the same old problems neither of them can solve. It's strangely comforting how they can feel alone while sitting right beside each other. Like they're actually one person split into two bodies, like this is how they were meant to be.
It's bullshit of course. There's nothing natural about their psychic connection, but that doesn't mean that he can't enjoy the benefits of it. Something can be wrong and feel right at the same time.
Footsteps approach their crate. They both tense up, their senses heightening.
The man flips through the paperwork attached to the lid of the crate. His big, steel-toed boots walk a circle around the perimeter.
"Hey Esso, this one's for yesterday. What gives?"
Some other man yells something incomprehensible back.
"You take one personal day and everything goes to shit," the man mutters to himself. "Livestock, huh? Eh, critter, you alive in there?"
His boot kicks the side of the box and Zack stares at Cloud as if he has any idea what they should do. He shrugs, and before they can really think anything through Zack shuffles his feet and makes a sound that is probably supposed to be a goat, but which sounds more like a bandersnatch getting decapitated.
The man takes two quick steps back with a grunt. "Wellness check… pass."
He uncaps a marker and scribbles something on the lid. He taps it twice and calls the other man again.
"This one's overdue. Let's get it out quick, yeah?"
Five minutes later, the floor slants abruptly towards Zack. Gravity pulls him over, and the next thing he knows they're swaying back and forth like the porch swing.
Zack grabs his hand squeezes. "I think that's what we were waiting for."
Cloud feels the urge to be petty, to ask Zack when he gave him permission to touch again, but relief is a powerful feeling. He threads their fingers and squeezes back.
"I sure hope so. I was starting to think I'd need to break the poo pact."
"Don't even joke." Zack smirks.
They're put on a truck as best as Cloud can figure, and driven a short way down a bumpy road.
The scent of fish and brine blows in through the gaps in the crate, and if he strains he can hear seagulls crying through the roaring of the truck engine. Everything shifts and rocks as the truck pulls into a fast stop.
More men talking and anonymous boots swarm the box. Another round of lifting and swaying tosses them back and forth inside, and then they're dropped rather hard into what can only be the cargo hold of a ship. It's cold, wet, smelly, and dark, and it stays that way for what feels like hours.
Cloud's just about to ask Zack what's going on when he hears solid, clopping steps come down a staircase. Oddly enough, he's spent enough time with Gloria to know it's not her gait. Without him saying anything, Zack unsheathes the knife.
Cheerful whistling wafts in through the crate boards, and Cloud winces. It's a woman. A deckhand, maybe? Someone innocent making an honest mistake.
She lifts something heavy looking and shoves it forcefully into the gap between the crate and the lid. The wide, blunt teeth of a crowbar pry through. Zack pulls Cloud over and crouches over him, the knife poised at the ready.
With two more strong heaves, the woman hinges the lid all the way off. Zack shoves the knife under her chin, but she doesn't scream or run away. She looks down with daring green eyes and spreads her full, rouged lips in a playful leer.
"Ay mami, did you order two white men in a box?" she yells in a lilting coastal accent. "They look a little starstruck. Did you tell them about me?"
Zack stands and only then does she give ground, holding the crowbar over her head with an unbothered air.
"Maria, I just told you not to—"
"Ah, but look at them. They're precious," the woman coos. "I think this one wants to murder me."
"Because I told him to kill anyone but me," Gloria shouts, running down the stairs two at a time.
"Thank fuck," Zack says, lowering the knife.
"Ah, did I frighten you, little scarecrow? I was just playing," the woman says with a taunting grin. She rests the crowbar on her shoulder and shifts her weight to one side so her hip sticks out.
Gloria steps between them with a strained expression and offers Zack her hand.
"That would be my wife, Maria. Don't worry, there will be consequences for her scaring you half to death." She shoots a scathing look behind her, and pulls when Zack accepts her help getting out. "Maria, this here is Zack. The other one is Cloud. Ex-SOLDIERs, the both of them, so maybe keep your pranks to yourself until they know you a little better?"
"No worries, we love pranks. It's nice to meet you, Maria," Zack says with his usual charm. He holds out his hand for her to shake, but she lifts it and kisses his knuckles instead.
"That's Captain Espina to you," she corrects sharply, although the harshness doesn't reach her smile. "Welcome to my ship, La Libertad."
"So this is our ride?" Zack asks Gloria hopefully. "We made it?"
"You made it." Gloria nods.
"Awesome. So where are we staying? Oh man, do I have to earn my keep? Will I get to hoist the mainstay?"
"If you wanna work we'll put you to work, white boy. But as far as sleeping, you're looking at it."
Zack glanced back at the box with barely concealed horror. The Captain burst out laughing.
"Just kidding! Oh my goddess, you're face!" she cackled, tossing the crowbar carelessly onto a pile of coiled up ropes amid a mass of stacked up crates. "Gloria, they're perfect. You always bring me the best gifts from the mountain."
"She's kidding. Mostly," Gloria said quickly with a chagrined face. "You'll be staying in one of the staterooms. Follow me."
Cloud never would have imagined Zack as a hoodie-under-a-leather-jacket kind of guy, but that's what Gloria picked for him and he looks like some kind of model. Dust particles swirl in the light haloing his hair. He looks down at Cloud, his face flushed from the excitement and unreasonably handsome.
"You want to walk or…?"
"Just carry me," Cloud mutters.
It's not like he has much dignity left to lose, and those stairs look narrow and steep. His arms wrap tight around Cloud and lift him like he weighs nothing. He supposes he's probably lost weight too, and Zack never had any trouble getting him through the lab.
He expects Zack to move him to his back, but he doesn't. He makes for the stairs just like that, with Cloud's chest to his chest and his head resting on his shoulder. It's awfully intimate, but he didn't exactly say how Zack could carry him and it feels too late to start stipulating.
Walking past the cargo, he sees familiar crates with the same faded foreign scripts. There are so many that he almost doesn't believe a boat this small could sail with that much weight.
"So Gloria gathers materia, and you sell it to Wutai?" Cloud says.
"Bah, Wutai's too much trouble to deal with. I only go there if I have stock left over after I sell to Avalanche."
"Avalanche wants materia?" Zack asks.
"Everyone wants materia," Gloria winks. "The good stuff, anyway."
"And my baby only brings good stuff." Maria smacks Gloria's butt and the older woman elbows her in the side.
"I apologize for my wife, she's still in the process of being housebroken."
"After twenty years, that says more about you than me," Maria declares. "Ahh, the weather's beautiful today!"
Sunlight warms Cloud's back as the cargo hold disappears through the doorway. They emerge onto the deck in a flurry of light and wind. Cloud has to close his eyes at first.
"This is the crew, I call them my Libertines. Say hello to Zack and Cloud, everyone. They're gonna be staying with us for a while."
A chorus of greetings batter them from all sides. At least twenty men and women of every size and nationality crowd the deck, some up on the sails and others down below pulling ropes. The sails stand high above them, stretched taut and full of air. Cloud stares at them in wonder.
It's a traditional Wutaian ship, the kind with a wide bow and wood bars lashed horizontally across the sails. There was a chapter on them in his childhood war book. 'Fast and maneuverable,' the book had called them, 'the best in the world before Shinra engineered mako freighters.'
At least four different languages fly past Cloud's ears in the time it takes Zack to carry him to the stern. As suddenly as they emerged, they're back inside again. This time in a smaller space, built up from the main deck rather than below.
"This is our room," Maria says as she passes one door. Through the crack Cloud can see cherry wood shelves and a narrow built-in bed. Blankets like the ones in Gloria's basement cover the mattress and block the light from a small window in the wall.
"This is supposed to be my first mates' quarters," she says, then raises her voice to be heard outside. "But since she's a dumb floozy who'd rather sleep with my linemen than steer my ship, she ain't been using it much, no es asi?"
The crew outside give a chaotic round of laughs and backpacks while a thin woman in a big hat squawks, "You know it, mami!"
Maria snorts and kicks the door open with the toe of her boot.
"So here you go, it's yours."
"Wow," Zack walks in and does a spin. It's all he can do in the closet-sized space, but the simple fact of privacy feels like a luxury to them now. He sets Cloud on the bed and spots their old travel bag on the floor. "Any house rules? I don't want to be a bad guest."
The Captain smirks, and Gloria groans before she's even opened her mouth. She removes her trim, Wutaian cap and shakes out two long, thick black braids.
She holds up two callused, bronze fingers and sets her other hand on her hip. "Only two rules around here; don't shit where you sleep, and if you have sex, make it loud. Gives us all something to gossip about."
Zack coughs into his fist to hide his laugh and thanks her furtively for her hospitality. Gloria shakes her head at her wife's antics and walks back out onto the deck.
Cloud expects the Captain to go too, but instead she looks between them with an unusually somber face.
Having been stuck in the box for their introduction, he hadn't noticed just how wild and wolfish she actually looks.
Housebroken seems a more appropriate turn of phrase, now that he can see her pointed features and stark, white teeth. The line of a scar cuts through one of her eyebrows, and the other one is pierced in three places. A pair of matching gold rings loop around her lower lip.
Her medium brown skin is marked by numerous cuts and beauty marks, but that only makes the green of her eyes more striking, and the intensity of her stare that much more noticeable.
She reminds him of a wolf, or the bomb type monsters that live up on Mt. Nibel. Menacing, but in a strange way that feels more mocking than dangerous.
"I didn't help you, Zack," she says seriously, for once without the slightest hint of a smile. I helped the small piece of the Planet that lives in you. And you'll pay it back tenfold. That's the Avalanche way." She raises her closed fist in the Avalanche salute.
"Down with the Shinra!" she shouts.
"Down with the Shinra!" the crew repeats.
"Welcome aboard." Maria taps the side of the doorway and struts down the hall to join Gloria outside.
Cloud feels a small flicker of hope at the fervor of her call, the passion in her voice. There really are people out there like him, people who know that the world needs to change.
He turns to smile at Zack, but his partner only manages a small, strained curl of his lips in return.