Note: I have submitted Chapters 49, 50, 51, and 52 at the same time (Aug 5), in case you clicked on an email link to this chapter and are confused, you may have missed a previous chapter :)
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 behavior, and references to or discussions of suicide.
~Fifty-Two~
Cloud had been gone about forty minutes when Rand made it back with his car, spare tire installed. When Rand entered the house, he saw Chip sitting in one of the chairs at the dining table, facing the front door. He had a rifle resting on his knees. Immediately he knew that the time he'd hoped wouldn't come, had finally come.
"Shut the door," Chip said. "We need to talk."
Gently, Rand closed the front door behind him.
"About what?" Rand asked.
"You know what," Chip said.
Rand did know. He looked from his cousin to the balcony above. He could see from there that the door to Cloud's room was open.
"Jake!" he called.
"You mean Cloud?" Chip questioned calmly but the usage of Cloud's name had Rand's stomach sinking.
"What did he say to you?" Rand asked Chip as he focused his eyes on him again.
"Say to me?" Chip replied. "His face is on the news, Randy."
He should have expected that. After seeing the article in the newspaper, he should have expected it would only be a matter of days before the story made it to televised news. Where Chip managed to see it, he didn't know.
"Where is he?" he asked Chip.
"Gone," Chip told him what he feared.
"What?" he still responded with shock.
"Sent him off," Chip confirmed.
"When?" he inquired quickly. "How long ago?" Cloud wouldn't make it very far very quickly if he was on foot.
Chip didn't answer him. Instead he asked, "Were you one of them people who was responsible for what happened to him?"
He stood up with the rifle held in his one hand at his side.
"You're one of those messed up Shinra docs who worked him over, is that it?"
He didn't want to feel it, but Rand was beginning to feel panicked then, as well as angry.
"It isn't bad enough, what you did before. Are you actually that obsessed and screwed up that you couldn't just leave him alone after what you and whoever else did to him that you had to bring him out here to mess with him some more?" Chip threw at him.
Rand was shaking his head adamantly. "You know nothing about it, Chip!" he fired back at his cousin.
Chip scoffed, shaking his head.
"Yeah right. I see it. You don't want me to, but I do. Windows nailed shut and fucking padlocks on the all the doors," he remarked as he gestured around the room. "You're just like Samuel, you know that?" he remarked.
Rand ignored the comment.
"Which way did you send him? Down to Springway?" he guessed. A trailer park down the road was the closest thing.
He was already about to head back out the door, his hand on the doorknob. He had the door open partway when Chip reached him and shut it again hard.
"No," Chip denied. "It doesn't matter. You're gonna let him go. This is about you and me now, cousin."
Chip kept his hand on the door as he stared him down. Inside, Rand was quickly building up with fear and panic. Things were out of control. He should never have trusted Chip. Should never have let him stay in the house. It was all going wrong so quickly, exactly like he worried it could.
"Did you call the police?" he asked, trying to keep a calm tone then.
"No," Chip replied, "but I will if you don't do what I say."
"Cloud could go to the police," Rand pointed out, not trying to lie anymore about who Cloud was.
"Yeah," Chip agreed. "That's why we're leaving."
"To go where?" Rand asked, shaking his head.
"You need help, Randy. And I'm going to make sure you get it," Chip promised seriously. "Pack up what you need and we're going."
For a long moment they stared at each other. Finally, Rand nodded just once.
"Alright," he told Chip, surrendering to his order.
He let Chip walk him to the stairs. There at the bottom is where Chip turned his back on him. When he did, Rand retrieved his pistol he had hidden at his waist, not visible under his coat. He disengaged the safety and walked up behind his cousin quickly with his weapon readied. He aimed and fired once at the back of his head.
000
"Damn," Cloud cursed from where he stood, finally at the edge of a clearing, trying to catch his breath.
Across the way was the trailer park Chip had directed him to. Maybe another couple hundred yards away. A mile and a half wasn't much. He'd frequently run ten times that when he was in peak shape and had no problem. That distance in wet, dense brush and forest was much different. He'd been relieved when he finally made his way out into the edge of that clearing. He'd had to climb an old wooden fence. It was only about four and a half feet high but he was tired. It took some effort.
On the other side of that fence, he faced what looked at first glance to be an open field of tall grasses, but after only a few short paces away from the fence line he discovered the ground was settled lower than the fence and it was beyond saturated. It was flooded. At least knee-deep. If it had been only water it wouldn't be so bad, but it was mud. It was like a marsh. It would take forever to try and get through something like that.
Chip had warned him to stay off the road and he'd managed up until then but he was out of options at that point.
"Shit," he breathed out as he began to make his way along the fence line to the road.
He watched the road as he was heading toward it, kept his ears open, listening for the sound of vehicles. He was breathing hard and his legs felt so heavy. He was exhausted, but he was free, for now. He'd been trying not to worry about Rand returning from wherever he'd been to the house and finding out he was gone. He tried to only keep his mind on the task at hand, which was getting to the trailer park and finding a phone he could use. The police weren't the ones he wanted to talk to first. He'd call Zack first. Hopefully he'd answer. If not, Tifa would be his next call.
Chip told him he'd be handling Rand. He was going to get him help. He didn't know exactly what that meant. He assumed some kind of professional help. He didn't think Rand would give in to that easily. Maybe though, when faced with a rifle pointed at him and being told Chip had let him go, he'd come to his senses and know he only had one option that was reasonable. He'd have to think about himself. He would need to give up control and move on.
The fence line terminated at the bottom of a steep bank that ascended up to the gravel road. Cloud paused a minute at the bottom to try and gather up some more steam to climb up to the top. As he finally made it to the shoulder of the road he waited again to listen for vehicles. It sounded quiet so he worked up the nerve to start walking down the edge of the road to the park. He tried to walk quickly. He would have jogged if he thought he had the energy.
He'd only been on the road a minute when he heard something. It made him stop and turn around. It sounded like tires rolling down the gravel, coming from behind him. It looked to be coming toward him fairly slowly. He didn't want to read too much into it. It was so dark out there. He figured it was normal for people to drive more cautiously at night in such a rural area. Still, he found his stomach sinking. He didn't want to take any chances so he stepped off the road, back into the grass at the edge and down the bank a few feet to where he thought he was mostly hidden from view. He waited for the car to pass him.
He crouched down in the grass on the side of the hill as the vehicle rolled past him. He didn't get a very clear look at it until it had gone by. The headlights would have made it too hard to see anyway. He stood up a little to peek over the hill at the back of the vehicle, just in time to see the brake lights go on. The vehicle came to a stop on the road. As its reverse lights went on, Cloud abandoned his place at the edge of the road on the bank and started to flee back down to the bottom of the ditch.
It was Rand's car.
He didn't know for sure at first if he'd actually been spotted because it seemed like whoever was in the vehicle might have been reversing the car just to take a second look at the side of the road. But he knew he'd been spotted after only a few moments of descending back down the hill. He knew because he heard the car being pulled over and he heard a door being shut hard from where he was standing at the bottom of the bank. There, he only glanced back once to confirm his fear was warranted. He saw Rand making his way down the hill after him. Fast too, not trying to tread carefully down the steep slope.
Cloud ran then, along the fence line, as quickly as his tired body would move him. He was terrified of the man catching up to him and he wished the fear were enough to surge him forward faster. Rand's determination to catch up to him though must have been fuelling him harder than his own fear was fuelling himself. He could hear the man's rushing steps in the overgrown and dying grass behind him when he reached a spot on the fence line he decided to try and get over.
Hurriedly he jumped at the fence. He had one foot up on the top rail when he heard Rand's voice calling to him, telling him to stop. The man caught up to him there, and he felt Rand's hands take hold of the coat he was wearing at his back tightly and try to pull him back down. He resisted as hard as he could but he was out of breath and he was tired. His chest felt like it was collapsing in on him. The fence was also wet and slick.
Sweating and panting and feeling his strength giving way under the realization Rand was much stronger right then and wasn't going to let him get away, his fingers started to lose their grip. His foot slipped from the top rail of the fence as he was wrenched downward. His body slid against the rough wood as he was being pulled down and something, maybe an old nail sticking out of the one rail, caught hold of his right pant leg and dug deeply into the skin of his shin just under his knee. He felt like his skin was being torn and he yelled out from the flesh-ripping feeling.
He lost his hold on the fence completely and the force of Rand pulling him back had him stumbling when his feet touched the ground again, finding him falling backwards onto the wet grass. Rand stepped one foot over him and crouched down to be close to him, taking hold of the front of the coat Chip had given him, clutching it tight in his fists and forcing him to sit up and face him.
"What are you doing?!" Rand asked him then, trying to control the volume of his voice, but he was angry. He sounded furious. The man was speaking inches from his face. He could feel the moisture from his breath.
"Rand—"
The man's name was all Cloud was able to get out before his former Keeper was speaking over him.
"You said you would try! I believed that you wanted to give me a chance! I believed you wanted to try and fix this!" he ranted. He sounded desperate. He actually sounded hurt. "Why won't you just let me fix this?!" he asked as he shook his upper body a little. "Since I gave Koda back to his mother, you won't let me try! You promised you were going to work through things with me if I gave him back to Anna but you played me! You fooled me into giving you what you want, Cloud," he accused angrily and Cloud shook his head.
"No," he tried to tell him but it was hard to get even that one word out. He felt petrified at the mention of Koda.
"I wanted you to be happy!" Rand claimed heatedly as he dropped forward onto his knees in the grass over him, straddling his legs. "I gave and gave and gave for you and you don't want to give back! I didn't give Koda to his mother so that I could lose you or any chance of ever fixing things between us!"
"I'm sorry," Cloud told him promptly then. He knew what was coming and it scared the hell out of him.
"I'll bring him back," Rand said. The exact words he'd felt were about to fall on him.
"Wait," he pleaded, shaking his head, reaching up to take the man's hands with his own where they were still clutching his coat.
"I'll bring him here so you can be with him," the man told him, his voice a bit quieter. Less angry. "I don't want you alone and unhappy. I don't want you to lose focus and feel like it's hopeless."
"No wait," Cloud begged as he felt tears quickly rushing up in his eyes.
"Is that what you want?" the man questioned. While his tone made it sound like he was presenting it as an option to help him, he could see through it easily and heard it only as the threat that it really was. The ultimatum. Do what I want—be what I want—or Koda pays the price.
"No no no," he cried then as he looked into the man's eyes. "Don't please! I'm sorry," he apologized genuinely with tears running down his face. "I messed up! I know," he conveyed brokenly. "Chip had a gun," he struggled to justify his actions. "He told me to leave. I swear."
Rand took in his explanation but he didn't seem to believe it. Tightening his fists on his coat he jerked him a little as he questioned back sharply, "Then why were you running from me?"
Cloud shut his eyes tightly for a moment. It felt like the end of the line. Nothing he would say would undo the disaster he was in. All he could think to do then was tell the truth.
"Because I knew you'd be mad and…you scare me," he finally told the man as he opened his eyes again to look at him.
Rand took in his words and stared back at him for what felt like an excruciatingly long moment. Judged his sincerity. Decided whether he believed him or not, and further, what to do then. Finally, the man let go of his coat. He released a deep and shaky exhale as he suddenly stood up. Cloud kept his eyes on his as he stared down at him. Towered over him where he sat on the wet ground next to the fence. He didn't know what was going to happen then. When Rand spoke finally, the tone and volume gave him the answer his words didn't. He believed him, it sounded like. Believed Chip had run him out of the house and that he'd fled from the man at the side of the road because he was fearful of repercussions.
"Come on."
That's all he said before helping Cloud get to his feet so he could start leading him back to the car. He kept a hand around his upper arm as they walked. Cloud's right leg hurt, where he'd caught it on the fence but other than a burning sensation, he didn't feel much else. His emotional pain and the crushing disheartenment of failing to get away did an easy job of blocking out anything physical he felt. It wasn't until they were next to Rand's car with the passenger's side door open and the glow of the overhead light on him that he realized he might have cut himself worse than he felt.
Rand noticed it and pointed it out when he was next to him, holding the door open for him to get in. The man stopped him from getting all the way in the car. He sat then with his right leg still outside the vehicle as Rand leaned over to look at where blood had seeped through the material of his sweatpants. There wasn't only blood though. He was pretty well soaked from his trek through the woods. He was also pretty muddy.
"What happened?" Rand asked with clear concern as he was about to try and lift his pant leg up to see where he was bleeding from.
The sound of an approaching vehicle drew both their attention. At first, they only saw headlights but then red and blue flashing lights came on over what they then realized immediately was a police vehicle. It started to slow as it approached them. It was obvious it was going to stop and they were going to be confronted.
Cloud saw Rand reach for something under his coat, at his back, at the waistline of his pants it seemed. He couldn't have guessed at what it was until he saw him holding a gun.
"No wait don't," Cloud pleaded as he found himself acting without even thinking, putting his hand on the gun, pulling it and Rand's hand out of view into the car to conceal what he was holding. He quickly popped open the glove compartment. "It's fine. Please," he said to Rand, meeting his eyes as he tried to get him to let go of the pistol.
As the police cruiser was parking a short distance from them, Rand let go of the gun, letting it drop into the glove compartment that Cloud shut. He turned his body then, setting his left foot on the ground outside so he could face the two police officers that by then were getting out of their car with flashlights.
"You fellas alright?" the driver asked as he walked toward them, holding the flashlight a little to the side so they weren't getting hit directly with the bright beam.
"Everything's fine, officer," Rand answered him as he put his right hand up on the hood of the car above Cloud.
The second officer shone his light a little into the back of the car and then in Cloud's direction. For a second Cloud found the bright blinding light directly shining into his eyes and he shielded them with his hand.
"You son?" the officer asked as he moved the light down a little. "You okay?"
"Yes, sir," Cloud replied as normally as possible as he lowered his hand.
"What happened to you?" the officer questioned as he noted his appearance.
"Oh," Cloud responded after a little hesitation. "I just fell out there," he said as he indicated towards the field. Both the officers looked in the direction.
"Fell?" the first officer, the driver asked. "What were you doing out there at this time of night?"
Cloud thought Rand would have quickly jumped in with a lie but he seemed frozen.
"Uh, the dog got out," Cloud said then.
"You get 'im?" the second officer asked him casually.
"No," Cloud denied as he shook his head.
"You need some help?" was the officer's friendly offer.
It was clear at that point they weren't suspicious at all. That's when Rand finally seemed to take a breath and come back to life.
"That's a kind offer. No, thank you, officer," he responded politely and with feigned ease. "He'll find his way back home by morning, we're sure."
"They usually do," the officer said with a bit of a chuckle. "Alright, be safe, gentlemen," he said by way of farewell before both the men headed back to their cruiser.
When it was just them alone on the side of the road again, Cloud waited for Rand to say something. Or…do something. Anything. But for a long minute he just stood by his side, next to the car, looking off down the empty road. It seemed so quiet. Quieter than it seemed it should be outside. Not one insect seemed to be making any noise. Maybe it was just too cold for them. Not knowing what else to do, Cloud slowly drew his legs into the vehicle and sat himself into the seat, facing forward, though his gaze was down. It wasn't until he reached next to him to take hold of the seatbelt that Rand moved. He looked down into the car. Cloud only glanced at him to confirm his eyes were on him.
He didn't know what the man was waiting for or what he was thinking but there was a palpable tension that Cloud felt he should be concerned about.
"What now?" Cloud asked him tentatively, guessing that he was consumed in trying to make a decision about just that. That wasn't it though.
"Home," the man responded finally at the same time he reached down in front of Cloud and opened the glove compartment to retrieve his weapon. The sound of the compartment closing again made Cloud wince a little.
"What do you want me to say to Chip?" Cloud asked. The man took a deep breath before answering him.
"There's nothing to say."
Rand shut his door before he could begin to process the response. He took the time when the man was getting into the driver's seat, buckling himself back in, and getting the car started to make himself think about what he meant. From the words he used and the way he spoke them, Cloud just knew something bad had happened after he'd left the house. The cousins must have had it out. Chip must have confronted Rand with the truth that he finally knew. Obviously, things hadn't gone according to whatever Chip's plan had been. Chip had assured him that he was going to handle Rand. But Rand was here now. Chip wasn't…That had him imagining things might have gone pretty bad between the two men. How bad though? Very bad. He could read that much off Rand just by looking at him. Cloud was worried about his cousin.
"Did you hurt Chip?" he dared to finally ask once the man had turned the car around and started driving them back to the cabin.
Rand nodded and Cloud felt like his stomach sank as far as the seat below him. He could only see the right side of Rand's face and it was dark in the car but he could still see the tears building and eventually one escaping his right eye to travel down his cheek.
"What happened?" he asked hardly louder than a whisper.
Rand didn't answer, leaving Cloud to wonder and worry until they'd finally made it back to the house. Rand walked behind him when they were out of the car, a hand holding his arm. As soon as they entered the house, he got his answer. Partly. He didn't know what happened between Chip and Rand after he'd run from the house, but he could see the end result, right in front of him and it had him stopping dead in his tracks. The shock of what he saw actually had him stepping back fast where Rand's body stopped his momentum immediately.
Chip was lying on the floor of the kitchen area, next to the island. He was facedown. Wasn't moving. Cloud couldn't see his face but he could see the blood that had pooled under his head and had run along the uneven floor towards the back of the house. Even if it had entered into his mind on the trip back there that Rand might have killed him, seeing what seemed like obvious proof stole the breath from his body.
"Oh god," he uttered in horror.
The sight had his knees giving out suddenly and Rand was quickly taking hold of him.
"Cloud. Cloud," he said his name as he took both his upper arms in his hands and held him as he was sinking down to the floorboards.
Cloud broke down then, overcome with instant grief and regret.
"Shhhhh," Rand spoke. "Please. Stop," he told him softly. Leaning over, he let go of Cloud's one arm to caress his face and head gently.
"Is he dead?" Cloud asked through his sobs. Rand's lack of response was his confirmation. It made Cloud cry harder. "Because of me?" he questioned as he looked the man in his face.
"It's not your fault," Rand said. "I had to—he gave me no choice," Rand told him.
"He's your family!" Cloud argued tearfully.
"He shouldn't have interfered," was Rand's response.
It sounded devoid of emotion but just as he'd seen in the car, Cloud could see tears gathering in his eyes. He could see the pain and sadness that was there. He couldn't understand how the man could have taken the life of someone he actually cared about. Someone who had cared about him too. One of the only family members he seemed to have left.
"But he was going to help you, he cared about you," Cloud pointed out to him, feeling angry then. "You could have just let me go! But you did this?!"
"I don't want to lose you again, Cloud," Rand replied. "I can't. You're…"
He paused to wipe away his tears that were breaking away.
"You're the only thing I care about," he justified. "Do you see that?"
There was no way for Cloud to respond to that. Nothing he would say right then would be what Rand wanted to hear. He dropped his eyes, shaking his head slowly. The man started to pull on his one arm, trying to urge him back to his feet. It was then that he finally acknowledged how much his leg hurt.
"Come on, you need to get cleaned up and warm," the man said as he helped him to the stairs, standing to his right side to partially block his view of Chip as they passed.
He couldn't stop himself from crying out when he took his first step on the stairs with his injured leg. When he put weight on it and bent his knee it felt like he was ripping open wider whatever wound he had gotten.
"Lean on me," Rand instructed him as he kept them moving upward.
When they made it to the bathroom, Rand turned him to get him to sit on the closed lid of the toilet. He crouched to untie his boots for him as Cloud sat breathing hard and staring at the open door thinking about what had happened downstairs because of him.
His attention was brought back suddenly to his physical state when Rand was pushing up his pant leg, trying to get a look at his bleeding injury. Just the feeling of the material of his sweats moving against his torn skin was enough to make him retract his leg from him with an exclamation of pain. He reached down quickly to stop Rand from continuing, pushing his hands away from his leg.
"I need to see how bad it is," Rand said to him.
"No!" he refused loudly. "Just go!" he ordered in a voice that didn't sound like his own. "Just leave me alone!"
He nearly raised his foot to kick the man back from him. Rand seemed hesitant. He stared at him from where he was crouched in front of him for a long moment before he exhaled audibly in surrender and stood up to leave. He backed out of the room and shut the door slowly.
The second the door was shut, Cloud lost it. He hammered on the wall next to the toilet a few times with the side of his fist before breaking into sobs. He couldn't believe what had happened. Chip was dead and he'd failed to escape, which meant Chip's act of bravery and sacrifice was for nothing. He shouldn't have let him help him. Chip would still be alive if he had just convinced Rand's cousin he did want to be there with Rand. He shouldn't have ran. He'd already felt in his gut before leaving that it was a mistake. He should have listened to that.
And Rand…Rand had murdered him. He'd murdered his own cousin to keep him. He knew Rand was capable of doing terrible things, but killing his own flesh and blood? The person he thought he knew wasn't capable of that.
What was he going to do now? After what happened between him and Rand the day before, he was already scared of him like he'd never been before. Now? He felt sick. He let it sink in that no matter what Rand said to him about just wanting to try to repair their relationship and give things a shot so he'd know they tried, he was never actually going to let him go. If things didn't 'work out' with them, he wasn't going to just open the door and let him leave and say 'Well, at least we really tried to make it work. Good luck.'
If what Rand said was what he really believed, that he was the only thing the man actually cared about anymore, that he would resort to any means necessary to keep him, even murder, then he knew this was the end of the line for him. If the world believed he was dead and no one was looking for him, then it was up to him and him alone to save himself. If he made that choice to try, his plan had to be a good one. He had a strong feeling he was only going to be afforded that one chance to act.
Planning would have to wait though. He managed to get himself out of his dirty and bloody clothing and finally got a look at his injury. The wound looked exactly like he'd imagined it would. Whatever had punctured his skin on the fence had torn a jagged line in the skin of his shin under his knee. It was about two inches long. It wasn't bleeding much anymore from what he could see. The blood that had seeped out previously had hardened around the wound.
He'd already been cold but as he stood without his clothes and started the shower running, he felt freezing. He wanted the temperature of the water to be hot enough to warm him up but he knew the second that water touched his leg it was going to be intensely painful.
He was right. It was hard to stay standing. He tried to keep a much weight on his other leg as possible while cleaning himself off. He could see the water in the bottom of the tub changing color as he washed off the blood from his leg. The wound was still bleeding a little when he turned the shower off. It wasn't very deep but there wasn't a lot of tissue covering his shin bone in that area. He wouldn't have been surprised if the puncture had gone near to his bone.
He did the best he could with patching it up with the first aid kit in the bathroom. He couldn't stop himself from continuing to shed tears, all the tears that he hadn't cried the night before or during that day. Only a few he felt were for himself. All of the others were for Chip.
He'd just finished taping up the bandaging on his leg when he could hear Rand coming up the stairs. The man opened the door and asked him how bad his injury was. He just shook his head and told him it was fine. He couldn't look at him as he spoke. Rand said something about getting him settled in his room before he could finish handling things downstairs. The man walked him to his room where he retrieved a clean t-shirt and boxers for Cloud and told him to get himself dressed and in bed and he'd be back in a minute.
Before leaving, he picked up an empty waterglass on the side table next to the bed to bring away with him. Cloud watched him leave the room. It sounded like he was headed back to the bathroom. When he heard the tap running, he realized Rand was probably just getting him some water.
While alone momentarily, Cloud did as he was told and pulled on the clean clothing. He left the damp towel from his shower on the chair in the room and slowly got himself back into the bed that he'd been abruptly woken up in by Chip only a short time earlier. He didn't lay down though right away. He sat with his back against the headboard and waited for Rand. When the man returned, he did have the now filled glass in his hand that he reached out to Cloud for him to take.
"Drink this," he said and Cloud took a drink out of it. A small mouthful before he went to place it on the nightstand next to him. "All of it," Rand directed, stopping him.
Cloud forced himself to look at him so that he could read his expression. It just seemed blank. Hard. Emotionless. He knew there was likely only one reason Rand wanted to see him drink the whole glass of water right then and it wasn't because he wanted to keep him hydrated.
"What's in it?" Cloud managed to ask quietly.
"The same thing you had a few nights ago," the man answered him without any attempt to mislead him.
"A few nights ago?" Cloud replied softly. He lowered his eyes then. Looked at the glass in his hand. "A few nights ago, when you said you didn't drug me?" he questioned.
"Yes. I lied," Rand confessed without any hesitation or emotion.
"You…" Cloud tried to make himself respond to that but the words wouldn't make it out. He'd already known Rand had done it and was lying to him. He didn't know why he would be admitting to it now, though, after so adamantly trying to convince him otherwise.
"Just drink it," was the man's soft order then.
"Why?" Cloud asked him, still unable to look at him.
"Because I have a lot to do tonight," Rand began to respond in a sharper, more impatient tone, "and don't want to worry about you while I'm—"
He stopped suddenly and drew in a short breath before sighing.
"You don't want to drink it, fine," he said, seeming annoyed then. "I still have what I gave you in Junon. It made you sick but guess we'll go with that instead," he remarked as he turned to head back out of the room.
"Wh—what?" Cloud tried to find his voice quickly then. "No, wait," he called after the man but he ignored him, heading into his room presumably to retrieve the injectable drug he was threatening him with.
It wasn't just a threat. He saw the bottle in Rand's hand when he came back. He had a plastic-wrapped syringe in his other hand that he proceeded to tear open with his teeth as he was coming toward him.
"Rand," Cloud said his name to him in a panicked tone then. He wanted the man to look at him but he avoided it, focused only what he was doing then.
"It's your choice, Cloud. I don't care either way," Rand said back to him before he used his teeth to then pull off the cap on the syringe needle. He stuck the tip into the rubber stopper on the medication bottle.
"Okay, fine," Cloud was quick to say back to him then.
He was shaking a little from the sudden adrenaline hit that his panic and fear struck him with in that moment. He lifted the glass that was still in his hands to his mouth and didn't waste another millisecond before chugging down the supposedly spiked liquid. It did taste pretty bitter towards the end. He tried to drink it down as fast as possible, leading to a bit of it spilling out the one side of his mouth, where it dripped from his chin.
Rand watched him, removing the syringe tip from the bottle in his hand slowly and pulling the cap from between his teeth to place back on it. He held both the items in his one hand then as he reached to take the emptied glass from Cloud.
"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Rand spoke down to him flatly.
Cloud only looked away as he used his one hand to wipe away the bit of liquid that had run down his face from his mouth.
"I'll see you in the morning," the man told him from the doorway as he was heading out. The last thing he said before pulling the door shut to lock it was worrisome to say the least. "We have some things to talk about."