Cloud stepped over the pile of mail that had accumulated just inside his door, tossing his keys into the little clay dish that Denzel had made in school and that Marlene had painted. They'd probably be embarrassed to know he'd kept it, especially Marlene who'd spent the last few years improving her art skills. The clay was lumpy and he'd glued a chunk of it back on when it had broken off one day, and the chocobo painted inside looked more like a chicken wearing a saddle. He loved it anyway, and it made him smile every time he came home.
He kicked his shoes off beside the puddle of paper and scooped the mail up to keep the sloppy mud he'd tracked in from ruining anything that might be important. Not that he got a lot of important mail at home - everything for his business got delivered to the old garage he'd converted into a slightly more professional office to receive packages and keep his paperwork. Well, semi-converted, half of it was still a garage where he kept Fenrir and worked on him when maintenance was required.
His apartment was just a place to eat and sleep, and he was on the road so often that he didn't need much space - and it was the cheapest thing around that wasn't a room in someone else's house. It was just one room though, and the couch did double duty as his bed. His kitchen had a full sized fridge, a sink, and just enough space for a hot plate and slow cooker. He wasn't the best cook, but he could make chili and two different kinds of stew, and frozen vegetables were just as good as fresh — if not sometimes better.
Flopping down onto his couch, he began sorting through the papers just in case a bill was due - he'd started paying Tifa to do that for him, since sometimes things came late while he was out on deliveries. It had been frustrating, not to mention expensive, the time the power company had shut off his electricity when he'd missed two payments in a row after he got stranded way out in Cosmo for over a month when it had rained so heavily that the wadis had cut off all exits from the area. He'd lost everything in his freezer, right after having restocked it too.
He tossed each piece of paper onto the coffee table as he came to it. Pizza delivery ad, coupons from the grocery store - he tossed that one onto the couch beside him as that was actually useful, four different scam letters, a postcard from Yuffie who'd started up a Materia hunting team that specialized in leveling up and budding new orbs to sell, more junk mail, another scam. They were getting pretty bold, and one of them was so fucking insidious he kept it aside to pass off to the Turks. It promised to find lost loved ones who had been missing after Meteorfall, for an exorbitant fee of course.
The last thing was different, and not just that it was made of thick and expensive looking paper. It had a sticker in the shape of a wax seal holding it shut, and instead of his address it just had his name scrawled across the front. He picked at the sticker curiously, flipping open the envelope and sliding out the contents.
Something in the vicinity of his heart constricted as a handwritten note and a printed paper ticket fell into his lap. A stylized heart took up most of the note, three swords piercing through it with red drops falling beneath it. His eyes drifted over the words - cordially invited, grand opening, a time and a date. A theater was going to open a few blocks away in a much nicer part of Edge, and apparently he'd been 'randomly' chosen to attend for free. The production, of course, was Loveless. The ticket proclaimed that it was the 'G' version of the classic play.
Cloud smoothed out the paper from where his fingers had dug into it the further he'd read. He dropped his head onto the back of the couch and looked up at the water stains on his ceiling.
It had been a long time since he'd thought about Loveless, although he'd bought a battered second or third hand copy at a garage sale he'd passed by a couple of years ago. It still sat on a shelf across from the couch, mixed in with engine repair manuals, blacksmithing notes, and the books he'd used to study and pass the GED test that Reeve had set him up with a few of years ago.
He'd never actually got around to reading it. Things just kept getting in the way, there was always something that seemed vitally important that he had to do instead. There'd been a lot going on after Meteorfall, and then there was rebuilding the bar, and figuring out what he'd be any good at outside of killing things for money - which he still did, sometimes. Then there had been Geostigma, and Advent Day, and recovering, and getting back to work and moving out of the bar despite Tifa's halfhearted pleading. She'd needed to rent out the room he slept in, to pay for Marlene's art classes and Denzel's martial arts school. And she had girlfriend now. It got a little awkward sometimes.
It had been a long time since he'd done anything just… because, he realized. Some people would say he didn't know how to have fun, and they'd probably be right. There was just always something he had to do and take care of and things he wanted to do just fell by the wayside.
Dragging himself up off of the couch, Cloud grabbed the slim volume from the shelf and carried it back to the couch and laid down with it. He smoothed his fingers across the cover, over the raised letters of the title.
"The wandering soul knows no rest," he muttered, and that was the only line he actually remembered about the poem and he had no idea what part it was from or if it was even accurate. He could hear the light amused voice who'd quoted it, see the bright blue eyes tinted with Mako peering down the slim nose in reproach for Cloud being such a bumpkin he'd never heard of Loveless.
It had been an even longer time since he'd thought about Genesis Rhapsodos, Commander and First Class SOLDIER. He'd met him only a handful of times before things had gone to Ifrit's miserable hells, not just for Cloud but for Genesis too. Looking back with the clarity that hindsight brought with it, he couldn't help but wonder if he'd gone crazy for the same reasons as Sephiroth. Had Jenova been in his head, too? Had she pulled his strings as he lost more and more of who he was until he was just a violent puppet doing as much damage as possible?
It sounded like her. Bitch.
He flipped open the cover, eyes running over the handwritten note on the first page that declared the book had been a gift at one time. The printing was older than Cloud, the cheap paper it was printed on yellowed a fuzzy soft around the edges.
He turned the page, skimming the forward and dedications and long winded notes about the origin of the poem. He'd heard all of that already, and when he actually got to the real words themselves they became more and more familiar.
A war of beasts, a goddess, wings of light and dark.
Outside, the rain began to come down harder, pounding on the roof he'd taken up a collection from his neighbors to get fixed so those water stains didn't turn into getting their rooms totally flooded. Their landlord certainly wouldn't have done it.
He closed his eyes and listened to it, and the poem rose in his memory in the voice of a man long dead.
Cloud had been a nobody trooper when he'd been sent to pick up a SOLDIER who'd gotten stuck at a remote outpost along the coast down from Junon. He'd wondered why people had snickered and grinned when the base commander had tossed him the keys, but he'd figured out pretty quickly that it was just another bit of hazing that never really ended for him.
"What the hell did you do to earn the punishment that comes along with my esteemed presence," Genesis, or Commander Rhapsodos said when they weren't in front of an audience. The SOLDIER had been pale from blood loss and flushed from infection, and he'd been surprised that Cloud immediately grabbed the med kit from the back of the truck and broke the seal on the Cleansing and Cute Materia that were to be used only in an emergency.
"I don't know if you realize," Genesis had said, but hadn't slapped Cloud's hands away, "but you're going to get in a massive amount of shit for using something like that on me. SOLDIERS don't warrant such things unless we're specifically assigned them. I'll heal, I always do."
He hadn't realized at the time that Genesis' wounds had taken longer than usual to close, or that SOLDIERS almost never got infections, and certainly didn't get dangerously high fevers that made them delirious.
"You're still here?" Genesis had asked when he'd woken up once. "Infinite in mystery, I'm fairly certain your orders were to shove me in the truck and deliver me to my next post."
Cloud had just shrugged. If he was going to get in trouble and punished for one thing he might as well just keep adding to it. He'd get the worst possible punishment even if he just messed up one thing anyway. His base commander hated his guts, and he couldn't even remember why now.
"Drink some more water," Cloud had said, ignoring the question and shoving a cold bottle into the SOLDIER's hands and then had to help twist the top off and hold it to his teeth reddened lips.
"Pride is lost," Genesis had mumbled as he settled back on his sweat damp pillow, "wings stripped… nigh…"
Genesis had been ill for almost a week, and Cloud could tell when he started to feel better and got to the part of any sickness that was the most frustrating - feeling well enough to be angry that you weren't completely free of it.
"Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul," he'd grumbled, picking at the shelf stable bread from the MRE Cloud had heated up for him and grimaced at the herbal tea that Cloud had found in the cabinets in the nearly depleted supplies that had already needed replacing before he'd dragged Genesis back into it and made him get into one of the half dozen equally uncomfortable cots. The building probably hadn't been used since the Republic days.
Cloud hadn't been sure that Genesis was totally better, but he'd flung an arm around him on the fifth afternoon with hair still wet from his shower dripping down Cloud's neck as he pressed a completely unexpected kiss to his cheek. "Hero of the dawn, Healer of worlds, promise me when we get back to Midgar that you'll grace me with your presence?"
He'd shrugged Genesis off, confused and really uncertain if he was being serious or if he was just fucking with him.
"I need to inflict you with Loveless," he'd drawled, "which is the greatest repayment I can give you for spending so much time taking care of me - a thankless miserable duty as it's been. You never did say what you did to piss your CO off enough to send you after me?"
"Dunno," Cloud had said, ignoring the invitation that he'd figured was more polite than serious, "he just hates me in general I think."
Genesis had barked a laugh. "Man after my own blackened heart! Don't change - make him regret that once you're a SOLDIER. You'll have to come find me when you pass the exam."
Cloud hadn't passed the exam. He hadn't tried to get hold of Gen when he was loitering around Midgar until he had to go back to Junon, a failure. It wasn't like the stupid crush he'd developed would be reciprocated, and he didn't think he could handle Genesis laughing at him. The second time he'd tried taking the test was just a few days before Genesis had been declared killed in action. He had learned fairly quickly that that had been yet another lie of Shinra's. Genesis had defected and taken a lot of his men with him, and he'd proceeded to go absolutely insane from what Cloud could tell.
The first time he'd aimed his rifle at one of Genesis' copies, he'd hesitated. He'd been reprimanded for it, made to do two weeks worth of the most boring and disgusting KP duties his CO could come up with. He'd been called a coward and a sniveling little weakling but fuck if he couldn't bring himself to shoot one of the only people who'd been nice to him since he'd left Nibelheim. Zack had come along after, but they'd only met once until then. The second time he'd been sick was when he was supposed to be helping guard the civilians trapped by even more of Genesis' copies.
He'd said he was sick from the helicopter, and everyone believed him because he did get motion sick, but really it had been because he'd had to kill one of the copies before he could kill Cloud. That helped, actually, and he'd been able to do it again later, and then the few more times it became necessary. It wasn't really Genesis, it wasn't the SOLDIER who'd ripped open forty two MREs just to take the tiny chocolate bars out of them to make hot chocolate. It wasn't the man who'd resentfully thanked Cloud for holding his hair back when he vomited, or who cursed him when he made him drink more of the chamomile tea, and rambled for four hours about dumbapple tree cultivation and harvest.
Cloud dragged himself out of the memories that had flooded into him, blinking hard against the tears he hadn't even realized were pouring down his face to drop onto the open page of the book. That happened sometimes, when he started remembering things - a lot of stuff in his past was eaten by Mako and forcibly forgotten because it just hurt to think about. Every once in a while he'd get dropped into a spiral where he lost a chunk of time as he relived things he'd mostly forgotten. This wasn't as bad as the last time, when he'd had phantom pain from a sword through the chest and smoke in his lungs and burns all down the front of his uniform from crawling over cinders.
He'd thrown up three times, and gone out to hunt monsters in Midgar's ruins for a few days until he got it out of his system. That was when he'd moved out, his screaming nightmares that terrified the kids just another reason to make his constant absences a permanent solution. He made a way better uncle than a kind of sort of dad who didn't know how to act like one anyway.
"When the war of the beasts brings about the world's end, the Goddess descends from the sky…" Cloud read, lips shaping the words that he still heard in a dead man's voice. He felt exhausted from struggling through the remembrance, and fell asleep halfway through the book's author comparing two different translations. It was so full of footnotes he'd spent half the time flipping to the back to see what she was talking about.
He woke with the book splayed open across his chest and thunder cracking so loud it sent him scrambling to his feet and trying to grab for a weapon that of course he hadn't slept with. In his instinctive panic he flipped the coffee table, sending papers spraying across the floor and breaking off a corner of the thrifted furniture. He sighed and picked everything up, rummaging around for the tube of heavy duty glue he kept in his tool kit to stick the piece of wood back in place - he didn't care whether it looked nice, but he knew he'd end up scraping his leg on jagged corner once a week just because it was there. Murphy's law, or something like that.
Cloud fingered the theater ticket for a moment and stuck it into the book around where he'd fallen asleep reading, and wondered just what the hell you were supposed to wear to a play.
He was pretty sure that he was wildly underdressed when he walked up to the ticket counter and slid the slip of paper through the little gap in the window. They were his nicest clothes, but his nicest was definitely some people's work clothing. His boots were clean and his usual monochrome black didn't show stains, but seeing everyone else's far more expensive getups he almost turned around and left before they could forbid him from coming in anyway.
Instead, the woman behind the counter just smiled and tore off a piece of his ticket, pointing out the letter and number at the end as being his seat number. He hadn't realized that was even a thing - he'd been to the movies a few times since they'd started showing old classics from before Meteorfall and you just bought the ticket and sat wherever.
As he found the seat and made his way to it, a sudden thought plummeted into his stomach. What if someone had sent him the ticket as some weird way of wrangling a date out of him? It had been a while since anyone hit on him, but every time they had it hadn't been anything about who Cloud really was - just the whole 'hero' bullshit that Rufus spread around to deflect from Shinra's and his own personal involvement in the near end of the world twice over.
The seats on both sides of his were empty and he struggled with himself, wondering whether it would be better to get up and leave now before he got trapped with someone who thought it was cool to go out with the world's most awkward motherfucker who'd had his name in a few papers. In the end, the two people who took those seats paid not the least bit of attention to him, well, beyond the dirty look he'd got from someone dressed in something he could only describe as looking expensive. She'd looked him up and down, taking in the combat boots and jeans and military surplus jacket that was practically new. Clearly, he'd been found wanting, but he'd just stared at her the way Tifa would have until she looked away.
He relaxed as the lights lowered - he guessed he really had been picked at random. He wondered just what was meant by the 'G' version, although he had a feeling Genesis had somehow been involved. Cloud hadn't ever been in the fan clubs - you had to have a PHS, and he couldn't afford one back then, but he knew one of them was just about Loveless and everything Genesis had loved about it. It didn't surprise him at all when the curtain parted and a woman wearing all black with a white veil over her face dedicated the production to the fallen SOLDIER. There was a thunderous applause, and Cloud wondered what Genesis would have thought as the actress gave a small bow once the sound had faded.
Cloud didn't know what made a good play, but the actors were convincing and the costumes and sets looked realistic. By the time of the intermission, Cloud could see why so many people were entranced by the story - and he had a weirdly melancholy feeling knowing that there really wasn't an end to it. A lot of the audience took the time for a break, moving out into the lobby to do… whatever you did during an intermission. It wasn't a movie theater and there wasn't a concession stand or anything like that. He had a feeling Genesis would have been appalled at the thought of people crunching on popcorn when they should be focused on his beloved play.
"How are you enjoying it," a voice asked , and Cloud stiffened as arms slid around him. He reached up to grab the man's wrists and shove him off, but hands in fingerless black gloves twisted and laced their fingers together abruptly. His attempt to move away was turned into a forced embrace and Cloud twisted his head to look behind him. His lips parted in a startled sound and his eyes widened - meeting glowing blue-green in the half lowered lights. Red hair tumbled down around a pale face, longer than Cloud remembered and styled into something more modern. The signature crimson coat and black pauldrons were gone, replaced by a sleek black jacket and red button up.
"Gen?" Cloud let the man loom closer, and tilted his head as Genesis rubbed his cheek against Cloud's like a contented cat. It was weird, and so fucking Genesis that Cloud's hesitation turned to fond exasperation.
"Genesis!" Cloud hissed, "what the fuck?!"
"You remembered me," Genesis said, tongue finding his lower lip and wetting it before he lunged forward and pressing his lips against Cloud's, "did you come because you remembered me?" he asked, "a certain dark haired Turk told me you probably didn't, after… whatever the fuck happened while I've been gone. But I thought, maybe, if I sent you the ticket it would make you think of me and it might make you remember and even if you didn't I could find you after and talk to you and-"
Cloud climbed over the back of the row of seats and into the one beside Genesis. "I didn't forget you," he interrupted, "where the hell have you been?"
"It's a long story," Genesis said, biting at his lip again the way he had all those years ago when he'd been sick and miserable and complaining about everything and anything just to get his thoughts off of being sick.
"The play," the man insisted again, and it was so plaintive that the vague thought about copies and clones and subterfuge that crossed his mind in a flash seemed ridiculous. No one else knew that Cloud had known Genesis, his copies certainly hadn't.
"I don't care about the stupid play," Cloud hissed, and cupped Genesis' face between his hands. He got to enjoy the split second of shock in those bright eyes before he closed the distance and forced their lips together in a kiss that was as pissed off as it was something he'd wanted to do for years. A bubble of laughter passed from Genesis' throat into his and the look in his eyes was more than a little manic.
"Alright," Genesis said, letting Cloud lace their fingers together again and drag him out of his seat and towards the lobby, "fuck the play, just this once."