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“I don’t believe it for a second!”
“It’s true! In front of dozens of people, too, including Madame M.”
A bellowing laugh fills the room, and Cloud stares furiously at his tumbler as the table nearly cracks beneath the force of Barret’s gun arm. “I knew he was full o’ shit! ‘I don’t dance’, my ass.”
“He was so good at it. By the end of the song, he wasn’t even following Andrea’s lead. It was like he just fell into the music.”
“Aw! I can’t believe I missed seeing Cloud finally let himself go.”
“Oh, it was wonderful, and he was blushing like mad the whole time. But you haven’t even heard the best part, yet!”
Cloud bites back a groan and hunches his shoulders, angling himself as far away from the rambunctious group gathered around the corner table. He catches sight of Tifa working her way down the bar with a rag, an apologetic smile on her lips, and sighs in defeat when she doesn’t even think to say a word in his defense.
“What, that it only took him glancin’ at the walls of Wall Market before he broke out dancin’? Cause we already knew he was repressed.”
“Barret!” It’s Tifa who finally protests, but it’s too little too late. Cloud sinks into his seat and wishes the entire world would disappear. His drink sure does, though not nearly fast enough. He grabs a nearby bottle and refills it himself.
“He’s got a point, though.”
Aerith giggles as if she knows a thing about him. “Cloud’s just shy.”
He is not shy.
“Shy or not, he was certainly willing to dance for Tifa.”
“And-” Cloud can fucking hear the wink in her voice. “-wear a dress for her.”
The room explodes into chaos. Cloud scowls against a blush as everybody bursts out laughing, voices overlapping in glee and disbelief. Even Tifa’s grinning, eyes sparkling with amusement when Jessie bounces over and slams stomach first into the table. She’s flushed on Gaia knows how much alcohol, eyes bright and cheeks rosy.
“I knneww he liked you!” she exclaims a bit too loudly, and Cloud winces. Half of him wants to speak up against the fact that they’re all gossiping about him when he’s right here. The other half of him just wants to remain quiet, refusing to give them the satisfaction of knowing he’s affected. “Did he really? It mm...must have been- so pretty! I bet it was the- the most amazing thing you’ve...ever seen.”
Cloud would say it was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever seen, but Tifa actually blushes.
Huh.
Cloud tries not to blush as well with the realization, turning away from the two as Jessie resumes the conversation amidst Tifa’s embarrassed silence. The others are busy, all chattering and mellowed out, scattered around the bar in small groups and talking about whatever it is drunk environmental activists usually find interesting.
There’s a simple camaraderie in the people around him. More than friends or acquaintances could ever be. A family.
He almost feels like an intruder, sitting here silent and morose in the midst of their comfortable chatter. All easy touches and loving warmth. Even Aerith has settled into the group as if she’s always been a part of it. She’s moved on to her second bottle now, talking animatedly with Barret about flowers, and how Cloud hadn’t ever expected them to get along like moss on a boulder is a mystery to him.
They look...happy. All of them do.
Fondness prods at the boundaries of his chest as he watches them. A wholly unfamiliar feeling, and one Cloud isn’t keen on courting at the moment. He can’t allow himself to think like that, not when he knows he’s unwelcome here. Barret had been right about this being a team - a family - that Cloud isn’t a part of. He’d been right to kick Cloud out the first time around.
He empties the rest of his drink in one go and doesn't even pause to deliberate further. It tastes like ashes.
He shouldn't have even lingered this long. Sitting here brooding at the bar while everybody has fun, bringing down the mood like one giant dark intrusion in their bright little haven of safety and warmth and...
Had his presence annoyed them, and that’s why they’d ignored it? Or had they even noticed him to begin with? Tifa certainly had, otherwise she would have left to go join in the celebrations of her family- her new family. One that Cloud isn’t part of anymore.
He stands to leave. The world tilts for a second, and he has to catch himself on the bar as his feet trip up underneath him, breath hitching and vision blurring. Nobody comments or moves to help him, though. Nobody even looks his way. So he staggers until he’s walking and makes a beeline for the front doors, past every joyful conversation and a smattering of giggles, until he’s bursting outside in a rush.
At once, he’s hit by a blast of the cool night air and the dim glow of the porchlights. For a second, the two worlds meld together - the quiet peace of the night and the warm, brash camaraderie of Seventh Heaven. A soothing lull to the strain of reality. Then the sounds cut off abruptly as the doors click shut, and all he’s left with is silence.
Cloud stumbles over to lean on the nearest metal railing, avoiding the stairs like the plague. Leave. He inhales deeply, the air crisp and refreshing, and breathes out some of the fogginess in his mind. They don’t want you here. He opens his eyes again and stares blankly at the ground below him, uncertain and on edge. Green flickers in the corner of his eye, a breath like ice ghosting through his hair. He swallows thickly and tells himself it’s the breeze, but slitted, sickly eyes grace his vision, and he has to duck his head over the railing to calm the tremors that arise.
“You think these people will accept you, once they know what you are?”
He breathes in shakily and grits his teeth against a response.
“You’re lucky they don’t care for you.”
They do.
They don’t.
He clutches at his hair and tries to make the world stop spinning, panting so loudly he can hear it past the rush of water in his ears.
“Imagine how disappointed they’d be if they learned what goes on inside your head?”
Cloud shakes his head and takes in another breath. He refuses to answer. Refuses to give anybody the satisfaction of knowing he’s hurt - knowing he’s weak.
He doesn’t want them to accept him. He never did and he never will. He’s stronger than that.
“Cloud?”
He jumps at the voice - real and alive and right there - heart racing for a moment in pure, unbridled fear as he thinks that Sephiroth’s finally become real. That the man can finally hurt him. Then the rest of it catches up to him. It’s a girl’s voice, small and high and above him. Not next to him. Not Sephiroth.
“Marlene?” he asks in disbelief, half convinced he might still be hallucinating. Yet when he races down the stairs and turns to face the source of the noise, it’s a little girl’s head peeking out at him over the edge of the awning. “How the f- how did you get up there?”
“I- I didn’t do it on purpose. I promise!” Her voice warbles with tears, and Cloud shifts uncomfortably. This is decidedly not his problem.
“I’ll go get Barret.”
“No! You can’t!”
He glances through the windows of the bar, where Barret’s laughing uproariously at whatever Tifa’s said. The man would kill for his daughter, and he’d probably beat Cloud’s ass for even considering not telling him. Cloud doesn’t need that right now. Barret already hates him enough, but at least he’s still willing to foist off his money after a job. “You won’t get in trouble.” Probably. “He should know you’re safe.”
“But I will!” Marlene wails, and Cloud winces. “Daddy will be mad. I’m not s’post... supposed to be out here.”
“You're not allowed, you mean.”
Marlene sniffs again, lower lip quivering as her eyes start to water, and Cloud’s heart drops when he realizes she’s about to cry. “Please don’t tell Daddy! I only left out the window to see the lights. I didn’t mean to get stuck.”
“Can you go back to your room?” Cloud asks, though he already knows the answer. If only things were that easy.
“N-no...It’s dark and- and I can’t see. Please help me down, Cloudy...I’m scared.”
“It’s not- don’t call me that.” Marlene sniffs again, and Cloud sighs, squeezing his eyes shut for a second to fight off the growing headache. “Fine. Just...don’t move. Stay right there.”
He steps further from the building and examines the walls in the hopes of finding somewhere she could climb down, but she really has gotten herself trapped in the most unfortunate place possible. She’s on top of the awning, perched on the highest peak. Her knuckles are white from the death grip she has on the edge, knees occasionally sliding down the curve before she corrects them. Every time she so much as fidgets he feels his heart hit his throat, and by the time he’s finished examining every inch of the building, he feels more sober than he ever has in his life.
She’s much too high up, he concludes. This really is a job for Barret.
“You’d have to jump,” he finally says as he rounds the front of the stairs again, keeping his voice soft to avoid startling her, “we need to get Barret.”
“No! Don’t tell Daddy. He’ll be angry.”
Barret couldn't be angry with Marlene if his life depended on it. “I don’t think so. He just wants you safe.”
“You’re lying.” Marlene hiccoughs, voice cracking on the last word, and it takes an effort for him to remain still in the face of her distress. Something like guilt and understanding twists up inside him, but he can’t think too long about it.
“I’ll be right back,” he says, though every word feels like pulling teeth, “just don’t move and B...Dad will come save you.”
“But I want you to come save me! Please dont- please don’t leave!” She yells out in a panic, and then she’s moving, letting go of the roof and pushing to stand with too much force, feet sliding and eyes widening as Cloud’s stomach lurches in fear.
A dozen things happen at once, blurring and loud in the rush of panic. Marlene’s scream pierces the air, wood cracking and light flooding the area with a series of yells, and Marlene falls. Her scream cuts off as she hits empty space, and Cloud moves like he’s never moved before, feet skidding across the concrete and launching himself from the bottom step with a vicious gust of wind.
He doesn’t know how he reaches her in time. Doesn’t know anything except that he manages to snag hold of her before she even drops a foot, pulling her to his chest and curling around her with a snap. The harsh movement interrupts his flight, and in the next moment it’s Cloud that’s falling, wrapped tightly around his precious bundle as his back meets the top step. There’s a sickening crack, pain igniting across his back and forcing the breath from his lungs, but he doesn’t even think to let go. Not as every step afterward makes the pain spike and not as they finally hit the concrete, wrought metal a dark and twisting sky above them.
Marlene’s shaking on his chest, torn by hiccoughing cries and too afraid to let go, but at least she’s alive. Cloud almost wants to cry with her at the relief he feels seeing her there, safe and breathing in the cradle of his arms. Her small fingers are fisted in his shirt, head buried against his chest, and when she looks up at him her face is wet with tears.
“Is- is it over?”
His lungs feel too constricted to answer, chest tight, and before he can gather his thoughts or his breath there’s a thud of footsteps and a rise of voices. Other people, he realizes blankly for a second. Then, Barret - Avalanche, as awareness finally catches up to him.
“Marlene! Marlene!”
“What the hell happened?”
“Oh Gaia, is that-”
A shadow falls over them, and within seconds Marlene is pried from Cloud’s arms. Barret instantly sweeps her into a crushing hug, a spill of soft, comforting words pressed into his daughter’s hair. Cloud struggles to sit up when the other man turns away, hoping to capitalize on his distraction before anybody realizes a simple fall practically took him out. His face burns when he finally manages to push himself upright, but nothing could prepare him for the sight of everybody else standing there as well. Silent and frozen as they stare at him with wide, horrified eyes.
Cloud tenses and goes deathly still. His voice catches at the back of his throat, shame and pain and a dozen other things making his arms shake beneath his weight. He knows he should say something, but no words would be able to justify the fact that he’d almost let a child die. Now they know. Now they-
“What is that?” It’s Marlene who asks it, voice small in the heavy blanket of silence, and Cloud blinks in momentary confusion.
Then a feather falls into view, and Cloud nearly goes faint with shock. Before he can stop to think, he’s bringing his hand up, fingers splayed and stomach twisting as he reaches up to catch it. He expects dust and shadow - for the feather to disappear as every other has. Except that when his fingers wrap around it, all he feels are soft, delicates vanes and a thin shaft. Real.
No!
Cloud throws it as far away from him as he can, panic rising when all it does is catch on the air and keep drifting. Like a real feather should. Panting, he staggers to his feet, casting about desperately for Sephiroth as he grabs for his sword. Yet his hands hit nothing and all he sees is Barret and Tifa and Marlene, shocked and terrified and stunned. All looking at him and not anybody else. Or, more accurately, something behind him.
Cloud doesn’t need to see it to know, of course. The weight off balances him and has him trying to catch his footing, tripping backwards as they all just keep looking. Not saying anything. Not doing anything. Just-
“Are you a monster?”
And Cloud can’t bear to hear their answers. To look for one more second at their disgusted expressions and horrified eyes. The spell has been broken, Tifa opening her mouth to speak as Jessie gasps and moves forward, and Cloud trips backwards again, boots scraping loudly on the ground as he staggers around in a wide circle.
“Cloud!” It’s Tifa.
Tifa. She knows what Sephiroth did. She knows he’s a monster-
And he can’t look back - can’t look into her eyes and know that she hates him.
So he runs.
He runs until his feet ache and nothing makes sense. Until the stares and gasps he draws from onlookers drive him deeper into the bowels of the scrapyards with the burn of shame and fear and hatred.
“I told you,” Sephiroth hisses, and Cloud spins in the center of a closed metal clearing to face the bastard, but all he’s met with is more walls.
“Shut up,” he snaps, “shut up!”
“They know you’re tainted, now”. Cloud doesn’t even need Sephiroth to tell him that. Doesn’t need Sephiroth to let him know that his mind is cracked and broken. That his body isn’t his own.
Cloud can’t even look at the metal for fear of seeing his reflection; gleaming snake eyes and a cruel smirk. He already has enough of Sephiroth. He already knows he’s a monster. He doesn’t need to see it. As if the voices in his head hadn’t proved it. As if the green flashes and painful hallucinations hadn’t already told him. Now his corruption isn’t only on the inside. Now it’s outside of him, too. A morbid display of his weakness and his failure. Proof that he can’t control what’s inside his head, let alone the appearance of his own body.
He holds back a sob, chest jumping and lips thinning. There’s a corner of the clearing that’s shadowed and dark, sheltered by a jagged metal overhang, and he forces one foot in front of the other. The sound of something dragging behind him makes him want to vomit. Pain sears through the appendage, pulling at his chest and back and making his shoulder ache. Snapped, he thinks, and has to push the thought to the back of his mind because he doesn’t care.
If he’s lucky, the thing is broken beyond repair.
He drops down and crawls beneath the overhang, pulling his knees to his chest and pressing against the cold metal. Stretched out in a gruesome, bloody display is the wing, nearly unnoticeable in the darkness of the night, and he presses his eyes to his knees so he doesn’t have to see it. The pain is a stark reminder, though.
He really is a monster.
They’d all been so scared of him. Tifa had been the worst, of course, but Marlene’s fear was palpable. Even thinking about it makes his eyes wet, and no amount of rubbing them on his pants can brush away the tears. Aerith had been wide eyed, fingers pressed to her mouth in shock, and Barret had looked thunderous. Probably from allowing Marlene anywhere within a foot of Cloud.
He curls into a tighter ball and tries to fight the heave of his shoulders, but it’s a fruitless endeavor. There’s a feeling of loss that burns, even as he reminds himself that he’d never been a part of their family in the first place. One that has him wishing he could cut the fucking wing away. That he could make everything better. Head back to Seventh Heaven and beg for their forgiveness.
If only he had his sword.
The mere thought has him shuddering in phantom pain, and he resists the urge to pull the wing closer for protection.
“Cloud?” A voice breaks the silence, and Cloud freezes at the sound. It’s Tifa’s voice, and she’s close enough to be right on top of him.
Then another voice speaks up, echoing down the walls of the alley he’s in, and Cloud ducks down to press even further into his hiding place at the sound of Barret’s approach. “Oi merc! Where the hell are you?”
“Barret, you’re going to scare him off.”
“Kid can take care of himself.”
“But did you see-”
A light swings into view, flickering along the battered edges of Cloud’s feathers, and both sets of footsteps immediately come to a stop. Cloud swallows and closes his eyes, trembling with fear or embarrassment, he doesn’t know.
Have they come to hunt him down? Or kick him out?
Tifa wouldn’t do that.
Cloud doesn’t say a word. Neither does Barret and Tifa. Their light lingers on his wing for a long time, and he wonders if they’ve finally noticed how ugly it is. The gruesome bend and twist of an unnatural limb.
“Oh Gaia. Cloud, are you hurt?”
It takes a greater effort this time around to resist pulling his wing closer, wrapping it around himself and shielding his body from prying eyes. The light hasn’t moved, but he knows their gazes have, and there’s not even a millimeter more space between himself and the walls that could help him shift away.
“That don’t look natural.” It’s not. “Shit, do you think it’s broken?”
The light moves, then, over bloody patches and the scattered feathers ringing his form. Cloud feels nauseous just looking at them, undeniably grateful that they haven’t turned to dust even as he wishes they would.
“That looks like a lot of blood…” Tifa worries, and Cloud flinches when she takes another step forward. “We need to get him back. Cloud, can you move?”
He doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know what they want from him. His mouth feels sealed shut with fear and loathing, and he can’t even swallow past the knot in his throat anymore. As if it isn’t shameful he’d been so weak as to get injured in the first place. Now he has a fucking wing sprouting from his back and all he wants to do is cry. Are they here to mock him? He just wishes they’d leave.
“We’re just here to help. Please, Cloud.”
It shouldn’t be Tifa begging. It shouldn’t be Barret approaching with light steps and a soft voice. Shouldn’t be either of them here to see him like this, offering help.
This is all so, so wrong. They should be afraid of him. They should hate him.
He knows he does.
“It’s okay-”
“It’s not.” He inhales like he’s drowning, throat tight and vision blurred. “I’m a- I’m like- Sephiroth.” The word is acid on his tongue and Tifa’s startled inhale only makes it worse. He’s a fool for reminding her, and now she’s going to abandon him. She’s going to realize this was a mistake and she’s going to leave.
“You’re nothing like him.”
Cloud almost chokes on his sob, tension cut away so abruptly his limbs go numb with the shock of it. He collapses in on himself, biting his lip to stifle the tremors, but the rest of his body shakes with each breath.
“I told you before that I was wrong about you, kid. That wasn’t a joke. You ain’t nothin’ like that sick fucking bastard.”
Cloud shakes his head. “You’re wrong. You’re wrong. I-I see him- I-”
“You see Sephiroth?” Tifa sounds faint, but Barret powers on as stubborn as ever.
“That doesn’t mean a thing, okay?” he says, and the conviction in his tone eases the band around Cloud’s chest. He takes in a shaky breath, latching desperately onto Barret’s next words. “What you see isn’t real, and having a wing don’t mean a thing except that you’ve got a wing.”
“Sephiroth has-”
“Sephiroth doesn’t have shit cause he’s a dead sonofabitch.”
That brings with it a whole host of worries Cloud hasn’t allowed himself to think about since he got here, and another silence descends between the three of them. The pain in his wing is a lot more noticeable now that he’s gathered enough wits to focus on it, and he can’t help the slightest hint of hope from forming - that they actually mean what they say. That they still care.
“You ain’t a monster, and Marlene shouldn’t have said that.” Barret lowers himself to a crouch, the hard edges of his expression melting into something soft as he continues. “You saved her. You saved my baby girl, and I will never forget that.”
Cloud had failed her. He’d almost let her fall. Yet he can’t bring himself to correct Barret, careful of the tentative trust.
“I ruined your gathering,” Cloud ends up saying instead, though he’s not entirely sure why.
Barret snorts. “Gathering was ruined as soon as you left.”
Should have snuck out. “Sorry.”
“That’s not what he meant,” Tifa says, sighing. She lowers herself to kneel beside Barret, and Cloud’s surprised to see nothing but kindness and concern in her eyes. That small bubble of hope grows when she smiles at him. A shy, reassuring twitch of the lips. “He meant that we missed you after you left. Aerith was worried she’d upset you.”
“But it was a…” Private affair.
Gaia, he’s such an idiot. It was stupid to worry about such a thing in the first place, and it only goes to show just how weak he is that he’d even been bothered at all. Cloud has never been shy about who he hangs out with before. He’s never cared before if people accept him. Yet the sting of Barret’s words had felt fresh, the mockery of a few days ago - of extra money and saying they wouldn’t need him - like a new cut across his skin. It hadn’t felt scarred over in the moment. Hadn’t felt anything but raw and exposed as they’d all laughed around him - at him.
“We wanted you there. Hell, it woud’a been nice to hear the story from you.”
“I’m sure you would have told it better. Though Aerith does have a...way with words.”
A hint of a smile finds its way to Cloud’s lips at that, but it rapidly gives up the ghost when his gaze lands on the wing again. He eyes it warily, swallowing down bile and blinking away the afterimages of blood and a sword and silver hair over monstrous eyes. He shudders at the memory, pulling his knees closer to his chest. There’s a limp, broken rasp of feathers over concrete as he moves, and he has to peel his gaze away before he does something he’ll regret.
“Cloud…” Tifa begins hesitantly, fingers outstretched toward his wing. They’re frozen, her voice hesitant as she speaks. “We never talked about what happened in Nibelheim. Sephiroth…”
“I know.”
She gives him a tiny nod and says nothing for a while, then: “you aren’t a monster. You’re not like him, and I could never hate you for this. You and Sephiroth...you aren’t the same. Even if-” She squeezes her eyes shut, lips pursing and shoulders hitching as she calms herself. Cloud and Barret both wait patiently. “Even if you see him...Sephiroth. You need help.”
“We can help you,” Barret pitches in, low and so unlike himself that Cloud thinks for a moment he might be fever dreaming. Or, more likely, in an alcohol induced coma.
“The others are waiting at the bar for us, too.”
“Trust me when I say they’ll come out here themselves and scream your name for hours if we don’t return with ya. Your little flower girl threatened me. I ain’t never been threatened by someone so tiny in my life.”
“Everybody wants to help you,” Tifa says, “Please. I- we... love you.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that-” Tifa’s hair practically cracks through the air as her head whips around, and the burn of her vivid red eyes has Barret cowed. Cloud can’t quite hide the smirk that appears this time around, and Tifa shares a smug smile with him when Barret scowls at the both of them. “Uh huh. I don’t know why the hell I thought our friendly neighborhood merc here was the only Nibelheim bastard. You’re both just feral pains in my ass.”
The word choice is uncomfortable, but for the first time that night, the pang of rejection doesn’t follow. Barret looks relaxed around his wing, now. As does Tifa. Neither of them appears horrified, anymore. They don’t look disgusted.
“I’m...I don’t know what to do.” He has to pry the first words from his mouth, but he isn’t even aware of the next words until they fall like fire from his lips. “It hurts.”
His face heats with shame, yet Tifa and Barret don't mock him. They don’t call him weak or useless or a sorry excuse for a SOLDIER. And he forces his muscles to unwind, inhaling deeply and exhaling at length. They wouldn’t hurt him, he reminds himself, these people are safe.
“It’s okay, Cloud,” Tifa soothes. She rises slowly, every movement of her approach projected, and Cloud would protest the treatment if he wasn’t so painfully grateful for it. When she falls to her knees outside his shelter, the careful compassion on her face hasn’t changed. “We can patch you up. Just like when we were kids.”
He hesitates. “Here?”
“Back at the bar,” Barret corrects, “ain't no way we’d be able to heal you up out here, otherwise. Even if it were daytime.
Cloud takes another fortifying breath, comforted by Tifa’s solid support. Yet voicing his concerns is still too much, and he subsides reluctantly into the shadow of his safe haven.
“We’ll take the back alleys,” Tifa says, and Cloud blinks at her in surprise. Her flicker of a knowing smile is like a benediction, a soothing run of words like water over his skin. “We aren’t that far from Seventh Heaven, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Okay?”
He nods, and Barret’s loud clap is almost enough to make him jump. “Aight! Let’s get movin’. You think you can stand, SOLDIER boy?”
“I’m not an invalid,” Cloud barks with a scowl, “I can move just fine.”
“We could carry the-”
“Don’t!” He regrets snapping immediately, wincing and looking away. “I can move it myself.”
“It’s got to be painful. Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Don’t...don’t touch it.” He pauses and flicks his eyes to her, then over to Barret as the other man shifts to stand. They both came for him. They want to help him.
They consider him family. He blinks the tears from his eyes and looks away, crawling slowly from his shelter. Tifa is warm at his side, Barret steady and unwavering before him. Neither of them leaves.
They came for him. “...thank you.”
“Anytime.”
Cloud might just believe them.