Author: I-Mushi
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Adventure, Romance
Rated: M
Pairing: Sephiroth/Cloud
Summary:
Cloud has suffered and asked for forgiveness, but Aeris knows she alone cannot give him it. He must find that forgiveness and peace where it began, back at SOLDIER.
Preview :
Shinra was not so old-fashioned as to have a trumpet player wake its soldiers in the mornings. Instead they had an alarm someone had said long ago was like the screech of a castrated Behemoth.
Cloud had suffered enough of these wake-up calls to last a lifetime and thought he would never have to wake to it again. After all the commotion of his early life, waking up at the crack of dawn to silence was a blessing. When the sudden blare of the alarms shattered the silence of the room with a sudden cacophony of sound, Cloud was up like a shot, one hand under the pillow for the knife he kept there. With a particularly loud WHAM, Cloud's head connected with the bottom of the bunk above him.
He rubbed his forehead partially from pain but mostly from shock. His mind seemed to detach itself involuntarily as he took in the room.
It was a far too recognizable, with four sets of bunk beds spread about: two against one wall perpendicular to him, his own and the bunk above it to the left of the door, and the other set directly across from his. The walls were the dull gray steel and the floor a dirt-thin carpet in very faded red. The only windows were two small ones close to the ceiling that couldn't be opened. In all the bunks around him, people were beginning to stir. Cadets with long-forgotten faces and voices that recalled some of his most faded memories peeked out of covers and rolled over on pillows. Like ghosts, they stumbled out of bed and started their daily routine.
Someone dropped in front of him, and Cloud sharply pulled back, ready to flee or fight. One fist was already clenched in preparation, but the figure before him asked for a punch in the face for an entirely different reason.
"Up and at em'! Materia's today, and I don't want to miss a bit of it." The boy laughed easily, a bright smile on his face. The other cadets in the barracks were groaning at him but Cloud only stared. Daniel Gavish's face had been half-burnt off and warped with pain in his death. Cloud couldn't remember the circumstances, but that gruesome image swam right into focus as he stared at him, perfectly numb with shock.
"You're back in the clouds, Cloud." In a singsong voice at a near-painful octave this early in the morning, Dan's hips wiggled in a gesture not unlike a smug Yuffie. Cloud twitched in response, his fist whitening with tension, hearing those words echo from long years past. "Can't miss theory or Sergeant'll have your ass." The boy waved and practically skipped out of the room, fully dressed and ready to go. The other boys, done pulling on their own clothes by now, fished out any necessary books and paper and also began to leave. As they trickled out, a painful cold settled over Cloud's chest.
The very last of them spared the blond a glance. He said nothing as he left.
Cloud sat in the silence of the room carefully counting his heartbeats to reassure himself this simply couldn't be real. Then in one violent motion he turned and punched a fist into the steel wall. His knuckles broke and bled, but for Cloud the pain was insignificant in comparison to the overwhelming truth. He swallowed harshly. Something was at work here, something that didn't take into account his feelings or care that this would be the string to unbind him. With a frustrated cry, Cloud slammed his other fist into the same wall, not even denting the metal and ignoring the smarting it caused. Both hands bled rivets, and Cloud knew his face was screwed up and red from all of the emotions going through him. He couldn't name half of them, but he could feel the hot, blinding press of them clamoring for room.
Vomit crept up his throat again, and his eyes began to burn. Ruthlessly he suppressed both urges and lowered his head, searching for his stoic strength.
More in control now, he relaxed his arms but kept the knuckles in place before allowing them to come away from the wall to splay out his hands, palms pressed against the steel wall. He couldn't pull his eyes away from the image of his red and bloodied hands, and soon the burning behind his eyes messed up his vision until his trembling hands were blurring with the wall. Too much emotion that couldn't be suppressed left him unable to remove his hands or stop himself from pushing as hard as possible against the walls of the barracks. He pushed against the insurmountable walls of the room, struggling blindly to fight the inevitable.
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