Chapter Text
Everyone had advice for Cloud, when it came out that the SOLDIER who carried him to Midgar was more than just a friend. It was strange.
Zack being dead hadn’t changed. Cloud’s self-delusion, and the cringe-worthy behavior that it inspired in him hadn’t changed. The empty, soul-sucking vortex in his stomach hadn’t changed.
The only difference was that Cloud understood why it hurt so much. He understood why he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t smile, why he sometimes stared at an unremarkable patch of wall until his eyes felt like they might fall out.
And yet, to everyone else, the revelation changed everything. Everybody had an opinion about how he ought to mourn.
If there were a “healthy” way to lose his better half, then he’d be suspicious of it. If it were too clean, it would just feel like he hadn’t loved Zack enough.
They treat him like he’s fragile, speaking in softer tones and contriving pale excuses to linger in his room between dinner and bedtime.
Barret doesn’t tell him to toughen up anymore. Tifa stopped sending him flirtatious smiles. Yuffie redirected her needling and pranks onto Red and Cait Sith. Aerith can’t seem to meet his eyes at all.
It’s frustrating, demeaning. Their respect and admiration had been his only source of confidence since Platefall. It gave him the strength to get up every morning and carry the weight of the Buster on his back. Now he doesn’t even have that.
They think he’s broken. They think he’s lying when he says he’s fine. He wouldn’t be lying if they’d just treat him like they used to. He craves their approval like a drug, to such a level and degree that it’s hard to look at himself in the mirror.
“It should have been you,” he whispers to his reflection one morning, eyes sunken and mouth burning with bile.
Breakfast tasted too good. It felt too good in his stomach. He had to get rid of it before his guilt started to eat him.
Zack hadn’t had an hot meal in four years when he died. Of the scraps he dug out of dumpsters, he’d given almost everything to Cloud; hoping he’d get better, hoping he’d look into Zack’s eyes with some manner of intelligence and recognition.
Cloud hadn’t even managed that. Not until the rain soaked his back and the light left Zack’s blood-streaked face. Even in such a simple task, he’d proven himself useless.
His eyes start to burn, and he bites the inside of his mouth until the pain silences his thoughts. He’s so sick of crying. He cries when he’s angry. He cries when he’s sad. Lately, he even cries when he’s happy, because he knows the feeling won’t last.
A knock jostles the heavy wooden door of his rented room. He splashes water on his face and rubs his skin red with a hand towel. Pulling on his mask of stoicism, he opens the door just a crack.
It’s Aerith. His stomach clenches around a rolling boil.
“Yeah?”
Her green eyes are soft and avoidant, always just a few inches off of his face. It’s almost comforting, knowing that she’s as disgusted by him and he is.
She purses her lips and rocks on her heels. She looks into the suite over his shoulder.
“Can I come in?”
She’ll smell his sickness in the air. She’ll know what just happened, how badly he’s spiraling. Maybe that’s why he opens the door.
The wrong person lived. They both know it. The sooner they admit it to each other, the sooner this stifling awkwardness will end.
It would be nice for one damn person to be honest with him, even if he’s not entirely ready to hear the truths that she holds in her chest.
Her skirt billows airily around her boots, her hands clasped tight behind her back. He shuts the door.
She doesn’t comment on the acrid air, or the perfectly made bed that he blatantly didn’t sleep in.
He chews the inside of his lip, his heart beating frantic and unsteady and making his palms sweat. It should have been him, it should have been him, it should have been—
She hugs him.
“Please stop trying to disappear,” she says.
His mouth goes dry.
“I know it’s hard. I’m really, really mad at him too. But he did what he did because he wanted us to live. If we don’t, or if we spend those lives punishing ourselves for his choice... then that makes it a waste, don’t you think?”
His lip trembles, his jaw set tight. He isn’t equipped for this. He was barely equipped to be loved in the first place.
A tear escapes and he hides his face in her hair, slowly, fearfully lifting his hands to hug her back.
He doesn’t deserve this either, but it hurts in a good way. It hurts like a muscle that needs to be stretched.
“I... guess so. Yeah.”
They stay that way for a long time.