fic: imperfect tense - ch.8 (ff7+ff8)
Imperfect Tense
Chapter 8
FF7/8 || R - sexuality, battle violence, language || Squall/Seifer, Sephiroth/Cloud || crossover
Jenova's legacy, living on through the Sorceresses, is forcing Squall to deal with an unstable Seifer, Cloud Strife, and yet another potential end of the world. Maybe paperwork really wasn't so bad.
Word Count: 2,700
Date: 11 December 2010
Friday.
Cloud leaned against the metal wall of the Ragnarok's interior and stared out the small window, watching the shadow of the ship flicker over the rolling of the ocean below. He'd crossed his arms out of habit, though the nausea in his belly wasn't entirely due to motion sickness.
(He was crouched in the truck-bed in a miserable hiddle, stomach twisting and jumping like the stones under the vehicle's tires. Zack was speaking in an undertone with the general, glanced at Cloud with a sympathetic half-smile, but Cloud was too - )
"Pretty, huh?"
Cloud twitched when he realized Selphie had sneakily sidled up, and his stomach protested when he wondered…if she was the pilot but was standing with him…
"Don't worry, Cloudy, this baby's on autopilot and made this trip loads of times," she winked, leaning her elbows on the porthole sill and looking out. "You know, we grew up by the ocean," she went on unprompted, and though he hadn't asked to listen to her life story the nostalgia in her voice sent a pang of envy through Cloud's homeless heart. "When Matron went to bed we'd all sneak out to the lighthouse and tell ghost stories. Seifer was the best at it, of course, used to make Zell cry. Never managed to scare Squall, though. They usually just ended up beating the shit outta each other." She giggled. "Did you have anything like that?"
Cloud fixed his eyes on the ship's rippling shadow. "I don't remember."
Selphie gave him an uncomfortably piercing look, but then leaned forward to press her nose against the window and leave prints that would no doubt irritate Quistis later. "If you're right about the Knights, then I'm afraid for Squally. I mean, he's an asshole sometimes, but he's our asshole, and don't you dare think too hard on that mental image."
Too late, quipped Zack.
"Same with Seifer, even after he ran off with Ultimecia. I don't think Squall ever really forgave him for leaving like that."
(The glass was cold against his overheated skin. Felt like snow and it was so fucking cold but he was burning up, body wracked with tremors and he thought he could hear Zack, faint and garbled by the thick glass and thicker mako. His world had narrowed down to sensation, like an animal, but there was a mantra in his head like the sound of a god and wasn't that ironic, whywhywhy Sephiroth why - )
Forgiveness for that kind of leaving, who could possibly ask for it, and Cloud's fingers dug into his upper arms. Selphie was watching him sidelong, nose still smooshed against the window, and apparently she was capable of the same still intensity as any other mercenary.
"I've only known you for like a couple hours, but you're cute and your sword is kick-ass. If Squall or Seifer do end up, like, going all doom on us - "
"I don't make promises," Cloud told her coldly.
Before Selphie could respond or he could leave, Quistis and Leonhart, who'd been clustered with the others near the cockpit door, appeared beside them. Now that he knew about the commander's Knighthood, Cloud could taste that unnatural taint to his presence even more strongly. Leonhart handed him a thick dossier without preamble. "What do you know about this?"
Cloud flipped through the papers, recognizing them as reports on monster statistics.
"This came from the Estharian scientists up near Dollet," Quistis said, not that that really meant anything to him. "They think these monsters are either an unusually evolved form of a currently known species or new ones altogether. We want to know if this is a coincidence or if it's related to Jenova."
No such thing as coincidence, he mused. A number caught his eye and he paused, brow furrowing, looking more closely at the data and blurred photos. So familiar.
"Oh, fuck," he groaned. "These have the Jenova factor, or whatever you want to call it. She's like a self-aware virus that can rewrite the genetics of a host and force mutations." He'd seen some of Hojo's other experiments, both for himself and through Zack's memories - twisted, mutilated things straight of a nightmare, made of flesh and metal and torture. Sephiroth may have been the logical genius of him, Zack, and Cloud but Cloud had never been stupid, and Hojo had always taken a sort of perverse pleasure in explaining what he was doing to his specimens.
"What happens?" Quistis asked.
"The host's genotype and, typically, phenotype are altered. Brain activity changes, endocrine system heightened, reaction time shortened. Increased muscle mass, denser bone structure." Of all the people to start channeling, Hojo probably wasn't the best. "The problem is the inevitable insanity."
Both Selphie and Quistis scrunched their faces with disgust, but Leonhart was staring at him with those piercing slate-grey eyes. Cloud snapped the dossier closed and handed it back to the commander, refusing to look away. "Basically, they turn into mean fuckers."
...
Before Selphie could drag off Cloud when the Ragnarok landed at Garden, Squall pulled her aside. "Keep an eye on him. If he says anything strange, does anything suspicious, or demonstrates unusual interest in something, I want to know."
"Yessir," she replied seriously, knowing she was dealing with the SeeD commander at the moment. "You don't trust him." Then she smiled and put her hands behind her head, Strange Vision swinging lazily from her grip. "He strikes me as the kind of guy you can trust with your life but not the truth. And he's really cute. Even if he had dinosaurs as pets."
Squall gave her flat look and she cackled as she threw a sloppy salute and skipped back to Cloud. Sighing, Squall slipped past the hangar maintenance crew and into the cool hallways of the school, heading towards his office and ignoring the mix of salutes and awed expressions from the students.
Xu was sitting behind his desk when he entered, nose buried in paperwork. She stood with a practiced salute and a tight smile. "Commander."
"Headmistress."
"We've gotten more reports of those monster sightings up north," she told him, "and more recruit applications. Galbadia's sent another request for war reparations, which of course will be denied." The presumptuousness would've irritated him if it'd been anyone other than Xu. A blinking red light on his vid-phone distracted him for a moment.
"Thank you, Xu. Myself and the SeeDs that accompanied me this morning will be leaving again tomorrow at oh-eight-hundred for an unknown amount of time. If you agree, I would like you to act as honorary commander until my return. I'll leave details. Is that acceptable?"
"Yes, sir." She bowed slightly, and left, and why couldn't the rest of the world operate with such efficiency?
Squall sat in his leather chair with an unwitting sigh. He took a moment to lean his elbows on his desk and run his fingers in circles over his temples before smacking the button for his personal line.
"You have one new message."
Rinoa's face suddenly appeared on the vid-phone and dear Hyne she looked horrible. Her hair was a rat's nest and her face was drawn tight and pale with tension.
"Squall, I need your help," she pleaded, her voice practically a croak. "I can't - I can't control my spells and I think if I go outside I'll hurt someone. Squall, it feels like there's something, something in my head, I don't know, I don't think it's from Ultimecia or Adel. It feels too old and it. It's." She was rambling and holding back the hysteria by a thread, and when she hung up Squall was pathetically grateful for the cold that Shiva bled through his suddenly numbed body.
It'd hurt, of course it'd hurt, to open up even a little to someone and have it turned back on him later, even if the break had been better for both him and Rinoa in the long run. The logic was sound but a bitter pill to swallow. Failure as a person and now failure as a Knight, whatever that meant, but that had always been Seifer's thing, not his. And thinking about Seifer wasn't exactly helping, Hyne, and it looked like Strife's predictions about Jenova and Rinoa were already coming true.
Shiva crooned at him.
Squall pressed the button for the intercom that ran through the entire Garden. "All personnel just returned from Esthar are to report to the Commander's office immediately," he said calmly, and folded a hand reassuringly over Lion Heart's hilt.
The door to his office opened, but it was just his secretary, opening her mouth to say something. She thought better of it when she saw his expression and promptly backed out with a shiver.
…
When the Ragnarok had approached Balamb Garden, Cloud felt like he'd been glued to the porthole. Zell had spent part of the trip explaining the purpose of SeeD and its Gardens, which had segued into the battle against Ultimecia, but somehow Zell's descriptions just didn't do justice to the reality.
The Garden was easily the most beautiful structure he'd ever seen. It was made of glass and dreams welded together with steel and technology, as bright in the sunlight as the Temple of the Ancients, as rich in color as the mako in Sephiroth and Zack's eyes. "Gods," he breathed.
The ship landed and Selphie promptly elected herself to be Cloud's tour guide. Leonhart disappeared before the engines had fully stopped, Quistis and Irvine following soon after, but Zell decided to stick with him and Selphie and pretend he didn't have any responsibilities to worry about. Cloud trailed after them as they wandered through the vaulted halls and labyrinthine corridors, chattering happily and occasionally throwing a line back at him. He wondered what it would've been like to train here and not in ShinRa, industrial oppressiveness replaced by open air and space, his hair and clothes and choice of weapon almost entirely unremarkable to mercenaries being commanded by a teenager in leather.
Selphie and Zell's conversation focused around the mostly safe topics of curricula and weaponry and how goddamn annoying it was having to fill out reports with the armory any time they so much as looked. When they passed the Training Room, they pointed it out with a significant glance to Ultima's wide hilt peeking over his shoulder.
"You guys have got it all wrong, man," Zell declared, fisting his hands and twisting around so that he could still talk to them while walking backwards. "Weapons are cheating. Anyone can swing a blade and lop off a limb, but it takes real talent to wield the body."
Selphie giggled. "I think Irvine's got both areas covered," and she laughed harder when Zell appeared distinctly uncomfortable. Even Cloud managed a smile.
"Well, what do we have here?" he cried pointedly, hurrying towards what looked, smelled, and sounded like a cafeteria. Those things were too unique to be faked. "I do believe it's hotdog day!"
"I want pickles!" shrieked Selphie, and Cloud was suddenly being dragged into a crowd of students and questionable foodstuffs.
(A long line of hungry troopers, an elbow to the kidney, the ground rushing up to meet him just before a strong hand caught his arm. His lunch tray had already tumbled from his hands. "Hey, kiddo, you all right? Bah, of course you are. Now pick yourself up and go kick that bastard's ass for shoving you. Never gonna get stronger if you don't fight back.")
The blond was pulling away from Selphie's surprisingly firm grasp when the intercom crackled.
"All personnel just returned from Esthar are to report to the Commander's office immediately."
Leonhart sounded as cold as usual, but Selphie and Zell both looked worried. "Something's wrong," Zell muttered, hotdogs forgotten.
Their path to the commander's office was painfully silent. They joined up with Quistis and Irvine on the way, but when Selphie asked what was going on Quistis just shook her head.
Jenova?
The office was unusually cold. Leonhart was standing behind his desk, facing the door with his hands at his sides, and if he'd appeared standoffish before he might as well have been a marble statue now. "Squall? What is it?" Zell asked worriedly after closing the door behind them all, but Quistis spoke first with a slightly tremulous voice.
"You've seen her too, then?"
Squall nodded once, sharply, and turned the vid-phone on his desk around so that the others could see its screen. He pressed a small red button.
"Squall, help me…"
The heart-shaped face and thick dark hair faintly reminded Cloud of Tifa. Don't think about that.
"Squall, it feels like there's something, something in my head, I don't know, I don't think it's from Ultimecia or Adel. It feels too old and it. It's."
"Well?" Leonhart asked coldly. Cloud shrugged a little under the weight of their collective attention (too much).
"If she's the Sorceress you were talking about, then yes, it's probably Jenova." He left out the part where he knew exactly what she was going through.
"Fuck," Zell swore loudly.
"Now what?" asked Quistis.
"This call came from Galbadia three hours ago. We need to bring her in immediately." Alive or dead was left unspoken.
"How're we going to find her?" Irvine asked.
"I have an idea where she is," Selphie volunteered, face stony. "We've been trading letters. She's at one of the reconstruction sites, but I'd have to get the address from my quarters."
"Selphie, Irvine, I want you two to leave immediately. Find her."
The two SeeDs nodded.
"Quistis, Zell, Strife, we will still be leaving at oh-eight-hundred for Dollet if Rinoa isn't found by then. If she's left Galbadia for any reason, then she's just as likely to be near the monsters as anywhere else."
Didn't take a genius to read between the lines of all the conversation and figure out Leonhart and Rinoa had been involved at some point. Cloud thought he was handling this rather well.
"Selphie, Irvine, you two are dismissed. The Ragnarok is under regular maintenance, you'll need to take the train."
The two SeeDs saluted smartly and left.
"Strife, I want you to take a full physical with Doctor Kadowaki."
Instantly Cloud felt his jaw tighten. "Why?"
"Because I want a full analysis of your stats. If you've been in the Lifestream for as long as you claim, then I want to know that you're in perfect form before I start trusting you with lives."
A reasonable request. Yeah, fuck that. "No."
The temperature dropped a few more degrees, and was he the only one noticing this phenomenon? "If you won't cooperate, then you'll go by force."
"You couldn't if you tried, Leonhart."
"For Hyne's sake, what's the problem?" Zell demanded, stressed, looking between them with a pinched expression. Cloud was watching Leonhart, saw a black-gloved hand twitch towards the gunblade's hilt, and casually reached up to settle his own on Ultima's pommel. "You got an issue with doctors or something?"
"Doctor Kadowaki is as professional as they come," Quistis said confidently.
Once upon a time, so was Hojo, apparently. "The Lifestream can suspend a body indefinitely," he told Leonhart. "I'm fine."
"I won't risk this mission for an unknown."
Cloud wasn't afraid of these SeeDs, of course, had every reason to believe that they didn't stand a chance of beating his ass senseless and forcing him to a normal doctor's office. The issue was the acrid stench of bleach and stark lights over cold tables, memories as vivid as if they'd happened yesterday because the Cetra wouldn't let him move on.
Except this was Jenova already appearing and beginning the chaos, and really, what choice did he have? So he said, "I'll go, if you listen to my orders when we catch up to Jenova. Understood?"
It was also a reasonable request, given his greater experience with the damn alien, and after a long moment the commander nodded sharply. Both men relaxed their holds on their respective weapons, but Cloud was already having to consciously suppress the urge to hyperventilate.
Zack tried to reassure him. Maybe she'll give you a lollipop.
Previous parts:
DW || LJ