I am the cat whisperer!
Title: Small Packages
A Final Fantasy VII Fanfiction
Author: Sanjuno Shori Niko
Summary: Cid really needs to stop hanging around with crazy people. It's making him do stupid shit at the prompting of invisible voices.
Timeline: More of this fic found here.
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(In which Cid makes a friend.)
Cid, having been leading a team searching the far side of the lab complex, was the last Avalanche member to arrive at the scene. He walked right into the middle of an argument. Tifa was ranting, Barrett was shouting, Yuffie was screeching and Cloud was huddled up in a corner muttering to the voices in his head.
Cid paused in the doorway to take it all in.
Rufus and the Turks were standing off to one side, eyeing Avalanche with expressions that clearly asked the question of ‘these nut jobs are the ones who keep saving the planet?’ plastered on their faces. Red XII was trying - unsuccessfully - to calm Yuffie down. Reeve had buried his face in his hands - probably wishing that he had just used Cait Sith instead of coming in person - and Vincent was a big brooding shadow sulking next to the door, staring at the far wall with his ‘I-must-be-punished-for-my-sins’ face on.
Cid spared a second to listen to the gabble going on in the middle of the room.
The main gist of it seemed to be that ‘Sephiroth was a demonic, mis-spawned, alien-fucking bastard who did not have the common decency to stay dead once killed and that damned twisted son-of-a-mange-ridden-tonberry Hojo should rot in hell for making so many blasted copies of him.
Cid eyeballed the room as he made his way over to where Reeve was slumped resignedly against the one-way mirror-window, which made up the far wall. The room on the other side of the glass was filled with fiddly scientific devices, monitors, control panels, and an even-dozen mako tubes. Much like the ones they had found in the Nibelheim Mansion lab. The computer banks were a bit dusty but still functional, so the lab’s generators were either well maintained or there was a mainline tap somewhere. And of the twelve mako tubes in the other room, seven showed signs of recent use.
“Damn.” Cid muttered, peering through the glass. Reeve glanced at him and Cid returned the look, “So you have any idea what we’ve got here?”
Reeve shrugged in response to the quite question, sitting at one of the computers. Both men calmly ignored the drama of their teammates with the ease of long practice. Reeve spent a few minutes fiddling with the computer terminal before he looked back up at Cid.
“From the looks of things this lab was functional until just a few months ago.” Reeve told him.
“When Rufus finished restructuring Shin-ra.” Cid said, seeing the same realization he had come to dawn on Reeve’s face, “They must’ve split when the funds ran out.”
“We need to see if the research records are still intact.” Reeve murmured his attention already firmly fixed on the computer he was prying secrets out of.
“Yeah.” Cid grimaced. Seven. Fuck. He looked up across the room. The bitch-and-moan club were starting to wind down and Rufus was getting a perimeter set up around the lab to keep anything from getting in - or anyone from getting out - Cid concluded to himself grimly as he stepped into the lab proper, bending down to peer at the mako residue that clung to the bottom of the used tubes. Still mostly liquid, though most of the glow was gone. It could not have been more than a month old, and Cid hated that he could tell just by looking. He was a mechanic damn it! He should not have ever had the need to learn shit like reading medical charts or how to deal with psychotic breakdowns on a monthly basis or be able to identify the age of distilled mako by sight alone. And more importantly, he should not have to rebuild his planes annually either! Fucking idiots had no respect for a man’s possessions.
A flutter of movement, spotted out of the corner of his eye - black and silver and pale, dirty feet - halted his mental grumbling.
“Well now.” Cid murmured to himself, glancing over his shoulder at his friends, who were standing around looking mopey and useless while they watched Reeve, Tseng and Elena hack the computers. Cloud shook himself out of his funk as Cid watched and started gathering up everyone without something better to do - Cid promptly looked busy with the equipment - and left to finish searching the building.
‘Perfect.’ Cid smirked and casually started moving, ‘Now then, pay no attention to the man behind the glass.’
Their attention firmly elsewhere, Cid’s quite departure went unnoticed by the few members of the search tem that remained in the computer lab.
Once certain that he was out of sight, Cid paused to consider the strangeness of his actions. Really, would not the smart thing to do have been to alert his comrades in respects to what he had seen and gone after it together? Probably. But something - some new, familiar thing, some instinct that had been woken and strengthened by his little dip in the Lifestream a bare month ago - urged him to remain silent and follow alone.
‘Rebirth.’ It crooned, the word-images bare wisps of green in the back of his mind, ‘Return from the source. A protective mantel. The fury of the storm.’
Cid followed the soundless call of ‘need-protection-purpose-need’ down the corridor that had been hidden from sight on the far side of the lab. He paused at a junction, looking either way before following the whispers of ‘fright’ to the left. The hall ended with a door a few yards down. Cid eyed the lock, grunted in irritation, and had it open after a few busy moments.
Cid stepped into the room beyond the door he had just forced and looked around. It was a relatively large room used for crated storage. With plenty of places to hide in - or launch an ambush from, if he was stupid enough to leave the clear area next to the door. Cid snorted and sat down on the floor, bracing his back against the wall. He put Venus Gospel down on the floor beside him and pulled a cigarette out of the pack tucked into the strap of his goggles.
“You wanna see a trick?” Cid addressed the room at large, receiving silence as an answer. But it was a heavy silence, a listening silence. The kind of silence with attentive ears on the other side of it.
“Guess not.” Cid shrugged and put the paper tube away, “You know… you don’t have to be afraid of me. I know that what the idiots back there said probably scared you some, but I’m not going to hurt you.”
The silence intensified, grew thicker, angry, frightened and untrusting.
Cid chuckled, “Yeah, I know. You aren’t in the habit of trusting a complete stranger. That’s a good habit. But you know, sometimes you’ve just gotta take a chance on people. They might surprise you.”
Not likely. He was an intruder here. He came armed and his companions radiated hostility and pain. Not exactly a situation that would endear one to wary strangers.
“No I guess not.” Cid mused out loud, hardly paying attention to what he was saying as his eyes searched the shadows for movement, “But I’m not such a bad guy, am I? I’m here alone, and didn’t tell anyone I saw you. I’ve put down my weapon and put myself at a defensive disadvantage by sitting down. Doesn’t any of that get me the benefit of the doubt?”
Surprise. Caution. Wary curiosity. Tentative belief. A slight shift in the shadows as a figure moved forward.
“Well now.” Cid smiled without his usual spite, gaze soft and posture un-aggressive for once, welcoming, “You’re a fine looking young man now aren’t you?”
Dark feathers shivered nervously as predator green eyes glowed down at Cid from the top of the highest stack of crates.
“We can’t rightly have a conversation with you way up there now can we?” Cid asked as the small figure crept further out into the dim light reaching in from the still open door, “Why don’t you come on down here?”
Hesitation, then the messy silver-haired head shook once. Cid waited patiently, passively allowing the other to come down on his own. Cautiously the Sephiroth clone edged closer and Cid clucked his tongue in dismay as he got a better look.
The kid could not have been more then five or six years old, physically - Cid would have put money on the boy being part of a project started just before METEOR if he had not already gotten that information out of the computers. The boy’s wings - of which the kid had two, not a ‘one’ winged angel this one - were still mostly covered in fluffy chick down, soft and cuddly and useless for anything practical for all the boy had mantled them to make himself look bigger. Tangled silver-white hair, nearly gray with dirt and shorter than Cid was expecting, although the mats and tangles the pilot noticed were probably disguising the true length. Chances were they would have to cut the knots out in order to put some order to that mess. (Why was he even thinking about brushing the kids hair out anyway?) Those bright mako green cats eyes were exactly what Cid was expecting. The kid was filthy, hands and feet blackened with dirt and a worse-for-wear hospital gown was the only thing the kid had on.
‘Protect!’
Huh. The little urchin was damned cute. And lucky that winter was still a few months away. Cid did not care what kind of modifications the kid had, he would be dead come winter without proper clothes. The boy was already too damn skinny, Cid realized when the clone came to a stop a bare few feet away, examining Cid critically and a lot more blatantly than the pilot was examining the boy. Who was practically skeletal, the mako that the scientists had pumped into the child’s blood was probably the only thing keeping the boy going. Cid winced at the jut of bones against skin and the tight desperation around the kid’s bleak eyes. It forcibly reminded him of Vincent from before the combined efforts of Avalanche had convinced the gunman that life was worth living. (Cid was having a hard time restraining himself from scooping the kid up and carting him off to Rocket Town in order to feed him up properly.)
‘Closer!’
Having spent the better part of the last few minutes letting the kid get comfortable being close to him, Cid figured it was time to get the ball rolling before he did something crazy. Like offer the kid a cookie.
“So what’s a kid like you doing all alone in the middle of nowhere?” Cid asked, seeking confirmation of the labs abandonment.
The boy hesitated, clearly debating answering, but then he raised his eyes up to meet Cid’s gaze directly and spoke, “The scientists and the handlers left a long time ago. We waited and waited for someone to come and get us, but no one ever came back.”
“So they just ran and left you here?” Cid asked, filing away the use of the plural ‘we’ for later, then not really waiting for an answer, “Chicken shit cowards.”
The boy blinked in response to Cid’s disgusted growl, but a small smile started to grow on the pinched, pale face.
“Well kid, I’ve come for you.” Cid said with a firm look and a friendly grin, “Those fuckers can just forget about ever getting you back.”
Why the hell was he so possessive all of a sudden? He had just met the kid for fuck’s sake!
The boy smiled shyly as he leaned towards Cid, eyes lighting up with something close to hope, “Really? You want to keep us?”
“Damn straight.” Cid grumbled, already drafting plans for schooling and meals, “Kids need a good home, and you don’t deserve to be left alone in a fucked up place like this.”
The kid looked at Cid with wide eyes, the desperate longing in them almost physically painful for Cid to see. Damn. Cid could not even put up a token resistance to the impulsive decision - there was no doubt in his mind - he was going to do this. He was going to take care of the kid, Sephiroth clone or not.
“My name’s Captain Cid Highwind kiddo.” Cid said, sticking out his hand and resolutely ignoring the way the kid flinched back as if he expected to be grabbed - or hit, “Nice to meet ya. You got a name?”
“Riku.” The boy -Riku - looked from Cid’s outstretched hand to the pilot’s open, honest face before slowly reaching for Cid’s hand. Looking unsure of the strange action but willing to go along with it, “My name is Riku.”
Riku’s hand slid into Cid’s.
And the storage room was blown away in an explosion of green light.
(Word Count: 2142)
=/=
I have today off, whee! Which means that I have the time to post today. *preens* So since I posted Transformers fic yesterday I shall post FFVII fic today. *chortles*
I also have a splinter in my finger. *wibbles* On top of that, one of my kittens has been throwing up all week. It's just bile right now, but that could just mean that she isn't eating. I'm going to have to call the vet come Monday. *sighs* And my dad's complaining about the cat being sick. As if there's anything I can do about it right now other that keep her water dish full! Hrrmph.
Here there be dragons! Once again my Magma dragon has eluded me! Why doesn't it want me? *weeps*
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A Final Fantasy VII Fanfiction
Author: Sanjuno Shori Niko
Summary: Cid really needs to stop hanging around with crazy people. It's making him do stupid shit at the prompting of invisible voices.
Timeline: More of this fic found here.
=/=
(In which Cid makes a friend.)
Cid, having been leading a team searching the far side of the lab complex, was the last Avalanche member to arrive at the scene. He walked right into the middle of an argument. Tifa was ranting, Barrett was shouting, Yuffie was screeching and Cloud was huddled up in a corner muttering to the voices in his head.
Cid paused in the doorway to take it all in.
Rufus and the Turks were standing off to one side, eyeing Avalanche with expressions that clearly asked the question of ‘these nut jobs are the ones who keep saving the planet?’ plastered on their faces. Red XII was trying - unsuccessfully - to calm Yuffie down. Reeve had buried his face in his hands - probably wishing that he had just used Cait Sith instead of coming in person - and Vincent was a big brooding shadow sulking next to the door, staring at the far wall with his ‘I-must-be-punished-for-my-sins’ face on.
Cid spared a second to listen to the gabble going on in the middle of the room.
The main gist of it seemed to be that ‘Sephiroth was a demonic, mis-spawned, alien-fucking bastard who did not have the common decency to stay dead once killed and that damned twisted son-of-a-mange-ridden-tonberry Hojo should rot in hell for making so many blasted copies of him.
Cid eyeballed the room as he made his way over to where Reeve was slumped resignedly against the one-way mirror-window, which made up the far wall. The room on the other side of the glass was filled with fiddly scientific devices, monitors, control panels, and an even-dozen mako tubes. Much like the ones they had found in the Nibelheim Mansion lab. The computer banks were a bit dusty but still functional, so the lab’s generators were either well maintained or there was a mainline tap somewhere. And of the twelve mako tubes in the other room, seven showed signs of recent use.
“Damn.” Cid muttered, peering through the glass. Reeve glanced at him and Cid returned the look, “So you have any idea what we’ve got here?”
Reeve shrugged in response to the quite question, sitting at one of the computers. Both men calmly ignored the drama of their teammates with the ease of long practice. Reeve spent a few minutes fiddling with the computer terminal before he looked back up at Cid.
“From the looks of things this lab was functional until just a few months ago.” Reeve told him.
“When Rufus finished restructuring Shin-ra.” Cid said, seeing the same realization he had come to dawn on Reeve’s face, “They must’ve split when the funds ran out.”
“We need to see if the research records are still intact.” Reeve murmured his attention already firmly fixed on the computer he was prying secrets out of.
“Yeah.” Cid grimaced. Seven. Fuck. He looked up across the room. The bitch-and-moan club were starting to wind down and Rufus was getting a perimeter set up around the lab to keep anything from getting in - or anyone from getting out - Cid concluded to himself grimly as he stepped into the lab proper, bending down to peer at the mako residue that clung to the bottom of the used tubes. Still mostly liquid, though most of the glow was gone. It could not have been more than a month old, and Cid hated that he could tell just by looking. He was a mechanic damn it! He should not have ever had the need to learn shit like reading medical charts or how to deal with psychotic breakdowns on a monthly basis or be able to identify the age of distilled mako by sight alone. And more importantly, he should not have to rebuild his planes annually either! Fucking idiots had no respect for a man’s possessions.
A flutter of movement, spotted out of the corner of his eye - black and silver and pale, dirty feet - halted his mental grumbling.
“Well now.” Cid murmured to himself, glancing over his shoulder at his friends, who were standing around looking mopey and useless while they watched Reeve, Tseng and Elena hack the computers. Cloud shook himself out of his funk as Cid watched and started gathering up everyone without something better to do - Cid promptly looked busy with the equipment - and left to finish searching the building.
‘Perfect.’ Cid smirked and casually started moving, ‘Now then, pay no attention to the man behind the glass.’
Their attention firmly elsewhere, Cid’s quite departure went unnoticed by the few members of the search tem that remained in the computer lab.
Once certain that he was out of sight, Cid paused to consider the strangeness of his actions. Really, would not the smart thing to do have been to alert his comrades in respects to what he had seen and gone after it together? Probably. But something - some new, familiar thing, some instinct that had been woken and strengthened by his little dip in the Lifestream a bare month ago - urged him to remain silent and follow alone.
‘Rebirth.’ It crooned, the word-images bare wisps of green in the back of his mind, ‘Return from the source. A protective mantel. The fury of the storm.’
Cid followed the soundless call of ‘need-protection-purpose-need’ down the corridor that had been hidden from sight on the far side of the lab. He paused at a junction, looking either way before following the whispers of ‘fright’ to the left. The hall ended with a door a few yards down. Cid eyed the lock, grunted in irritation, and had it open after a few busy moments.
Cid stepped into the room beyond the door he had just forced and looked around. It was a relatively large room used for crated storage. With plenty of places to hide in - or launch an ambush from, if he was stupid enough to leave the clear area next to the door. Cid snorted and sat down on the floor, bracing his back against the wall. He put Venus Gospel down on the floor beside him and pulled a cigarette out of the pack tucked into the strap of his goggles.
“You wanna see a trick?” Cid addressed the room at large, receiving silence as an answer. But it was a heavy silence, a listening silence. The kind of silence with attentive ears on the other side of it.
“Guess not.” Cid shrugged and put the paper tube away, “You know… you don’t have to be afraid of me. I know that what the idiots back there said probably scared you some, but I’m not going to hurt you.”
The silence intensified, grew thicker, angry, frightened and untrusting.
Cid chuckled, “Yeah, I know. You aren’t in the habit of trusting a complete stranger. That’s a good habit. But you know, sometimes you’ve just gotta take a chance on people. They might surprise you.”
Not likely. He was an intruder here. He came armed and his companions radiated hostility and pain. Not exactly a situation that would endear one to wary strangers.
“No I guess not.” Cid mused out loud, hardly paying attention to what he was saying as his eyes searched the shadows for movement, “But I’m not such a bad guy, am I? I’m here alone, and didn’t tell anyone I saw you. I’ve put down my weapon and put myself at a defensive disadvantage by sitting down. Doesn’t any of that get me the benefit of the doubt?”
Surprise. Caution. Wary curiosity. Tentative belief. A slight shift in the shadows as a figure moved forward.
“Well now.” Cid smiled without his usual spite, gaze soft and posture un-aggressive for once, welcoming, “You’re a fine looking young man now aren’t you?”
Dark feathers shivered nervously as predator green eyes glowed down at Cid from the top of the highest stack of crates.
“We can’t rightly have a conversation with you way up there now can we?” Cid asked as the small figure crept further out into the dim light reaching in from the still open door, “Why don’t you come on down here?”
Hesitation, then the messy silver-haired head shook once. Cid waited patiently, passively allowing the other to come down on his own. Cautiously the Sephiroth clone edged closer and Cid clucked his tongue in dismay as he got a better look.
The kid could not have been more then five or six years old, physically - Cid would have put money on the boy being part of a project started just before METEOR if he had not already gotten that information out of the computers. The boy’s wings - of which the kid had two, not a ‘one’ winged angel this one - were still mostly covered in fluffy chick down, soft and cuddly and useless for anything practical for all the boy had mantled them to make himself look bigger. Tangled silver-white hair, nearly gray with dirt and shorter than Cid was expecting, although the mats and tangles the pilot noticed were probably disguising the true length. Chances were they would have to cut the knots out in order to put some order to that mess. (Why was he even thinking about brushing the kids hair out anyway?) Those bright mako green cats eyes were exactly what Cid was expecting. The kid was filthy, hands and feet blackened with dirt and a worse-for-wear hospital gown was the only thing the kid had on.
‘Protect!’
Huh. The little urchin was damned cute. And lucky that winter was still a few months away. Cid did not care what kind of modifications the kid had, he would be dead come winter without proper clothes. The boy was already too damn skinny, Cid realized when the clone came to a stop a bare few feet away, examining Cid critically and a lot more blatantly than the pilot was examining the boy. Who was practically skeletal, the mako that the scientists had pumped into the child’s blood was probably the only thing keeping the boy going. Cid winced at the jut of bones against skin and the tight desperation around the kid’s bleak eyes. It forcibly reminded him of Vincent from before the combined efforts of Avalanche had convinced the gunman that life was worth living. (Cid was having a hard time restraining himself from scooping the kid up and carting him off to Rocket Town in order to feed him up properly.)
‘Closer!’
Having spent the better part of the last few minutes letting the kid get comfortable being close to him, Cid figured it was time to get the ball rolling before he did something crazy. Like offer the kid a cookie.
“So what’s a kid like you doing all alone in the middle of nowhere?” Cid asked, seeking confirmation of the labs abandonment.
The boy hesitated, clearly debating answering, but then he raised his eyes up to meet Cid’s gaze directly and spoke, “The scientists and the handlers left a long time ago. We waited and waited for someone to come and get us, but no one ever came back.”
“So they just ran and left you here?” Cid asked, filing away the use of the plural ‘we’ for later, then not really waiting for an answer, “Chicken shit cowards.”
The boy blinked in response to Cid’s disgusted growl, but a small smile started to grow on the pinched, pale face.
“Well kid, I’ve come for you.” Cid said with a firm look and a friendly grin, “Those fuckers can just forget about ever getting you back.”
Why the hell was he so possessive all of a sudden? He had just met the kid for fuck’s sake!
The boy smiled shyly as he leaned towards Cid, eyes lighting up with something close to hope, “Really? You want to keep us?”
“Damn straight.” Cid grumbled, already drafting plans for schooling and meals, “Kids need a good home, and you don’t deserve to be left alone in a fucked up place like this.”
The kid looked at Cid with wide eyes, the desperate longing in them almost physically painful for Cid to see. Damn. Cid could not even put up a token resistance to the impulsive decision - there was no doubt in his mind - he was going to do this. He was going to take care of the kid, Sephiroth clone or not.
“My name’s Captain Cid Highwind kiddo.” Cid said, sticking out his hand and resolutely ignoring the way the kid flinched back as if he expected to be grabbed - or hit, “Nice to meet ya. You got a name?”
“Riku.” The boy -Riku - looked from Cid’s outstretched hand to the pilot’s open, honest face before slowly reaching for Cid’s hand. Looking unsure of the strange action but willing to go along with it, “My name is Riku.”
Riku’s hand slid into Cid’s.
And the storage room was blown away in an explosion of green light.
(Word Count: 2142)
=/=
I have today off, whee! Which means that I have the time to post today. *preens* So since I posted Transformers fic yesterday I shall post FFVII fic today. *chortles*
I also have a splinter in my finger. *wibbles* On top of that, one of my kittens has been throwing up all week. It's just bile right now, but that could just mean that she isn't eating. I'm going to have to call the vet come Monday. *sighs* And my dad's complaining about the cat being sick. As if there's anything I can do about it right now other that keep her water dish full! Hrrmph.
Here there be dragons! Once again my Magma dragon has eluded me! Why doesn't it want me? *weeps*
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