Chapter Text
Reno slouches against the front seat of the rental truck–because he swore he wouldn’t be caught dead , alive, or other on a chocobo- puffing away at a cigarette. Inhaling the toxics sharply before exhaling just as aggressively out the window into the overcast afternoon air.
“I can do this job on my own,” he barrels through his words with a huff, “It ain’t that hard. Ya don’t need two people, yo.”
Cloud sits in the passenger seat, his elbow on the door and head resting in his balled up fist. He throws the turk an incredulous look, before rolling his eyes back to the sign in front of them. “If that’s the case, why did you bring me?”
“What? You don’t like spendin’ time with me all of a sudden?” Reno offers Cloud his sly, fox-like, smile, but his passenger gives him just a disjointed sigh in response. “We can go. Just turn back. Let some other schmuck have a whack at it.”
Cloud stares at the sign. Traces the letters with his eyes as he had many times before. Everything looked the same; from the indents in the line work, to the small cracks of worn wood at the pointed edges. But something was off . Something uncanny and unfamiliar. And his stomach churned when he caught the slightest discoloring right next to the “N”.
“We’re already here.” He opens the door and jumps out of the truck. “Let’s just get this over with.” And slams the door shut.
Reno flicks the cigarette out the window and mumbles a soft fuckin,a – cursing himself for not taking a minute to remember why Nibelheim would be a sore spot.
They meet with the mayor at the entrance. A rat-faced thin man who took over once Shinra became ash and the whole point of a fake village burned up in the remains of a broken planet. The mayor, whose name Cloud ignores, walks them to Town Hall to negotiate the terms of the job. His eyes are glued to the floor as he watches his boots crunch the ground beneath him. The sounds around him, a bustling village, are muffled by the heaviness that throbs in his chest as they navigate the small town.
Inside the mayor's office, Cloud leans up against the wall with his arms over his chest and stares at the closed door. Reno is in the center; his presence dominating the room as he lectures the mayor on their rate, on their experience, talking a big game like a used car salesman needing to make rent.
“Are you sure he can handle it?” The mayor grumbles, “he doesn’t look like much…?”
“I told ya, he’s an EX-SOLDIER. Could rip your head clean off without breakin’ a sweat. That’s why the rate is so high; you want this shit done right.”
The mayor looks over at Cloud from behind his desk, and the allegedly ex-SOLDIER could see the scowl on the man from his peripheral vision. “How do I know for sure he was a SOLDIER?”
“The fuck you want for proof? His file? His badge number?” Reno makes a whole show of whipping out his phone. “Oh, let me just fucking call Headquarters and ask them to fax over his credentials. Oh wait, that’s right everyone at HQ is dead .”
“I don’t have the luxury of this going sideways,” The mayor continues, unimpressed by Reno’s dramatics, “We need the situation handled. Quick and Easy.”
“Well I am definitely easy, but I ain’t quick.” Reno throws a suggestive look at Cloud, “Right babe?”
“Shut up.” Cloud mumbles, and Reno waves off his foul mood.
The mayor huffs loudly, “I need to ensure this apparent SOLDIER can handle the job without any more mishaps.” He shifts uncomfortably in his seat like he could feel all the metaphorical eyes pressing into him for results. “I already sent three of our best men up there. None of them returned.”
“Heh,” Cloud grunts, “Sounds like you’re feeding whatevers still up there–”
“I beg your pardon!” The mayor jumps from his seat with his vain attempt of giving his voice any ounce of gruff resolve; but only looks like a small runt of a man with no edge.
“Hey woah,” Reno snaps, “He’s right ya know. Sendin’ up your people there to be snacks for whatever fuckin’ monster you got lurkin’ in the reactor, that’s some dumb ass shit, yo. The ways I see it here, you need us more than we need this cash–”
Cloud slips out of the room–not in the mood for Reno’s theatrics and overselling. Usually, he found the Turk’s antics amusing, even charming, and he’d never admit it but Reno lying about Cloud’s credentials with such conviction–that even he believed it for a minute--made his heart swell. But in this place, this…menagerie…made all of Reno’s words taste like salt, and it was difficult to swallow down the lie.
He exits Town Hall and walks back through the village. Nibelheim always felt too small for Cloud, who in his youth would shift and groan uncomfortably as the whole village shrunk about him. It was suffocating and yet, it felt vast and open that he felt lost in her walls. He was a wraith, a shadow, that haunted these stone walls. At least, he figured, that’s what most people thought, if they even thought of him at all. Before he left, he was a pariah. When he returned the first time, he was a memory. And then, the final time, he was no one. The city was gone and so was the Cloud that existed there.
He finds himself in front of the knock-off Strife homestead. It did amaze him the amount of detail the Shinra architects included in their cheap imitation; the same wood framing, same color of stone for the roof, even the light grey fence that wrapped around the home had the same broken panel from when Cloud fell into it when he was eight. And if he stands there long enough, he swears he could smell the kartoffelsuppe simmering over the open fire, making the back of his throat water for the familiarity. And if he stands too long, he can hear his mother’s soft voice echoing through the walls. Always soft. Like cotton. Or the feathers of a chocobo. He can never remember a time his mother gave him a sharpened word. Even when he left..
Especially when he left.
That day had blurred due to too many years trapped in a mako-induced coma. But he remembers the overcast afternoon sky. He remembers sitting on the ground in front of the door with his knees to his chest and his arms wrapped around himself. He remembers the drizzle. The sporadic rain drops falling onto his unruly hair. He knows his mom joined him outside, handing him a mug of hot cocoa he pretended to reluctantly accept while she sipped her tea in a slow, rhythmic dance. And he remembers that after a few minutes watching the rain drip from the clouds, she turned to talk to him…
But he can’t recall her words. Or her voice.
All that comes out when he tries to remember is a piercing hum that shoots through his skull like a bullet.
Cloud comes back, and he’s holding his head from the pressure of the distant memories. And he hears a click of a lighter. And another click , And another…He turns and sees Reno fighting with the flame with a smoke between his cursing lips as another rogue rain drop fights the lighter.
And as if feeling the piercing, narrowed eyes, on him, Reno looks up to see Cloud glaring at him. And then he remembers…again…why it might not be smart to light a cigarette in Nibelheim. He slowly removes the smoke from his mouth and tucks it back in the carton before cautiously approaching Cloud.
“Everythings all squared away…” he says matter-of-factly.
“ Great .” Cloud returns his glare to the building and it drops to a listless gaze.
“So…” Reno shoves his hands into his pockets and rocks back and forth, “This…you’re place?”
“Yes.”
“You want to go in? I’m sure there’s some shit left behind…”
“It’s an infirmary now. And nothings left. It all burned down, remember?”
“Yeah…yeah.” He kicks some imaginary rocks. “You know, for what it's worth, if I had known you were here, I would have stopped-”
“No you wouldn’t…you would have followed orders like you always did back then.”
“Actually, the Nibelheim incident was one of the few times I didn’t follow orders.”
Cloud shakes his head, but Reno continues. “They ordered me to take the survivors to Hojo. I told them to suck my dick.”
“Did they?”
“No. Instead, I got my ass chewed out– and not in a good way –by my superior at the time and put on desk duty for a week. But I didn’t turn them in to Hojo. And I did look for you and Zack…’cept I didn’t know it was you I was looking for. Ya know.”
“What happened to them, then, the survivors?”
Reno pauses, and Cloud can see him running his tongue along his teeth. A move he makes, the merc realized early in their relationship, when he is about to lie. “They were taken in by other towns in the area. Just…in the wind.”
“Oh yeah?” Cloud counters with a sharpened edge to his voice.
“No…that was a lie.” He relents quickly, “I honestly don’t know what happened to them.”
“Why did you lie just now?”
“I don’t know…” and at that moment, he sounds regretful. An alien tone that scratches at Cloud’s ears. “Force of habit…”
“Nice habit.” Cloud spats with an eye roll; and he wonders how many eye rolls he has left before he needs to question his relationship with the turk; because moments like these, when Reno forgets his role before the apocalypse, gives Cloud pause. He grits his teeth instead. “I’m going to check us in for the night.”
“You don’t wanna just go up there and get it over with?” Reno arches a brow.
“It’s already late. By the time we get up there, it’ll be dark. It’s better to rest and get an early start tomorrow.”
“Aight…if that’s what you want, kid…”
Cloud sulks away without another word. Reno watches him disappear into the encroaching fog and clicks his tongue in frustration.
Later that evening, Cloud sits on the balcony of the only suite in the whole inn–something Reno insisted on because he needed space for his ritual. And Cloud watches him through the glass doors as he puts together his plethora of weapons. His shirt off, sweatpants hugging his hips loosely just daring to fall off. He knows Reno would be naked all day if it were socially acceptable–and he figures the fact he has pants on at all is out of some respect for the situation he got them into. And maybe if Cloud didn’t feel so sour, he would join him; and run his hands over those lean muscles as Reno puts together the three guns–two for practicality, one for good luck-and charge his electro-mag rod. And he would lean against his lover, fall into the warmth of his bare skin. Smell the lavender and rain radiate from his hair, as Reno sways to a song he’ll be playing–something loud and often offensive.
But Cloud can’t bring himself to partake. He pulls his eyes away, and back out towards the horizon. The sky weeps. Large grey clouds envelope the full moon and send large raindrops upon this fracture glass terrarium called a town. The fog seems to hum and hangs heavy as it rolls through the streets. And Cloud appreciates how it obstructs the view. He knows the watertower stands before him filled with broken promises, and his house full of regrets with everything he never said before it was too late. Because he never thought…he really never thought..
He never thought when sitting outside his house, holding the cooling mug of homemade hot cocoa, that would be the last time he would ever taste the warm sweetness of his mother’s recipe. And maybe if he had known, he wouldn’t have winced dramatically when it burned his tongue. Maybe he would have savored the drink for longer. Maybe he would have dragged out each rich, creamy, sip. Hold it for a moment longer—hold his mother’s voice for a moment longer. Cloud remembers how she stood there, leaning against the threshold of the front door in a manner that reminds him so much of himself. Taking slow sips of her raspberry tea as she stared into the grey sky above them. He wishes more than anything that he could remember everything she had said, ever. Worse yet, he wishes he could remember the sound of her voice–not just that it was soft, and caring, and calm–but the inflections, the twang in the vowels she emphasized, or the way she sang.
But then Cloud remembers how she turned to him after a moment of weighted silence, and she smiled.
“ I just want you to be happy…”
The screech of the sliding door rips him back to the present with a jolt. His heart slams in his chest at how close he felt his mother’s words, and it slowly returns to a steady rhythm as the sound of rain slams upon the roof above him. He turns and Reno is leaning against the frame of the sliding door.
“I’m, uh, gonna head to bed.”
“Okay.”
They aren’t looking at each other. Cloud’s eyes just swipe along Reno’s bare feet, while Reno looks over the spiky blonde locks dancing in the wind. But they both feel the muddy tension spreading through the gap between them. And it’s heavy as rocks in their stomachs. And filled with words they can’t or won’t say. The silence is loud. It screams over the whispering wind and echoes through the vast emptiness of early evening.
Reno breaks first–Cloud would have joked it’s because he loves the sound of his own voice. “I’ll make it up to you, okay? We’ll go to the Gold Saucer after this job; we can spend the week, I got the money saved. Or Costa Del Sol. Or…I don’t know, I think Icicle Inn is open?”
Cloud’s sigh hangs in the air, and he looks back out towards the foggy scenery. “Don’t break your back, babe. If I didn’t want to come, I would have said no.”
“Yeah…” Reno’s voice trails off and he knocks on the glass as if trying to force the words he actually wants to say out. “I…don’t think that’s why you’re upset, though.”
Cloud says nothing, but the way his shoulders drop gives Reno the answer he didn’t want. And he stands there with all his silence piling up on them both. Cloud knows he is searching for something to say–but at worst it’d be defensive, and at best it will be excuses. And Cloud doesn't exactly know what he wants Reno to say, because it’s not just him, or his past. It’s Cloud, it’s his regrets, his fractured memories that lay scattered across his mirage of a town—and they are too broken to be put back together fully.
“It’s okay.” It’s Cloud’s turn to lie. “Everything’s okay. I’ll be in soon; I just want to listen to the storm for a bit longer.”
Reno opens his mouth to say something, but closes it just as quickly with a clench to his jaw. He swallows back the words and murmurs something Cloud can’t make out through the rain, before returning to the warmth of their shared room.
Cloud continues to stare out into the nothingness sprayed out before him. The rain lets up just a bit; and it drips onto the balcony in soft, rhythmic, plop s like a heartbeat. He looks towards Mt. Nibel, slightly illuminated by the bright light radiating off the moon, but hidden behind a fog that gallops around her path. He knows what lies in wait for him at the tip, trapped in an abandoned reactor, and howling for a chance to escape. Another repeat. How many times will he have to scale that mountain before he’s…
I just want you to be happy…
His mother’s words ricochet through his brain as the drizzle turns to rain again.