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Chapter Twenty-Five: Awkward Cliché

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They had slept through most of the afternoon and evening.  When the sun began to set, warmth in the room was replaced by the heat of their bodies huddled beneath the blanket.  It was almost unbearable, and the only remedy was to either pull away from each other or kick the covers off.  Zack didn't seem like he would pull away anytime soon, so Cloud had been forced to toss back the covers on himself.  In all honesty, he didn't want to pull away from Zack either, but hunger and a full bladder got the better of him.

Zack had woke a little while later when he reached out and Cloud wasn't there.  He thought he had heard the front door close and assumed that that was what had initially woke him.  After his senses began to collect, he realized that Cloud had left.  He didn't want Cloud to leave his sight; he wanted to watch over him and make sure that he was okay for as long as he could.  So he rushed out into the living room to chase after him, but found him sitting on the couch eating a piece of toast with the television on low.

Cloud had already cleaned the mess in the kitchen and had showered.  He sheepishly admitted that he felt bad for not asking if he could use Zack's shower first, to which Zack just replied that he was only disappointed that Cloud didn't wake him and ask him to join.  Cloud just sat staring at him for several moments slowly chewing on the toast, and remained relatively unfazed by what Zack had said.  Or perhaps he was just zoning out, as when Zack had sat down next to him, Cloud blinked a few times and looked rather dazed suddenly.

The bandage on his shoulder was gone after his shower, and Zack could see the remains of the bullet wound.  Cloud saw his eyes lingering, and their gaze eventually met with small smiles and an awkward silence, but the wound was never addressed.

In fact, nothing was addressed.  Not Cloud's short behavior earlier in the morning, the nightmare he had or the tears he spilled, not the offer for sex the night before, or even his outburst at the restaurant.  Of course, Zack now knew the reasoning for all of that, but Cloud wasn't aware of it, and he still said nothing as if it didn't happen.  And it made for a bit of uneasy tension between them at first, but Zack did his best to gloss it over and attempt to act how he normally would.  He was surprised with himself for not having pinned the boy against the couch to gush to him about all the truths he knew and that he wished Cloud would admit to.

So now they sat together on the couch in the light of the television in front of them, and the dimming sun behind them.  They decided to stay in for the night as Cloud seemed a bit tired still, and Zack had a feeling they would have an unwanted third wheel on their date if they were to leave.  As thankful as he was to Reno for filling him in on everything, he really didn't feel like dealing with being unnecessarily followed by any of the Turks for the remainder of the night.

Or at all, really.
  
His only hope was that the Turks wouldn't follow him for that much longer, and that his relationship with Kunsel would go back to normal and that his relationship with Cloud could resume steadily as well.  He wondered how long the company thought that they could possibly keep something like this from him, and just scoffed at the concept of it all.  He figured it would blow over with them sooner or later, and they would turn their attention on something more … attention worthy.

Of course, had they realized Zack's true relationship with Cloud, they would have known that he wouldn't even dream of running off and taking matters in his own hands with Mejia.  His priorities were Cloud's safety and wellbeing, and knowing that Elici was gone and Graves was AWOL meant that Cloud didn't have much support.  He had Ratcliff, but he seemed strange with Cloud, and Zack assumed it was for the same reasons as to why Kunsel was strange.

As much as going AWOL himself and running after Mejia to murder him played heavily on his mind and blood-lust, he knew it would do nothing but hurt both him and Cloud.  And hurting Cloud was something he never wanted to do, so by his side he remained.  All of this wasn't going to stop him from asking Tseng about sending him on more assigned missions to find Mejia, however, and tomorrow he would be in his office the first chance he had pretending as if he knew nothing.  He'd do his usual barging into his office, his usual insulting banter with him, he might even go back to playing with that unused stress-ball on the man's desk, and he would certainly smile his usual smile if and when smalltalk was used.  But he would have to muster forth enough determination to play it cool as to not reach across to bash Tseng's head into his desk and call him every expletive that he knew, and perhaps some adlibbed ones as well.

Now, Zack had his hand on Cloud's thigh lightly, almost as if he were afraid to touch him in fear of being inappropriate.  He glanced over to the boy who was sitting unnervingly straight against the couch as if he were under the scrutiny of an officer, and he just quietly watched the screen.  Zack was watching him intently as he began to move his thumb against his knee for any signs of disturbance in his face, but he remained fairly stoic.  The only time he made a different expression was when that sitcom came on, and he became outwardly unamused.

Zack leaned across Cloud's lap to where the remote lay beside him and he shut the television off.  "We don't have to watch that if you don't want to."

"I know, but it always seems to be on when we're together."

"Are you implying that it's some sort of tradition between us now?"  Zack sat up slowly, a smile growing on his face as he looked at him.

"No, it's just fact."  Cloud was looking back at him bashfully, which only made Zack's grin wider.  "Every time we seem to spend time together watching TV, it's always on."

"I think that is what you're implying."

"Well," Cloud said, and then paused for a moment, his eyes flickering down to the remote.  "... Is it wrong if I was?"

"Nope, nothing wrong with it."  Zack reached over Cloud again and turned the television back on, and the sitcom flickered onto the screen once more.

They went back to sitting in silence.  Cloud no longer sat as stiffly, and nestled back into the cushions with a leathery squeak.  The hand on Cloud's thigh was once again replaced, perhaps even more firmly than before, and the thumb resumed its repetitive stroking against his knee.  Zack went back to watching Cloud's face through the corner of his eye and was pleased to see that Cloud was either smiling at the sitcom, or at Zack's gentle touch.

Zack was afraid of making the wrong move with him.  He was nervous with how to act, and was unsure about the right way to go about everything, if there was even a right way at all.  If Zack wasn't supposed to know, and if Cloud wasn't going to tell him, he at least wanted tome sort of guideline with how to treat him; he didn't want to make things worse.  He tried to picture what that psychologist might tell him with how to interact, but his mind was unable to really put forth a believable and solid idea of his own.  Everything in his head suddenly became cliché.

"Hey Zack?"

His hand suddenly stopped rubbing Cloud's knee and it was brought to his lap quickly, and he immediately scolded himself for being so jumpy; it would look suspicious.  "Yeah?" he said casually, but his hand remained on his own thigh.

"Aren't you going to ask me how my mission went?"

Zack turned his head very slowly and their eyes locked on each other.  He tried to read into the expression on Cloud's face, but there was none.

"Sure," he said slowly, carefully, "how did your mission go?"  He wasn't sure where this was going to lead, and his heart began to beat heavy in his chest.

"It went fine," he said, his voice void of any emotion as well.

"Okay ... that's ... good."

"How did yours go?" Cloud said, his voice slightly more upbeat now, even if it was only a little.

"It went fine," Zack said, his voice attempting to sound upbeat as well, but failed miserably.

"Okay, that's good."  Cloud turned his head back to the television in front of him.  After a few minutes of a heady silence, he looked back over to Zack who was staring wide-eyed in front of him.  "... Hey Zack?"

He was almost afraid to answer.  "... Yeah?" he finally said.

"Are you bored with me?"

"... What?"

"I-I mean ... are you bored right now?"

"Not at all," Zack said sincerely.  The show was boring, of course, but his mind was too much at work to even consider something as simple as boredom.

"Because we can do something else ... w-whatever you want."  Cloud was suddenly bouncing a leg, his eyebrows arched and eyes wide in what could have been an ardent look.

"Was there something you wanted to tell me?"  Zack gave him as best of a gentle and understanding smile as he could for having his mind reeling in the way that it was over the sudden change in their conversation.  He began to piece together those possible clichés that had cross his mind previously, trying to load up his arsenal of things to say in case Cloud was about to unload everything on him.

But Cloud's leg stopped bouncing, that ardent look dissipated into that void he had earlier.  "No.  Nothing."  And his voice was back to that empty tone again that left Zack clueless to what was really going on in his head.

"Cloud," Zack eventually said, "I'm not bored, it's okay.  Are you bored?"

"No, please don't think that!" He shifted onto his knees as he reached out and grabbed Zack's hand from his lap.  "I can never be bored with you."

"Okay ... that's ... good to know."  Zack forced a shaky smile at Cloud, trying to search his words for hidden meaning, but was unable to put together anything that made sense.


~*~*~
   Not much else was spoken between them for the remainder of the night, and sitting through an aura of both comfort and tentative regard didn't help in the conversation any.  They both became hungry, but it was too late to grab anything in the mess hall and Zack sheepishly realized that he hadn't gone shopping lately due to the non-stop missions he was put on since he returned to Midgar.

So Zack actually took amusement in making them both peanut butter sandwiches, which was in all honestly about the only thing he knew how to make, aside from the ramen he could microwave, of course.  But if he wasn't feeling too lazy, he would actually boil the water and wait patiently, and then take pride as if he took the time to create it all himself.  It tasted the same, however, and he never could quite understand why people chose doing things the long conventional way versus the easy – and fast for his lack of patience – microwaveable way.

Nine o'clock rolled around slowly, and Cloud mumbled something halfheartedly about his liberty coming to an end.  Zack knew he was lying but said nothing about it.  Cloud looked reluctant to leave, as did Zack, but Zack just smiled and told him they'd see each other soon.  They kissed modestly and then parted with the taste of peanut butter on their lips.

Cloud made his way back down to the barracks where he went ignored by most of the men as he entered.  It seemed as if no one knew about the incident and he was a little relieved, but still wary.  He received no lingering stares, no wolf whistles or sexual remarks.  Nothing.  A few casual greetings and a few inquiries as to why he was on light-duty again, but he just simply stammered a lie about a mishap in materia training and they accepted the excuse and went about their business, so he went about his.

He crawled into his bunk and frowned at how different it was compared to Zack's bed.  Zack's was softer, and despite the unbearable heat when he initially woke that day, it was all around a comforting feeling.  His bed seemed cold in comparison, and he even had similar blankets to the ones on Zack's bed.  In fact, he now wore more clothing than he did when he was at Zack's, he had the same amount of blankets with the same material, and yet he curled into himself for warmth.

He was surprised that he was this tired as he had slept most of the day away, but just figured it had something to do with the change in sleep patterns from being in the infirmary to being nervous all night in Zack's bed with him.  Each time he would try and change positions as he dozed in the man's bed, Zack would let him move, but then immediately wrap his arms around him and pull him back into a similar position to the one he just adjusted from.  It was somewhat frustrating and uncomfortable, but in the end he was safe in Zack's arms, and that's all he really wanted.

And now as he started to drift, he could hear the men's voices around him becoming quieter as people began to climb into their own bunks and settle down for the night.  He could hear Kunsel's voice explaining something to those who were awake about the events of their day, and he could pick out a few familiar voices speaking with him.  But all were eventually drowned out by the constant echo in his head from his memories, and that was what he fell asleep to.


~*~*~
Ratcliff had watched over Cloud as he entered the barracks and as he conversed briefly with the men, even though Ratcliff knew no one knew about what happened and knew no one was going to give him trouble over it.  He watched as he readied himself to go to bed, and he watched as he fell asleep fairly quickly.

He had been somewhat willingly and unwillingly avoiding Cloud.  After they returned from Kalm, Cloud was immediately admitted into the infirmary, and Ratcliff spent a good portion of that day being debriefed, ordered around, and then punished.  He was hoping that by the time they got back to Midgar, Kunsel would have cooled off a bit, but that was far from the truth.  After their debriefing, Kunsel spent a good twenty minutes chewing him, Kumpf and Zabalza out.  It was just a disciplinary infraction on all their parts, but serious consequences occurred due to their bad judgment and negligence.  Kunsel was tempted to sentence them all to the brig, but perhaps he did cool off just a bit and only sentenced them to serving the line in the mess hall and to setting up the conference rooms for the various meetings and such being held for the department heads.  It wasn't so bad, but definitely kept them all busy.
  
It was hard working with those two when all they did was continue to ask him about the incident in Kalm, and he was ordered not to speak of it.  He was never good at keeping secrets, but this was more than just a secret.  This was confidential information, and yet he was never informed as to why it had to be held so tightly under wraps, especially from Zack.  They seemed more concerned to keep this from Zack than from anyone else, and that's what he didn't understand.

After his punishment lifted he was scared to go and visit Cloud in the infirmary when he was actually able.  He made it to the floor and was a few steps into the ward when he found himself just turning and leaving.  He wondered how much did Cloud actually remember about what had happened.  He didn't know what to say to Cloud when it became inevitable and he was forced to say something about it all, even if it was a lie.

When Cloud was finally released from the infirmary, Ratcliff was ashamed with himself because he actually feared facing him for a lot of reasons.  And at first he was relieved to see Zack enter the barrack searching for Cloud, but then he realized that he would have to face Zack as well, and he suddenly wished that he had been thrown in the brig after all.  He was selfish and pathetic.

Of course Zack could see right through him.  That was undeniable.  Most people could always see right through him with anything remotely important.  Even someone as dimwitted as Kumpf noticed Ratcliff's infatuation with Cloud, so he could only guess as to how fast it would take for Zack to catch on to something being wrong.  As soon as he saw Zack, his defenses were raised and yet his guard was down.  He tried to focus his brain on answering as naturally as he could, and he had tried a bit too hard and his one verbal quirk that everyone had grown accustomed to hearing him say seemed to nervously retreat, and he was perhaps speaking too normally versus naturally.

And that was the dead giveaway.  Zack had caught onto that at the last moment when Ratcliff thought Zack had bought his mandatory lie and he relaxed, if only a little.  But that little bit was enough to let Zack know that everything that he thought that could be wrong, really was.  But Zack never said anything, and that only seemed to make things worse for Ratcliff.

What made matters even more worse was when Zack caught him in the lie and still didn't call him out on it.  And the seemingly impossible happened and Zack invited him out to dinner with him and Cloud, as if to rub it all in his face.  He could do nothing but grin and bear it, and then drink most of the night away.  It was bittersweet for him as alcohol quickly left him inattentive and took away his ability to control himself, but in this instance it was a fortunate thing.  He became pleasantly drunk to where even if he confessed to everything, it would just come out in a string of drunken laughs and slurred mumbles, and Zack wouldn't have been able to understand it anyway.

And he had hid when Cloud entered the barracks.  Slipping behind a group of men and pretending to be shuffling a deck of cards at the tables was all he could do as Cloud passed by, looking rather disheveled.  Flight and avoidance, glossing things over, running away.  No matter what he called it, how other people saw it as, it never could change his disgust with himself.

Now he was above in his bunk, listening to the men snoring in the barracks and wishing he was doing the same.  He hadn't slept well; he wouldn't feel right if he did.  Knowing what he knew, living with his actions, his insecurities – it made the concept of sleep unattainable.  And as he lay there above Cloud, he could feel the bunk trembling as the boy tossed and turned.  His noises of discomfort accompanying the nightmare he was most likely experiencing continued to remind Ratcliff of everything he wanted to soon forget.

He couldn't take it anymore.  He slid off his bunk and landed beside Cloud who was on his back with his arm slung across his forehead.  A soft sheen of sweat littered his skin, and it reflected the soft flood lights in the room, and reflected everything that was going on in his head as of late.

"Hey," he whispered, shaking his shoulder lightly.

Cloud's arm raised a bit as he opened his eyes, looking rather dazed.  "Drill?"

"No, not a drill.  You were having a bad dream."

"No I wasn't."

Ratcliff sat down on Elici's bed and smiled at Cloud nervously.  "Oh.  Sorry for waking you, then."

Cloud sat up, rubbing his face.  He was silent for a while as he looked around.  "...It's fine," he finally said.  He looked down as he kicked the blanket off of himself and swung his legs over as if he were about to stand, but didn't move anymore.

"Um ... s-so how ... are you feeling?"

How the hell do you think he's feeling, stupid?  Ratcliff winced at both the hollow question and the question in his inner thoughts.

"I'm fine," Cloud said blandly, still staring down at his legs.

"Nerves still hurting?"

"They're fine."

"Shoulder's okay?"

"I said I'm fine, Ratcliff."

"Yeah ..."  He realized that he was trying too hard again, and attempted to relax himself, but just found that a strange silence fell over the both of them, as if they could pick up on each other's uncomfortableness and uncertainty.  

And when Cloud finally spoke, it startled Ratcliff, almost as if he was not expecting him to say anything more, let alone what he actually then said.  "Did ... you save me?"

Ratcliff shook his head slowly, not sure if Cloud was looking at him as he was busy staring down at the floor himself.  "It was Kunsel, actually.  I uh ... came a little late, y-yeah.  I'm sorry."  Yet another hollow gesture.

Cloud shook his head.  "It's ... fine."  And another hollow response.  "There's nothing anyone could have done."

"No, that's not true ... I could've ... I ..."

"It's no one's fault, Ratcliff."  Cloud looked off to the side and stared into the showers which were in solid darkness, so it was only a wonder what he was really looking at in there.  "No one's fault but my own."

"Cloud, don't you think that!" Ratcliff said rather loudly, and then quieted his voice as a few people stirred in their bunks.  "Don't you believe that, yeah."

Cloud scoffed, his shoulders bobbing briefly with it before returning to their slumped position.  "Yeah, sure."

"And don't think that you're alone in all of this, either.  When I said that I've been through it all, I really meant it, yeah."

The boy's eyes finally met Ratcliff's, his eyebrows meeting on his face in an expression of disbelief, almost offense.

Ratcliff shifted on the bed uncomfortably.  His lip retreated back into his mouth where he nibbled on it in shame.  "Yeah ... uh ... I never bothered to tell you this because I didn't think it was relevant before all of this.  But ... M-Mejia and I ..."

Cloud just stared at him, searching his face for any sign of dishonesty, but he said nothing, nor did he express any emotion.  He just waited for him to continue.

But Ratcliff debated it.  He tossed his past around inside his head; he tossed about his own feelings.  "We ... were together for a while.  Things got bad, yeah.  Real bad."

"O-oh."

"Yeah ... So trust me when I say I know what you've been through."  Ratcliff went to reach out to touch Cloud on his knee, but stopped himself even before his muscles constricted to begin moving.  "So please, my friend, I know this sounds like the shit you've heard before, but I mean it when I say you can talk to me, yeah."

Cloud nodded solemnly and whether it was out of respect for Ratcliff's confession, out of his own sense of nervousness, or even an actual agreement to take up his offer, Ratcliff wasn't sure.

"Anyway."  Ratcliff pulled back the covers on Elici's bed and slipped inside.  "I'll be right here if you need me for anything.  Just try and get some sleep, yeah?"

"Yeah ... you too, Ratcliff."  He watched as Ratcliff turned away in the bed, resting his head on his folded arm.  He lay back down himself, but didn't feel as if he could fall back asleep again.  He watched Ratcliff for a while, who was perfectly still as if he already fell back asleep.  "Hey, Ratcliff?"

He stirred slightly.  "Cloud?"

Cloud's eyes trailed up the bunk to where Graves' bunk lay empty.  "... Where's Graves?"

Ratcliff slowly turned, looking at him from over his shoulder.  He stared for several moments until he finally mustered up the will to speak, and his voice came out unsure and skeptical.  "... You don't ... remember?"

"... No," Cloud said hesitantly, frowning as if he were trying to remember any explanation as to the man's whereabouts that he might have overlooked.

There was a chance that Cloud was trying to play ignorant, trying to use the incident to his advantage to test Ratcliff.  Perhaps he was seeing if his explanation would change from what he previously had used prior to the incident in Kalm.

But Ratcliff just turned back onto his side to face the other way once more.  "He's ..." He trailed off then, and Cloud listened as his breathing slowed.

"Ratcliff?"  He watched for a few moments and repeated the man's name.

"... He's training," he finally said, his voice coming out a bit drowsy-sounding, or perhaps he was speaking carefully, "in SOLDIER boot camp.  Don't you remember?  He got promoted."  And he waited for Cloud to pin him on his lie, but it never came.

"What?  When?" was all he said.

"That's where he's been.  I just found out when you were ... in the infirmary."

"Oh."  Cloud lay back down slowly, pulling the covers over his shoulder as he was suddenly wracked with an unbelievable shudder.  "I didn't get to apologize to him."

"For what?"  Ratcliff refrained from turning again to look at him.

"... It's nothing.  Just about something I said to him, that's all."

They fell silent for a while, nothing but the usual sounds of the barracks playing across the uncertainty between the two men.

"Don't worry," Ratcliff finally said, "you'll get to say whatever you want to him when he gets back."

Cloud mumbled something that Ratcliff didn't quite understand, and it took him a while to realize that he fell back asleep.  He wondered if Cloud would remember the conversation in the morning, then he wondered if he would buy his lie if he did.

Once again, he spoke too normally.

~*~*~
He wasn't dreaming this time – he was remembering.  And if only he had been dreaming, he would have felt a little bit better about it, as if recalling such a memory of his own accord somehow made him weak.

There had been a lot of blood, and normally something like that didn't bother him that much, but seeing it spreading out beneath Cloud's body was something that he was unable to just simply ignore.  And given this man's actions in the past with Ratcliff, he could only imagine what he had been intending to do.

Things had been so heated between him and Elici that he didn't hear the skirmish ahead in the materia cave.  The sound of the monster that attacked the two men went unheard.  Mejia's taunting order to Cloud, challenging him to take it on by himself didn't make it past their argument either.  Cloud's hesitant but obedient response was drowned out by meaningless squabbles and threatening exchanges between them.

But they heard the gunshots; they heard Cloud's pained yells and cries.  He could smell Mejia's cigarette suddenly, and when they reached the two, he saw the man standing casually by, watching as the boy bled out through a wound in his gut, lying next to a dying monster.

"What the fuck happened!?"

Mejia removed the cigarette from his mouth slowly, his eyes scanning Graves as he squared his shoulders when he approached quickly.  "What was that?  You wanna say that one more time, grunt?"

"I said, 'What the fuck happened', sir."  Graves' voice was thick with sarcasm, and he quickly glanced off to the side as both Ratcliff and Elici knelt down beside Cloud to try to tend to the wound with what little they had.  

The SOLDIER scoffed and chucked the cigarette down into the puddle of blood lying beneath Cloud.  It briefly sizzled as it extinguished in the liquid.  "Better watch yourself, grunt."

"Or what?"  Graves took a step towards the man, a sharp breath being released from his nose as he closed in the gap between them.

"Well, seeing as I'm the only one with any Restore materia, you better watch your fuckin' mouth if you want me to heal him."

Ratcliff stood up, his fingertips dripping with Cloud's blood.  "Mejia, you can't be serious!"

"My team is being very insubordinate with me today," Mejia said, rolling around a piece of healing materia in his palm.  "Strife at first disobeys my order to attack, and now your smart-ass is questioning me."  He shook his head and pocketed the materia.  "I am given the power to discipline my men as I see fit."

"Discipline and torture are two different things," Graves muttered, kneeling down beside Cloud who was trying to sit up, but let out a stifled cry as more blood seeped from his stomach.  "Shit, kid, don't move."  As Cloud quieted, Graves could hear Ratcliff whispering something to Mejia and he briefly looked over.

Ratcliff had tugged on Mejia's arm, pulling his attention away from the men.  His eyes briefly met Graves', and Graves nodded.

"What do you want?" was what Ratcliff said under his breath, and Mejia just grinned slowly, their eyes locking.

"I think you know what I want," he muttered back.

"I told you, no more.  I'm done with your shit, yeah."

"Well I'm not done with you."

Graves tried to ignore them as he dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out the materia he and Elici had been fighting over not moments before.

"What're you doing?" Elici whispered, motioning down to the materia as Graves held it and it began to glow with a soft green hue.  "You're gonna get into some deep shit if you use that."

"Would you rather have Cloud fuckin' bleed to death?"

Elici was pressing hard on Cloud's stomach, trying to stop the bleeding with what looked like a meager handkerchief.  He quickly glanced over Graves' shoulder as Ratcliff seemed to have Mejia distracted with a rather suspicious-looking conversation.  He had always assumed something went on between those two, but never had any evidence backing up that assumption as Ratcliff could be rather secretive, despite his friendliness.  There was definitely something there, but unless Ratcliff would tell him on his own accord, he wasn't going to pry; it wasn't his place or business.

"Fine, just hurry it up, and then you put that shit back where it belongs," Elici finally said lowly, glancing over his shoulder.

Graves glanced between his hands hovering above Cloud's heaving stomach, and over his shoulder at Ratcliff who was tugging on Mejia's arm each time he tried to turn back towards them.  He heard bits and pieces of the conversation, and it was mostly Ratcliff rather slyly baiting Mejia with vague possibilities, but never affirmed agreements to anything that that man could want.  It was enough to keep him distracted while Cloud's wound slowly began to close.  He had never been that great with materia, but whatever he could do right now would be far better than simply waiting by and playing Mejia's stupid game.

"Hurry, Graves."

"Shuddup, I got this."

Ratcliff's eyes briefly shot over, then back up to Mejia as the man was muttering something to him.  A horrified expression soon covered Ratcliff's face, and his hand went to his mouth in what looked like either disgust, or offense.  He stood staring at Mejia, unmoving, unblinking.

"What the hell just happened over there?" Elici whispered, watching as Ratcliff's other hand dropped from Mejia's arm, releasing him finally.  "Shit, Graves, stop, stop, stop!"

Mejia turned, seeing the familiar green glow against the men above Cloud.  "Hey!  What the fuck do you think you're doing?  Where the fuck did you get that materia!?"

Graves glanced over his shoulder, cursing under his breath.  "Well, at least the bleedin' stopped," he muttered, turning back to face Elici before he stood.  There was a brief feeling of hands over his suddenly, and the materia was quickly ripped from his grasp and pulled against Elici's body.  "The fuck, bro?"

Mejia approached them and they stood together slowly, stiffly.  "I don't remember giving you the order to heal Strife!  And where the fuck did you get that materia!?"  He pointed down with a freshly lit cigarette between his fingers to the orb in Elici's hand.

"Sir," Elici began, straightening, "given the history of your past infractions, it was in the best interest–"

"I don't need you telling me what's in my best interest!"

"... I meant Strife's, actually, sir."

A brief silence passed between everyone, save for Cloud who was panting heavily and struggling to sit up.  He was trying not to continue to cry out in what they could only imagine was an impressive amount of pain given the blood he had spilled.

Graves was staring at Elici wide-eyed.  Why in the hell was he taking the heat?    Not three minutes before they were nose-to-nose arguing about the morality of his actions of pocketing the materia, and now Elici was manning up for him with that same materia in his hand, taking the blame.

"You've been briefed of the collecting of materia before.  Those fuckin' scientists in the Fusion room don't like it used before they inspect it, so put that shit back now," Mejia mumbled around a cigarette.  His eyes were boring through Elici, but the man just stood there obediently straight.

"Yes, sir."

Mejia just waved him off angrily as he knelt down and roughly pushed Cloud back onto the ground as he tried to sit up again.  "Don't fuckin' move."  He looked over his shoulder and nodded Ratcliff over, who approached with that same distressed face he had not moments before.  "Get over here and help if you care about him that much."

Elici and Graves stood back as Ratcliff rummaged through a sack for what little medical supplies they had, and as Mejia almost reluctantly began to heal Cloud.  He was first shouting about how Cloud was weak and couldn't handle one monster on his own, but then drifted into shouting back at Elici for his insubordination.  They just ignored him.

"Bro, why'd you do that for me?" Graves whispered, watching as Elici put the materia back in with the rest of the collection they found.

"Because you weren't afraid of sticking your neck out for Cloud."

"So why would ya stick yer neck out for me?"

Elici was quiet for a while, just watching as Mejia finished healing Cloud's wound, and as Ratcliff cleaned him up as best as he could.  "Damn," he finally said, "you're dense sometimes."


~*~*~
He had realized it a while ago.  His words and actions towards Elici were always so immature, full of disregard for his way of thinking and upholding of his sense of morals.  Morals to Graves were just things that he always saw as a guideline – a thin guideline – for people who weren't strong enough to find their own path through life and decide things for themselves and stick with their decisions once made.  He felt that 'right and wrong' were too ambiguous of ideas that couldn't be justified or validated by society telling him how to act or what to believe.  He saw right and wrong as opinions, nothing more, and he really didn't care much for other people's opinions on how he should live his life.  He hadn't the patience to sit and wait to be told by other people what was right and wrong, so he felt that experiencing and finding out on his own suited him best.

"I fuckin' bet, if it came down to it, ya'd never have my back, would ya?"

Graves wasn't dense.  He just didn't believe the reasoning behind Elici's actions at first.  He stuck his neck out for Cloud on more than one occasion.  He stuck his neck out for Ratcliff as well, and even Elici.  Despite his apathetic demeanor to his friends most of the time, he would always come to their aid if they needed him.  Each person had their role in their tiny circle of friends, and his was the protector.  If he couldn't be the comforting one, if he couldn't be the leader, he at least wanted to be useful and protect.

But Elici was a man tied to duty; his actions were always so methodical and proper.  So for the man to turn around and take the heat when Graves had thrown him under the bus not moments before with his assumption … he felt a bit remorseful.  To not trust the man or the true friendship he finally realized he had with him … Graves never regretted much in life, but it was too late – he couldn't take it back.  He could do nothing but try and repent for everything in the only way he knew how.

Elici always did have his back, and to Graves, what he was doing was right.


~*~*~*~*~*~*~

… To be continued in Chapter Twenty-Six: No Strings Attached.