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Chapter: Five: Consensual

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"What...the fuck?" was Zack's breathless and delirious reply.

Sephiroth stood in front of him outside of the Shin-Ra building wearing too calm an expression for the words he had just said to the stunned 1st.

Zack had been called out for an early mission as several rebelling Wutai spies were spotted on the outskirts of Midgar around five in the morning. The war was long over, but remnants of the enemy were scattered around the world, and Shin-Ra had to constantly deploy forces to stop them from their feeble attempts at infiltrating the city.

The silver-haired man repeated himself quietly, somewhat uncomfortable to pass the message along out in public, and having to say it more than once to the man who just wasn't processing this inside his head.

"And...you...his friends...stopped it?" Zack rambled. He felt lightheaded, confused, enraged all at the same time. His body was shaking with ire, shaking with uncertainty and disbelief at what was being spoken. Was this a sick joke?

Zack inspected the hero in front of him with questioning eyes, surveying each minute detail of the expression he held, picking apart each subtle movement of his eyebrows, each contortion of the muscles around his mouth as he spoke. He peered into him, observing the way his voice sounded with each word, taking note how he slightly lowered the volume of his voice when he said certain words like 'injured'; like 'assault'; words like 'attempted rape'.

The man's calm voice flowed from a stoic mouth that Zack continued to study as it moved. "I was returning to my quarters when the cadet ran past me as if the building were being attacked, so I decided to follow from the look on his face. Determining what floor he disappeared to slowed me down, however. After a lucky guess, that's when I found the 3rd...well..." He trailed off, scoffing slightly in disgust.

Zack was shifting back and forth on his feet, an anger flickering through his eyes that almost made Sephiroth nervous. Almost is a far way from actuality, however, and he remained his usual emotionless self before the young 1st.

"He...tried to....rape-"

"Yes." He cut him off as if to either stop him from saying the word, or to put a finality to the situation Zack just didn't seem to be fathoming.

A gloved hand was cupped over an agape mouth.

"But the 3rd is claiming that it was consensual," he continued mildly.

"How is busting open a lip and givin' the poor kid a head bashing consensual!?" Zack shouted and caused several people to turn who passed by.

"He claimed that the cadet was high on prescription drugs, having taken a fall on his own which resulted in the injuries. A significant dose of medication was found in his system with blood work to confirm this allegation."

"No one believes him though, right!?"

Sephiroth stayed silent for a moment, his face remaining emotionless, but his eyes conveyed what could have passed for compassion. "It's under investigation," was his only reply.

"Oh come on, Sephiroth! This is bullshit!" He was shouting once more. The citizens walking past scrambled away at his booming voice in fear.

"You can choose what you want to believe, Zack. But the truth will be evident in your friend's face."

He suddenly blinked at this statement, his raised shoulders lowering slowly as his thoughts drifted inside his brain. "My...friend..." he repeated quietly, his gaze flying up to Sephiroth with a look of utter shock. "Is that the real reason why you followed him?"

Sephiroth stayed quiet. Those eyebrows that Zack had studied lifted ever so finely on his still face, an act that only someone with a trained eye would catch. Zack knew from the years of working with him that that subtle movement was his way of sheepishly admitting to something, although it was a rare thing that he would do so.

Zack's shoulders sank in a sign of complete gratitude to the man who helped save his young friend. "Thank you, Sephiroth. I owe you one."

"You owe me nothing. I was merely concerned for the company as I was under the assumption that the place was under siege. You can thank your friend for being such a good actor to have me fooled. That's what saved him."

"He must've taken lessons from you, Seph. You are quite the bullshitter." Zack was making a poor attempt at a joke, and an even more poor attempt at calming the churning venom that flowed through each of his veins. He was about to paint the town red...with Mejia's blood.

Sephiroth closed his eyes as he turned his head, smirking a very mischievous and borderline sultry grin. "Yes, well. You should be off now. Don't you have someplace to be?"

"Yeah...t-thanks." Zack took a few steps back, pointing at the hero who continued to stand there silently. He mustered the best jaunty tone he could for simultaneously holding in a repressed scream. "You keep up on those acting lessons Sephiroth!" Zack turned on his heels and took off sprinting towards the Shin-Ra building, nearly knocking several bystanders over in the process.

Sephiroth scoffed a very short chuckle, shaking his head. Zack was a terrible actor, himself.


~*~*~
Tseng heard his name being called from twenty yards away, and through several layers of concrete walls as the voice, accompanied with frantic footsteps, got closer.

He finished signing some paperwork off to an assistant when Zack stumbled into his office, out of breath.

"Done with your mission already?"

"We need to talk," he said through gaping breaths.

Tseng dismissed the assistant and she passed by, giving Zack an interested look, which he so easily ignored.

"What do you want? Unless you're here to hand me the report you failed to turn in, then I'm not that interested."

"It wasn't consensual!" He blurted out, sweat rolling down his face. He had run up more than fifty flights of stairs, as the elevators were taking too long midday while people were heading out to lunch.

Tseng feigned shock over his random comment. He decided to respond with a bland and obvious joke. "I'm not interested in what your preferences are in your personal life." Of course, Tseng knew exactly what the SOLDIER was referring to.

"No, idiot!" Zack shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut, attempting to formulate his next sentence a bit more coherently.

"The incident is being investigated," he said coolly.

"That's not enough for me!" Zack threw out a hand to the side in annoyance. "Cloud would never do such a thing!"

Tseng peered at him, trying to pick apart Zack's overeager behavior at conversation. He just repeated himself. "The incident is being investigated. We're reviewing all the facts and tips, and even the surveillance footage. It will take some time to put everything together, so in the meantime, just..." He trailed off, frowning. "...just leave me alone and stay out of trouble."

Zack blinked at this, pulling his head back in surprise. His hand lowered to his side and it swung there, lifelessly. "That's...it?"

"Yes. Now get out of my office."

"So this guy walks free from all of this?"

"For the time being, until proven guilty, yes."

"I'll take care of him! Give me five minutes, and he'll be dead."

"You will do no such thing. I've assigned someone to watch him for the next few days and while he goes on an assignment during the investigation."

"This is bullshit and you know it, Tseng! Five minutes is all I ask for!"

Tseng let out a heavy sigh, his thumb and index finger pressing on either side of the bridge of his nose in frustration. The Turk walked over to Zack and peered over his shoulder, making clear that no one was around.

"Look, we had inside reports before this incident even occurred, accusing 3rd Class Mejia of a physical confrontation with Strife the day before in the barracks. This will help the investigation against him."

Zack relaxed, if only a little at this. "Was it Kunsel?"

"I can't tell you the name of the informants, you must understand." Wary eyes glanced to the doorway as someone passed by swiftly in the hallway. His voice lowered even more, down to a whisper. "They're not going to release Strife from the hospital until Mejia is deployed to his assignment. He'll be safe in there."

"So you do believe Cloud's a victim in all of this."

Tseng scoffed, shaking his head. "Look, just...get out of here. I have work to do, and you have somewhere to be."

Zack frowned at Tseng. "Thanks," he said flatly.

"Just let the Investigative Department handle this. And if I hear that you go near Mejia..." Tseng warned, his eyes narrowing, "You will be the one in the brig, do you understand me, Zack?"

"But-"

Tseng cut him off. "That is an order."

Zack threw up his arms in defeat, letting a very irked scoff flow from his very irked face. He simply shook his head as he exited Tseng's office, muttering something under his breath about the magic of 'five minutes' and how it would just solve everything.


~*~*~
The dark-haired SOLDIER paced across the hallway in front of Cloud's room anxiously. He stopped to peer inside the window in the door, watching as the blonde psychologist was talking quietly with the equally blond patient.

She was doing all of the talking, and he just sat there in the bed staring off mindlessly into the sheets over him. He didn't budge, didn't utter a noise, nothing.

Eventually, after twenty minutes of a one-sided conversation that Zack could see, she nodded to the impatient Zack that it was okay for him to enter.

Which he did, nearly kicking the door down in the process.

"Cloud!" he cried, rushing to the side of the bed.

The psychologist was just about to speak to Zack to inform him that he hadn't said a single word for the past two hours that she was with him, when she was stopped by a jubilant sounding Cloud greeting the young SOLDIER.

"Zack!" He looked so incredible at that moment and left the lady completely and utterly floored. He was practically jumping out of the bed, but stopped when several pieces of equipment began to follow him when only moments before he was still as a rock.

"I came as fast as I could, buddy!" He leaned down, attempting to ruffle the hair on Cloud's head, but the doctor pushed his hand away.

"Don't do that," she warned cautiously.

"S-sorry..." Zack mumbled and opted for a pat on Cloud's shoulder instead.

"Were you on a mission?" Cloud excitedly asked, the sunken eyes taking on a light that had been missing for the past day.

Zack's heart melted at the sweet look he held on his battered face and he resisted the urge to scoop him up in his arms and hold him tight. "Yeah." His face fell a bit and Cloud saw this, his face falling in response as well.

"I'm...sorry, Zack." He looked down at his lap again, his hands squeezing the blanket in his disappointed fists. "I hope you weren't worried."

"Hey, hey, hey..." He sat himself on the side of the bed and reached for Cloud. The psychologist was expecting Cloud to flinch like he had done with the others when they got too close, but he didn't. He welcomed the touch.

The lady jotted something down on Cloud's file.

"Don't apologize to me like that, Spikey. You've done nothing wrong."

Cloud swallowed hard, his voice cracking. "I feel like I have. I...wasn't strong enough to protect myself...I deserved-"

Zack gave a worried glance over to the lady next to him, who was again jotting something down. He cut Cloud off quickly. "No way, buddy! You've done nothing to deserve this, okay?" A gloved hand reached up and delicately placed it underneath a quivering chin. He lifted Cloud's head slowly, their eyes meeting. "I'm the one who should be apologizing. I should have..." Zack trailed off, frowning. I should have protected you...

Cloud began to shake his head violently in defiance, but stopped when he began to become dizzy. He started swaying in the bed, his bright eyes dulling from ailment. "N-no..." Was all he managed before he sunk back down to the bed below.

Zack pulled the blanket up on the boy, forcing a smile at him. "Just...get some rest for now, okay? I'm gonna-"

"No!" Cloud jolted up suddenly, and startled the two.

Zack pushed him back down gently. "I'm not going anywhere."

"S-sorry...it's okay. You don't have to stay..." Cloud laughed weakly at himself, trying to dismiss his delirious reaction.

"I'll stay for as long as you want me to, Spikey." He reassured him and this seemed to please the young boy as he nestled down into the pillow beneath his head. His eyes began to sink closed.

"Okay...maybe for...a little bit..." he muttered in a voice that almost sounded like a small child. This was followed by a heavy sigh before he fell asleep, or passed out, or a combination of the two as Zack couldn't tell.

Zack leaned back, after a moment of watching him, and slid off of the bed. "Well?" He looked to the lady, who stood as well from the chair she was seated in.

"He has all the classic signs of a rape victim. Anxiety, self blame, guilt. This was definitely not consensual."

"Um..." Zack rubbed the back of his neck, thinking on how to word the question he longed to ask for more than several reasons. "Just...uh...h-how far did....um..."

"Just molestation. There was no real penetration, he was saved in time. But this can easily be just as traumatic as if actual sodomy were involved, especially if the victim was a virgin."

Zack shuddered, forcing down the anger that began to well up in him once more. "That's sick! How could this happen to him!?"

"If you're going to be the one to watch over him for the next few weeks, I would suggest refraining from asking that very question around him. Victims of sexual assault oftentimes deal with two different types of self blame. One being behavioral self blame, and the other, being characterological self blame. Cloud is probably the latter."

"Which means...?" Zack was never one to understand this type of jargon.

"Which means he blames himself as a character, a person, for the bad things that happen to him. He is the type to believe that there is something inherently wrong with him, which therefore causes bad incidents to happen to him. In this case, the assault."

"So lemme get this straight. Cloud thinks that he was assaulted because there is something wrong with him, even though he had nothing to do with it other than Mejia being insane, and Cloud being in the wrong place at the wrong time?" Zack could hardly believe this.

"From watching him interact with you right now, I'm confident that this is true, yes." She removed her slim reading glasses from her face to reveal a pair of very stunning blue eyes. This normally would have caused Zack to slide over slyly asking for a phone number, but the only blond haired blue eyed person he was interested in lay softly murmuring on a bed beside him.

"So...what do I do?"

"Just be a friend. We'll be watching him for the next few days, analyzing his mental state before he's released. I'll work on some cognitive therapy with him to help him cope with what's happened and to get his mind straight again."

She lowered the chart against her waist and glanced over to the sleeping Cloud. "I was admittedly worried at first as he didn't say much of anything to me, but he opened up to you, so that puts a few of my fears to rest." She began to exit the room but stopped, placing a hand on the door before it was opened. "I can tell he is very fond of you, Mr. Fair." She smiled at him in an almost flirtatious manner before she stepped out of the room, leaving a confused, yet pleasantly surprised Zack standing there in excited awe.


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After three days Cloud was finally released with nothing more than a few bits of paperwork and an appointment card telling him when he needed to be back to have the stitches removed. He was placed on light duty, clerical work, until his head injury had cleared after a week or so, and Zack was informed of signs he needed to look out for in case Cloud began to relapse into a depression. Cloud denied any medication that was offered to him.

But Zack was nervous as there had been literally no word in the investigation of the incident, and last he heard Mejia was still out wandering around, free as a bird.

Zack wanted to murder the man, but refrained, not wanting to wind up in the brig himself. He needed to behave, so he could make sure Cloud was safe until Mejia was imprisoned rightfully. Of course if Zack had 'accidently' bumped into him with the sharp end of his sword, then he couldn't really be blamed for anything, right?

He chewed his bottom lip worriedly, and this Cloud noticed.

"Zack? Everything okay?" He trotted alongside the SOLDIER who was snapped back into the present as his young voice reached his ears.

"Of course, little buddy!" He wrapped an arm around his shoulders as they walked down the hallway. "Let's get some good chow in you, okay? I bet you're sick of hospital food by now."

Cloud leaned into the warmth of Zack's touch, his eyes fluttering closed momentarily. "Yeah, a little..." he murmured, as if he were half asleep. Cloud could feel the vibrations of Zack's chuckle through his body.

"Well, let's get you back to my place for you to rest, then I'll see what I can scrounge up."

Cloud blushed a bit. "N-no, it's okay. I should head back to the barracks."

Zack grew silent and Cloud looked up at him as he now held a solemn look on his face. He reiterated firmly, his voice taking on a tone that Cloud had never heard him use before. It was protective, dominant, filled with worry. "No. You're going to come back to my place, okay?"

Cloud was unaware that Mejia was on duty at the barracks for the night. "O-okay." He was released from Zack's grip once he agreed.

"Am I going to get in trouble for not reporting back?"

"Nah, I gotcha covered." Tseng agreed to have some strings pulled after much whining on Zack's part. It was the least Tseng could do for Zack for forbidding him from murdering Mejia in five minutes.

They entered the elevator silently and the ding of the bell caused Cloud to wince with pain, the noise being a bit piercing for his sensitive state. And he found himself stumbling as the dizzying movement of the elevator cart jarred him once it began its ride through the shaft, and Cloud felt himself falling forward.

Zack caught him for the third time that week.

"I gotcha." He wrapped his arms instinctively around Cloud's shoulders, bringing the frail body close to his. Cloud seemed to struggle against him a bit, as if he were trying to stand on his own, but failed miserably. "I got you..." he cooed again softly into the blond hair that was brushing up against his chin.

Cloud no longer fought back as he hadn't the strength to, and he was enjoying being in Zack's arms.

They stood in silence as the cart moved up through the shaft as if in slow motion.

The moment was lasting forever, and Zack was hoping that it wouldn't be interrupted by another passenger loading in as this would probably be a very awkward scene.

Cloud was suddenly moaning against Zack's chest, but it was not a moan filled with pleasure, and this caught the SOLDIER's attention very quickly.

"Are you...gonna...."

"I think so..." He was convulsing against him, trying his hardest not to vomit against the SOLDIER who continued to stubbornly hold onto him even though he knew he might be in direct line of fire of the queasy boy in his arms.

Cloud's usual motion sickness aside, concussions weren't exactly the innocent factor in this onslaught of nausea either.

And the gagging boy against him aside, this was still an exciting moment for the SOLDIER who held onto him so tenderly throughout the elevator ride, even as Cloud vomited against his last clean uniform.

It was going to be a great day doing laundry.


~*~*~
"One count of molestation. One count of lewd conduct. Three counts of physical assault." A man in a business suit from behind a desk lowered a file he was holding down onto the desktop. "If you plead guilty I can see if we can get you a more lenient punishment. Maybe six months in the brig, a demotion."

"That's it?" Mejia scoffed sarcastically, the arms that were folded across his chest dropped down to his sides in defeat. "After all that money I offered?"

"You're lucky you're walking free right now, despite the money! After all the evidence flowed in, I'm surprised you're not already in the brig."

"Evidence?"

"We received several reports from individuals accusing you of physical assault on the cadet from a day prior to this incident, and a medical report from the infirmary confirms this. The surveillance footage doesn't lie, either. There's no way around this. You can finish up your assigned mission, but by the end of the week you'll be in the brig. I'll see what I can do to lower your sentence."

"I can give you more money. Whatever will get me out of the brig."

The man just lifted an eyebrow at him, perturbed. "Look, it's going to take more than a bribe to save you this time. I'll do what I can. But the evidence is mounting fairly high."

"Who ratted me out?"

"That, I can't say."

Mejia just left the man's office with a twitching scowl across his face. He hunted for Elici.


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...To be continued in Chapter Six: Apologize to No One.