Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Strange Bedfellows ❯ Falling to Pieces ( Chapter 7 )

~Seven~

 

The old church was just as it always was: Worn out, nearly crumbling to pieces, and yet infinitely peaceful. Someone still tended to the flowers, probably Tifa or Marlene. Cloud didn't know and had never bothered to ask. He was far more content to believe that Aeris's spirit still returned here to take care of her garden.

 

Cloud sat on the edge of the flowerbed, on the church's rough wood floor. He unwound the bandage from his upper arm and stared at the festering, rotting open wound. It was like some kind of cancerous rash, sapped one's stamina and made them weak. Eventually the body just gave out or was struck down by another disease.

 

I deserve this, Cloud thought wearily.

 

Cloud had stopped making deliveries unless they were absolutely necessary and important; he was pretty much living in the chapel or haunting the wastelands on Fenrir. He seldom answered his phone anymore, not even for Tifa.

 

It had been nearly two weeks since he'd last seen Reno, and it felt like forever. Cloud groaned softly as memories teased him, threatened to seduce him. No…I don't need him….It had only been a temporary thing anyway, nothing serious. Just sex, Cloud uselessly reassured himself.

 

He tossed the bandage aside and stretched out in the garden, surrounding himself with delicate flowers and the scent and essence of Aeris. “I'm sorry,” Cloud whispered. There were so many things he felt like he needed to beg atonement for and his little affair with Reno had become just one more sin among many. How could he have let it go on for so long and become a sordid bit of comfort?

 

When he was with Reno, he felt almost content, happy even. A part of him hated that he should feel that way for someone like Reno. He wasn't good or pure; he was far too human to be idealized.

 

His cell phone rang from the pocket of his pants and Cloud had intended to ignore it, really, but he was also terribly lonely. Self-imposed exile was a lot harder than Cloud had imagined, and anyway, he longed for relief from his dismal thoughts.

 

Denial and denial and denial…No, stop it….

 

Cloud answered the phone with ah soft sigh of “hello.” His voice sounded hollow even to his own ears.

 

“You never fucking answer your phone, yo,” Reno's voice sounded in his ear, slightly reproachful and a little pissed off, “and so I wanted to make sure you hadn't dropped off the face of the planet.”

 

“What do you want, Reno?” Cloud closed his eyes.

 

“I don't know,” Reno drawled, “That all depends on you. What's up, Strife? I hear you're not living above The 7th Heaven anymore and seldom take deliveries.”

 

“I just want some time to myself.”

 

Reno laughed and it was harsh and unpleasant when Cloud was surrounded by such peace and holiness, “When has that ever stopped you from crawling into my bed?”

 

“I'm done with that,” Cloud retorted coolly, “It's over. If you call me again, let it be about business and let it be important.” It was absurd how hard it was to say those words. If Reno was a drug, Cloud was certainly going through withdrawal.

 

“Huh,” Reno sounded a bit miffed, “That's it? Do I get an explanation?”

 

“Why does it matter?” Cloud asked wearily.

 

“You don't just sleep with someone for over a year and then ditch them without warning,” Reno sounded uncharacteristically irritable, “That's just impolite, and anyway I thought we had a good thing going.”

 

“We didn't,” Cloud lied, “It was just sex.”

 

“Bullshit.”

 

“It was a mistake.”

 

Reno snorted. Cloud heard the click and snap sound of his lighter and the slow inhale of Reno taking the first drag off a cigarette. “Whatever,” he replied, “I gotta go. I can't believe I just wasted my smoke break to get dumped, yo.”

 

The line went suddenly and abruptly dead. Cloud sighed, turned off his cell phone, and stared at it for a long time. He was tempted to throw it across the church; he wanted to see it shatter and break. Cloud had been burning so many bridges of late, what was one more?

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

Reno stared at the cell phone in his hand, slightly bewildered. He had never been dumped before; he had always been the first to end things when it all got too complicated. Reno took a long drag off his cigarette. He couldn't decide what pissed him off more: The fact that he'd been dumped or that it was actually all over. Reno thought carefully, running his mind over his most recent encounters with Cloud. He didn't think he'd done anything wrong, though with Cloud it was hard to tell.

 

With a sigh he ran his fingers through his hair, tugged at his ponytail and tried to tell himself that he didn't care. Cloud was unpredictable anyway. For all he knew, Cloud might show up at his place tonight with those ravenous mako eyes and hungrier mouth. Somehow, he doubted things were going to go down that way. Reno always had good instincts for this sort of thing. Even if Cloud was a freak when it came to his emotions, he was still a person and people were easy to read.

 

Something was wrong.

 

Reno shrugged as he took one last drag off his cigarette tossed it down and stubbed it out with the heel of his boot. Dozens of cigarette butts littered the front porch of Rufus's bungalow at Healin.

 

Reno lit another cigarette with a quiet, frustrated groan. Fuck it, I need another one. I'll just let this be one of my extended smoke breaks. He remembered that not too long ago an extended smoke break meant a quickie with Cloud and tried not to let it bother him too much.

 

If Cloud didn't want to talk about whatever the hell was going on in his head, Reno couldn't give a good goddamn about the issue.

 

Yet the uneasy feeling did not go away….

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

In the middle of the night Cloud haunted all the places he wanted to be. He was saying his silent farewells, knowing that soon enough he would be gone. Cloud didn't know how long he had. The children who contracted geostigma seldom lived more than a few weeks after its manifestation, but Cloud was just a little bit more than human and certainly no child.

 

He sat on the back of Fenrir and stared up at Reno's apartment building. This late at night, all the windows were dark. Either Reno was asleep or working overtime.

 

I don't miss him, Cloud thought to himself.

 

Even he knew that was a lie.

 

He found himself picturing Reno alone in his bed, the bed they'd shared numerous times. Reno slept naked, though Cloud had to wonder if this was precisely true. He'd slept over at Reno's apartment many a time, but couldn't really be sure if he had the notion of him sleeping in the nude because every time they were alone together they inevitably ended up having sex. For all Cloud knew, when Reno slept alone, he just collapsed into bed, suit and all. It would certainly explain why it was always so rumpled….

 

Cloud sighed softly, shook his head. This is stupid, He thought to himself as he gunned Fenrir's engine.

 

Cloud was tired of lying to himself but he couldn't quite escape the deceit choking him. Reno was the least of his problems, but he had become just one more thing that Cloud was running from.

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

Cloud's motorcycle was in front of that run-down chapel on the outskirts of Old Midgar.

 

Reno stood watching, unable to go inside. What could he really say? When Cloud was on one of his self-loathing trips nothing short of global destruction could get him out of it. He still didn't know why Cloud was playing hermit; Cloud hadn't even told the people he considered friends. Reno didn't like the idea of waiting for him to come to his senses and he really just wanted to walk right into that stupid church and smack some sanity back into that pretty blonde head.

 

Instead he stood outside and stared at broken stained glass.

 

He remembered that day. It was kinda funny to think about: Tseng had been assigned to keep tabs on the Ancient years ago, back when Veld had been in charge. Rufus's old man had started to get mighty impatient with Tseng's passive attempts to persuade the girl to cooperate with Shinra rather than just straight-up kidnapping her. After many threats of being either demoted or canned, Tseng had given in and sent Reno to take care of the issue.

 

Though Tseng was never anything less than serious, Reno had gotten the feeling that his heart hadn't really been in it when he'd sent him with a couple rank and file officers rather than Rude or even Elena. He was pretty sure those useless idiots had been exactly why he'd not been able to nab the girl, but then again…No one had been expecting Cloud.

 

It was funny how things worked out.

 

The worst thing about it was that he was actually starting to care about Cloud. He was concerned, worried about him like he sometimes worried about his fellow Turks and Rufus.

 

Why can't he get it through his head? Reno though, frustrated beyond belief, that girl had to die in order to save the rest of our asses.

 

“If you try to have everything, you'll end up with nothing,” Reno muttered under his breath, wondering where he'd heard that before even as he realized how ridiculous the adage was. Cloud already had nothing, what else could he possibly lose?

 

Or maybe, he just wanted to disappear.

 

Reno sighed, shoved his hands into his pockets and kicked at a piece of twisted metal debris of god-only-knew-what. He would never understand what went on in Cloud Strife's head. Reno wondered why he even bothered.

 

He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit up. The cherry flared orange as dusk turned into evening. Reno lingered until Rufus called him back to Healin. It was time to go back to work.

 

“See ya `round, Strife,” Reno murmured, and sincerely hoped that it wasn't just wishful thinking.

 

TBC….