residentflorist

[ probably normally he would at least make a comment about it, or feel embarrassed, but he barely seems to be registering her presence when he shucks off his clothes to shower, movements stiff and mechanic. just gotta wash off the remaining blood, right? this is tragic.

the good news is that he seems able to go through the motions of washing himself without any incident beyond some mild hisses when he has to wash off some wounds. they might be closed but that is about it, they are still kind of garish and could probably open again if i was feeling evil. i do not.

also he apparently decided to take this shower to near boiling levels going by the amount of steam aerith will have to contend with before he comes out. luckily it's not too long! he is a clean boy. a clean boy who comes out and gets dressed up ALL by himself, too. i mean he did a piss poor job of drying but by god is he clean and dressed. ]

[yeah she figures he's too out of it to care, so she's on the counter and letting her legs swing idly, heels kicking back into the cabinet softly. is it partially also so cloud can hear she's still there while he's showering? yeah. she doesn't mind the steam so much, and when he comes out and dresses himself she hops down and grabs a towel to gently dry his hair a little. you...tried.]

That's a little better. Come on. [let's go back to the bed. she's not going to sit on it, but she gestures for cloud to lay down.]

[ well. the towel isn't direct physical contact so no pain! just cloud blinking dazedly as he lets her do it. it's gentle, but it... feels like someone else did that not too long ago, and that weirds him out a little. let's not delve into that too hard maybe it is just nostalgia. ]

Feels better. [ it's not like the spring is more than Magic Water, but it felt cloying. (it was the blood not being washed off.) he follows her back to the room and sits down on the bed, though he doesn't lay down yet, staring up at her with his big ol' too glowy eyes. hey is his hair like. a little lighter right now? surely that's her imagination. ] You weren't there at all?

[ he's asked this before earlier, but he-- wants the confirmation again. just in case? ]

[on the bed he goes, and she doesn't follow him yet even as she stays in front of him to look him over. she is very much noting the eyes are glowing more than usual and his hair's skewing more platinum than gold, but...maybe that's just the light. the apartment's not the greatest. she takes a little breath though before she smiles faintly.]

No. I've been here all day. We woke up here together and everything.

[ he sags in on himself with a sigh at that, slouched at his spot sitting. that's good. that's--good. if no one else was real. ]

Right. [ he doesn't exactly remember waking up this morning, but that's not too weird. if cloud didn't hurt her, then... there's almost a smile on his face, suddenly, and he looks up at her with eyes wide ] We'll be okay. We're going home, no matter what we have to face here.

[ his stare is so sure it looks almost a little feverish. it's so over phase over WE'RE SO BACK!!! ]

[oh good, we've kind of entered the "cloud's brain is boiling soup" phase. but she nods anyway, slowly sinking onto the bed next to him but not quite touching him. just hovering...the baby chocobo runs across the room, hopping around their feet before aerith pulls it up to nest on one of their pillows.]

Of course we are. We're going to get back to Yuffie, and then we'll go home. The others will be waiting, and we'll go back to what we were working toward. [...] Do you...

[hm. no. what if she doesn't give him an option actually.]

Where did you go, Cloud? [gentle but prompting.]

[ he makes space for her and the baby chocobo to sit. theyre gonna need. a bigger bed. ]

Yeah.

[ i hate this but little flowers. yay hope!! they're gonna do it and aerith agrees!!!

they immediately wilt at the follow up question though ]

... An island of demon. We were signed up for this... tournament? Think we were just meant to be entertainment.

[ nood doods was, in fact. their team name. ]

[they sure are. she watches the flowers die and she immediately thinks i'm sorry... before brushing the thought aside. also she hates the idea of cloud being used for entertainment, considering.]

What kind of tournament? Demons? [what the hell.]

Fighting tournament. [ which made his missing sword hilarious. what was the name...dark? whatever. ] Whoever won got a wish. We were set up in teams of four.

[why is it always wishes, she's going to blow up the entirety of scawwy.]

Was it the four of you together...? Or were you guys separated even then?

We were on the same team. We had the option for individual matches, but... [ don't know if that'd have been worse or better. ] We didn't take it.

At least you were together. [but now she's thinking about some of the things she's heard from cloud's thoughts, and she's still frowning a little.] How many teams did you have to fight against? Did you recognize your competitors?

[she already has a feeling the answer is yes just based on the things she's heard from other people who go on these trips.]

We only did two. I don't think... the whole tournament was done when we got out.

[ not that i cared. but... her other question. he looks away. ]

Yeah. It was all... people we knew. They were being controlled by... different things.

[of course it was. why would it be anything more simple than that?]

...you did what you had to do. Right? If they were being controlled, then...it probably made the fights even harder.

[ did i? he hunches in on himself a little ]

Something like that.

[. . .]

Why don't you tell me what happened? It's okay. [maybe it's safer not to ask questions or assume when she really does not know what happened out there.]

...

[ ...it wasn't real. he thinks it, but it still takes him a while to answer; ]

I killed you. I wasn't trying to. [ he says the second part quickly, like it's important she knows he never even considered that an option. ] That... scientist, controlling you, he moved you in the way. I couldn't... stop in time.

[okay well. she never really

okay well. most of the time she never really would think cloud would try to kill her, so this makes sense. there's a faint blip of hojo? because literally who else would she think of when cloud says scientist? her expression doesn't really change though, looking at him quietly as if she's absorbing this news.]

...it wasn't real. [she'll just repeat it out loud even though there's a tinge of guilt there because, well, she is in fact still dead. but it's fine, cloud doesn't need to know that.] You wouldn't hurt me on purpose. You and I both know that.

[ the hojo blip gets a huff out of him. looked alike. because all mad scientists look the fuckin same, but. that doesn't last.

it doesn't last because his tone turns disparaging; ]

Like I wouldn't hurt Tifa? [ he stares at his hands instead of her as he says it, the rest part sounding like it's wrenched out of him: ] Like--whatever happened with the black materia?

[ like it felt like he was going to, when she was praying, and he doesn't know why he had his sword out like that still. it--he stopped sephiroth, but it felt like he was fighting himself for a bit, and he doesn't know why.

~~(did he stop sephiroth?)~~ ]

[mmmm....dislike. dislike! we are flying too close to the sun here, icarus, and she's very quiet because it's not like she can dispute these things. those happened. they both know those things happened, and the more she things the more uncomfortable it feels. her gaze drops to her lap, fingers knotted together as she tries to find the right words.]

It wasn't real. [she can at least repeat that much. she thinks it'd be an insult to him to just deny those other two things happened, but he'd snapped out of it. she doesn't fully understand either, but she's starting to realize, maybe, that it has something to do with sephiroth. his vicinity to cloud, some way that he's able to control him and she wants to fight him so fucking bad oooooooh. but she can't. not like this. not when she's not sure if it'd hurt cloud, too.] You came back.

[and what she means is "you came back from being controlled", but saying it feels hard.]

[ what happens when I don't? he thinks, but he doesn't say it. instead he breathes in and out and tries to shake it off. this... isn't about that. she's right. it wasn't real, and more than that, it was an accident. that part. ]

... That scientist. He was saying you guys were dead already. That if we broke off his control, you'd just go back to that.

[ so it's lingering in his mind like a niggling thought, in between the bursts of WHEEEEE hope. he saved aerith back then. right? ]

I don't know who the others were that round. Kanda's friend I recognized, but that's it.

[there's a . . . over her head when he says that, and a little bit of frustration in her thoughts.

"Do you get tired of your death being used to hurt the people who care about you?"

she had said yes when the question was asked, and this does nothing to change her mind now. she scoots a little closer, baby chocobo settling behind her and she chews the inside of her cheek for a moment.]

We know these things are just meant to hurt us however they think they can. Like what happened in the bar last week, too. And what happened to everyone that first week in the city of the dead. [man.] Were you able to stop the scientist at all?

[ it's his turn to have the ... over his head, though he does nothing to put distance between them when aerith gets closer. ]

I know that. [ said a little quietly. even though he knows it wasn't real and meant to hurt doesn't mean it didn't. uh. work. it worked. so moving on: ] I killed him. But... they'd warned us there'd be consequences if we attacked him. They had... hostages. Pickles, Laudna and some people Aventurine and Kanda knew from home. Since I killed that guy, they made us choose between them and someone else who would get to live. Yuffie. Karlach. Nehan. Lavi. We made our choices, and then they made us fight whoever we didn't pick.

[ do you know he's not going to tell this to anyone else but aerith ]

[that's fair, she has rights as his girlfriend (?) so it doesn't matter.

anyway she absolutely hates this x2.]

...which ones did you have to fight? [how bad did this combat simulator fuck with everyone's head?]

[ stop saying ? ]

... Laudna, Pickles, and the two people Aventurine and Kanda knew from home.

[ 1) dog murder 2) nehan/aventurine is real because that bitch picked him over his canon cr ]

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