a man may drink and not be drunk

[exsurgo]

[ 1;

It bleeds together. Days after endless days, blurring into one another because none of them really matter until Cloud wakes up. Not that he doesn’t value each and every one of them, every day that he and Cloud make it through unscathed. And the end – that bleeds together, too. He remembers putting Cloud down behind an outcropping, trying to keep him sheltered, ruffling his hair. More men than he could have imagined standing before him. Against him. Fighting until he could feel himself starting to slow, hot bursts of pain, falling. And Cloud’s face. Cloud’s voice, telling him no, but it’s such a backwater name -

no. That was before. He isn’t remembering right. Cloud is here, but he’s mako poisoned. He can’t move without help, that’s why -

no, he did move, he crawled over and Zack told him -

told him -

he can’t remember. Could, if it was quiet, if he could hear his thoughts over the underwater whoosh of his own pulse in his ears. But at least it’s warm - why is it warm? It’s cold, the rain and the hard ground beneath him and the chill he knows is from blood loss -

his body feels light. Like floating. Dying, must be. That’s why he said all of that, right? He got to see Cloud one last time, that’s something. He would like to see him again, but he’s tired. He’ll sleep, and then

2;

beep. beep. beep. His alarm? He’s too tired to get up, too woozy, must have only just fallen asleep -

not an alarm. A monitor. Infirmary? The antiseptic tickle of the air he breathes in says yes. Opens his eyes. Fluorescent light, stiff white sheets, a rattly cot. Oh. Infirmary for him, then. His chest hurts. How did we wind up here, huh? he asks, coughs around it, finds his voice creaky and stale. Cloud’ll forgive him, he’s sure. And Cloud is -

not here. He calls. Then shouts. Then pulls a needle from his arm and starts peeling off sticky tabs – good thing he was never prone to chest hair – ignores the way the monitors trade their beeps for screams one after the other, swings his feet out of bed just as a whitecoated woman appears in the doorway. Cloud, he insists, where’s Cloud, and she lifts her open hands and walks toward him and asks him to sit down, please, Mr Fair, you’ve been through quite the ordeal just as he pushes up and off the bed and he falls and bowls into her, knocks them both to the floor. Running, then, the sound of hard soles on polished floors, hands under his arms to lift him up and a face he recognizes as friend-turned-threat. Threat? He wondered, thought maybe not -

but Cloud is gone, and nobody gets a pass until Zack knows where he is. He shouts something, takes a swing. His arms get pinned to his sides and there’s the bite of a needle and just enough time to think the prick sedated me and then

3;

easier, this time, the light, floating feeling of his body solidifying, settling into itself and all his constituent parts in a way that feels less woozy, less garbled. There are still beeps, and when he cracks his itchy, dust-dry eyes open the lights are still fluorescent. The air still prickles of hospital. And his first thought is still Cloud but this time, when he turns his head to look for the needle and pull it out -

there he is. Cloud. Slumped unmoving in a chair, like Zack had so long to get used to, but dressed differently. Accessorized. Zack laughs, and it sounds like rust, but he means it. ]

There you are.

Comments

[disheroic]

[ cloud is in the hospital for the better part of two weeks before zack finally wakes.

and it's not an easy thing -- he hasn't been able to stand hospitals or doctors for years, and just that sharp antiseptic smell is enough to go prying into the murky corners of his mind where his nightmares lay half-buried. but the nurses and doctors here know enough to give him a wide berth, and even if they didn't? it's zack. and to see him again, to watch the steady rise-and-fall of his chest and know that he's alive, would be more than enough to make cloud submit to much greater torments.

there are too many people who rely on his delivery service to pause business altogether, but he off-loads some of the work to tifa and most to the turks, and conducts the rest from his new temporary HQ in zack's hospital room. it's mostly paperwork, route planning, and balancing the ledgers, and it helps to have something to do that's not just staring at zack and waiting for him to wake up. keeping himself busy also keeps him from focusing on the things he shouldn't; the hospital around him, the reality that zack might never wake up, the fear that he might not be himself when he does.

(cloud has seen too many shells of former SOLDIERs in the days since shinra fell -- vacant-eyed and hollowed out, often babbling weakly about their reunion, some so sick and twisted by JENOVA's influence that there was nothing left to do but put them down like the rest of hojo's creations.)

cloud has never been an optimist. but for this? for zack? he hopes.

tifa tells him it isn't healthy to stay here around the clock, that he should come home sometimes to rest, but she never pushes the issue. cloud knows she's right, but he also can't -- the idea of zack waking up alone tears at him, and he thinks she gets that. so she brings it up every day when she visits, but it's almost a perfunctory thing. like she has to worry about him because there's no one left who will, bringing him homecooked meals and staying to watch him eat because she knows he won't if she doesn't. but she never presses the issue as hard as cloud knows she could, and he knows it's her way of reminding him that she's there.

and in the end? the vigil is nearly pointless, because cloud isn't there the first time zack wakes.

not that he's far -- another floor of the hospital, crowded into a room with doctors and a few of the scientists on reeve's team, arguing back and forth amongst themselves about zack's prognosis. what counts as a good sign to one of them seems to spell doom for another, and the bickering is enough to drive the spike of a headache into cloud's skull. the meeting seems more like pointless speculation than anything else, and he's just on the verge of calling it quits when --

the cacophony of a roomful of pagers going off at once. the sounds of shouting, a struggle.

-- and cloud arrives just in time to see zack slump back to unconsciousness in tseng's hold.

after that? he's relentless in his vigil. refuses to leave zack's room for any reason, does his best to even keep from sleeping for fear that zack will wake up again and cloud will miss it. but even mako-enhanced bodies have their limits, and he doesn't even realize he'd fallen asleep when a voice jolts him back awake again.

there you are.

full awareness in an instant, eyes sharp as they make a quick scan of the room, and then --

everything softens when his gaze finds zack's face, finds him awake and looking back at him.

the relief that tears up through his chest is almost too powerful to bear; cloud is stunned by the force of it, unable to do anything else for a few long seconds but stare at the man in front of him. and then he swallows hard and sits up, reaching out instinctively for zack's hand before flinching back like he's not sure he's allowed. ]

Zack.