This isn't going to make much sense if you haven't read Seventh Circle, Ninth Sphere, but hey you do you.


Genesis has a bit of a headache.

Well, more than a bit, really. Today marked the beginning of classes for the newest cohort of Third Class SOLDIERs, which somehow included a class of his own. Angeal tricked him, through what Genesis can only assume was some kind of witchcraft, into teaching a seminar on field triage and materia healing. Which would have been fine, except that Genesis is...Genesis.

The average age of a new Third Class is a measly seventeen and in this cohort there's a positively bouncy fourteen-year-old that makes Genesis feel like a creaky old man left to shrivel up in the sun like a raisin. It bears repeating that Genesis is not good with children. He's not even good with Cloud, who doesn't act his age and never has. And Angeal is fully aware of this fact, but decided to trick him into teaching anyway.

Which really makes this Angeal's fault, if you think about it.

So now he's got a migraine and, yes, he might have tossed a Fira or two at some baby Thirds. He has no doubt that Angeal is going to kick his door down and make his headache much, much worse once he finds out, even though this is all his fault.

With that in mind, Genesis makes the prudent decision and retreats to his apartment several hours earlier than normal, determined to nurse his aching temples with some scotch and a well-earned nap before he has to deal with SOLDIER's resident Mama Bear Hewley.

He barely has a chance to shed his coat and hang it in his closet before he hears the front door open and shut. He groans, low and irritated, in the back of his throat. That has to be Angeal. How did he find out so damn quickly? Genesis braces himself for the shouting to start, crossing his arms over his chest and staring mutinously toward the door.

Silence.

He blinks, brows drawing together. If that wasn't Angeal, then who…?

There's a noise from the front room. It's soft, hard to hear even with his enhancements, but unmistakable: a wounded hitch of breath drawn through gritted teeth. A sound of pain. Genesis stares at his bedroom door, frozen in surprise.

That soft hitch of breath precedes a tidal wave of anguished noise, escalating rapidly from strangled whimpers to something that sits uncomfortably between a wail and a scream. His breath leaves him in a painful rush because he knows who is making those sounds. He's never heard anything like it before—never thought he would ever hear something like that—but he knows. He knows it like he knows the feeling of a bruise.

He unfreezes, scrambling forward and wrenching the bedroom door open with enough force to deform the hinges. He hopes (dearly hopes) that he's wrong, because the kind of things that would have to happen to make Cloud scream like that…

He's not wrong. Cloud is sprawled out over the tile right in front of the door like he fell there, though Genesis can't see any major injuries. His oversized Third Class fatigues look pristine. He's crying so hard he can barely breathe.

Genesis, unlike Angeal, has been entrusted with Cloud's lowest moments before . He's seen the boy when his body is in tatters and the pain is too much to speak through. He's seen him slit the throats of dying soldiers in mercy kills. He's seen him try to carry wounded comrades to safety, only to have them die slung over his back when he couldn't get there in time. He's seen his eyes grow blank and distant and dead. He's seen him shut the whole world out with a mask made of unbreakable steel.

But Genesis has never, ever, seen him cry.

"Cloud!?"

He hurries forward, heels clicking sharply across the tile. Cloud doesn't react at all, not until Genesis drops to his knees and pulls him into his arms. The tiny blond makes the most pathetic, wounded little sound Genesis has ever heard as he slumps into the man's torso, head lolling. He still can't see any blood, but Cloud must be injured somehow to make a sound like that.

"Where are you hurt?" he demands, staring down into slit-pupiled eyes blurred by a film of tears. He's not terribly surprised when Cloud just sobs instead of answering, though the lack of response isn't exactly helpful. He needs to know what's wrong before he can fix it.

Fortunately he still has his bracer on, complete with Sense and Cure, and he puts them to good use even as he continues talking. "What happened? Isn't Sephiroth away on a mission?" To his disbelief, Sense turns up nothing. No injuries at all. As far as the materia is concerned, Cloud is as healthy as a Chocobo.

Cloud spares a breath to giggle hysterically at the question. Genesis blanches, a sharp stab of something like fear making his gut twist unpleasantly. He knows what to do when Cloud staggers into the apartment dripping blood and holding his bones in place. He has no fucking clue what to do with this.

"Alright," he says, more to himself than to Cloud as he watches the boy hyperventilate in his arms, eyes red-rimmed and unfocused, glowing like lanterns. Even on a good day it's difficult to get Cloud to talk, and today is certainly not a good day. He'll have to settle for providing what little comfort he can scrounge up. His lips press into a worried line. "Alright, up we go," he says, getting his other arm beneath Cloud's thighs and standing to his feet.

Goddess, the boy is so light. He wonders suddenly, is he eating enough? It's the kind of thing Angeal would say (the kind of thing Genesis would mock), but it seems so very pressing when he's actually feeling Cloud's insubstantial weight in his own arms.

Genesis hesitates in front of the dark leather couch for a moment. What little he's learned about soothing hysterical children suggests that he should lay the boy down, perhaps kneel by his head and start trying to calm him down. But then again, he's not Angeal. He's not good at gently drawing people out of their distress. Even if he were, Cloud has never been so profoundly shattered like this before. The fact that he even let Genesis pick him up without raising a ruckus speaks volumes.

Genesis blows out a slow breath as he considers his options, acutely aware of the twelve-year-old shaking and sobbing in his arms like his heart is breaking into a million pieces. Well, in for a Gil, I suppose.

He turns and sits on the couch, settling into the plush corner where he'll be most comfortable. He has a feeling he'll be staying in one position for a good long while. Tentative, anticipating angry resistance at any moment, he tucks Cloud into his chest and wraps his arms securely around the boy's shuddering torso.

And Cloud just...lets him, laying unresisting atop Genesis as he keens and draws in ragged, shallow breaths. That pliancy, far more than the weeping itself, fills Genesis with cold alarm. He feels incredibly out of his depth.

Cloud's pulse races, loud as a drum to Genesis's enhanced ears. He tucks his chin snugly over the boy's untamable hair, frowning thoughtfully as he feels his shirt begin to soak through with tears. What can he do? He's not good with words in the way Angeal is. The words he prefers are—

Ah. Inspiration strikes. He begins to speak, keeping his voice to a slow, soothing cadence.

"When the war of the beasts brings about the world's end

The goddess descends from the sky

Wings of light and dark spread afar

She guides us to bliss, her gift everlasting..."

Somehow, mercifully, it works. As he recites, smoothing one hand slowly up and down Cloud's back in time with his voice, the boy's anguished keening subsides into helpless crying and then into quiet, hiccuping breaths. Genesis watches the clock, paying half an ear to Cloud's heartbeat until it finally calms into the rhythm of sleep.

He falls silent.

His shirt is cold and wet against his shoulder and upper chest. One of his legs is starting to fall asleep, but he can't bring himself to move it. The minute hand continues its slow crawl as he watches, lost in thought. It took over an hour for Cloud to cry himself to sleep. Briefly, he shuts his eyes. What could possibly have happened for Cloud of all people to sustain such an intense emotional outburst for so long?

"What happened, darling?" he murmurs, holding Cloud a little tighter in his arms. "Who did this to you? Poor boy, you just never get a break, do you?"

Genesis has never had a younger brother. He's never had a nephew. He's certainly never had a son, and never will. In truth, he's never wanted them either. It was always Angeal's impulse to be a caregiver, not his. Genesis is not a nurturing force; he is fire. A refining fire, perhaps, but a fire meant to refine can just as easily destroy. He is well aware of his own nature.

But here in this moment, steeped in the silence of his apartment with Cloud sleeping across his chest like the child he adamantly refuses to be, Genesis wonders if any of it matters. Who he is, who he considers himself, who Cloud is to him in a technical sense —what does it matter when Genesis is holding his boy (his boy) after a moment of such profound vulnerability? When Cloud trusted him enough to allow it?

Cloud isn't his little brother, or nephew, or son, but what does it matter when Genesis loves him so much it feels like his heart might burst in his chest?

Loves. He loves him.

It's a quiet, gentle realization —fitting, to be had in the silence after a storm such as this. There's no pain to it at all.

"Poor boy," he repeats, tilting his head a little to press his lips to Cloud's sweat-soaked hair. Warmth and painful empathy mingle in his chest, constricting his lungs. "My poor, darling boy. What am I ever going to do with you?"


Genesis sits quietly for another twenty minutes or so, basking in the gentle atmosphere of Cloud's trust and his own realization until he hears someone unlocking his front door. With Sephiroth away and Cloud in his arms, it can only be Angeal. He cringes a little and hopes his childhood best friend is here to find Cloud, not to harangue him for throwing fire at the Thirds.

The door has barely opened when Angeal starts yelling: "Genesis, answer your PHS! Cloud is —"

As happy as Genesis is not to be the subject of Angeal's shouting, he also has no desire to let the man wake his sleeping charge. "Right here, so hush. You're going to wake him," he scolds, barely above a murmur.

Angeal's agitated steps stutter to a halt as the door closes behind him. His eyes go immediately to the blonde lump wrapped up in Genesis's embrace. He inhales sharply. "I —Gen?" he asks, bewildered.

Genesis almost laughs. He doesn't exactly know much more than Angeal at this point, despite letting Cloud cry all over him. "I don't know," he answers honestly with the slightest shake of his head. "I don't know, Angeal. He just came in, an hour and a half ago. I don't think he knew I was home." He is reasonably certain of that, at least, considering Cloud had collapsed right in front of the door and proceeded to wail his lungs out without even attempting to call for him.

"He was...'upset' is the nicest way to put it, but given that this is Cloud there's no other way to describe it than 'utterly hysterical.' I thought he was seriously injured at first. He was crying and hyperventilating. I couldn't get a single word out of him."

Angeal's expression is one of baffled concern. He closes the remaining distance between them, dropping to a knee beside the couch. With one hand, he reaches out and carefully pushes Cloud's damp bangs away from his face. Genesis can't see at this angle, but he can guess well enough what Angeal finds: flushed cheeks, a ruddy nose, puffy eyes, perhaps even glittering tears lingering in pale blond eyelashes.

"Oh," Angeal breathes, eyes softening. After a moment of searching Cloud's sleeping face, he asks without looking up, "and he...let you? Comfort him?"

Genesis suppresses an inelegant snort. Cloud is notorious for resisting all help and comfort. Even when he was six he had to be on death's door or nearly unconscious before he stopped fighting them. "I was as surprised as you are, believe me. Did something happen while he was with you?"

Angeal shakes his head, shamelessly taking advantage of Cloud's unconsciousness to gently caress his face. "No," he murmurs, almost sad. "Or at least, I didn't see it. One minute we were heading to the gym, the next he was running like his life depended on it."

Genesis pauses, considering that for a moment. Cloud's fight-or-flight instincts, in his experience, are really more...well, fight instincts. He hasn't the slightest idea what would make Cloud bolt like that, but it can't be anything good. He hums, resting his chin back on Cloud's hair. "And I don't suppose he would tell us if we asked."

Angeal just laughs at the idea and doesn't bother addressing it directly. Instead, he moves his hand to Cloud's lower back and rubs a slow circle. "It's a bit late for a nap," he says, "but I don't want to wake him."

"No," Genesis agrees. "Let's put him in his room and let him sleep it off."

"Not Sephiroth's apartment," Angeal says.

Genesis rolls his eyes a little. "No, of course not. Maybe if I thought he'd sleep until tomorrow, but I meant his room in your apartment. Besides, The Bastard isn't here to be in a snit about letting Cloud out of his sight."

"Mmm, good."

With a bit of stabilization from Angeal, Genesis gets up off the couch without waking Cloud. The boy sleeps on, head shifted to the crook of Genesis's neck as the Commander balances him on one hip.

"He's too light," Genesis murmurs as they cross the hall to Angeal's apartment. Even supporting his weight with just one arm, the other resting lightly on Cloud's back, it takes barely any strength to carry him.

"Never thought I'd hear you say that," Angeal responds with humor.

Genesis sniffs haughtily. "Yes, well, I will admit that letting him get snot all over me for an hour may have shifted a few of my priorities."

"Ah, of course. Just a few shifted priorities."

"And perhaps a realization or two," Genesis adds breezily.

I love him so much that it hurts.

For all that Genesis is a thespian, he could never bring himself to say it out loud, not even to his dearest and longest friend. Angeal is well aware of the delicious irony: Genesis far prefers to keep the most important things unspoken.

"Perhaps," Angeal echoes, a knowing smile on his face.

Insufferable lug, thinks Genesis as his best friend holds open the door to Cloud's room. He pauses for a moment to allow Angeal to unlace and remove Cloud's boots. With a bit of careful maneuvering, they manage to get his harness and belts off too.

Angeal draws the covers on the bed back, then reaches out and helps as Genesis leans down and carefully settles Cloud onto the mattress. The boy rouses just a little as Angeal tucks the covers up under his chin, eyes cracking open a sliver. His pupils are round again.

"Cloud?" Genesis asks, but the boy just curls up on his side and lets his eyes slide shut.

"Later," Angeal mouths, jerking his chin toward the door. Genesis nods in agreement and together they leave to let him sleep. Perhaps he will feel more inclined to speak once he wakes up.

Genesis snorts audibly at the thought. Not likely.