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Cloud’s first impression was oh gods that’s a lot of colors. His second was strong perfume. His third was bargh, nausea.
The third one was just what happened when he got slapped through dimensions, though, so he ignored it.
“Gaia, what the hell?” he blurt out, aghast at the overwhelming gaudiness of his surroundings. The walls dripped with thick tapestries and curtains of flowering greenery, interspersed with gauzy drapery and glittering jewels. It was downright blinding.
“Cloud!” a woman cried in delight.
He knew that voice. That was—
“Aerith?” He choked on his own spit, quickly averting his eyes from the sight of his friend, scantily clad and lounging in an opulent…something. He hadn't exactly had time to identify the furniture.
“Oh, Cloud!” she crooned. He could hear her standing up and sauntering toward him, bare feet soft against the sumptuous carpets. “And here we were worried you were never coming home!”
“I’m not your Cloud,” he said reflexively, backing up as she invaded his personal space. It was difficult to keep his eyes averted when she kept trying to force herself into his line of sight. “I’m from a different dimension, I’ll be gone in a few hours.” He paused, then very cautiously managed to meet her eyes and only her eyes. They were blown wide, only the thinnest ring of emerald green visible. “...we?”
She hummed thoughtfully. “Oh, I see. That does explain why you seem so worn out. Well, far be it from us to turn away any Cloud! You’re welcome here for as long as you stay! Isn't that right, everyone?”
Cloud was pretty sure he disconnected from reality completely for a second as a huge group of very familiar, very scantily-clad people surged forward from all over the room to crowd around him. Each and every one greeted him joyfully, their hands trailing over his worn, bloodstained self in a way that was impossible to misread as anything platonic.
“Wh—Stop!” he said, backing up and trying to keep his eyes from falling on anything he definitely did not want to see. “I AM MARRIED!”
“Married!” Aerith said delightedly.
“Yes, happily married and I’m not interested in—“ he made the mistake of looking down and met Tifa’s curious, heated gaze. She was wearing a big, ornate necklace and absolutely no shirt whatsoever. Despite knowing full well that wasn’t his Tifa, he felt his brain short-circuit and his face burn crimson.
Aerith gasped and clapped her hands together. “Tifa? You married Tifa! Oh that’s adorable.”
Cloud slammed his eyes back up toward the ceiling. For good measure, he put his hand over his face and held absolutely still. “Yes, and that’s not my wife!” he ground out.
“Aww, my shy little Spiky grew up and got hitched!” said Zack. Cloud was pretty sure the hands that cupped his jaw were Zack’s. “Look at you! I remember when you couldn’t even talk to Tifa, and now you’re all big and brave!” There were murmurs and giggles of agreement. None of the hands had left him, but now they at least felt less... suggestive.
A voice came from the side, quiet, as a calloused hand found a recent tear in his outer shirt that he hadn’t found the time to patch up. “Cloud.” That was Vincent. Cloud almost looked at him reflexively, except holy SHIT he did not want to see that man naked.
“Vincent,” he said in a strained voice, more terrified to move than he had been in years.
“You’re not well.”
The giggles quieted abruptly. A dozen hands moved in synchrony, each traveling to a point that Cloud knew reflected some injury or battle damage.
“I’m fine, Vincent,” Cloud said with forced evenness, trying not to twitch out of his skin at so many vulnerable spots being paid attention to simultaneously. He still trusted them, even if they were all mostly naked, but that didn’t make it much easier after so long on constant alert. His hands itched for Tsurugi, but he restrained himself.
“No, you’re not,” Aerith disagreed sweetly, trailing a teasing fingertip across the back of the hand he was holding over his eyes. “But don’t you worry, Cloud, our home is a place of harmony and rejuvenation. We’ll fix you right up!”
Cloud felt a foreboding chill crawl down his spine. “That’s not necess—“ he cut off, yelping as someone rather unceremoniously ducked down and hoisted him over their shoulder. At the same moment, the substantial weight of Tsurugi vanished from his back. “Hey!” he gasped, eyes flying open automatically to see—
Okay. Look. Look. He’d spent five years being experimented on and/or pickled in mako next to and/or bathing in the wilderness with Zack. He knew what the guy’s ass looked like, whether he wanted to or not. He had more than enough of those memories back.
That didn’t mean he wanted a gods-damned closeup.
“Zack!” Cloud snapped, shutting his eyes again and pounding a fist against the man’s back. “Put me down!”
“Nope!” Zack said cheerily, already marching off to parts unknown. “To the baths!”
“Baths!” Cloud repeated in dismay. “No, guys, come on, I am married—“
Tifa cooed, along with several others. “Don’t worry, big guy,” she said, “we won’t piss off your lady! It’s a little bit of TLC, nothing inappropriate.” He could hear the rest of the crowd following, since apparently this was going to be a group activity.
“That’s not comforting,” he ground out, weighing the odds of an escape attempt. Probably low—he’d spied several SOLDIERs in the group, and he wasn’t willing to hurt them or anyone else.
...except maybe Sephiroth and Genesis, a little bit. They could take it.
Aerith giggled, and he knew she was the one who tapped his nose. “I forgot you used to be so shy! You’re absolutely precious, Cloud.”
He spluttered, pushing up against Zack’s back, and opened his eyes just enough to glare at Aerith without seeing anything he didn’t want to see. “I am not shy,” he said, “ just because I don’t want to see my best friends basically naked!”
“Or completely naked, if Aer likes you enough,” Zack said, and Cloud instantly felt his face heat back up to burning. “Pants are for people to piss off my Lady, isn’t that right?”
And in that moment, when Zack mentioned people who pissed Aerith off, Cloud finally noticed something. He was actually looking into her eye rather than cringing, so he saw the way her pupils, blown wide with ecstasy, contracted into familiar narrow lines—slit, cat-like pupils in a sea of deep, shining emerald green.
Cloud forgot how to breathe.
Aerith smiled at him knowingly, and her pupils widened again until they looked round. “Good thing it’s difficult to piss me off, hmm?” She ran a finger along the line of Cloud’s jaw and he felt the familiar but inert tug of Reunion in his blood, tinged with the aching depth of the Planet’s touch.
“What did you do?” he whispered, stricken. He didn’t want to fight them—he especially didn’t want to fight this group. And, oh Planet, he would lose so badly if he tried. Not just physically. It would be like a wound on his soul if he had to raise Tsurugi against them. Even for EVILANCHE he’d mostly bolted in the opposite direction and resigned himself to letting them draw blood.
But he couldn’t ignore a Calamity. He’d decided that long ago.
“Silly,” Aerith said, amused. Zack patted his ass reassuringly, but he barely noticed. “I righted a wrong, and brought harmony to the chaos, that’s all. But I think you’d know more about that than me.”
That made him pause. “...what?”
“You came from a different dimension, didn’t you? And I can feel Her lingering influence in you, cleansed by the Planet. That’s not so different from us. You would feel it, if you just reached out. Harmony , Cloud. Not harm.”
It was true that the malevolent taint of Jenova tended to hit him like a brick, sense-wise. It was true that he couldn’t feel it here. But something about her phrasing made him wary.
“...no genocides?” he asked, bracing himself for insult and anger.
But Aerith just laughed. “Genocide! Oh Cloud, no, that would be such a waste! So divisive. Like I said, we’re about harmony. Just relax. You’ll see.” She kissed the space between his eyes and he felt a flash of...something. Awareness, maybe, of the people surrounding him. Awareness of the way they connected, a silk-spun network of emotional threads, sharing joy and contentment and concern for him and his frightened words.
It faded almost as soon as it was impressed upon him and he slumped, dazed, over the hard line of Zack’s shoulder.
When his head finally cleared, Zack had shifted him into a bridal carry and someone was working his boots off. His head felt impossibly heavy, but he lifted it anyway, trying to reorient. The air was filled with a heady floral scent and the sound of rushing water from an enormous, opulent open bath, and the others were laughing and chattering as they took off what little they wore and started slipping into the water.
Zack grinned down at him, teeth gleaming like the pearls that were strung through his hair. “There you are!” he said, setting Cloud down on his bare feet. The tile was warm beneath his soles.
“Wait—“ Cloud said as three sets of hands started unfastening his belts and harness.
“Enough stalling, brat!” said Barret, which made Cloud slam his eyes closed again because NO. His arms were pulled back as the harness came off. “You’re gonna take care of yourself for once!”
“I’m fine!” he insisted, exasperated, and promptly lost the battle to keep his shirts on. “Hey!” A hand tugged at the waist of his pants and he smacked it away without remorse. “I draw the line at no pants!”
There was a pause. He braced himself to bolt.
“Alright, fine!”
Cloud yelped again as he was picked up, this time by Barret, marched over to the edge of the pool, and unceremoniously tossed in. He surfaced, spluttering, and wiped at his eyes. “Barret, what the hell!” It was only the knowledge that he would inevitably get an unwanted eyeful of the man’s junk that kept him from glaring.
“Cannonball!” Zack yelled, and Cloud was smacked in the face by a tidal wave of water. There were several other distant splashes as some of the others followed suit, and Zack surfaced with a bright laugh a moment later. Feeling a little bit like a disgruntled wet cat, Cloud made a noise in the back of his throat and started wading toward the edge of the pool.
“Silly, where do you think you’re going?” Aerith asked, catching his arm before he could get far. Cautiously, he opened his eyes. The water was cloudy with salts and scented oils, and deep enough to cover Aerith up to her collarbone. Finally, he could actually look at her without risking anything. He opened his mouth, but she didn’t even give him a chance to answer. “Zack! Come here, Cloud could use some help relaxing.”
The man’s heat was at his back almost immediately. “Tell me about it! C’mere, chickabo, Aerith says my hands are magic, we’ll have you melted into a little Cloud-shaped puddle in no time!”
Cloud jolted away, not wanting to know in any way shape or form what the hell that meant. “No! No no, no that’s not necess—”
“Hmm,” Aerith hummed, tilting her head, thoughtfully, “maybe Tseng too. You’re so tense you could snap.”
“I would be happy to help,” Tseng said, appearing at Aerith’s elbow in his usual creepy Turk way.
Nope, nope, nope! Cloud finally gave up and just made a break for it. Well, tried to make a break for it. Zack anticipated him with uncanny accuracy and caught him around the chest before his fingers could do more than brush the edge of the pool, which was totally cheating because Zack was one of the few people Cloud wasn’t willing to smack around a little bit in order to escape.
“Aww, did we scare you?” Zack cooed, like Cloud was a puppy and not a deadly interdimensional warrior. “It’s okay, chickee, nothing to be scared of. Here, let me show you.” He shifted his grip, one hand keeping Cloud pinned while the other went to the junction between his neck and shoulder.
Cloud squirmed ineffectively. “Whatever favor you think you’re doing me, I don’t—!” Then Zack’s thumb dug into a knot that had been in Cloud’s trapezius for gods only knew how long, sending an electric sensation zipping down his spine, and he lost his words to a breathy groan. His joints loosened all at once and he sagged against Zack for the second time. Every conscious thought was ejected from his brain in favor of feeling.
Was there something else happening? Probably. But he hadn’t realized his muscles hurt so badly until now, when they were being worked and kneaded and pulled into a relaxed state for the first time in years. It was entirely impossible to convince himself to care about anything other than going limp and letting it happen.
Zack’s chest rumbled with a laugh. “See? Told you,” he probably said. It was hard to tell when his brain was short-circuiting like this. And it was even harder to tell when he succumbed hard to the combined forces of his exhaustion and the sudden relaxation, and passed the hell out.
Aerith wasn’t surprised at all when the poor, worn-down boy simply fell asleep in Zack’s arms. She felt his exhaustion on her skin, tasted it in the air like a bitter fog. She doubted he felt it himself, anymore. He carried it like an old friend—like the sword Genesis had taken from his back at her request.
Poor boy. Poor, poor boy.
Zack’s hands stilled as she waded closer, her intent sparking the air. She would wash Cloud’s hair herself, and trim it later. It deserved to be as beautiful and strong as he was, especially when it was so delightful long like this. Cloud liked to keep his hair too short for her to do fun things with, usually. She was going to enjoy this. Elena was at her side without prompting, bringing shampoo, conditioner, and a comb.
“Babe, he’s so precious,” Zack said, almost pleading as he shifted Cloud from where he’d slumped upright against his chest. “We have to keep him. He needs us!”
“No, Zack,” she said fondly, guiding his hands so that he cradled Cloud’s head just above the water, where she’d easily be able to tend to his hair. “As much as I’d like to keep him, I know better than to piss off any version of Teef.”
Tifa, who was leaning against Vincent and spectating like the rest of the group, giggled and winked.
"Besides—" Cloud made a sleepy, pleased noise as she ran her fingers through his hair, gently loosening the dirty pink ribbon that held his sloppy ponytail in place. "—I don't think we have the power to keep him anyway."
Zack (and most of the other former SOLDIERs) pouted in unison. "He’s scrappy, but you're very persuasive. We could win him over!"
She smiled, indulgent. "Not that kind of power. I mean I don't think that he has much of a choice where or when he goes. Can't you feel the tension in him? The apathy? He's being tossed around by fate."
Zack quieted at that, looking down into Cloud's slack, but not quite peaceful face. His thoughts bubbled through the whole group as he looked, offered up like a handful of shiny baubles for them all to perceive.
Dark circles beneath pretty eyelashes, and lines that spoke of stress and pain; tangled, neglected hair that Aerith had to patiently tease back into smoothness; scars that laced his skin like delicate silver filigree; muscles that were as tense as steel cables on the verge of snapping; a spirit that curled in on itself in pain, protecting what few untarnished fragments it could.
His body told a tale of endless suffering, and they could read it as easily as a book.
“We can’t help him, can we?” Tifa asked softly, turning to press her forehead against Vincent’s arm. Her sorrow tasted like the bitter tang of lye.
“We can,” Aerith refuted, guiding Zack to pull Cloud upright again so she could condition his hair. It would need to sit for a long time. “We can help him rest and relax, so that he can face the troubles ahead. We can ease his pain, and lend him strength. We are not helpless, and neither is he.” She infused optimism into the air, and smiled when her boys and girls perked up like wilted flowers given fresh water. “Now, who wants to help?”
She smiled even wider when every voice in the room rose to volunteer.
Two instincts were at war in Cloud.
The first, his bone-deep fatigue, insisted that he should rest while he could. Peaceful dimensions were his only way to recharge enough to survive the hostile ones, and he had to take advantage, or he would pay the price in blood later. The second, his battle instincts, screamed that he had to get up, had to keep watch, had to keep going because he wasn’t home yet. There was no such thing as a safe place to rest. There were just more risky and less risky dimensions, but nowhere he could fully relax his guard. Nowhere he could let go of that sliver of awareness he always, always kept.
Normally the fatigue was easy to push away and ignore, but…not this time. This time, each brief moment that he tried to drag himself back to consciousness, heart racing and terror spiking, there were…hands on him, and arms around him, and calm words, and something distinctly beyond the physical that soothed his instincts and sent him back into a light doze.
Each time he woke, the pain he’d been carrying had faded a little bit more. It was incredible—he hadn’t even realized how much he’d been hurting until the ache was missing. And the more it faded, the harder it was to drag himself back to the edge of wakefulness.
Aerith knew exactly what she was doing. Gently, but inexorably, the terrible fear of helplessness was pried from his grip. For the first time in years, he drifted into a deep, true sleep.
Time passed as it always does in true sleep—in a blink, though it must have been less than twelve hours, since the change between dimensions was impossible to sleep through. He roused, slowly, feeling like little more than warm jelly. The impulse to get up and make sure he was in a defensible position was curiously absent, and that...really should have alarmed him.
Should have, but didn’t.
He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. His eyelids were glued together with the awful grit that comes from a long, dead sleep, but he managed. It took a second to blink away the haze and realize what was half an inch from his nose. Namely, someone’s bare chest. And while he was definitely not in the habit of staring at his lady friends' chests, he was pretty sure that particular rack belonged to Aerith.
And he was laying on it.
“What the fuck,” said Cloud, though his jaw and neck felt so relaxed that it came out slurred.
Slowly, it dawned on him exactly what position he was in: naked (though blessedly wrapped up in a thick blanket) and laying on top of Aerith and...was that Zack behind him? In the middle of a pile of sleeping bodies. He counted at least twelve hands on him.
Maybe everyone wasn’t asleep, because as soon as he spoke he saw Vincent’s head pop up from a little beyond Aerith. “Cloud,” he said, totally unfazed by the sea of partly and/or mostly naked people they were both lying in. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m feeling extremely married, in case you’ve forgotten” Cloud said automatically, but then he paused. The non-snarky answer was...that he felt really good. Really, really good. So good that he wasn’t entirely sure he could actually move. It felt like his entire body had been...reset. And not in the dying-and-resurrecting way, because that hurt like a motherfucker.
What the ever-living fuck had they done to reduce him into a pathetic mush?
Never one to mince words, he frowned and asked, “what did you do? I feel...floppy.” He tried to move his arms in the confines of the blanket and got absolutely nowhere. Granted, Zack’s octopus-grip might have been contributing to his immobility, but still.
Vincent, also one who tended not to mince words, simply said “massage.”
“Oh.”
“Indeed.”
Cloud was quiet for a moment. “So uh…there are tits in my face. And I don’t particularly want them to be there. Also please give me back my pants.”
And oh gods above, was that an actual smile on Vincent’s face? It was so strange to see him without the cloak covering half his face. Maybe there were actual emotions under there. Who knew?
"Aerith doesn't mean anything by it. They’ve merely...forgotten what used to be appropriate and inappropriate. We wanted to give you peace and comfort, while we could.”
Cloud arched a brow. “But you haven’t forgotten?”
He shook his head wryly. “Chaos gives me more...headspace than the others. Harmony echoes, for me.”
“...right. I’m surprised no one’s woken up. Also don’t think I’ve forgotten about my pants.”
The smile on Vincent’s face widened a little. “They are dreaming together, as we often do, but I have no doubt they will rouse shortly. Zack, at least, has taken note of your movements. As for the pants...we burned them.”
Cloud squawked. “My pants!”
“They were disgusting, Cloud.”
“I needed those pants!” He tried, unsuccessfully, to squirm his arms free. Zack’s grip tightened in response.
“Relax. We have new clothing for you, much better fitting and far more protective than the rags we burned.”
Cloud opened his mouth and shut it with a click. “I—well. Okay. Good, because fighting without clothes isn’t fun and I don’t want to do it again.”
Vincent’s eyebrows arched, but Cloud didn’t elaborate—half because he didn’t want to, and half because the group started to stir around them.
“Mmm, Cloud?” Zack mumbled, pulling him closer and burying his face in Cloud’s hair.
“Still here, Zack,” Cloud sighed. The group hummed in unison at the sound of his voice, each of the many hands on him shifting to reassure them that he was still there. Was it weird that he’d gotten acclimated to this so quickly? Honestly, he was just glad he had full-body coverage in the form of a blanket.
“There you are,” Aerith crooned, voice rumbling through her chest. “Mmm, you feel so much better, Coud!”
It wasn’t a question. He consciously set aside the heebie-jeebies her phrasing gave him and said, “I’d feel even better if I was upright and wearing pants.”
Vincent laughed out loud at that. Cloud raised his head and stared at the man in naked shock. Would wonders never cease?
“You are so cute, Cloud,” Aerith said with a laugh of her own, rolling upright and to the side so that Cloud was half on top of Zack and she was braced above him. She leaned down and kissed the bridge of his nose, feather-light and teasing. “Absolutely adorable.”
Various members of the group piped up in agreement and he sighed, eyes closed again to avoid getting yet another eyeful of titties. “I would be even cuter with clothes on. And if you had clothes on too. Just, you know—food for thought.”
“Shy,” Aerith insisted fondly, then changed the subject before he could object to her phrasing. “You said ‘a few hours.’ Do you know how much time you have left?”
Cloud frowned. “Twelve hours from point of arrival. I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep.”
“Eleven hours,” Vincent supplied, which was utterly mind-boggling. The longest stretch he’d gone since he’d been tossed out of his home was about six hours, and that was in a sleep that never truly deepened. “You have a little less than an hour left.”
“Perfect,” Aerith purred, kissing him again. “Just enough time for the finishing touches.”
“Pants?” Cloud deadpanned, and this time everyone laughed.
“You and your one-track mind,” Zack said, nuzzling the top of his head like an over-affectionate puppy. “Yes, pants.”
Aerith got up, but before Cloud could squirm free of the blanket and stand, Zack simply picked him up like a burrito and stood. He rolled his (closed) eyes. At least he didn’t have to try and walk blind.
“You’re going to like your new clothes,” Tifa said near his ear after a minute or two, apparently walking beside Zack. “Dark colors, of course, and we made you new harnesses and added lightweight armor. It’s all very sleek and handsome.”
“We even resisted the urge to give the top a keyhole and show off those magnificent pecs of yours,” Zack said, laughing.
It took Cloud a second to place the term, but once he did— “That would literally just create target practice for whoever wants to stab me next, so thanks,” he said sarcastically.
“You’re welcome!” Zack said implacably, setting him down. “Now, I promise, everyone is clothed. Open your eyes.”
“I’m gonna smack you with Tsurugi if you’re lying to me,” he muttered, but opened his eyes anyway.
Aerith was grinning and holding up a sleek black coat with inky blue paneling. “Ta-da! What do you think?” He blinked, but she steamrolled on before he could even open his mouth. “No, wait, don’t tell me until you’ve seen it on!”
“We set up a private area for you to get dressed,” said Sephiroth, who was mercifully covered and oh gods how far had Cloud’s standards fallen if he was grateful to see a loincloth? What the fuck was his life any more.
Tifa would probably laugh her ass off if she ever found out. She always did say he was “such a dork.”
“Thanks,” he muttered, cringing, and stepped through the curtain his sometimes-rival held open. Aerith handed him the coat, and Tifa handed him a bundle of other clothing elements, and Vincent set a pair of boots down by his feet before drawing the curtain closed and leaving him to his privacy.
The clothing, when he pulled it on, felt…strange, after so long in his worn-down, cobbled-together scraps. Thick, and stiff, and rough on his skin. The fit was a little loose, but he knew that he was currently on the worrying side of skinny. Maybe it would be easier and easier to find enough food as his time in each world stretched, and he would grow back into the proper fit.
He didn’t doubt Aerith had done this on purpose.
The coat was especially stiff, and when he ran his hands along the inside he realized it was from armored panels connected by flexible material. The gloves, too, had subtle protective panels worked into them. He raised a hand, rotated it, clenched his fist, and marveled at the flexibility. The boots, too, were thick and sturdy with a steel toe and lining panels.
Last went the harness, which he adjusted to a snug fit, and Ribbon around his arm. He felt…different. Confused, almost, though that wasn’t the correct word. It hardly mattered anyway, so he shook his head and pulled the curtain open.
Immediately, he was met by a chorus of coos and whistles. “Look at you!” Aerith squealed, seizing his arm and towing him along. “Come here, come here!” She pushed him in front of a full-length standing mirror.
The startled man who looked back at him seemed…worn, like a scuffed and ill-tended blade. Gingerly, he touched his cheek. Did he really look that gaunt? No wonder everyone kept making comments. Gods, what had poor Tifa seen? He wished he’d thought to reassure her that he was doing alright, despite everything. It wasn’t as bad as it looked.
“You look so much better now,” Zack said blithely, which made it worse. “Aer cut your hair—ha, rhyme!—and we worked together to get some extra healing in. The scars should pull less now. And I bet you’re really feeling it in your muscles, huh? You were just a little bundle of knots, chickabo!”
He… did feel better. Better than he looked, even now. And his hair did look as clean and healthy as it ever got, tamed back into a ponytail at the base of his skull.
He turned his eyes away from the sad man in the mirror. “Thanks,” he murmured, far more touched than he thought he would be, considering all the manhandling and involuntary bathing that had gone down to make it happen. “Thank you.”
“We love you, Cloud,” Tifa said with warm eyes (and an…artistically cut top that (mostly) covered her breasts). “And don’t you forget it.”
He snorted, softly, and turned away from the mirror. That was more than enough introspection for one day. “I won’t. I…love you guys too.” And he did. It was becoming as impossible for him to differentiate his feelings for them from his feelings for his original loved ones as it often was for them to separate him from his counterparts. He even loved the SOLDIERs, terrible though they often were.
Maybe that was just the nature of a human soul, to see and love what could have been as much as what is. To see and love the purest essence of a person.
...gods above, clearly he’d gotten too much sleep if he was starting to get all sappy and philosophical over a coat. He needed to go beat the shit out of a Behemoth or something.
“Aww buddy!” Zack said, all but tackling him. “You are just too adorable!”
“Zack,” Cloud grumbled. He knew better than to try and fend him off, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t complain.
“That is not all,” Vincent said, content to ignore Zack. “Here.” He handed over a thick, heavy leather hip satchel that Cloud realized would attach neatly to his harness. “Food and supplies.”
“The food’s as calorie-dense and long-lasting as we could make it,” said Angeal. Cloud sincerely hoped that he’d made the food himself—Angeal’s cooking was always to die for.
“But don’t eat it now! You have just enough time for a hot meal before you go!” Aerith added, tapping his nose.
And forty-five minutes later, when he slipped back into the nothingness with a full stomach and a renewed spirit...the endless slog home didn’t seem quite so lonely.