~Cloud's POV~
"Come back... No..."
I blink my eyes open tiredly, only the dim light of dawn to illuminate the room. Who was that? Yuffie, obviously. Sure enough, her small body is tensed up and shaking slightly. Somehow the blankets fell off in the middle of the night. That or Barret decided to yank them off for not reason. Which I highly doubt. I think he'd be too scared. Sighing and still half asleep, I crawl out of bed and throw the covers back over us. Then I debate on whether or not I should wake her up. Is it just a dream or a nightmare?
"Cloud..." She whimpers. "Cloud no... Don't leave me..."
Nightmare? Should I? I don't know... Maybe it'll pass? I'm not used to people having a nightmare and not screaming, mostly due to the fact that we've all been tortured or traumatized in some way.
"But.... Wait... Cloud, no..." What on earth am I doing in her dream? Killing her? "Cloud? Are you... CLOUD!" She suddenly sits upright, looking around her wildly and panting. Nightmare.
"You okay?" I sit beside her, accepting her clinging hug/tackle. Barret doesn't even stir. Of course, he can snore louder than she can yell, so he's not waking up anytime soon. Held in her warm embrace, I feel like I'm in heaven, but I'm curious to see what was wrong.
"Yeah, sorry," she says finally, but her arms never leave me, her cheek never losing its pressure on my chest.
"Don't be. You alright?"
"Yeah," she nods. You ever gonna let go?
"... Okay."
My eyelids feel heavy again, but I don't want to leave her to be the only one awake. Not that she would mind too much, just give her my phone and she'd be happy. But even while I try to fight sleep, I can't hold back Mich longer. Did I leave her in her dream? Is that what she's afraid of?
~|~|~|~|~
"Aw! That's so cute!" I hear a squeal and I frown, trying to block out the voices. "Do we have to wake them up?"
"Hm?" Yuffie stirs against me and I open my eyes, adjusting to the light quickly. Yuffie is still snuggled up against my body, her legs tangled with mine somehow, and my arm around her. Both of us are leaning up against the headboard. How is this so comfortable?
"Looks like you just did," Barret chuckles.
"Good morning!" Tifa jumps onto our bed and continues to bounce until I groan and throw the covers over our heads. "You two are so cute when you sleep."
"Holy Leviathan would you SHUT UP!?" The volume of Yuffie's voice escalates as she glares at Tifa. The long haired girl just smirks and bounces backward onto her butt.
"Why were you watching us sleep?" I yawn, stretching. Yuffie moves off the bed, running toward the bathroom when she realizes she's only wearing my shirt. My skin grows cold where her warmth once was.
"I dunno, but she's a frickin creep," Barret shakes his head, lacing up his big boots.
"I just came up to tell you that Cid called," she rolls her eyes.
"Why'd he call you and not me?" I say, whining slightly.
"He said he tried, but you never answered."
"I was asleep..."
"Exactly. But he also said that building the Shera might take longer than he thought, so Shera will call you later with an update on how fast we can get our transportation back."
"Great," Yuffie mumbles, leaving the bathroom in her own clothing. Midnight blue shirt with white flowers and those stupid khaki shorts that give me guy issues. Nice butt, Yuff. Ugh... Why me?
"How do you manage to lace those so fast," Tifa frowns, watching Yuffie tie up one of her tall boots.
"Practice, little one," she replies with a small smirk.
"I'm older than you," Tifa scoffs.
"As is everyone else in Avalanche," she points out boredly. The long haired girl gives a nod of agreement and look back over at me.
"So are we going then?"
"Yeah?" I furrow my eyebrows. "You seem... Excited."
"I've missed walking across the planet with you guys," she grins. "The experience, the nature, and all the bonding..."
"Bonding?" Yuffie and Barret scoff at the same time. They hated each other so much when she first joined. He was perfect game to pick on and she was annoying. Very. And to think the whole time she was climbing on me was because she had some crush... Strange.
"More like fighting every five seconds," the man scowls.
"No, not fighting. Just extremely difficult friendship," Tifa defends.
"I think you two traded personalities," I raise an eyebrow at the girls.
"I still lack the enormous cleavage," Yuffie looks down.
"I said personality," I roll my eyes while Barret gives her a confused look.
"Wait, I don't understand..."
"Just avoid thinking about it. We'll leave around ten. Sound okay?" I look at Tifa.
"Perfect. I still have to go wake Vincent up."
"I'd leave him alone, especially since he still sleeps with a gun under his pillow," I shudder, remembering the times I'd tried to get him up at an inn only to have a firearm pressed to my temple with the safety off. He'd been so different back then, and now he acts like a normal person. I can't help but think that maybe Avalanche helped that in some way.
"Eh, I'm used to being held at gunpoint in the morning," she waves me off.
"Ooookay then. Glad to know you don't cram that huge sword of yours under the covers," Yuffie looks at me with a look of slight fear. We never sent her to wake him up, but he still used to creep her out.
"How do you know?" I smirk.
"Because it's too warm for that clunky piece of crap."
"I don't know if I should be flattered or offended," I frown, cocking my head to the side.
"Flattered."
"Offended," Barret speaks at the same time as Tifa. She rolls her eyes before leaving the room.
~|~|~|~|~
"Hey Vince, there's water in the air, right?" Tifa asks boredly as we trek across an large open field.
"Yeah?"
"And we breathe air?"
"Do I have to answer that one, Teef?"
"So does that mean we breathe water?"
"... In a way, I guess."
Yuffie cocks her head to the side for a moment, thinking, before she pumps a fist into the air, shouting "We are fish!"
"Um... I don't look very fishy," I glance down at my body.
"Eh, maybe you should just go inhale the ocean. See what happens then," she shrugs with an indifferent smirk on her soft lips.
"Wow, great to know you care about my life," I roll my eyes.
The mako Rufus put into my veins without permission is making my enhanced hearing terrible. I can hear the hum of bugs a mile away, the sounds of a monster pack tearing up a live animal, and the short squawk of a chocobo. Sure, I'll be forever effected by the large amount of the planets energy I've absorbed, but the injections don't usually leave permanent bonuses like the enhanced senses.
"Cloud, help me out buddy!" Barret calls back to me as Yuffie jumps onto his back and sits there.
"I'm tired of walking."
"Yeah, we've been walking for all of half an hour," he shoots back.
"Mhmm."
"Yuffie, get off me."
"Oh shhhhhhhhhoot," she hisses, wincing.
"Um... You okay?" Vincent raises an eyebrow.
"Yeah, just that cut I got yesterday," she glances toward the reopened wound on her arm, which has a thin trickle of blood running off her arm.
"That's what you get," Barret sneers and she literally jumps off him, her legs pushing hard into his back before she lands on her feet from her back flip.
"Show off," he grumbles after stumbling forward.
"Got any materia on you by chance?" She grins up at me.
"Not for you."
"Please? My arm hurts," she whines, giving me her puppy eyes. Gosh dang it... No, I'm not gonna do it. Look away Cloud, look... I can't look away! Ugh, fine.
"You suck," I grumble, tossing her the Cure that was in the slots of my sword.
"Well, te..."
"Shut up, Vince," I give my friend a flat look and he laughs.
"What?"
"No."
"No what?"
"Vincent, I hate you. Now shut up."
"Ooo, you were just unfriended," Cait Sith, rather, Reeve, laughs.
"Aw. That stinks."
"Well you shouldn't have..." The ringing or my phone cuts me off and I sigh, pulling it out. "Hello?"
"Hey Cloud, this is Shera."
"Oh. Hi."
"So we have to get a whole new front glass pane, obviously, and most of the mechanics were crushed."
"So you're saying that you can't fix it?" I say slowly. Barret groans even though he can't hear her.
"Oh I'm sure Cid'll find a way. It's just gonna take way too long."
"What do we do now then?"
"He's working on it..." A long bang and loads of swears can be heard in the background. "Also, your genius pilot picked a fight with a pipe. I think the pipe won."
"Well tell our genius pilot that we need some form of transportation soon, okay?" I chuckle.
"Hey Cid! They need transportation pronto!"
"What do ya want?!"
"He's deaf," she mutters to me. I laugh again and shake my head.
"Alright, I've gotta go or else Tifa's gonna kill us to death with her energy level."
"See you soon."
We end up walking for a good six hours before coming to a small town called Twisted Oaks. Strange name... Whatever. Everyone here sounds familiar, which is driving me insane because I can't place where I've heard that accent before. Barret and Tifa seem equally bothered that they can't remember. Cid got hit in the head with a pipe. Great, now he'll have lost whatever sanity he had before. I roll my eyes at my thoughts and then pause. Cid. That's where I've heard this accent! Yuffie seems to have realized that I figured it out, because she's grinning at me.
"It's Cid, isn't it?"
"Finally one of you poo brains got it," she rolls her eyes.
"Hey!"
"Wonder if he has any family here," Tifa cocks her head to the side.
"I dunno. But it's probably better if we didn't find out," Vincent says.
"Why?"
"Can you believe how awkward it would be if we saw Cid finally and said, 'Hey Cid! While you were gone, we had tea and cookies with your grandmother!'? "
"Oh. I guess so," she smiles. "Just wanted to see if maybe he got his bad mouth from his parents."
"Probably not," Red shakes his head. "He doesn't strike me as someone to pick up habits from someone else."
"You never know."
We end up taking a long break in the town for a quick lunch and to get some supplies for the road. Then we fill up our water bottles and move on, ignoring Barret's complaints that it's too hot. Vincent's not even breaking a sweat, despite how dark and heavy his leather clothing is. The cape that flutters behind him must be helping with the heat.
"Where are we anyway?" Cait Sith finally asks.
"I dunno, you're the guy with access to a map, are you not?" I get the cat a look. He sighs and nods.
"I'll be right back."
"We're looking at a cat, Reeve. Not you," Yuffie reminds him.
"Yeah well..."
A loud roar interrupts us, a huge shadow flying overhead. I look up, yanking my sword from my holster. A huge golden dragon lands with a loud crash, the ground shaking violently as the beast settles on Gaia.
"Shoot," Yuffie mutters, whipping out her shuriken. Gun shots erupt in the air behind us, Barret and Vincent taking the opportunity to use their weapons.
"Cmon then," I groan, rushing toward the monster. The mako in my veins let's me run faster than usual, jumping way into the air and slashing at the tall dragon. He swipes at me with his large claw but misses, barely swiping his face.
"That all you got?" I laugh, slicing at it's thick neck. He roars in response, flames shooting from its mouth. Barret runs out of the way and the fire merely burns on the grass for a few seconds before dying out.
A hear a small hiss of pain beside me as the beast hits Tifa with its large foot, the huge gash in her shoulder dripping red. Vincents momentary distraction ends in him getting burned to a crisp. Literally. I look at where his body used to be in shock, nothing more than black ashes replacing my friend. Then out through the ashes bursts a monster, stingy black hair hanging off its mostly bald head and a loud chainsaw in hand. Its head turns upside down and then roll back up again, causing goosebumps to raise on my arms. Hellmasker.
"Of course he chose my least favorite," Yuffie grumbles to herself before going back to slashing the heck out of the dragon. We manage to take the beast down get a few hundred gil off of it.
Hellmasker flashes and Vincent is back, on his hands and knees and panting. Tifa rushes to him to fuss over him and I just roll my eyes, trying my best to ignore the burn on my leg.
"Well that's lovely," Yuffie grimaces at me.
"What?"
"That nasty cut on Barret's arm."
"I wanted Galian Beast, not that thing," Vincent finally manages after catching his breath. His beast forms wear him out pretty badly. "It lives inside me and I still get the creeps."
"Oh shut up and take it like a man," Yuffie teases, walking by. "We gonna get to the next town before dark or what?"
"Cmon," Barret hoists Vince to his feet and then pulls him after us.
"Ah!" Tifa squeaks when she trips over a rock. Yuffie rolls her eyes and walks by my side as we lead them toward a small village I can see in the distance. Sephiroth could be long gone by now. How do you expect to find him then?
"My feet hurt."
"Shut up Barret."
"But..."
"You're such a whiner, now shut up."
"Fine."
We barely make it to the town before dark, paying for two rooms at the inn and then throwing ourselves into bed. Barret hits the shower first as always, but I don't mind. Despite my mako enhancement walking eleven hours with these complainers drained me. Yuffie smirks at me and sits beside me on the mattress. I don't even know the name of this place, I just want to sleep. But instead of allowing that, she rests her chin on my shoulder and stares at me until I look at her.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"No seriously. Why are you staring at me?"
"You look so cute when your sleepy or stressed out," she grins. I roll my eyes and kiss her forehead. "Hey!"
''What?"
"You have bad aim."
"Huh?" I frown. Aim?
"You missed."
"I missed what?"
"You're a failure," she sighs teasingly. I only raise an eyebrow in confusion before shaking my head.
"Thanks?"
"Oh my gosh, just kiss me already," she laughs.
I shrug, cupping her face and bringing her mouth to mine. She removes her bony chin from my shoulder and then pulls my head down by the back of my neck, mouth never leaving mine. The world seems to fade away and my thoughts grow fuzzy as I focus more and more on the kiss. Somewhere along the lines, I end up hovering over her, her fingers making my hair stick up in even more impossible directions. Then the bathroom door clicks open, of course, and Barret pauses on his way out.
"Um, I'll, uh, be in Red's room," he mutters, and we ignore him. Besides, the feeling of Yuffie's cool fingers brushing over my stomach from under my shirt is too perfect to break away from. But she pulls away when the door closes behind Barret anyway.
"Awkwaaard," she drags out with a grin.
"Mhmm," I hum. And then we go back to our kiss.
HELLOOOOO EVERYBODY! SETTLE DOWN, SETTLE DOWN.<----- YEAH MINION RUSH XD SORRY AGAIN GOR HOW SHORT THIS CHAPTER IS, I RAN OUT OF EXTRA CHAPTERS WHEN I COULDN'T TYPE OVER THE WEEKEND AND NOW MY WRITING SCHEDULE IS ALL MESSED UP :P DON'T WORRY, I'M STILL UPDATING DAILY THOUGH! OH THE LIFE OF SOMEONE WITH NO LIFE....
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