Archive of Our Own ^beta

Cloud was tired. As in, ‘back-to-back limit breaks’ sort of tired, where as soon as he’d offed the crazy bastards trying to kill him he’d toppled backward and gone straight into a nap. Who cared that he was bloody and the ground was bloody and possibly the world here was ending, anyway? Nothing else he could do about it. He’d earned a little nap.

He was sufficiently tired to only sort of wake up as he slipped into the void between worlds. It hurt like a bitch, but that wasn’t enough to wake him up anymore, only to pull him out of deep sleep so he could be vaguely aware of his surroundings. He was therefore vaguely aware of being spat out in midair, vaguely aware of falling a few feet, and vaguely aware of landing hard on the familiar roof of a military transport truck.

Since no one immediately tried to impale or immolate him, he continued his nap. The resulting dent in the truck was someone else’s problem.

Some onlookers started to gather as he snoozed away. They sounded concerned, but he wasn’t going to bother waking up unless they dragged him into a lab. Or tried to kill him.

“Holy shit, what happened to Cloud! Why is he on top of the truck!”

Someone prodded his boot, which was partly sticking over the edge of the vehicle.

“Dev, what the hell are you on? That can’t be Cloud, it’s an alpha!”

“What?” Someone took a deep breath. “Oh damn, you’re right. And he smells terrible.”

“…do you think Cloud has some kind of long-lost relative?”

“I guess we’re gonna find out. Hey! Strife! Over here!”

“Holy—is that a dead body? What did you do!”

“He was here when we arrived!”

“He’s not dead, he just smells like it. C’mere, you can hear him snoring.”

“I’m… calling my packmates.”

Cloud categorized his other self as ‘not likely to stab me’ and continued snoozing. Someone poked his arm and was roundly ignored. So were the second and third people. He only considered paying attention when they started arguing about how to get him down.

“Alright, step aside!” said a grating, familiar voice. “This is Turk business now, step aside!”

Cloud weighed his options. Was the continued nap worth listening to Reno? It was hard to decide.

“Uh, no,” said other Cloud, “I’ve already called my pack. Whoever this guy is, he smells like family and needs medical attention.”

“If he’s family you can have him back later, but random armed people falling on Shinra vehicles is Turk business.”

Cloud was starting to lean toward ‘wake up and shoo Reno away.’ Especially as his voice got closer. Shiva, how did he always manage to be so annoying?

“No.” said other Cloud, and good for him, holding his ground against the Turks! “How exactly do you plan on getting him down without SOLDIERs, anyway? We tried, but he’s got a giant sword pinning him.”

“Aw c’mon, Rude can totally pick him up. Get ‘em, partner.”

A bare hand brushed his bare arm and the strangest sensation he’d ever felt electrified his body. It wasn’t unpleasant, exactly, but it did startle him straight into wakefulness. He bolted upright, jumping like a spooked cat.

“Yow!” he said, briskly rubbing the goosebumps off his skin as he perched on top of the truck and stared down at his assembled spectators. “What the hell was that!”

Rude was the one who’d grabbed his arm. He looked way more stunned than Cloud had ever seen him, to the point where his jaw had actually dropped. Reno glanced between them.

“Wait,” he said, “did you just—“

“Prebond,” said Rude. He took his sunglasses off to look Cloud in the eye, which seemed unreasonably alarming. “He’s… pack.”

“What?” said Cloud at the same time Reno said “WHAT!”

Rude offered Cloud a gentlemanly hand, inviting him to slide down from the top of the truck. Cloud moved back several inches. Creepy. “Uh, no,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but any and all Turks can shoo, thanks.” He made a little shooing motion to emphasize the point.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Reno asked with incredulity. “You bonded to Rude! You’re one of our packmates!”

“Still don’t know what that means, but this feels like an appropriate moment to say I AM MARRIED.” He pulled Tsurugi from his back. Pointedly. “Also I’m not your Cloud. He’s over there.” He nodded his chin to where his counterpart was standing and gawking with a squad of troopers.

Other Cloud squinted at him. “What? Wait, who are you, exactly? You’re talking like you know me. Are we related?”

“Yes, but actually no,” said Cloud, interrupted by a wide yawn. “I’m you from another world. Cursed to bounce around dimensions until I get anchored back home, et cetera et cetera. I used to have this nice comprehensive FAQ sheet but it got sliced up two worlds ago and I haven’t gotten a chance to make a new one.” Ugh. He was still tired as shit. He rubbed the grit from his eyes. Dried blood flaked off of… everything.

“Huh,” said Reno, “maybe that’s why we didn’t think we had another packmate left to find, because you weren’t here yet.”

Cloud leveled an exhausted stare at his least favorite Turk. “Reno, literally what the fuck are you even talking about. Go away.”

“I’m talking about this!”  

Reno jumped up and grabbed his arm right when he was in the middle of another yawn. Their bare skin touched and that was enough to send lightning zinging down Cloud’s spine a second time. He yelped, punching Reno on pure instinct, and back-flipped off the car.

“Fuckyou!” he blurted out, deciding he was too tired to deal with any of this. He bolted, intent on finding a new napping spot. Fortunately, there were a lot around the Tower and he knew all of them.

“Hey, wait! Wait!” Trooper Cloud yelled after him.

He was in the middle of a third yawn when he ran directly into Genesis.

“Goddess!” The man caught his arms. His eyebrows arched sharply. “Oh! You really do look like Cloud.”

“Not right now, Genesis!” said Cloud, and tossed him into the pursuing Turks. They all went down with a yelp. He offered a sarcastic salute and took off again, disappearing into the bowels of the Tower.

“Alright,” said Cloud, “I’ll admit it. This is a new one.”

He was absolutely sure he was still asleep on a shelving unit in a dusty, forgotten little storage room on one of the low-level admin floors. And yet, he was also now awake in his dream and standing in a… gun range? With a Turk.

He was not pleased.

“Who are you?” Cissnei asked, confused by his presence. He could taste her emotion in the air, which was an interesting sensation. This whole world was just full of fun new things, wasn’t it?

“The universe’s favorite punching bag. Where the hell am I this time? And why are you here? I just ditched the ginger weasel and now you’re all popping up in my sleep!”

She ignored his question. “We’re not supposed to have another packmate,” she muttered. The lights in the range flickered. “I would have felt it. But you’re here anyway. And—“ She squinted at him. “Are you… related to Cloud Strife?”

She ignored his questions, so he ignored hers. “Can you sleep in dreams? I’m going to find out. Bye.” He turned and headed for the exit.

“Nice try, alpha,” she said, and the door vanished, “but I’m the one in control here. Were you talking about Reno earlier?”

Cloud took Tsurugi from his back and started to hack at the wall. “This is the second time someone has called me an ‘alpha,’ and frankly I don’t want to know. Go away and let me sleep.”

Tsurugi simply fucking disappeared from his hands. He gaped, outraged, but something blocked him when he tried to summon it back. “That,” he said, “is fucking rude, Cissnei. And I don’t mean your coworker.”

“You know Rude. How?” She approached him without any apprehension, eyes narrowed.

“Tell you what,” he said, crossing his arms and giving up on bashing his way out for the moment, “if you find me outside of this dream, I’ll explain. You’re a Turk, it’ll be some nice enrichment activity for you.”

Her eyes narrowed even more. She grabbed his jacket and yanked him down a little… then jammed her nose into the juncture between his neck and jaw and inhaled deeply.

Cloud was not ashamed to admit he yelped and shoved her away, because that was weird as shit. “Cissnei what the hell!” At least she was probably suffering for her own bad decision there. He knew he smelled like a dumpster full of blood. That was on fire. And being electrocuted. In the middle of summer.

For whatever reason, her eyes gleamed triumphantly. “Found you,” she said, and everything went dark.

Cloud jolted awake at the sound of several people sprinting down the hallway toward his hiding space. He was definitely found out—no one ever came down this dead-end hall, which was why the closet and its contents were largely forgotten. He swore and leaped down from the top of the rack, splitting Tsurugi into two and priming his materia.

A Turk kicked the door in (their actual names changed a lot, but Cloud was sure that one was code name Martial Arts), and he tossed his head back to groan at having to deal with them. “Not again!” he complained, brandishing his swords. “Back! Back, you annoying bastards!”

There was a mess of Turks behind Martial Arts. It would be an unpleasant fight to escape, especially when he wasn’t sure if they deserved to die or not. When in doubt, nonlethal only.

“Hey, calm down yo,” said Reno. “No need to fight. You’re pack! We just want to talk.”

“Don’t know, don’t care, not from here, let me nap,” he said, stepping forward and testing if he could get anyone to move with the business end of Tsurugi. Martial Arts didn’t budge even when the pointy tip of Cloud’s sword dug into his chest, which meant they were at a mutual non-lethal stalemate. Damn!

“You promised to explain,” said Cissnei, somewhere behind Rude.

“I lied. Like a Turk. You should be proud,” Cloud said shamelessly. “Seriously, go away or I will beat the shit out of all of you for interrupting my goddamn nap. I am tired.”

“You smell tired,” said Martial Arts. “And… hurt.” 

“That would be the blood, yes, very observant. Shoo.” He prodded the Turk’s chest with Tsurugi’s point.

It was then that a very strange noise started up, emanating from the Turk’s chest and vibrating through Tsurugi. The rumble sounded sort of like a motorcycle engine, but layered and warm. It made a weird, foreign sensation drag at Cloud’s eyelids.

“Woah,” he said, blinking rapidly and shaking his head. “What the fuck—“

He might have fallen over. Maybe. It was unclear. But he definitely gasped and jerked against the hands on him when that same lightning sensation electrified every nerve in his body.

“Shiva’s tits!” he cursed. “Stop doing that!”

Tsurugi had been stolen in the indeterminate period he’d been… mentally unavailable… and now he was sort of half kneeling on the floor with Tseng on one side and Martial Arts holding him up on the other.

“Relax,” said Tseng, and suddenly Cloud was having flashbacks to the Calamity Aerith’s Harem.

“Absolutely not,” he said, but as soon as he noticed the weird rumbling sound again he ate his own words and melted into both of the Turks. “Uuuaghhh,” he slurred, “not… again… leave my… pants… alone…” He slumped. Martial Arts hefted him like a sack of flour.

Cloud wasn’t unconscious as much as he was just involuntarily dozing, entranced by the weird rumbling. It felt… safe. But he wasn’t fully asleep, so he knew they were moving him and he could hear as they talked.

“What did that mean?” asked Gun—no, Elena’s sister, Emma. That one was a little more consistent, he remembered, although they didn’t meet often.

“Who knows,” said Rod. “He’s crazy.”

“Man he either really likes purring or he’s about to die, yo,” said Reno, who was sufficiently close and annoying for Cloud to override the weird sensation and lash out with a fist. Based on the startled yelp, his punch found his mark.

“Nobody else touch him until we get to pack quarters,” Tseng commanded. “Bonding wakes him up.”

Holy shit it really was the harem all over again. Cloud found the will to slur out “mmmmmarrieeeeeeeed…”

“Relax,” said Martial Arts, which Cloud really had no choice about. “We’re going to get you a medic.”

“I can’t believe the Planet gave us a SOLDIER as a new packmate,” said Shotgun.

“Weirdest-smelling SOLDIER I’ve ever met,” Two Guns complained.

Rude cleared his throat. “He’s from another world.”

“You really believe that?” Reno asked, a little nasally. Good, hopefully Cloud had broken his nose.

“…yes.”

“Huh.”

“Obviously he would have been a Turk if we’d met him in time,” said Cissnei. “He’s got the talent for it.”

Cloud made an agonized noise at the insult.

“Stop talking,” said Tseng, and they did. It was really quite smart of him, because without anything to focus on Cloud was lulled into a proper nap by the… what had they called it, purring? By the purring.

Odin, some of these places were so weird. Even after this long, there were still worlds that managed to surprise him.

The sensation of his belt being un-clasped woke him far better than any stabbing could. “Isaidpants!” he slurred, bolting upright and swinging at the pants-thief. It was Tseng and he missed. Rude grabbed his shoulders and Cissnei grabbed his hands. They were in a huge bathroom.

“Guh.” He was so tired and so relaxed against his will. Already, his head was starting to fall back against someone’s shoulder. “Leave my pantssss ‘lone.”

“No one is going to harm you,” said Tseng, undeterred from his thievery. “But you desperately need to be groomed for your own health.”

Cloud blinked heavily and scowled, pinning his knees together so it would be harder to steal his clothing. “Who cares about harm, I want to keep my pants!”

Cissnei and Rude were both purring while pressed right up to him, which was… making him care slightly less about keeping his pants. “Shh,” said Cissnei, subtly cringing as she carded his greasy, bloody hair away from his face. They both smelled really good, which was an alarming thought to have. Only Tifa had the right to smell that good to him. He melted into her.

Next thing he knew, his pants were gone. Godsdammit. Shortly after that they got him into warm bath water and he was done for. Forget dozing or his usual wary nap, he was back to a total, blissed-out sleep. Eh. He’d wake up if they started doing anything sufficiently weird to him.

Weirdly, they didn’t. Do anything weird to him, that was. When he woke up, he was fully clothed (though not in armor) and bundled up in the middle of a huge bed. Like, obscenely huge. And there were Turks all over the place, mostly cuddling each other.

“Hey,” he said conversationally, realizing that Rude was petting his hair, “what the fuck are you doing?”

“Oh good, you’re awake,” said Cissnei. “You should eat, and then back to sleep. You still smell awful.”

“Considering I was asleep for that involuntary bath,” he said, attempting (and failing) to squirm free of the blanket, “I’d say that’s your fault. Also not my problem.”

“She’s not talking about sweat, idiot,” said Rod. “You smell like death. When was the last time anyone even groomed you?”

Cloud knew a cultural disconnect when he saw one. Still wasn’t his problem though. “Never.” He managed to get an arm free. Aha! Victory!

Their horror was palpable. The only reason he didn’t use his free hand to wreak havoc was because Tseng walked in at that moment straining under a truly SOLDIER-sized portion of food.

“Never?” Reno asked, unusually soft.

“Nope. Gimme.” He reached eagerly for the food, and they seemed intent on feeding him in bed. Rude helped him sit up. Tseng looked vaguely exasperated by his enthusiasm. “You’re not as good as Hewley, but for food I will forgive pants-theft,” he said magnanimously, and promptly tore into the offering.

“If you’re from another world, I guess you know another Hewley then,” said Emma.

He almost snorted curry out of his nose. “Uhnf, nof,” he said around his mouthful of food. “I knowf thoufands.”

“Thousands?” Tseng echoed. He’d crawled into the cuddle pile, which was weird as hell. Seriously, this was Aerith-harem levels of weird.

“Ufh-huh.” Cloud swallowed. “I’m not just from a different world, I’m cursed to go from world to world until my home world figures out how to get me back. They’re working on it. But I know thousands of Sephiroths and Hewleys and Rhapsodoses and Zacks, etc etc.” He waved a hand. “Now stop talking, it’s food time.”

They had the good sense to stop talking while he inhaled about seven full courses of food at a breakneck pace. It was heavenly. The Turks often did have access to food that even Rufus enjoyed. Cloud managed to convince himself to chew everything thoroughly, but he wasn’t pretty about it.

“Ugh,” he sighed, content, and licked his hands clean. “Nice. That’ll keep me going for a while.”

Tseng took that as a cue for interrogation. “Do you have no pack in your home world?”

“No idea what a ‘pack’ is, at least the way you’re using it,” said Cloud, flopping back and settling in for a food coma. “I’ve got a family though, so don’t do anything weird or I’ll smack you with Tsurugi.”

“Oh,” said Emma. “Um. What?”

“…you said you didn’t know what an ‘alpha’ was,” Cissnei said slowly. “But you are one. How could you not know?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” he yawned. Rude started scratching his scalp. It was nice, despite also being weird as hell.

“He’s really weak to purring,” said Martial Arts. “Like the Firsts’ kids are.”

Oh-ho, so it was one of those worlds. This place seemed nice, though. The kids, however many of them there were, probably didn’t need him to worry about them.

“Oh,” he said, suddenly remembering his most important question. “You don’t happen to know about anyone who has done and/or is doing and/or will do a genocide.” He cracked one eye open and glared. “Right, packmate?”

There was a conspicuous pause. “President Shinra,” said Tseng crisply, “frowns upon the pointless waste of life.”

“Rufus?” Cloud checked.

“Yes.”

“Good for him.”

He promptly passed out again.

The next thing that woke him up was the sound of arguing.

“He’s another version of me!” other-Cloud argued. “We have a right to talk to him too. Besides, you had to drag him here against his will! He obviously didn’t want anything to do with Reno!”

“He’s our packmate,” said Cissnei. “Besides, he’s exhausted. You can talk to him later.”

The argument continued, but Cloud was more interested in the fact that he was actually alone for the moment. He yawned quietly and sat up, scrubbing the grit from his eyes. Now was probably a good time to abscond to a new napping spot so they couldn’t disturb him.

“Psst. Hey! Cloud!”

Cloud blinked at the vent. Two pairs of tiny mako-glow eyes blinked back at him.

“You must be the kids they were talking about,” he whispered back, yawning again. “Whatcha doing up there?”

The two exchanged a glance, then there was a quiet creaking noise as they unscrewed the bolts holding the vent cover in place. They couldn’t have been older than seven as they crawled out, one after the other, dark-haired and light-haired. Both looked very familiar as they ran over to the bed.

“Looking for you!” said the dark-haired one, and Cloud’s heart twisted.

“Let me guess. Zack?” he asked, looking at the cross-shaped scar on his jaw. “And Cloud?”

The two exchanged another glance as they crawled across the huge mattress over to him and sat on their knees. “...I’m Jay,” said itty-bitty Cloud. “He’s ZJ. Why’d you think our names are Zack and Cloud?”

“Yeah, you can’t fool me,” said Cloud, distracted from mournful thoughts about his own son and how similar he would look to this baby Zack once he was the same age. “I’ve been to enough universes where someone fucks around and finds out in the time-travel sort of way.” He reached out and Zack allowed him to touch his jaw. “The scars are a dead giveaway.”

Zack gave him the puppy eyes, leaning into his hand. “Please don’t tell them,” he said.

Cloud grabbed both of them and flopped back. Shiva, he missed his kids. “Why not?”

“How are we supposed to explain this?” bitty Cloud hissed at him, but still copied Zack and snuggled up in a blatant manipulation attempt.

“It might help you,” he pointed out, though he didn’t really have an opinion one way or the other.

“No way,” said Zack. “We’ve gotta stay close so they don’t go crazy here. Plus Geal would probably stop falling for my tricks if he knew.”

Cloud rolled his eyes. “Sure, fine, my lips are zipped,” he said. They were ‘adults’ anyway. If they wanted to make weird decisions, that was on them. “Got any ideas for a good napping spot that’s not in Turk central?”

“You don’t want to stay with your, uh, pack?” mini Cloud asked cautiously.

“They’re not my anything, no matter what this universe did to my biology. It’ll revert when I disappear, anyway.” He paused and looked down at the two kids-but-not-really snuggled up to him. They were purring quietly. “Wait, was this new for you too? You didn’t just straight time-travel?”

They exchanged yet another glance.

“We’ll tell you if you go with us to a new napping spot,” Zack bargained.

Cloud thought about it. The argument outside the door was still going strong. “Sure,” he agreed, sitting up. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

It turned out that the kids were experts at sneaking out of the Tower, and Cloud himself only made it easier by providing nominal adult supervision. No civilian was going to look at him and his obviously related kids and think to stop them. It made it almost laughably easy to get down to the slums and over to… Aerith’s church.

Honestly, he should have seen that coming.

While they went, the boys explained everything new and weird about the world. Apparently the planet was really clingy and tried to make everyone get along by giving them one of three kinds of magical affinities, and then grouping them into ‘packs’ that included at least one of each type. The Turks were a huge pack with several familial connections making it even bigger. Jay and ZJ were bonded to their ‘parents’ and to each other as siblings. They’d been changed just like Cloud upon arriving.

“So… Gaia made you an omega like the big version,” Cloud said to Jay, “but she made ZJ a beta unlike Zack? And she made me an alpha?”

“Yeah,” ZJ said, riding on his shoulders. “We don’t get the logic either. Maybe if you’re not born here it’s like a personality test. Gen likes to say I’m the most beta to ever beta because I run around so much.”

“Huh,” said Cloud. “Sure. Don’t know what it is about me that says ‘earth’ rather than ‘fire’ considering how often I blow things up or get blown up, but okay.”

“Nothing about me says ‘heavens,’” Jay opined, “so your guess is as good as ours.”

Cloud had barely settled down on one of the church’s pews to continue his nap before the door burst open. He might have groaned, but it was Aerith who’d arrived, out of breath from running. She looked at the three of them and her face lit up.

“The Planet really wants to keep you!” was her opening volley.

“Uh,” said Cloud. “Well. I guess she’s welcome to try?”

“She’s not going to let you go easily. Hi boys!” She waved to the boys as she hurried over to Cloud. “Who are you, exactly?”

“Visitor from another dimension,” he said. “I’ll be gone in a few hours. Honestly, I just came here to nap. The Turks got their claws in me, so I had to make a daring escape.” He yawned.

“You mean the boys used you as an excuse to sneak out,” said Aerith, steamrolling straight over his personal space (as per the usual) to brush his hair back behind his ears and cradle his jaw. She looked closely at his eyes and took a deep breath. “You smell awful, mister.”

Deja vu. “Blame the Turks. They gave me a bath without asking.”

She shook her head. “No, Cloud. You smell like you’re suffering. Even right now while you’re smiling, you smell like… like an endless scream.”

He winced. “Oh, so you can all smell… emotions?”

ZJ put a hand on his arm. “And physical state. It’s like… hearing and seeing rolled into a smell.”

Cloud grimaced. “That’s inconvenient. Just pretend you can’t smell anything, huh? Nothing you can do about it.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Aerith, stroking her thumbs across his face. “The Planet is really good at holding onto things she likes. She even managed to bring ZJ back.”

“I’m cursed, Aerith,” Cloud said, blunt but not unkind. “It’s going to take more than just a clingy goddess to keep me in place. Trust me, people with similar levels of power have tried. Even a version of you with enough power to rival the Goddess.” Ugh, harem. He shivered.

“I suppose we’ll find out,” she said, leaning back and letting him go. “You came for a nap, didn’t you?”

“Sure did.” His eyelids were already starting to droop in the warmth of the sunlight. Aerith prodded him into laying down with his head in her lap, and then she started purring. He was out cold again within a few minutes.

Angeal’s cooking.

He snapped upright, lunging for it, and snatched a container out of someone’s hands. He didn’t even bother looking for utensils before he tore it apart like a rabid animal.

“Sweet Goddess,” said Genesis somewhere nearby. 

Cloud flipped him off reflexively. Manners were always secondary to food, especially his favorite food. He blinked and looked up, suddenly remembering where he was. “Oh,” he said through a full mouth. Jay was in Sephiroth’s arms and ZJ was in trooper Cloud’s. Genesis, Angeal, Zack, and Aerith were all watching him with wide eyes.

“Hey,” he said, and continued shoveling food into his mouth.

“Charming manners,” Genesis muttered. “Are you sure he’s favored by the Goddess?”

“Very sure,” said Aerith.

Angeal cleared his throat. “I uh, made you food… Cloud,” he said.

“I love you,” Cloud said worshipfully, face buried in the dish.

“I would be laughing if this wasn’t so sad,” said Zack.

Cloud licked the sauce from around his mouth. “Laugh anyway,” he suggested, instantly in the best mood of the past month now that he had Angeal’s cooking.

“We… wanted to meet you,” said Sephiroth. “And check if you were alright.”

Cloud grinned at him. He might have looked a tiny bit unhinged based on their expressions. “I’m fantastic now! Angeal has the best cooking in the multiverse. Gimme.” He made grabby hands at the rest of the containers he could see.

Aerith and the boys were kind enough to relay everything he’d said so far as he tore through the food, which was excellent. He might have been used to repeating himself, but he didn’t exactly enjoy it. Maybe he could get someone to re-print and laminate his handy-dandy FAQ sheet while he was here.

“Say,” he said to his twin, “how long have I been here?”

“Day and a half,” trooper Cloud said, leaning into Genesis as he watched. “The Turks weren’t willing to let us get close until Sephiroth forced the issue.”

Cloud nodded. “Thanks for that, it was weird as hell. Anyway, I’ll be gone in ten hours or so.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Zack asked, frowning worriedly. “You smell rough, buddy.”

Cloud shook his current container of food. “You’re already helping. Just keep the Turks off me and let me sleep.” He paused. “Maybe steal my armor back, too, I need that. All my holy water is in there.” He blinked at the boys. “Does anyone need holy water?”

“No,” Jay said firmly. “It’s fine.” He determinedly avoided making eye contact with any of his parents after the cryptic confirmation.

“Great, it’s not like I have an infinite supply of the stuff. My resupply is… erratic.” He thoughtfully licked his fingers clean. “That reminds me, if a Zack who has Seph’s eyes and is dressed in swim trunks comes by, he’s friendly. Tell him I’m fine.”

“...what?” asked Genesis.

“Don’t worry about it.” He stacked up the last empty container and stretched. “Hey listen, this biology is new to me but that purring knocks me out in a few minutes flat. Can one of you do me a solid and uh… do that?”

The ‘pack’ exchanged glances. “...of course we can,” said Angeal, and that was how Cloud spent the rest of his time there out cold, surrounded by five grown-ass men and two ‘kids’ purring like cats.

It was some of the best sleep of his life. And he even got all his shit back, freshly cleaned and resupplied, after the Turks yelled at him in their weird shared dream.