#lastorion

continued:

the hunter’s hands rested on noctis’ cheeks, gently holding his face as their foreheads touched. he was nowhere near ready to say goodbye, even if he’d known this day would come. as much as he tried, noel could never be prepared for it. he knew that noctis had to return, for he had some business left to deal with, to save his home town and reclaim his throne. noel understood how important that was, and by no means did he want to stop him from returning and fulfilling his duty. but he also didn’t want to be separated. he’d much rather go with noctis instead of returning to nova chrysalia, but that wasn’t possible. once they returned, all they’d have would be the memories of their time together. and—

      “it’s unfair you get to keep these pictures of us on your little machine thing and i don’t”, noel muttered, a slight frown evident on his features. “i know we have the necklaces, but… is there anything you have that i can take with me? anything, really”

just something to hold on to that’s yours, noel continued in his thoughts. but even if noct didn’t have anything to give him, that was fine. sadly the device that had their pictures on it couldn’t be split in half without ending up broken (or so noct said when noel asked). the hunter finally pulled his forehead from noct’s, but only a little and only so their lips could meet instead. he captured them for a deep, meaningful kiss, hoping it would convey how he felt right now to his beloved.

unprompted ask  //  @lastorion  //  always welcomed~

It’s not fair, Noctis thought, uncaring of how childish he sounded in his mind as he rested a hand over one of Noel’s and the other over the hunter’s heart. A pained expression on his face as Noctis soaked in the warmth of his love’s touch, wishing that he could bring Noel with him back to Eos. Gods, he didn’t want them to be separated.

He pulled away slightly at Noel’s words, looking thoughtful at the other’s request. While he would love to give the hunter copies of the pictures he had of the both of them, there wasn’t a way to do it. But even then, he didn’t really have much on him to begin with to give Noel other than─

Blue eyes widened a little as one thing came to mind and he reached into his pant’s pocket, feeling the familiar shape of the small figurine. Bringing it out, Noctis looked down at the small Carbuncle figurine that his dad had gifted to him while he’d been recovering from the attack. The small ruby horn of the figurine glimmered faintly and Noctis nodded to himself, mind made up, before holding it out to Noel.

          “His name is Carbuncle. He’ll protect you through your darkest dreams,” He murmured while moving his gaze from the figurine up to Noel’s eyes, giving him a tiny smile. “And I know you’ll take care of him.”

As much as he adored Carbuncle, Noctis did hope that the fox would be able to keep Noel’s dreams safe and maybe help him out. It was up in the air if the messenger would be able to weave some power within Noel’s world but, well, anything could happen. Right? Pressing the figurine into Noel’s hand, he wrapped his arms around the brunet and hugged him tight before pulling away enough.

He’d been about to say something when the kiss delayed that, while it was unexpected it was most welcomed as he gripped Noel’s shirt tightly, a small pleased noise coming from the back of his throat as he eagerly returned the kiss. Noctis moved a hand up to rest it against the side of Noel’s neck as tried to put as much mean into this. To memorize the feeling of the hunter’s lips against his, how he made him feel and the way they just seemed to fit perfectly against one another.

Rydia was always CURIOUS when someone knew entered this new world. She had been scared at first, had even been disappointed to see how some of her friends weren’t from the same time as her. But with time, she had come to consider this world as a PRIVILEGE. She could meet new people, see their culture, and talked with them about anything. She had even had the occasion to meet other summoners. 

This ability to commune with the dead was sometimes more of a BURDEN than a gift. Sometimes, what she heard was painful. At other moments, the dead seemed to pressure her because they wanted her to accomplish something for them. This time, however, Aerith’s task was much more difficult than before. She had to find a young man who traveled through time, with a pink-haired woman. Traveling through time. How was she supposed to do this herself ? Was she supposed to WAIT for him to appear ? The Paddra ruins were quite rich in history, so maybe he would appear. But how much time would she have to wait ? 

And, one day, she saw him. She was about to walk into his direction, to introduce herself to him, but instead, she started hearing many voices at the same time. Noel was traveling through time. Maybe, because of him, she was hearing voices from more than one period at once. 

unprompted cute  //  @lastorion  // always welcomed~

unprompted ask  //  @lastorion  //  always welcomed

unprompted ask  //  @lastorion  // always welcomed~

To say that he’d been unprepared for whatever Noel was going to do was a bit of an understatement. Here he was, happily making out with his boyfriend when he feels something slide between his parted lips and, he’s not proud of this, he bit it on reflex. So when Noel made a noise that Noctis swears was like a dying cockatrice, he couldn’t help but laugh while he showered the brunet with sincere apologies.

unprompted sap  //  @lastorion  //  always welcomed~

Crystal blue eyes widened as he stared up at the hunter before they narrowed a bit and he let out a soft amused huff. After a second, however, that expression melted into one full of affection with a loving smile upon his lips directed at the other.

@lastorion​ says: HC about crisis core events maybeee? Specifically the mako-poisoning up to Zack's death, if you have any thoughts on that since Cloud was... K.o. most of the time there XD If this doesnt work you can just pick something else Crisis Core related jfnfjnfjf

( Tell me what you want me to write a headcanon about! )

☆ ━━━ His mother never told him the world could be cruel.

She never said people would use others, as if they were toys to be played with and broken. She never mentioned war or pain or even loneliness, despite Cloud knowing these things at a very young age. 

But he didn’t know how far strangers would go to shatter him for no reason but their terrible greed.

He knows this now, though.

Oh God does he know it now.

Hojo steals him. He breaks Cloud’s spirit when he starts pumping alien matter inside him while he’s dreaming nightmares, unknowing to the one unfolding outside his head. 

They whisper him from his home all fractured and burned. ShinRa grunts and Hojo and other men in white coats push him inside a tube filled with Mako-dense liquid. And they watch and they wait to see if, maybe, Cloud can become something great, because he never had been so before in his life. 

They say he needs this foreign matter inside him to make him better.

While the Mako seizes him, while he sleeps, he dreams. Cloud sees himself as a young boy running from shadows he can’t fight. He sees Zack even, tries to catch up to him racing ahead through endless flowers. He finds in his dream he gets sick, retching into greenery and perfumed petals. Zack turns for only a moment at the dry heaving.

“Wait for me!” Cloud cries, reaching out, his fingers grazing--

Nothing. 

                                                            ★

He wakes once. And there’s sunshine hitting his eyes that burn at the sight of the shimmering outdoors. The sunlight is going to fry his eyeballs out, but he keeps them open anyway, he tries to find Zack--

And there he is, sitting in the back of a faded yellow truck. He’s talking to Cloud as if he’d been awake this entire time, flinging out hopes and wishes as if Cloud could be capable of those things anymore. 

Not after this.

Cloud can’t feel his limbs or fingers, not even his face. His body slumps there in the corner of the truck bed, head lolling about like a porcelain doll’s. He listens to Zack, listens to all these things he can’t hold.

“I wanna go to Midgar,” Zack is babbling, unaware of Cloud’s eyes fluttering open and close, because Zack’s gaze is fixed on a open sky above them, so blue and big it’s almost terrifying to Cloud. “There’s this cute girl I like that lives near this great old church--you should see it Cloud. It’s like, I dream about that place sometimes, I miss the feeling I get when I walk inside and it’s shining in there, all the time. And... there’s flowers...”

He turns to Cloud then, but the blonde is losing consciousness, slipping away again, rolling off on violent waves...

“Did you know flowers can’t grow in Midgar? But they do there in the church--it’s the craziest thing...” Zack pauses a moment, then adds earnestly, “I’ll show it to you, she’ll come too!” 

Cloud spasms at that moment, his body shuddering for a minute as Zack watches. Instantly the older SOLDIER is by his side, looking into his face, concern knitting his eyebrows together. Once Cloud calms, seemingly asleep again, Zack asks him a question he should already know the answer to:

                                                            ★

                “We’re friends, right?”

( You’re the only friend I had, Zack. )

                                                             ★

Finally, Cloud’s body accepts the monster it has become and he wakes, truly sees the world and it doesn’t blur at the edges or swim away from his fingers. He can feel his toes again, finally, but he knows he can’t stand--he’s too wobbly, too damn weak--he casts his gaze around helplessly, feeling rain suddenly pelting his face and hair, cold, hard and ruthless. 

He gasps, coughs. His lungs feel tight and watery. Cloud finds himself tucked behind a rock in the gloom, but just a yard away, just in sight...

A bloody ShinRa helmet, the copper chipped but he notices the crimson coating it foremost, the red slipping off the edges in the rain. Then Cloud sees there’s more helmets and weapons, guns and bullet-casings all around as if they had been raining over the ground too...

And he knows. Godammit Zack, no! He dredges what pitiful strength he can to drag himself over the swampy mud that begins to coat this uniform that doesn’t belong to him the moment he crosses the first puddle. He’s soaked, but he doesn’t care--his brain can’t quite process what’s going on, he gets only snatches of clarity:

A grunt’s throat cleanly slashed open, mouth agape, helmet shattered apart and blood dribbling into the mud...

A sword dented and useless.

A gun held in a hand that is no longer attached to a body.

 Red, red everywhere--!

His stomach churns and he might have puked there, but nothing is in his system to waste, and he presses on anyway, ignoring the rain, ignoring the blood--

As his body slurps over the ground, the blood begins to coat him as equally as the dirt. 

By the time he reaches Zack lying on the ground--his mind fraying, falling into pieces he can’t put back together--he’s panting, about to collapse. But seeing Zack there in blooming red puddles gives him the strength to stay afloat amid the hammering in his head. 

“Zack...” Cloud says numbly.

His mouth moves and then three beats later he hears his voice filter through the rain, so weak and pitiful, like a child lost away from home. 

Zack sputters out, “For the... both of us...”

Cloud doesn’t know what he means, but then all he can really hear is the beating in his skull and the pounding of the rain and his own screaming ripping him apart inside, silently.

“Both of us?” Cloud echoes back in a whisper, eyes glazed. 

And it seems to Cloud, in the haze of all the screaming that’s not really there, that Zack is smiling in the rain, just slightly. Cloud wants to cry at him, let tears finally stream down his face for all they both had lost, but he just lies there in the mud and the crimson petals of blood, and he watches Zack die like the useless puppet he is.

“That’s right... you’re gonna...” Zack heaves, blood bubbling up on a fresh wound on his chest. 

“You’re gonna...” Cloud repeats.

Zack grabs the back of Cloud’s head and shoves him closer, the blonde’s forehead touching Zack’s heart. And he feels it beating, weak and sad, struggling to pulse on...

“Live.”

When Cloud slowly draws away, Zack’s blood coats his bangs and his cheek. Red, red everywhere. 

Live.

Zack then struggles to drag his hand to his sword, but he latches to it like the soldier he is. He heaves the heavy thing into Cloud’s hands.

“My honor, my dreams...” Zack breathes. “They’re yours now.”

Cloud holds the sword’s hilt to his chest and the weapon is so heavy he almost drops it. But his will to be Zack’s legacy pushes him to keep it in his grasp, his fate sealed so easily. 

“Your living... legacy...” Cloud says and he doesn’t know that it’s right then that he loses himself, his mind unraveling and breaking. 

                                ( We’re friends, right? )

Zack closes his eyes and does not wake again.

                                                             ★

It takes four days to get to Midgar on foot.

But Cloud will not remember most of the journey. His head is merely a fog as he shuffles through the pounding desert heat. He drags the Buster Sword behind him, still bloody as if it can’t quite forget what just happened, even if Cloud can.

His memories shuffle around, like cards in a deck, meshing with Zack’s until they are one in the same.

He’s a SOLDIER, right?

That’s why he wears this uniform that’s a little too big and carries a sword that isn’t really his, right?

He sees Midgar shimmering on the horizon. He thinks it’s a place of flowers, churches, and broken dreams. 

His feet keep going, one in front of the other, towards this new prison.