Hi kiddos. Thank you so much for your reviews to the last chapter if you left one, you little rock stars. I'm going to be replying very shortly. Just wanted to get this posted in the meantime. Also, thanks so much to those of you who have been adding this story to your alert and fav lists. Really appreciate it. And those of you who have taken the time to recommend my fics to your friends and to other readers. That's so amazing. I appreciate all of you, no matter what, all who read and ultimately keep this series going. Love you guys. Just a little warning that there's some material in this chapter that may be hard/uncomfortable to read. That's not a very helpful warning in that it doesn't give much detail lol but I don't want to give anything away either. It's not the worst you've read from me, we'll put it that way XD

Byeeeee

~Sixteen~

Cloud's adrenaline and fear were surging while Kell held him against the wall of the bathroom stall. There were guys coming in and out of the bathroom again and yet the club music was so loud they probably couldn't hear much going on in the stall. Kell's right hand gripped his neck, hard enough to be uncomfortable but not so much so he couldn't still breathe freely.

"Let go of me," he ordered him firmly, trying to appear calm even if inside he was really starting to panic.

"You disrespectful, you know what I'm saying?" Kell told him, speaking just inches from his face.

"I'm not trying to be, I'm just not into you alright?" he tried to tell him in a level tone but his voice was starting to shake. His whole body was. The adrenaline, it was flowing through him fast and his heart was pounding hard against the wall of his chest. He tried to look only at Kell but he couldn't help looking past him, around the stall. It was so small in there with the two of them inside. It was like a box. He hated boxes. He needed to get out.

"What you think I'd be interested in you?" Kell's voice pummeled him. The guy was only taller than him by a few inches but he seemed like a giant in that moment. "You just wanna suck my dick right?" the guy said with his body very nearly pressing against his then. That's when Cloud gave up on the calm approach and tried to shove Kell back from him. The guy pushed him harder against the wall, tightening his grip on his neck. "I got you I got you," Kell said while he dropped his one hand to unbutton and unzip his jeans.

"Stop," Cloud demanded, pulling on his arm and hand with both of his own. The guy shushed him. "I'm fucking serious, let me go!" he ordered loudly, finally able to wrench Kell's hand from his throat and shove him backward. The space was so small, it only had the guy taking a step backward, his back hit the opposite wall of the stall and kept him from stumbling.

Things got immediately more violent then as Kell suddenly took hold of him in both hands and turned him forcefully. He lifted his one foot to kick down the lid of the toilet before pushing him down onto it. For barely a second he was sitting before he was attempting to stand again.

"Get the fuck away from me!" he shouted up at him while trying to get up. Despite his attempt, Kell was easily able to shove him back down. The guy's one hand took a tight hold of his hair and with the other he freed his growing hard-on from his pants.

Cloud was holding onto Kell's hand in his hair, trying to get him to let go while his other one was braced against the wall next to him. He was sweating head to toe. It didn't feel like there was enough air in the stall to sustain both of them and his fear had him feeling like his vision was starting to tunnel.

"All you want is some action right?" Kell asked. "Then you can pretend like nothing happened? So here, do what you do, you little bitch!" the guy ordered him with one hand holding his erection toward him and the other still latched into his hair.

For one terrifying second Cloud did look at what was held in front of his face before raising his eyes to look up at Kell. His terror was suddenly chased away by something else. Maybe he was still scared but he was also angry. The guy calling him a 'little bitch,' sent him back at lightning speed to when Mailer had him locked up in his apartment. That's what the piece of shit former mansion guard used to call him. He'd fought back against Mailer's attempt to rape him until he physically wasn't able to fight anymore. Now would be no different.

"You really want to put that near my fucking teeth right now?" he questioned sharply, making his warning clear.

"If you know what's good for you, you wouldn't threaten me," Kell told him.

Still gripping his hair, the guy reached into his back pocket for something. Cloud couldn't be positive of what it was, but from the quick look he got at it, he was pretty sure it was a switchblade. He didn't give Kell the chance to unlock and release its blade though. He grabbed for the handle with both his hands, taking it and Kell's hand in both of his and wrenching his arm toward himself. He twisted as hard as he could and Kell let go of his hair, calling out from the sudden pain in his wrist. He dropped the weapon to the floor and during the shuffling of their feet it was kicked toward the closed door. With his free hand Kell formed a tight fist then and hit Cloud hard in the left side of his face with it.

The punch was hard enough to split his lip open and start it bleeding fast. He let go of Kell and put his hand to his face. Kell took a second to zip himself back up, abandoning his attempt to force something sexual. He turned to reach down and pick his knife back up and it was then he noticed something else nearby, against the corner post next to the door. Cloud recognized it before the guy even had it in his hand. It was the small container of his panic meds. It must have been jostled from his pocket to the floor while struggling with Kell.

"No!" Cloud cried out as he saw him lean over to pick it up, instantly feeling a renewed wave of fear then. He couldn't lose that medication.

He wasn't feeling anything other than that fear at losing that thing which he'd basically come to depend upon when he propelled himself to a stand and quickly found that knife blade he had at first avoided contact with in close proximity to his throat. He froze at a stand in front of Kell with the tip of the blade just touching the underside of his chin.

"Yeah that's right," Kell remarked smugly when he was forced to a standstill.

"They're mine, I need them," he stated firmly, not even really looking at Kell, his eyes on the container his hand instead.

"Mine now," Kell replied while sliding it into his one pocket.

He didn't care about the threat of the knife then. He grabbed hold of the guy's shirt in his one hand and took hold of his wrist with his other in a way where he was able to force Kell's arm down and away from him. He used his own body weight to pivot him into the wall fast and, still keeping an iron grip on his wrist, he slammed Kell's hand against the hard surface until the knife handle was slipping from his grip once more. He made an attempt then to try to take back his pill container from inside Kell's pocket, trying to hold the guy against the wall with his one arm and dig into his pocket with his other hand.

He probably should have just punched him in the face when he had the chance because all it took for Kell to get the upper hand back was to leverage his own body weight off the wall once more, turning him in the process. The toilet hit the backs of his calves and stole his balance, finding him falling down onto the closed lid over the seat once more. That's when Kell started bringing his fist down on him repeatedly.

Cloud was able to block most of the hits from making contact with his head, his arms taking the beating instead. When he finally had the opening to do it, he kicked Kell back from him as hard as he could into the closed door of the stall. The force broke the lock and forced the door through the frame an inch or so. Before the guy could come at him again he stood up and kicked into his body again as hard as he could through the door that busted through the frame completely.

With nothing to stop his body that time, Kell fell to the floor but the guy was on his feet again fast and he seemed enraged. Cloud had just stepped outside the stall, and even if it still seemed hot as hell in the immediate area, the suffocation he felt just from being in that stall lifted for one brief moment. Even though he'd already been sure of it, he could see then that there were a few other guys in the bathroom and their attention turned their way then as Kell grabbed hold of him before he could take more than that one step outside the busted stall. The guy shoved him backward and he fell back against the toilet a third time.

Swiftly, Kell grabbed his left leg and yanked his body forward and down hard toward the floor. The back of his head hit the hard surface of the porcelain tank on the way down but the sudden pain of it was quickly forgotten as Kell stood over him and bracing the sides of the stall with his hands he began raising his one foot and bringing it down on him. The guy stomped down on his stomach, ribs and one leg as he tried to shield himself. It must have lasted only a few seconds but the guy got in some hard kicks before being intercepted by one of the bystanders in the bathroom. As Kell was being hauled back from him he hocked and spit down on him.

Cloud lowered his arms from his face then. He heard shouting and cursing. Someone he didn't know was standing over him then, reaching down to try and help him get up. He couldn't hear what was said to him. He thought maybe the guy was just asking if he was okay. He ignored the outstretched hand to him and instead used the toilet to stand himself up off the damp and dirty bathroom floor. A sharp pain went through his rib cage, making him suck in oxygen through clenched teeth. That was the only pain he felt in that moment but he wasn't thinking about whether he'd actually been injured or not aside from his split lip. All he could think about is what Kell had taken from him.

Pushing his way out of the stall and through the people crowding the small room, he didn't hear anything that was said. He looked to see where Kell had gone. He must have either left the bathroom on his own or been forced out of it. He made his way out of the bathroom, back into the main club space. The music seemed suddenly a thousand times louder than it had before he'd entered the bathroom. His head started to feel quickly like it was pounding. He tried to look around the crowd to spot where Kell had gone but the place was packed. He thought maybe the guy would be heading toward the exit so he started to push his way through the crowd to the front of the club.

While at first he'd felt almost nothing when he left the bathroom he quickly started to feel the pain intensifying in his ribs. It was sharp and screaming at him when he tried to breathe deeply. The intensity of it started to make him feel a little sick and dizzy. When he was near to the bar area, someone grabbed his shoulder from behind and he turned to see it was Rick.

"Where were you?" Rick asked him, practically yelling over the music. "What happened? You're bleeding, man," he said before Cloud could respond. "Who did that?" he asked as he clued in that he must have just been in a fight with someone.

He didn't get a chance to try to explain anything. He could see through the crowded room then to the main entrance and exit where there was some kind of commotion with two of the bouncers. A group of guys were getting tossed it looked like. Rick was also looking where he was when one of the guys getting thrown out pulled what looked like a gun from his waistband. The one bouncer tried to stop him from discharging the weapon fast, grabbing his arm in both his hands. When the first shot went off it was into the ceiling. Cloud only knew it had been fired because the other bouncer and a few people standing directly next to them ducked down. He and Rick couldn't hear the shot from where they were.

"Come on!" Rick shouted to him, tugging at his shirt from behind.

The guy started leading them through the mass of people to where his friends were. When Cloud looked back he could see the one bouncer still wrestling with the gunman as more shots were being fired, this time out into the room and the crowd. He saw the muzzle flashes.

"GUN! GUN!" Rick yelled to his buddies when they got to them. He didn't give them a lot of time to process what he was telling them before pushing them forward in the direction of the closest emergency exit.

At that point a lot of people knew what was going on and though the music was still pumping so loudly that a large portion of the club goers had no idea, enough people were realizing that there was a shooting happening that panic started to break out and people were starting to push their way to the exits. If Rick hadn't got them moving when he did they might have been caught up in the frantic tangle.

The music finally cut out just as they were reaching the exit and an emergency alarm sounded. It seemed ear-piercingly loud and for the last moments he was stuck inside the building before finally stepping outside Cloud had to cover his ears. With people streaming out from the exits then and the sounds of sirens coming from out in the street somewhere, there was chaos in the immediate area around the club and Cloud knew there was no way he was going to find Kell. He didn't even really know what he planned on doing if he found him. Try to force him to give him back what he stole from him? He had no choice but to accept he'd lost his panic meds and would be without them until he could get another prescription filled. That thought alone had him feeling like he was going to break down and start hyperventilating.

As he, Rick, and his buddies fled the area with a hoard of other people, Rick questioned him again about what had happened to him and asked if he was going to need to go to a clinic or hospital. He told him he was fine. For the most part, he thought he was. His mouth was throbbing and he had a pounding headache but his lip wasn't bleeding much at that point. He just wanted to go home.

He was able to flag down a cab not far from the club and he was grateful because he didn't think he could handle the wait for the night train. By the time he got down to the slums he was in a lot more pain. He'd started to realize on the way back home that Kell must have landed more than just the one punch on his face. Besides a split and swollen lip, his cheek bone and the area around his left eye were pulsing with pain and his eyelid felt like it had been swelling. It was getting more uncomfortable to blink.

He thought he would be alone when he went into the apartment, assuming Reno would have been out working, but of course his luck was such that the former Turk was in fact there and awake. It was mostly dark in the room except for the little light on over the stove and the light from the television. He saw Reno standing in the kitchen when he entered the apartment, looking like he was fixing himself something to eat.

"Hey, man," Reno said, only glancing back over his shoulder when he heard the door opening and closing. "Did you see ass-man?"

"Why aren't you working?" Cloud asked tiredly, ignoring his teasing inquiry. He stood with his back against the closed apartment door, pressing his head to it as he closed his eyes. He really needed to get something cold on his face.

"I was," Reno replied. "I am. Sorta. But there's nothing else for me to do until like three-thirty. I had like three hours to kill so I came back to grab a snack."

Cloud didn't say anything to that. He headed for the refrigerator, opening the freezer and looking for something he could use as an ice pack. There were some frozen vegetables that had been in there since before Rayna gave the apartment up to him. He pressed the bag to the side of his face and the initial feeling sent a rush of relief through him. He exhaled deeply and leaned back against the counter, holding onto his sore ribs with his other hand. Reno still hadn't even really looked at him yet but when he finally did he laughed a little.

"You get clocked or did you walk into a door or some shit?" he asked. He was looking at Cloud from his other side and couldn't really see anything.

"Yeah," was all Cloud said in return with his head down a little. He really wanted to sit down but his side was killing him. The cab ride hadn't been pleasant. Something about his tone must have actually made Reno a little concerned.

"Yo, wait did you actually get clocked in the face by someone?" he asked, sidestepping in front of him to see his whole face. "Lemme see," he said. He could already see some of it. Cloud pulled the bag back from his face a brief second and Reno hissed in a breath as he got the full picture. "Shit, man, what the hell happened? Wasn't ass-man was it?" he asked then and Cloud gave a slight shake of his head.

"Some asshole," was all he said.

"Where?" Reno asked next.

"A club on the plate," Cloud said.

"Which one?"

"I forget," Cloud told him. He hadn't been paying attention when he'd gone there with Rick and the others. "Whatever one is on the news in a few hours. There was a shooting," he explained.

"No shit?!" Reno exclaimed in shock. "Same guy?" he asked and Cloud shrugged a little.

"No. I dunno, I don't think so. He wasn't the one with the gun that I saw. There was a group of guys getting kicked out, I don't know if he was with them," he told him.

He felt his phone vibrating in his pocket then and they could both hear it. He let go of his side slowly to reach for it. He could barely see the screen through his one eye and had to hold it up close to his face to see who was messaging. It was Zack. It wasn't really usual for him to message him that late but it was around the time he'd be finishing work.

'hey buddy any chance your awake' was his message.

"Who's that?" Reno asked.

"Zack," he said. Slowly he tapped back a response with his one hand, a simple 'yeah.'

'got time to talk?' Zack replied to his short affirmation.

'Sure' he sent back but he really hadn't thought what Zack was meaning was that he wanted to talk on the phone, not just have a text message convo. He realized though when his phone was vibrating in his hand from an incoming call from his friend.

"Shit," he muttered as he looked down at the phone, hesitating on answering.

"What?" Reno asked.

"He's calling," was all Cloud said.

"So?" Reno said back. "You not talking again or something?"

"He's going to know something happened," he told Reno without looking at him, staring at Zack's name on the screen of his phone. Somehow, no matter the effort he put in to sounding normal or like it was just a normal uneventful night on his end, Zack was going to know something was up. He could always tell.

"Uh, yeah," Reno replied. "Unless you think you can hide from him physically for the next week or so he's probably going to know something happened when he sees your face, genius."

Cloud let the call roll to voicemail. He stood frozen a second looking at the phone and knowing Zack was probably going to attempt to call again in a moment or so. "He's going to be so pissed at me," he said, mostly to himself.

"Why?" Reno asked, his tone doubtful.

"You don't get it," Cloud told him, shaking his head. If Zack found out what happened and the circumstances around why it happened, he was going to freak out on him.

When Zack was calling again and he still wasn't making any moves to answer it, Reno suddenly took it out of his hand.

"Reno!" he exclaimed as he tried to grab hold of him. Reno moved away from him quickly though and answered his phone for him.

"Yo," he said into Cloud's phone.

"Reno?" Zack questioned with clear confusion.

"Yep," Reno confirmed.

"Why are you answering Cloud's phone?" Zack asked, sounding both uneasy and irritated at the same time.

"Because he's being a little pussy right now," Reno told him while looking at Cloud. Cloud was giving him an angry expression, shaking his head at him slowly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Zack fired back. "Give him the phone, I want to talk to him," he said.

"Only if you promise to not get really really mad with him," he said in something of a mocking baby voice.

"What?" Zack said back, obviously and understandably confused.

"Your boy was in a fight, Fair," Reno revealed to him then. "He's scared you're gonna yell at him," he concluded. Without saying anything else, he tossed the phone back Cloud's way. Cloud barely managed to catch it when it came toward him.

"You're such a—" Cloud started to say.

"I just saved you a bunch of time trying to delay the inevitable," Reno cut him off. "You're welcome."

Cloud could hear Zack trying to say something on the line so he lifted the phone reluctantly to his ear.

"It's me," he said finally.

"Cloud? What's that moron talking about?" he inquired in a tone that sounded equal parts concerned and ticked off. "Were you in a fight?" he asked a little softer when Cloud didn't answer right away.

"Um," he said as he turned around so he wasn't looking at Reno. "I was, yeah," he admitted quietly. He thought he could hear Zack sigh then but he couldn't be totally sure. After being inside the club his ears felt like they had cotton stuffed into them.

"Well, are you okay?" Zack asked him then and having to hear the concern in his voice was worse than him yelling at him right away.

"Yeah, I…" He had to stop. He felt like he was trying to hold back tears suddenly and had to clear his throat to finish. "I'm fine," he said finally. "It was no big deal," he told him.

Of course, it didn't matter. The moment Zack heard fight, he was going to want to see him in person. Zack told him he was coming over and he didn't bother trying to convince him not to, partly because he did want to see him. He didn't want to be yelled at and didn't want to have to face the questions Zack would have but forgetting that, he wasn't feeling good. He was hurting and the full gravity of what had happened was hitting him finally and he wanted his friend. As much as Zack could make him feel guilty, having him close gave him comfort and relief. No one else did that for him, not like Zack.

"Sorry, baby boy, it had to be done," Reno said to him when Cloud set his phone down on the kitchen counter. He was still facing toward the counter and leaned down on it, holding the weight of his upper body on his elbows.

"Bullshit. You didn't have a right to do that," Cloud muttered without turning around.

"Yeah, well, not the worst thing I've done by far, am I right?" he said as he gave Cloud a firm pat on the back that had Cloud wincing, the movement magnifying the pain in his side briefly. "I gotta go. You gonna survive 'til your hero gets here?" Reno asked then as he picked up the sandwich he'd been assembling before Cloud walked in.

"Yeah, get away from me," Cloud ordered him gruffly.

"Cool," Reno said. "Please don't burn my shit," was the last thing he said lightly before finally leaving.

Once he was alone, it became substantially harder to keep his shit together. He knew he had to though because he wasn't going to be alone for long.

Zack left Tifa's quickly after getting off the phone with Cloud. He found himself jogging part of the way over to Cloud's apartment. Judging from Cloud's voice he didn't think it was an emergency situation, at least not in the medical sense, but the thought of any kind of fight, of any severity, involving him, had his tension and concern skyrocketing, especially since his friend hadn't been anywhere near his physical best since that coma.

He had so many questions racing through his mind about how and why Cloud had gotten into a physical altercation at all and who else had been involved. Mostly though, he just needed to see him to quell the terrible images that his brain wanted to bring up for him. Images of Cloud from the past when he'd been in fights or been beaten in the mansion. Rationally, he knew it wouldn't be that bad, and yet he couldn't stop imagining it.

The door to the apartment was unlocked when he got there and he entered without knocking. He saw Cloud standing in the kitchen, leaning forward over the counter, one hand braced against it with the other holding to his face a bag of something that he assumed was cold or frozen. He did feel better right away at seeing him standing and he did look okay for the most part.

"Hey," he said when he shut the door behind him.

"Hey," Cloud said back, his voice sounding a little strained or cluttered, like he'd been crying not long before. "Let me see," he instructed softly, making Cloud turn to face him. Hesitantly Cloud lowered the bag in his hand. "Shit, buddy," Zack said when he saw where he'd been hit on the left side of his face, the redness and swelling that was going to bruise deeply.

"Just this?" Zack asked of his facial injuries and Cloud shook his head.

"My side too," he told Zack. The pain had only gotten worse since leaving the club. It was hard, though not impossible to breathe deeply, and he was trying to avoid having to sit down if he could help it. He knew he'd have to eventually.

"Put it down a second," Zack said of the bag of what he could then see was frozen vegetables. When Cloud set it down on the counter Zack took the bottom of his shirt and lifted it, helping to get it off of him. He couldn't help wincing a little in sympathy at the sound of Cloud groaning when he had to lift his arms. "Jesus," Zack hissed at seeing the redness over Cloud's ribs when his shirt was finally off. It wasn't the worst he'd seen on his friend in the past but it was darkening and definitely looked painful. Cloud was almost afraid to look. "You might need an x-ray, Spike," Zack told him.

"No," Cloud said through a short exhale. "They won't be broken," he spoke of his ribs. Despite the tissue injuries, he was confident his bones still had the strength given to him by Hojo's experiments.

"I dunno, probably not, but…" Zack spoke hesitantly.

"They aren't. They can't be," Cloud insisted. "You know how many beatings they've taken up to now?" he added, thinking of all the times he had a fist or a foot impacting his ribcage, especially in the Gongaga facility when the clones were beating him on a daily basis.

He realized the mistake of bringing that up when he looked at Zack's face. His friend looked at him sadly and knowingly but also like he was feeling that guilt Cloud knew he struggled with a lot for what he'd gone through alone in Gongaga and which Zack still felt partially responsible for despite the fact it wasn't his fault and no one would ever see it that way. Zack would always feel like it was his lies and failure to protect him that had driven Cloud away and to Genesis who had then delivered him to back to Hojo.

"Well, what's the pain like?" Zack asked him. "What's breathing like?"

"It sucks," Cloud told him. That much was probably obvious. He shook his head as he picked up the bag on the counter to put to his face again. As the area had been warming again it had been throbbing more. "It just feels bruised. I think I just need a wrap or something," he assured Zack. "Some ice. Don't have any here though."

"There's a convenience place down the road. I can go see if they're open and have some," Zack told him. He opened the fridge to look inside. "Here," he said then as he picked up one of Reno's beer bottles out of the door. "Use this until I get back," he said.

"Good thinking, being drunk would definitely fix the pain situation," Cloud commented.

Zack gave him a less than amused look as he handed the bottle to him so he could press it to his side gently.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," Zack said then before heading out to make the quick run down to the corner.

Luckily it was a twenty-four hour convenience place and also had a freezer that was stocked with some bags of ice. The place also had a few first aid supplies that he purchased as well, not knowing what Cloud had in the apartment. He was gone less than ten minutes and when he got back Cloud hadn't moved. He looked tired though and also as though the brave face he'd been wearing to that point was about to give way to what he was really feeling.

He got Cloud's ribs wrapped loosely, trying to give him some stability, but he wanted him to be able to still breathe deeply and as long as he could do that then Cloud was probably right, that the area was likely just bruised and his ribs weren't cracked or broken.

After that, Cloud was finally able to sit down on the couch. It wasn't pleasant, but he'd definitely had a lot worse in the past. Zack started helping to clean up his face a little in the places where he'd been bleeding from his lip and a small cut on his brow.

"You know I'm not leaving here again until you tell me right?" Zack said finally.

"Tell you?" Cloud repeated in question though he knew exactly what Zack was saying.

"Where'd this happen? Who did this?" Zack asked him while using a damp cloth to wipe the traces of blood from his inflamed skin.

"On the plate. Some guy," Cloud answered a little vaguely, not mentioning the club and certainly not mentioning the shooting that happened there shortly after what happened in the bathroom.

"Some guy? Why?" Zack asked next, trying to understand what would make someone attack him like that.

"He was angry I never answered him when he tried to call or text or something," Cloud explained to him slowly.

"Was he someone you…" Zack tried to ask and it was clear he was asking if it was someone he'd had a sexual encounter with.

"It was once a little while ago. I barely remember," Cloud told him, hating to admit to it because he knew where it was going to lead.

"How'd him being angry at that turn into this?" Zack said back almost critically. He knew there had to be more to it. "Where were you?" he asked as well, before Cloud could answer. "Who were you with?"

"Some racing people," Cloud told him a little uneasily. "At a club," he finally said and that's when he suddenly lost control over his emotions. He let himself think about it, about the shock and apprehension when he'd been confronted unexpectedly by Kell and the overwhelming and choking fear and panic he'd felt when the guy forced him into the bathroom stall and tried to force him into submitting to a sex act while talking to him like he was some piece of garbage that wanted that.

"It was in the bathroom," he got out before he started to cry and had to put his head down. He rested his forehead in this hand. "He wouldn't let me just fucking leave," he told Zack without looking at him. "He had me trapped in this tiny fucking dirty stall with him and I couldn't—"

"What'd he do to you?" Zack asked him, cutting him off, his tone serious and deeply concerned but also angry. "Look at me," he commanded him while taking his head in his hands and making him look at him, not waiting for him to do it himself. "Did he make you do something?" he asked and they both knew what he meant by that.

"No," Cloud said, shaking his head slowly. "He tried to," he confessed, squeezing his eyes shut and squeezing out some of his tears in the process. He could hear and feel Zack's breath as he exhaled forcefully. "I know, okay," he spoke painfully as Zack let go of him.

"You know? Know what?" Zack asked. His tone was sharp. He sounded upset.

"What you're thinking," Cloud said and Zack looked at him with a bit of surprise.

"You do?" he questioned swiftly. "What's that?" he challenged him.

"That this is my fault," Cloud told him, feeling fully defeated in that moment, not by Zack, just by life.

Zack was visibly taken aback and seemed almost hurt by his words. He actually found them incredulous. "Your fault," he said with his breathing becoming suddenly more rapid. He felt hot, like a fire was whipping its way violently through his whole body. "You think that's what I'm thinking?" he fired at Cloud and he was angry at him for a moment.

"It's true, isn't it?" Cloud shot back at him.

"Your fault?" Zack repeated once more. "That whoever that psycho piece of shit is, he confined you in a bathroom against your will, tried to assault you and then beat you?" he said as though he were hurling an accusation. "That's what you think I'm thinking right now? That it's your fault?" Cloud let go of a sob then as he put his face in both his hands. "That's not your fault, Spike," Zack said, "but this is exactly what I am terrified of happening to you when you're doing what you're doing," he stated angrily.

With a huff, Zack brought himself to a stand and turned away from Cloud a second, putting his hands on top of his head and trying to control the massive need he felt to throw or break something. He shoved down the impulse and turned to face Cloud once more. He kicked back the coffee table a little to make more space between it and his friend and sat down on it so he could face him directly.

"It's not wrong," he told Cloud in a bit of a calmer tone, though he was having a hard time controlling his emotions and keeping his breathing steady. Really he just wanted to break down and scream. "What you choose to do with your body and whoever you want to…share it with, I guess," he started to advise. "Whatever you want to do with whomever. It's not wrong," he elaborated. "But what scares me is knowing that when you're putting yourself in situations with people you know basically nothing about, putting yourself in a vulnerable position with them, you are risking the chance that any one of those people could be the one that looks at you and your choices like who you are gives them license to treat you like you mean nothing. Do you get that?!"

He waited for the words to sink in to Cloud and to get some kind of response from him but he wasn't getting one. After a few moments he again put his hands gently on either side of his friend's head and urged him to look up at him. His poor swollen face was tear-streaked and he looked destroyed either by what he'd gone through that night or what Zack was saying to him.

"I'm not mad at you. I'm scared. You're scaring me, Spikey," he told Cloud, emphasizing that one word. Scared.

Cloud tilted his head a little in his light grasp and nodded slowly. "Me too," he uttered brokenly. "I get it now," he said.