Limp blond spikes drooped over down turned blue eyes as he studied the vertical cuts running along the tender underside of his arm
Summary: After loosing seemingly everything, Cloud falls into a deep depression and coupled with a growing alcohol dependency attempts suicide. Lucky for him he's found by Zack and his best friend Vincent and is rushed to the hospital. Cloud wakes up but with no memory of who he is. Will Cloud sink back into his depression? Or will Zack and his friends help him find a new lease on life?
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy or any of it's characters. I just enjoy forcing them to bend to my will. Dance my puppets dance!
Warnings: Death, suicide, yaoi, yuri, sex, het, and anything else my twisted mind can come up with. Oh and I have no beta so all kinds of spelling and grammatical errors.
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Limp blond spikes drooped over down turned blue eyes as he studied the vertical cuts running along the tender underside of his arm. The marks glared back up at him, angry and red dripping crimson tears down his pale wrists and into his palms. There were four of the deep cuts; one for every person he'd lost in the last nine months.
The first was for his mother. She was the first person to offer him true unconditional love and served as his personal pillar of strength, raising him on her own after his father had left them, working to support both herself and young son, and always serving as the only comfort for a son who would often come home in tears after being repeatedly bullied by the people of their small town. Two years ago his strong and invincible mother was diagnosed with cancer. She fought bravely with the disease and held on as long as she could, but her son could only watch as the best medical care they could afford failed and his mother withered away. He buried her nine months ago.
The next two scars were for his two best friends; Cid and Barett. The young man had met them in his second year of high school, five years ago. The two boys had moved into town early in the young man's sophomore year and lucky for him they had a thing for under dogs. They quickly spotted the young man being picked on and decided to take him under their wing. The young man looked up to these two boys; they were everything he was not. While he was shy, quiet, reserved and severely lacking in confidence; they were loud, outgoing, and didn't take crap from anyone. Cid was a cocky fly boy, always dreaming of becoming a pilot. He was loud, brash and friendly, a class cloud of sorts, and if not for choosing the young man as a friend he could have been one of the most popular kids in their class. Barett was a big guy, the muscle of their little trio, and had the shortest fuse of any one imaginable with a mouth like a sailor. But the man had a good heart, always true to his cause and his friends. Four months ago Cid's dream of flying finally came true when he earned his pilot's license. He had rented a plane and had invited Barett and the young man to take off with him for the weekend and let his two best friends be his first passengers. Barett had called out of work right away, but the young man unfortunately couldn't get off. He hugged his friends goodbye and promised that next time he'd be with them. It was the last time he ever saw them. Apparently there was an unforeseen error with the plane, and combined with Cid's showy flying, that error led to their disastrous accident.
The death of his mother coupled with the death of his two best friends pushed the young man into a deep depression that left him all but lifeless. He just couldn't bring himself to care any more. His grades at college were slipping, he stopped showing up to work, began drinking heavily, and he just couldn't bring himself to care.
There was however one person left working to try and pull him out of the hole he was sinking into, his girlfriend Tifa. She was trying everything she could think of, being a shoulder to cry on, taking him out, getting him to councilors, but nothing seemed to get him out of his depressed state. One day Tifa decided that she just couldn't handle her boyfriend's depression any longer.
"Baby what am I going to do with you?" The woman ran a hand through her long dark brown hair. She was frustrated, he could tell. Her wine colored eyes looked down at him with mixed feelings of hurt, anger, fear, and sympathy among other things. Her boyfriend hadn't left the house in two weeks and it seemed like no matter what she did he just wouldn't get up off his large black cushy chair. She thought that at this point there would be a permanent indent from his being there so long.
"What do I have to do? What will it take to make you better? I just can't stand seeing you like this any more love." She bent down onto her knees to look up into his eyes pleadingly. All he could bring himself to do was give her a blank look and then slowly look away. He knew that she cared and that she just wanted to help, but right now he didn't want her help. He just wanted to be alone.
Tifa launched herself up from the ground, giving him an angry glare. "Damn it! I have done everything for you! All I want is for you to be better, to get your life back together. Do you think that this is what they would have wanted? Cid and Barett and your mother? They never would have wanted this and you know it!" She threw an accusing finger in his direction, her ample chest heaving underneath her white t-shirt. She was passionate in her anger and she'd had enough of being ignored.
"I have had enough of this. God knows I love you, and all I could ever want is for you to go back to the way you were, before all of this, but I can't keep this up. It's been months, and this isn't going anywhere." She took in a deep breath to calm and steady her for what she had to say next. "I love you, baby, but I'm leaving. Promise me you'll call when you get your life on track, or you're ready for help…"
With that she grabbed her coat off the hook by the door and left.
That had been a little less then a month ago and he'd just let himself get worse. That last mark was for her. She wasn't dead but as far as he was concerned she'd left him just like every one else.
He finally looked up for a moment to take in his surroundings. He'd known where he was going when he left the house with a half empty bottle of gin clutched in his hand and blood dripping from his fingers, but hadn't really been looking and watching his path. He was sitting slumped agenced a lit street lamp by a bridge carrying cars over the local river; he couldn't recall its name in his drunken state. The bridge had an old world look to it, made of thick stone that was carved smooth along the top. He took one last swig from his gin bottle, finishing it off, and rose on shaky legs to stumble towards the bridge. He came to the peak of the bridge and placed his hands on the cold stone surface and looked over for a moment before lifting himself onto the edge. He stood there still but swaying looking down into the black water. The wind picked up for a moment blowing his thin black shirt around him and then died, signaling the approach of winter. He looked down at his worn blue jeans and bare feet for a moment before switching to the black river below him. I wonder if the water's cold… he pondered in his drunkenness. He let a small chuckle escape his lips at the absurdity of his thought. The small chuckle, however, didn't stop there; bubbling up to become hysterical laughter. He threw his head back laughing and opened his eyes to look at the darkened sky. His breathing evened out as his laughter finally died leaving him staring at the full moon above him, to burn it into his mind as his last living memory. With one last smile sliding over his lips he closed his eyes spread his arms and jumped…
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Hmmmm, is he dead? Did he survive? I'll never tell! … Well at least until my next chapter.
This is my first piece of FFVII fan fiction so please be kind and review!