damned_institute | Nightshift 22, Room M20

Cid had snacked so much during the day that he hadn't found much of a need to do anything but poke at his dinner. (The severe misunderstanding involving Shera hadn't helped.) Besides, he hadn't been in a mood to make an enemy out of his roommate, which is the outcome of any interaction that he'd put his money on.

So, the intercom had announced its ominous bullshit, the doors had unlocked, and the pilot had let his roommate go on ahead of him before he got up, shoved his hands in his pockets, and made his way over to his friend's room for a whole night of nothing.

Such a thing had never sounded so appealing.

He didn't bother to knock on the door as he reached M20, instead favoring to slam the door open and slam it shut again.

"Roommate's gone?" He immediately commented, arching an eyebrow at the empty bed. After a moment of contemplation, he flopped down on it, crossing his arms behind his head. "If the guy has any cigarettes, you'd better swipe 'em for me."

Vincent looked at him with an almost-glare, nerves on edge from the sudden noise of the door flying open, but glad at least to have some company.

"I doubt it," he said after a minute, taking another bite of the filet before cracking a smirk. "This guy sparkles."

"You fucking serious?" Cid scoffed, an eyebrow arched as he glanced towards Vincent. "You can't be fucking serious."

"Deadly," he enunciated slowly. The whole thing was hilarious and ridiculous at the same time. "He has a flute, too, but he's not playing it anywhere near me."

"How'd he smuggle that one in?" Cid grumbled, rolling over and facing the wall. He hadn't thought much about cigarettes given that this place seemed to have somehow expunged his nicotine addiction from his body, but being around so many familiar faces today had made him feel increasingly nostalgic over the good ol' days, when fighting evil was as simple as some guy with silver hair.

"...So," he finally got down to business, though his eyes were still staring at something far off, "where do we stand now?"

Vincent slumped against the wall himself, face sober as he set the tray back on the desk and pulled a knee to his chest.

"Sore," he shrugged, "clueless."

"Sounds about right," Cid sighed in return, scratching at his head. He picked himself up from his laying position, instead opting to sit on the edge of the bed. "So let's use tonight to fix that. C'mon, let's come up with some fucking plan of action."

"I don't know what we'd do. Tifa's supposed to go for the exit tonight, but I don't need to tell you why that might not work."

Vincnet scowled. "Outside isn't exactly safe, anyway."

"Yeah, yeah, so it ain't safe," Cid growled, looking away, "but neither ain't sitting on our asses waitin' to get brainwashed, or so Mr. Prickface wants us to believe."

He looked to his friend, eyes narrowed.

"We need to figure out how the fuck we got here."

"And how do you suppose we do that?" They were both stuck in here for the night unless they wanted to become even worse off, and they hadn't really learned a whole lot of new information since they'd last talked, had they?

He sighed. "All I remember is going to sleep on the Highwind."

"And when was that?" Cid asked, shifting his weight on the bed as he began inspecting the bandages on his forearm.

Vincent gave him a look. "...Seven days ago?" That wasn't what Cid meant, he knew, but when in conjunction to what? He knew he came from roughly two weeks before Sephiroth's apparent defeat.

"You fucking idiot," Cid grumbled, rolling his eyes slightly as he raised his head to glare at Vincent. "You know what I mean. In the timeline from our world."

He looked down again, pulling up his shirt to run his hand over his lingering chest wounds, wincing slightly.

"You know when I got taken from already."

He remembered the nightmares that fucking thing had put him in and shuddered, subtly, though he tried to mask it with a shake of his head and yanking his shirt back down.

He smiled dryly, thinking for a moment. "A few days after I--" he hesitated, "we killed Hojo, I guess."

Vincent noticed Cid's wince, peering over at him. "Those are still bad," he said.

"Gee, y'think?" Cid growled in response to Vincent's comment, perhaps emanating more hostility than the other man deserved due to the recent developments (or lack thereof) in their current situation.

He paused, then sighed, contemplating to the more important set of his friend's statements.

"Not too long before we kicked that mutant's ass," he noted, taking the opportunity to kick his slippers off his feet and onto the floor. "Ain't so bad a difference--and I mean Sephiroth, not Hojo. Like father like fuckin' son. Heh."

Hm.

"Besides... fighting Sephiroth," he said rather obviously, "did anything significant happen in between? And how did the fight go?" Cid and Yuffie were the closest people to his own timeline, and he trusted Cid more than anyone else here. Whatever differences there were in the times, he wanted to know.

Cid looked off at the wall. He scrunched his mouth to the side, then shrugged.

"No epic battles or nothing like that. Cloud just gave us a day to think on what the hell we wanted to do, if we really wanted to go through with it..."

He looked back to Vincent and smirked.

"Said sorry to Shera and figured... what the hell."

At least there didn't seem to be too many differences, unless...

"Assumedly you didn't propose," he said hesitantly but dryly. He'd always figured his friend could forgive but not forget, and given Cid's own reaction, he'd apparently figured right.

"What?" Cid stared before his eyes narrowed. "Don't you start on that shit too."

He looked away and ran a hand through his hair.

"Nah, 'course not. Just said I was sorry, and figured if I let the world go kablooey, she'd go kablooey too. And she didn't let that happen to me, so..."

He trailed off, then smirked again.

"'Sides, the hell was that punk-ass kid doin'? Thinking I'd let them pilot my baby to hell without me steering it."

Vincent didn't really have an answer for that. The prospect of the world abruptly ending hadn't yet begun to sink in when he'd been brought here.

For a moment he wondered vaguely where he had gone, then knew the answer and decided not to think about it anymore.

"...It's a shame it apparently gets destroyed," he said after a moment. The thing and its design were admirable.

"Damn right it's a shame," Cid growled, standing up and beginning to pace around the room in his socks. "How the hell am I gonna make a new one, anyway? Before, I had Shin-Ra's dirty money, but without it..."

He crossed his arms as he looked towards the opposite wall, then threw up his arms and sighed.

"Not that it fuckin' matters. In order for Tifa's future to happen, we can't be here. Or at least we can't remember ever bein' here."

"Maybe it's divergent," he offered, swinging the other leg up on his bed and scooting back into the corners of the walls. The bloodflow to his injured leg was starting to throb.

"Maybe because of this place, things change in our own futures." It wasn't the worst possibility he could come up with.

That was a lot of maybes, though.

"Yeah, well, we get to worry about that once we've gotten out." Cid leaned against the wall. His continuing string of movement throughout the conversation was reflective of his antsyness, his anxiousness to get something done and the frustration at knowing he couldn't. Even if he had all the materia in the world, it wouldn't make a difference. They weren't on Gaia, and that sure as hell wasn't his sky.

They were far, far away from home, and the stretch of distance wasn't the kind that could be crossed by air or sea.

He took a deep breath, let the back of his head hit the wall. He closed his eyes.

"Everyone's focused on getting out in a literal sense. Out the front door, I mean. But... sense says that whatever brought us into this fucked up dimension is here."

The pacing was starting to get irritating. At least he stopped for the moment.

And again, Cid's theory made more sense than anything else he'd heard yet.

"I was outside last night," he said, gesturing with the still heavily-bandaged hand. "I think the building is three or four floors." Vincent sneered. "But it's hard to tell when wolves are ripping out your throat."

"Wolves?" Cid echoed, arching a brow with interest. "So that's why you've been askin' me to fight your battles on the bulletin board all fuckin' day."

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