Here have a couple of sort of sad headcanons about Cloud Strife!:
Cloud doesn't like to be percieved. doesn't matter whether its at a company function, the infantry shared Kitchen or seventh heaven. If you draw attention to him he will shut down.
If Cloud had to definitivly give an answer to the 'who's your best friend?' question, he would say him mom. Once he meets Zack he'd say his Mom... and Zack. He doesn’t really care when admitting that, nobody ever cared to be his friend so why should he be ashamed of the people who did. When he finally gets to have a relationship with Tifa it’s difficult to reconcile the fact that she kind of represents both the people he loved and lost, but also she is her own completely different and special person whom he adores.
Cloud was mute as a kid. He was never officially 'diagnosed' with selective mutism, because his mother couldn't affort do take him to a doctor, but that didn't change the fact that for a very long time Cloud lived in such a high state of anxiety that he just didn't dare speak. And when he did it was barely above a whisper and only ever to Claudia.
He had days during his time at shinra where he convinced himself that Zack was getting bored of him and he activly avoided his company until he eventually Zack pushed Cloud to tell them whats wrong.
He doesn't cry. More specifically, he feels as though he can't cry or shouldn't. His friends have only seen him cry maybe once, and at the time he was high as fuck on pain meds. it distressed everyone involved.
If Cloud is dissapointed or Sad he shuts down completely and won't let people touch him.
He doesn't often get Mad mad, but when he does he could level a small town with one look. The only person that has ever seriously been on the wrong side of that stare is Vincent and he never wants to see it again. Its not an 'I'll kill you later' look its a 'I am so viserally angry at you that I cannot actually vocalise how I feel, so instead I am going to look at you like if i stare hard enough you will realise that I am a single step away from hating you. choose your next words carefully' look.
His nail beds are ruined.
There was a period just between the events of FFVII and AC where Clouds Brain -still in the throws of sorting out its mako muddled identity- regressed after nightmares. Nights when Tifa and Barret have had to coax him out of corners. Nights when Marlene has offered her stuffed bunny and climbed into his lap; shocking everyone when Cloud took the bunny and didn’t cry, but he started shaking really badly.
After AC the gang look into getting Cloud a therapy dog. They look for a calm breed but in the end Cloud picks the wiggliest most excitable ball of energy that he can and lets it smother him with love. The dog is just called ‘puppy’ and Cloud refuses to elaborate on why.
Ah look, sadness and sorrow. Why do I torture him so? I will never know
