Archive of Our Own ^beta

Cloud is on his way to Niebelheim to visit his mother. He’s a SOLDIER, Third class and rising fast, probably at least partially because of Zack and his close relationship with the other Firsts. Nepotism at its finest.

This short trip has been filed as personal time off, and he’d left early in the morning with barely a warning to anyone besides HR. As much as he loved his job, by Gaia he needed a break from the cadets who thought he was an easy target to schmooze their way in.

He’d really been enjoying the three days of silence so far, so the barely-heard ring of his phone made him frown. He’d swear he put it on Do Not Disturb.

He answers it through his helmet. 

“Cloud. How long until you stop.” It’s Sephiroth. There’s a note of stubbornness present in his voice, and Cloud already feels depressed. This was supposed to be his vacation, dammit.

“Like, an hour, why. I’m not helping you wrangle anyone.” 

“No, I want Chocoby’s.”

There’s a long stretch of silence, while Cloud ponders whether he cares to ask why. He doesn’t.

“… No.”

“Yes. I know you’re near one.”

“Sephiroth. 1) stop tracking me, that’s weird, and 2) There are literally 5 Chocoby’s in Midgar. You have one 3 minutes from your house.”

“They don’t sell the same things. I’m not impressed with the quality.”

“Why would I get you Chocoby’s?” He’s not asking why he wants food from this particular one. He absolutely does not care about Sephiroth’s food hangups. 

“Because I can remove this from the mission roster and set you as MIA in the system.”

“I’m getting paid for this? Since when? I definitely applied for time off before I left. And I specifically didn’t tell y’all where I was going because I knew you would be like this. What the fuck is this mission even classified as?”

“Resource Provision.”

“For Chocoby’s??” He’s sure his disbelief is clear in his voice. He’s just as sure Sephiroth just does not care.

“Yes.” Gaia save him from this idiot.

“Have you even been out here before?”

“Cloud. I am literally from Niebelheim.”

“Yeah, but it's not like you drive anywhere. And there’s no reason for you to have flown through that dinky town.”

“Cloud. Get me Chocoby’s.”

He adjusted his mental route a bit, still just arguing for the sake of it. 

“I’m not even going to be back for like 2 weeks. Is 2 week old Chocoby’s really higher quality than what you can pick up from home? If you really just want me to pick it out for you, I can call them remotely.” 

“No.” 

“Okay. What if i just stop on the way back,” he cajoled, trying to talk some kind of sense into the idiot. 

“No. Get me Chocoby’s.”

He shook his head, wanting to throw his hands into the air and possibly himself off his bike. 

“Fine. I will get you Chocoby’s. Can you at least tell me if – “

Sephiroth hangs up, to Cloud’s complete disbelief. 

He’ll text Zack once he stops, maybe Sephiroth was drunk on cold medicine. A lot of cold medicine.

He drives through Chocoby’s, the phone call feeling increasingly like a fever dream brought on by stress. He regrets all of this.

*

Finally, he reaches Jeorge’s house, and Cloud feels a weight drop off his shoulders. No ambushes. No emergencies. Just a paper bag in his hand and phone call that he is forcibly shoving out of his mind until he has to deal with it.

Jeorge only marginally knows about his work at Shinra, and it’s good to catch up with him once he makes his way inside. He brushes off the weird look at the Chocoby’s bag he sets on the counter with an off hand comment, and sits down to have dinner with him. The hearty food looks delicious.

Unfortunately, there’s a knock at the door.

He has a bad feeling about this, and he swallows thickly on his bite as his friend unlocks his front door and opens it.

Movement stops behind him, the only sound being the rain splattering outside. He turns around.

At the door stands a nearly 7 foot tall figure, Sephiroth staring blankly at Jeorge frozen in the doorway. 

“Hello.” In person, Sephiroth is always awkward, but to Jeorge he probably sounds like a serial killer. 

“Hello,” Jeorge squeaks, “I mean, Hello, General!” His voice sputters out, and he shifts awkwardly in place the longer Sephiroth doesn't say anything. He valiantly tries again,

“...Can I help you with something, Sir.” 

“...Cloud.” 

“What?” 

A loud bang interrupts them, Cloud having slammed his head on the table, wishing this wasn’t happening.

Sephiroth’s eyes dart over Jeorge’s shoulder, and he repeats, stronger,

“Cloud.” 

“What do you want, you absolute asshole? Why are you even here?” He doesn’t even lift his head from the table, voice muffled. He knows he sounds incredulous, should sound angry, mostly feels defeated, still,

“Jeorge just let him in. He won’t leave.”

Jeorge’s expression clearly expresses his ‘Why the fuck would I make him leave also ????? ’

Sephiroth strides in, Jeorge closing the door behind him, and stands menacingly over Cloud until he reaches over for the Chocoby’s bag and shoves it at Sephiroth’s chest. He turns around in his chair, going back to eating and pointedly ignoring the idiot sliding gracefully into one of Jeorge’s rickety chairs and digging into the greasy bag.

He hopes it's cold.

Jeorge, now sat down across from him, is caught between glancing fearfully at the First eating at his wobbly kitchen table, and directing at him the angriest look Cloud has ever seen on his face. This is not a high bar for Jeorge to reach, but it's impressive all the same. 

He wonders if he should tell him that Sephiroth is definitely not paying attention to them anymore. Oh sure, he notices the faces Jeorge is making, but he’s absolutely capable of ignoring everything but the food in front of him when he’s like this.

He raises an eyebrow and takes a pointed bite of his chili dog, smothering his snickers but not quite hiding the smirk he can feel on his face. He chews slowly and swallows. 

There's a long silence, where Jeorge is obviously deciding whether to risk speaking. 

Finally, 

“Sir - “ the glare Sephiroth gives him at the interruption is hilarious, might have been frightening if the dude didn’t just have a resting bitch face. Jeorge smothers the rest of his sentence, and Cloud huffs.

“Sephiroth,” both sets of eyes shoot to him, Jeorge’s caught between relief and fear.

“Is there a reason you are here?” Sephiroth’s eyes gain a somewhat incredulous tint, gaze moving down to his food, and back up again, like Cloud was an idiot. “I meant besides the food. You weren’t scheduled to be in this area when I left.”

His brow furrows when a thought occurs to him. “Wait, how did you get here? You aren’t authorized to fly a helicopter on your own.”

“Tseng is waiting in the helicopter outside.” 

“Are you serious? Does he even know why you stopped here?” The answer was probably yes, but Sephiroth sure as Hell hadn’t told him, single- (and simple-) minded as he usually was…

“We did not stop here on the way to a mission. This was my destination.” 

Cloud stares at him. He’s not even really surprised, he’s just…

“I’ve been driving for 3 days, Sephiroth, and you didn’t even offer to give me a lift?”

There’s the slightest bit of shift in his face, like the thought didn’t occur to him. It probably hadn’t. 

Cloud rolls his eyes and gives Jeorge a look, who misses it because he, too, is staring at Sephiroth like he’s an unfamiliar creature who suddenly doesn’t exactly seem hostile, but he can’t afford to approach it anyway. 

“Excuse me.” Cloud stands up and Jeorge looks suddenly panicked. He ignores him as he walks out the door.

When he returns back with a bemused-looking Tseng, the atmosphere is somewhat awkward, probably 80% a result of Sephiroth refusing to engage with anyone until he’s done eating. 

Tseng politely accepts a plate of offered food, and draws Jeorge into a somewhat disarming conversation, calming and distracting him from the silver-haired behemoth in the room.

It’s funny to him at this point.

“If you missed me you could have just said.” Sephiroth just looks at him, and doesn’t respond. “I’m sending Tseng back, and you’re coming with me to say hi to Ma. She’s been wanting to meet you.”

Something about his expression made him think this wasn't really the punishment he’d meant it as. Sephiroth’s mind would probably change once Ma had him weed whacking back the ever encroaching brush outside their little house. At least his cold resistance would be useful. 

“I am making you ride on the back of my bike, though.”

*

Extra: 

“How did you even know where I am? I didn’t exactly give you an address.”

“You mentioned a Jeorge, and I calculated how far along you would be within a 3 day journey, guessed your most-likely routes, and did a background search on the Jeorges within a 30 mile radius of any of the likely stops.”

“You’re insanely creepy, did you know that?” 

“What I am is efficient, and what you are is predictable.”