Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

and now we're grown-up orphans

that never knew their names

we don't belong to no one, that's a shame

you could hide beside me

maybe for a while

and I won't tell no one your name

and I won't tell 'em your name

scars are souvenirs you never lose

the past is never far

did you lose yourself somewhere out there?

did you get to be a star?

and don't it make you sad to know that life

is more than who we are?

After checking everything over one last time, Cloud flips the switch and Fenrir’s compartments snap shut. “Alright. Ready.” Then he turns to his foe, who has been watching him curiously. “You're not, though. Sit down.” 

Sephiroth obediently sinks down onto the metal box behind him that houses a spare pair of tires. The box is low enough that for once, Cloud is looming over him. Which would be nice, except that it means Sephiroth is free to stare up into Cloud’s face, eyes twinkling with amusement. 

Cloud tries to ignore him as best as he can and keep his own eyes on the task at hand. He fiddles with the straps and clasps keeping his foe’s massive pauldrons in place until they snap loose. Then, once those are lifted off, he starts in on the belts. 

Sephiroth had his legs elegantly crossed but now he opens them to make room.

It occurs to Cloud, as he's kneeling between his foe’s spread legs, that he could have simply asked him to undress. But…knowing Sephiroth, he would have somehow found a way to have Cloud assist him instead. 

His foe’s even breaths are ruffling Cloud’s bangs. The sweet scent of vanilla and roses is enveloping his tall frame. As Cloud struggles with the oversized belt buckle, his hands are very close to…to places he really shouldn't be thinking about right now. Not until later. An excited shiver goes down his spine and he squirms a little in place. 

Finally, the last belt is undone. Cloud tugs off Sephiroth’s wrist bracers and gloves, and then pushes the long coat from his shoulders, undoing the chest harness on the way. “There. Now put this on,” he commands, and holds out the new clothes expectantly. 

Sephiroth looks up at him and then—

Holds up his arms like a little kid.

“Seriously?!” Cloud splutters. “I know you know how to dress yourself.” 

But his foe only tilts his head at him and keeps smiling in that serene, deeply amused way, like he already knows he's won.

“Ugh, fine,” Cloud agrees grudgingly. They'll be here all night otherwise, and he really wants to get going. “But just this once.” 

The dark blue henley goes on first. While Cloud is still busy freeing Sephiroth’s hair from underneath the collar, the man himself is running his fingers over the fabric covering his arms as if he's never worn anything but his uniform in his entire life. 

Bizarre. 

Then again, expecting him to have a normal reaction to something is probably too much to ask. 

“Stop touching that. It's just cotton.” Which is much softer than the uniform, but still. “Hold out your arms.” 

The black leather jacket goes on next, though Cloud leaves the zipper and buckles in the front undone. For reasons. Then he fights to free Sephiroth’s long hair all over again, though this time he combs it to one side so that it falls over Sephiroth’s shoulder and down his front rather than his back. The pieces that frame his foe’s face aren't as long, so he leaves those alone, but the rest he secures with a hair tie. That should keep the bulk of it from getting in the way and flying around crazily. 

Even though he’s had to guess with the measurements, everything fits really well. The black leather covers his foe’s pale wrists and stretches taut over broad biceps. The top snaps on the henley are undone and Cloud has to tamp down on the urge to fiddle with them. The leather jacket ends at the waist, so with no long coat in the way, there's nothing disguising the elegant sprawl of Sephiroth's long legs…

Cloud swallows heavily and abruptly turns away from where his foe is still inspecting the clothes like they're some kind of fascinating novelty. “C’mon. We don't have all night.” He pushes the button that opens the garage door and then grabs his gloves and goggles. 

As Cloud mounts Fenrir, his foe walks up to the bike and observes it critically. “It would be more efficient if you just told me where you wish to go.” 

Cloud rolls his eyes. “No can do. Half the fun of a road trip is the road part. Why do you think I made you ditch the armor? It's too bulky to wear on a bike. It'll probably take us all night and half of tomorrow to get there, and I'm not having you poke me in the back the entire time.” 

Sephiroth lifts one elegant eyebrow as he realizes what Cloud wants him to do. “The additional weight will slow you down considerably.”  

Cloud shrugs. “Fenrir can take it. Just hop on already, or I'm gonna start thinking you've never been on a bike in your life.”

The remnants had used bikes, and were quite skilled at driving them too. But Cloud has decided that doesn't count, and apparently Sephiroth is of the same opinion. 

“I haven't,” his foe says, matter-of-factly, but he does finally move to sit behind him. His arms come up to hug Cloud around the chest, and he leans the side of his face against the back of Cloud’s head. “Hm.” The smile is audible in his voice. “I am starting to see the appeal.” 

They're pressed together…very closely. Back against chest, thigh against thigh. Not to mention—

Stubbornly ignoring his blush, Cloud adjusts his goggles and turns the engine over. 

“Hold tight. I drive fast.” 

The last light of day is bathing the wastelands outside Edge in burnt orange and bloody red. The shadows are lengthening, deep and black. 

It's not exactly safe to drive through the wastelands at night, but Cloud is planning to make the bulk of the trek while it's dark. Less chance of anyone seeing and recognizing a certain someone. 

There's always a kind of relief in leaving Edge behind and seeing nothing but the open road in front of him. Despite the extra weight, it doesn't feel like they're going that slowly, as the bike is constantly weighed down by deliveries during his day-to-day driving. 

With the sinking of the sun, the temperature drops, but his leather jacket and fatigues keep him well enough protected. At his back, he can feel the slow thump of his foe’s heart; his even breathing. 

It's strange, being pressed so closely together without being able to see him at all. Whenever their skin touches directly, there's the prickle of reunion, like a flame that doesn't burn but beckon.

It belatedly occurs to Cloud that he was so focused on leaving on time that they haven't even kissed yet, even though they haven't seen each other in four months. 

Not that they're the kind of people who kiss when they reunite. Okay, they do, but like, it's usually a kiss of steel when their blades meet. The other kind of kisses are reserved for after, once Sephiroth has goaded Cloud into biting his way into his mouth just to shut him up. 

This time, though, they haven’t indulged in either of those, and it feels a little…weird. Like there's an itch that hasn’t been scratched.

Later, then. 

And preferably on some kind of horizontal surface. 

It's getting increasingly dark, so Cloud flips the headlight on. When the first stars begin to appear, he can feel his foe shift behind him. A glance back reveals that Sephiroth has tilted his head to look upwards, the strands of his hair that normally frame his face flying around him wildly. His eyes shine with even more iridescence than usual in the surrounding darkness. 

Seriously, does he not get tired of gazing at the stars? 

To be fair, it's not like there's that much else to look at. Even in daylight, the wastelands don't offer much. That's never bothered Cloud, though—it's enough for him to feel the wind in his hair and the vibrations of the bike beneath him. 

It's also an especially clear night, and the river of stars stretching above them is bright and sparkling. The next settlement is still quite a distance away, so there's nothing to disrupt the view of the night sky—no artificial light besides Fenrir’s to distract from the lights above.

Finally, Sephiroth seems to have had his fill of the stars—for now—and leans against Cloud again with a sigh. His hands rest underneath Cloud’s jacket, fingers spread over his ribs above the tank top. His nose nudges the back of Cloud’s neck as he breathes in deeply and then all but nuzzles his face into Cloud’s hair. 

On the handlebars, Cloud’s fingers briefly clench as he feels his cheeks start to blush.

Did Sephiroth…

…miss him?

It must be cold in space. And lonely. 

All the more reason to not fuck off for months on end, really. At least this time, the wait was not as long. 

As they drive through the night, the scenery slowly starts to change as they get closer to the Grasslands. Despite the novelty of having someone else with him, Cloud's mind has slipped into that serene state that only comes with driving long distances. 

Which is of course when he gets interrupted.

The first trees and grasses are lining the road when Cloud becomes aware of a sound besides the roar of Fenrir’s engine. A second later, he catches fast moving shadows in the far periphery of his vision. Nine of them, running in formation alongside the bike, caging it in. 

“Fuck.” 

Thunderclaws. 

At his back, Sephiroth gives a huff of amusement. “They've been following us for some time now.” 

Cloud grits his teeth in annoyance. “Thanks so much for the early warning.” 

He could ignore them, but they're unlikely to do the same. Thunderclaws are endurance predators and don't give up easily once they've honed in on their prey. The sound of the engine probably drew them in. They usually stay much closer to the wastelands, but if prey is scarce there, then it makes sense they'd look for it elsewhere. 

And of-fucking-course, elsewhere turns out to be right-the-fuck-here.

It's still dark, but the headlight beam reaches far enough that Cloud can make out a bend in the road up ahead. There's a rock formation on the right hand side, surrounded by a bunch of pine trees. Perfect.

“Brace yourself. We're gonna make an unscheduled stop.” 

Sephiroth must instantly realize what Cloud intends to do, because he leans with him and doesn't flinch when the brakes are hit and the bike comes to a forceful stop, making gravel fly everywhere. 

With the trees and the rocks directly to the right of the bike, the Thunderclaws are forced to break formation and gather on the left side. Seeing their prey suddenly immobile, they attack immediately. 

But not fast enough. 

With a click, the weapon compartments on Fenrir snap open. Cloud snatches two of his blades, uses the bike as a jumping off point, and hits the first Thunderclaw while he's still in the air. 

Though they're bigger and more dangerous, they're not entirely unlike the Nibel wolves he'd grown up to both fear and admire.

He doesn't really want to kill the Thunderclaws, but he does want to discourage them from getting any closer to the next settlement. And from hanging around near the road. 

Time to relearn that humans are dangerous. 

He keeps his thrusts hard and fast, not giving the Thunderclaws a moment's respite to regroup. With the rocks and the trees at his back, they can't get around him easily, and he makes sure that none get the chance to try. When two try to attack him from the sides, he twists around, both blades flashing. Their blood splatters onto the gravel and they yowl. 

Soon enough, they're all injured and must calculate that the risks are outweighing the potential gains. The leader howls and turns tail, and the others follow. 

Panting lightly, Cloud flicks the blood off his blades and turns around to scowl at his passenger. “Thanks so much for the assist,” he comments caustically, as he rips off his goggles to wipe at his face. 

Sephiroth just smiles at him with his eyes, which are glowing in the surrounding darkness. Besides putting his feet on the ground to keep the bike in place, he hasn't moved at all—still sitting in the backseat, completely at ease. His hair is a little windblown and a few pieces have escaped the hair tie. His legs really are…very long…and the way they look spread apart as he straddles the bike is…is really…

Cloud swallows heavily and scowls some more as he stomps back to Fenrir. He uses the headlight to inspect his blades, gives them a perfunctory wipe-down, and slots them back into their compartments. And then he spends a few extra moments dusting himself off, even though he didn't really get dirty. 

The entire time, he studiously keeps his eyes averted from Sephiroth, because. Well. He just needs to calm down a bit, alright? Otherwise, sitting on the bike will be…uncomfortable. 

“Next time you notice something tailing us, just fucking tell me,” he grouses when he finally deems it safe enough to get back on Fenrir. “I ain't—hey!”

The moment he throws his leg over the seat, he's suddenly grabbed by the waist and flipped around so his back is leaning against the front of the bike, legs spread over Sephiroth’s thighs, feet up in the air. “What are y—aah!” 

He's held in place with a hand on his waist while long, wicked fingers massage him through his fatigues, quickly undoing all the work he just did in calming himself down. Cloud latches onto Sephiroth’s wrist but completely fails to drag it away from his crotch, and ends up just kind of clinging to it. 

Of course, Sephiroth can't be moved if he doesn't want to be, but Cloud maybe also didn't try very hard. Because his dick, after not getting any action for months besides what Cloud could provide with his own hand, is very on board with what's happening. So on board that Cloud hisses with discomfort at the speed of his own body's reaction, weakly tugging at his foe’s wrist. “Ah, you—slow down, I need—uhn, fuck—”

Shining eyes, their snake-like pupils slightly dilated, stare down at him. Pin him in place just like those merciless hands are doing. Through the branches of the pine trees, the bright stars above seem to spin as Cloud pants and writhes and tries to push his dick more firmly against his foe’s palm. 

It jerks against the fingers squeezing and massaging it, on the verge of leaking. Cloud desperately pulls at the wrist in his grasp; “Fuck, I'm gonna—you gotta—” 

The zipper is tugged down then, and so is his underwear. But just as he sighs in relief, his foe suddenly leans down and licks the tip where the first drops of liquid are starting to pearl. 

Cloud’s thighs immediately jerk up and his hips lift as he cries out. But the torment doesn't stop there, as his waist is held in place while that tongue continues to give him the tiniest, kitten-like licks, coaxing more fluid forth while never giving him what he'd really need to get off. 

His trembling thighs and knees are pressed against Sephiroth’s ribs. His heart that beat so evenly when he fought the Thunderclaws is jackhammering in his chest. His lungs are greedily sucking in the scent of roses and vanilla and arousal. His shaking fingers are buried in silver hair, desperately holding on. 

Suddenly, the tortuous licking stops only for teeth to scrape against the base of his dick in a mock bite. And then the tip is finally engulfed fully within a warm, wet mouth that tongues at the slit insistently. 

“Ah, fuck I'm—fuck, uhn, fuck!” 

He comes so fast and so hard that he can do nothing but shake and curse his way through it, and then whine pathetically as his dick slips free…but that tongue still insists on licking him clean. “Too much, too much—” 

Cloud squirms in place and tugs desperately at Sephiroth’s hair, which of course means his foe keeps on tormenting him for another few moments before he finally leans back. 

Sephiroth’s slit pupils are blown into wide ellipses, and there's a faint flush on his pale cheeks. He licks his lips and looks down at Cloud with something deeply self-satisfied in his expression. 

“What the fuck,” Cloud complains, still panting, his own cheeks flushed with indignation at the embarrassing position he's in, spread over his own bike with his junk out. “Why…why did you…” 

Sephiroth ignores his blabbering. The next thing Cloud knows, he's been flipped back around and is sitting in the front seat with his back to his foe’s chest. And that damned tongue is licking at where sweat has started to bead on his neck, even straying into his hair here and there, as if grooming it back into place. 

“Hey, cut that out! What's gotten into you…” 

An amused huff of breath hits the back of his neck, washing over the patches wet with saliva and making him shiver. Cloud rolls his eyes and busies himself with stuffing his junk back into his pants and zipping up. The tongue is finally leaving him alone, so he leans back into Sephiroth’s hold with a sigh. His limbs still feel like jelly and his head is all fuzzy. 

So…this is what it's like having sex outside.

Does it count, though, if he's the only one that got off? Because judging by the rigid bulge he can feel at his back, that's what happened. 

Sephiroth seems completely unconcerned with his own arousal though, apparently perfectly content to hold Cloud against him like a plush toy and breathe in his scent with his nose buried in fluffy strands. 

Weirdo. 

Just you wait, Cloud thinks vindictively. The moment we're at the cabin, I'm gonna hold you down and make you beg for it. Then we'll see who's boss. 

Of course, in order to do that they have to make it to the cabin first. Cloud’s limbs mostly feel like they're back in working order, so he bullies his way out of his foe’s embrace and puts his feet back in place.

His goggles on, he turns the engine over. “Alright. Let's motor.” 

Dawn light has just started to appear above the horizon when they reach the first settlement. Cloud, having driven this way many times before, knows just where he needs to go to top up his gas tank even this early in the day. 

A ramshackle little building comes into view, with a gas pump and a battered vending machine in the front. The flickering fluorescent lights above them are being swarmed by moths, their fragile wings constantly in danger of being burned. 

Cloud parks and even though it's still dark enough that his passenger shouldn't be easily recognizable, his shoulders stay tense while he's busy at the pump. 

It's only the one, and it's more makeshift than anything, but it works. Out here, most of the gas is used for farming equipment, as no one uses mako anymore.

The way gas smells is completely different from mako but not any more pleasant. The opposite, really. Maybe Cloud’s more sensitive to it because of his enhancements, though.

He gives Sephiroth a warning look before he goes inside to pay. All it earns him is a slow, amused blink.

Marty, the wiry, elderly shop owner who never seems to sleep, doesn't appear to notice Cloud’s tension. The entire time he rings Cloud up, he's busy pushing his oversized spectacles up his nose and complaining about…something. Cloud fiddles with the gil in his hands while he tries to nod and hum at the right times and otherwise keep his mouth shut. 

That's probably for the best anyway. He has a feeling Marty doesn't like him, even though he's a repeat customer at this point. The man is always scrutinizing Cloud from behind his thick glasses, and doesn't seem to get that Cloud just does not like eye contact a lot of the time. 

Back outside, Sephiroth once more has his head tilted back to watch the last stars before they disappear. Other than that, he hasn't moved at all, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings. Cloud shakes his head at him in exasperation but gets back on the bike without commenting. 

The first foothills are lining the road to their right, and they're almost at their destination when the sky turns dark and a foreboding rumble can be heard. Cursing under his breath, Cloud manages to steer Fenrir under some tall pines on the left side of the road, just in time for the first drops of rain to fall. 

Judging by how dark it's gotten, they're in for a fucking downpour. 

He takes off his goggles and then cranes his neck around to glare up at his foe suspiciously. “Are you doing this?” 

Sephiroth blinks down at him, visibly amused. “No.” 

Cloud turns back around and glares at the sky instead. “Great. So we're going to get absolutely fucking…soaked…” 

He's not even done speaking when his view of the pine branches and sky is suddenly blocked by a large, black wing. And just in time, too, as rain is starting to pour down so heavily that it's almost as loud as the growling thunder. 

A few stray drops hit his legs, but the majority of the rain is held off by the wing. With a sigh, Cloud lets himself lean back against Sephiroth’s chest and relax into the circle of his arms. His foe rests his chin on top of Cloud’s head, completely at ease despite the water pouring over his feathers and dripping off their edges. 

Lightning zick-zacks across the dark, bulging clouds, followed by thunder. Puddles are rapidly forming on the road and the air smells like wet earth and pine needles. 

Suddenly, there are chirping noises from the trees on the left, and then two small birds fly over and settle on Fenrir’s front to shelter from the downpour. 

One is a reddish pink mixed with dark gray, while the other is mostly gray with some yellow on the head and rump. Cloud stares at them in surprise as they fluff up and shake the water from their feathers, all the while chirping to each other and completely ignoring him. 

At some point, they start to affectionately groom each other with their beaks. 

Oh, Cloud thinks. They're a mated pair. 

They must look different because one has male and one has female plumage. Some sort of finch, maybe. 

The birds stay with them for the entire duration of the thunderstorm, apparently not caring that the wing they're sheltering under is decidedly not that of a fellow bird. Finally, the rain stops almost as suddenly as it started and the birds fly off, disappearing into a sky that is once more clear and blue. 

Sephiroth withdraws his wing in a whirl of black, disintegrating feathers. A splatter of water hits the road in their wake.

It takes Cloud another moment to find his bearings and even remember to put his goggles back on. There was something…strangely meditative about waiting out a downpour like this together. Despite the loud noises of rain and thunder, it was a special kind of quiet. Just feeling his foe’s heartbeat at his back and his breathing ruffling his hair. Just feeling…held. 

He has to fight a little to get himself to move. There's a sensation of wrongness as he turns the engine over and interrupts the quiet with the bike's noises. At least he literally cannot go very fast right now, as the road is muddy and full of puddles and he has no desire to get splashed. 

They finally reach their destination about a half hour later—a small village nestled at the foot of the mountain range that separates the Grasslands from Junon. And there, just past the village, is a large forest that reaches all the way to the top of the mountains. 

Cloud stops the bike near one of the paths that leads into the woods, still a little ways away from the first houses. He shoos his foe off the bike and then commands, “Wait here.” 

When that earns him a raised eyebrow, he adds, “I'll be right back. Just…wait.” 

The second house on the left is one third living quarters and two thirds mechanic's shop. Clanking noises and cheerful whistling can be heard from inside. 

When he walks in and hits the bell on the wooden counter, the whistling is replaced by muffled curses, and then Fio rounds the corner. 

“Cloud, there you are!” Fio beams at him while wiping her engine grease covered hands on a stained rag. “You make it here okay?” 

Fio is about half a head taller than him, with muscular arms, broad shoulders and hips, and a big chest. Her long, wavy red hair is held back with a bandana, and her nose and cheeks are sprinkled with cheerful freckles. Her shop is the only one of its kind around for miles, and Cloud has delivered her much needed spare parts several times when the supply chain got interrupted. Which, out here, happens frequently. Times are better now, but for a while the roads were quite dangerous. Speaking of—

“Ran into a pack of Thunderclaws. They been getting close to the village?” 

Fio hums thoughtfully and throws the rag off to the side. “Not that I've heard of. We've had a couple of the usual pests, but nothing we couldn't handle.” 

The shop looks just like the last time Cloud was here. Built into what was once a garage, it's cluttered and a little dirty and weirdly homey. Judging by what Cloud can glimpse of the back, Fio was repairing some kind of farming equipment when he came in. 

“You sure it's okay for me to park my bike here for a week?” he asks, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “It's gonna take up a lot of space.” 

Fio laughs, but he knows by now that she's just naturally cheerful and isn't making fun of him. “Place is bigger than it looks! C’mon, bring ‘er in!” 

Since Cloud had called ahead about his vacation plans a couple weeks ago, Fio already has a space cleared. “Damn, what a beauty,” she says, as Cloud gets Fenrir set up in its spot. Then her tone shifts to something more concerned. “By the way, are you sure about this? That cabin is pretty remote…and won't you get lonely all by yourself up there for a week?” 

Cloud quickly busies himself with emptying Fenrir’s compartments of everything he'll need so she can't see his face. “Ah…no, it's fine. I like my alone time.” 

He shrugs out of his leather jacket—the rain has cooled the air a little, but soon it'll be too warm to keep wearing it—and stuffs it into the black shoulder bag that holds the rest of his spare clothes and other necessities. Then he straps his harness to his back, over his tank top, and shoves his blades in. 

“Well, if you're sure…” Fio still sounds reluctant about the whole thing, which Cloud doesn't quite get. She's seen him fight. Shouldn't that be enough to know he can hold his own? “Oh, that reminds me! Hold on…”

She disappears briefly into the back and then returns with a bundle wrapped in clean, checkered cloth. When she unwraps it enough to show him the inside, it's—granola bars? They look to be made of oats and nuts and dried fruits, held together with honey. 

“Homemade by yours truly!” She announces proudly. “I promise they're not as hard and dusty as the ones you get at the store. It's my mama's old recipe—eat one and you're good to go for hours!” 

A little overwhelmed at the unexpected offer, Cloud fidgets with the strap of his shoulder bag. “Uh. How much?” 

Fio laughs and slaps him on the shoulder in a friendly way that nonetheless almost barrels him over. Not for the first time, he thinks that she would get along great with Cid…at least by now he mostly knows what it means when people just randomly hit each other. 

“I don't want your gil, Cloud!” Fio says cheerfully. “It's on the house. If you want to, think of it as a thank you for all the times you've helped me out.” 

As Cloud packs the bundle into his bag, he wonders why exactly it is that people keep trying to feed him. 

When he leaves the shop and goes back the way he came, the sun is shining, and the birds are singing, and Sephiroth is not where he left him. 

Cursing under his breath, Cloud concentrates on the tug of reunion in his chest and then follows it into the woods. 

He doesn't have to go very far. His foe is standing beneath a small tree and—

Holding a baby bird? 

“It fell out of its nest,” Sephiroth says as Cloud walks up to him. Then, he reaches up and gently deposits the baby back inside. And then he stands there and stares at the chirping—and very ugly, as it's still featherless—baby. “Will the parents reject it now?”

Completely taken aback at his foe asking such a childlike question, it takes Cloud a moment to answer. “What? Oh, you mean that thing about birds abandoning their young when they smell like humans—that's a myth. We should get going, though. The parents are probably watching from somewhere and freaking out.” 

That gets his foe to move, but…not for very long. As it turns out, hiking with Sephiroth is like taking a very quiet but very curious toddler on their first trip outside. 

He constantly stops to look at things that are utterly unremarkable to Cloud. Leaves that still have raindrops on them. Bees buzzing around flowering plants. Dappled sunlight on a large fern growing in the underbrush. Sap dripping down the bark on a pine tree. 

Or at least that's what Cloud thinks Sephiroth is looking at. It's a little hard to tell at times. 

He tries to be patient because, well, this is kind of what they're here for, right? Trees and flowers and…stuff. He just didn't expect this level of fascination with shrubbery. 

Though considering Sephiroth’s reaction to the pinecone all those months ago, maybe he should have known better. 

Cloud sighs as Sephiroth stops again, this time to stare at a magpie that is making a ruckus up in the branches. 

Seriously, what is it with him and birds?

Sephiroth’s eyes are the only part of him that moves, his slit pupils dilating slightly as they focus on where the bird is hopping around. Despite how often Cloud has been up close to his foe’s eyes when they do that, it's still a little eerie to observe. No matter how much they dilate, they never get fully round, like a normal person’s—it’s always this odd, elliptical shape. 

“C'mon,” he says finally, tugging on Sephiroth's jacket. “It's probably being so loud because we're annoying it.” 

The climb becomes steadily steeper, and that, combined with the sun rising higher in the sky, has Cloud starting to sweat slightly. Sephiroth, meanwhile, seems completely unaffected by the rise in temperature, still wearing the black leather jacket over the henley. 

The open buckles at the front make little clinking noises as he walks, not unlike the noises of his armor and belts, which Cloud has become so accustomed to. Somehow, even though Sephiroth’s chest is covered, this outfit feels a lot more revealing. Maybe it's just because his legs are much more on display now…

The silver strands of Sephiroth's long hair move in the breeze, and seem to glow in the sunlight in a way that's both similar and completely different to how they look bathed in moonlight. No matter the lighting, though, he always looks too beautiful to be real. 

Or maybe it's just that Cloud has never seen him surrounded by so much green. It's always dusk or night when his foe appears, with Cloud sleeping during the day to…recover. Before this, he couldn't even recall the last time he'd seen the man illuminated in any other light but that of the moon.

The dappled sunlight and green shadows suit Sephiroth as well, even though…even though they really shouldn't. 

With a bitter taste in his mouth, Cloud forces his eyes away.

It usually takes around two and a half hours to reach the cabin, but due to someone stopping all the time it's been more like three by the time they finally arrive.

Cloud’s water bottle is almost empty and he's really looking forward to a break. It was nice to stretch his legs after spending so many consecutive hours on the bike, but now all he wants is to lie down on the bed and not move for a while. 

When Cloud had first stumbled upon the cabin while exterminating some fiends for the villagers, it was seriously dilapidated, and looked like it had been abandoned for a while. So from then on, every time he was in the area, he worked on it with tools borrowed from Fio's shop, until it was habitable again. He’d been here just a couple months ago, to add the finishing touches and to stock the place with fresh bedding and some non-perishable foodstuffs. 

The ground level of the cabin is taken up by an open-plan kitchen and living room, while the upstairs houses the bathroom and bedroom. There's also a large balcony that overlooks a deep lake and its wooden pier. On the other three sides, the cabin is surrounded by pine trees and an overgrown orchard. 

It's going to be Cloud’s first time not being completely alone out here. 

At the moment though, he's too exhausted to be excited about that. Once he's unlocked the front door, he only just manages to take his shoes off and tell his foe to do the same. And then he's shuffling up the stairs, struggling to get his sword harness unstrapped. He lets it slide to the bedroom floor with a clatter, throws his shoulder bag on the mattress, and then flops down next to it with a groan. 

Except for an old dresser and a single chair, there's not much in the bedroom—just the door to the balcony at the very end, and then next to it, beneath two small windows, the bed itself. Thankfully it’s big enough for two people, though it'll probably still be too short for Sephiroth to stretch out all the way. Not that it matters, since he doesn't sleep. 

The bedding under Cloud’s back is pleasantly cool and soft. It's a dark blue with a kitschy flower pattern of pink and white roses, but he got it for cheap at a flea market so can't really complain. Especially right now, when all he cares about is being horizontal. 

Predictably, that's when his stomach starts to growl. 

Yeah okay, so maybe he hasn't eaten in a while. It's just that when he's on his bike and really in the zone, he doesn't notice when he gets hungry. And then…he was just really distracted.

He'll get up in a bit and throw something together. There's rice and noodles and canned veggies down in the kitchen. He'll get up and cook, just...just not right now. 

The mattress dips around him, and he cracks his eyes open. His foe is crouched above him and looking down at Cloud with narrowed eyes. 

“You've been neglecting yourself again.” 

Cloud rolls his eyes. 

“Stop being so dramatic. I'll—” He's about to say that he'll eat something in a bit, but then he defiantly turns his head away and decides to instead go with “I ain't hungry.” 

In the corners of his vision, he can see Sephiroth’s eyes narrow further in irritation. His heart starts to pick up speed as his foe rummages through the shoulder bag lying next to them, and retrieves the tightly wrapped bundle of granola bars. 

He gets a glimpse of Sephiroth chewing with his mouth closed, and then his foe leans down.

“No, don't—” Cloud’s jaw is held in place with one hand, while a tongue invades his mouth and pushes the chewed bite into it. He's forced to swallow, and then left to pant for breath and push helplessly at Sephiroth’s shoulders. His foe is caging him in, knees pressed into the mattress on either side of Cloud’s hips, upper body bent over him and pressing their mouths together insistently as he feeds him the next bite. 

Soon enough, there's saliva dripping down the sides of Cloud’s mouth, and he's panting in a way that only partly has to do with being forced to swallow while lying down. His mouth tastes sweet. His mind feels pleasantly hazy. Every time he's fed, reunion prickles over his skin as their tongues touch and their saliva intermingles. Noises that would surely prove to be humiliating keep trying to escape his throat, and his hips have started to move restlessly. 

They make it through one and a half of the bars, and then the next time Sephiroth leans down, it's to nudge Cloud’s jaw with his nose and inhale. 

“This is arousing you,” he states, and Cloud doesn't need to see his face to know he's smiling in that infuriatingly smug way. 

“N-no, it's not,” he protests, cheeks flushing with heat. His hands pull desperately at Sephiroth's leather-clad shoulders. Why has his foe stopped? Can't he see that Cloud is—that he still needs—

Sephiroth lifts his head to look down at him, visibly amused. “Oh?” he asks, velvet voice smooth and mocking. “So I should leave you like this?” His thumb strokes at one of the drips of saliva on Cloud’s cheek in an affectionate and horribly teasing manner. 

Cloud makes a noise that is definitely not a whine. 

A breathy, cruel laugh is his answer. This rouses Cloud’s spirits enough that he manages to turn his head and nip at the offending thumb with his teeth. “Don't you fucking dare,” he hisses, pulling demandingly at the nearest handfuls of silver hair.

The moment their mouths are touching again, Cloud bites the tongue pressing against his. He is the one calling the shots here, and his foe had better remember that. 

“I said—uhn, fuck, I s-said harder !” 

Sweat has started to bead at Cloud's hairline, and his dick is dripping down onto the towel he'd just barely remembered to put down. No need to immediately soil the fresh sheets, though they're definitely still getting messed up by the clenching of his fingers. His teeth are gritted in frustration. 

Ignoring his demands, his foe keeps languidly rocking them back and forth. He's propping himself up with one arm while the other is wrapped around Cloud’s chest, fingers splayed over his heart, keeping Cloud pressed tightly against him. Having long since escaped the tie, his hair is cascading down around them, silver strands whispering over the sheets with each slow thrust. His larger frame is enveloping Cloud completely, holding him in place and forcing him to bear the overwhelming feeling of being taken like this. 

Cloud curses again as the next thrust grazes that sweet spot inside him, making him leak and quiver while not giving him quite enough to finally come. He doesn't know what time it is, but they've definitely been at it for…a while. Too long, according to his dick. It's almost painfully hard and hasn't been touched at all. 

Meanwhile, Sephiroth’s stamina is as inexhaustible as always. The heart that Cloud feels beating against his back still has an even rhythm, and the breath that is ruffling his hair is only slightly faster than normal. Sephiroth is mostly quiet except for the occasional sigh, as if intensely focused. The place where they're connected is getting increasingly messy, some of it dripping down Cloud’s thighs. His foe fills him so completely that it feels like he’s on the verge of merging their bodies into one.

Cloud is panting and his arms are shaking, even though Sephiroth is holding up most of his weight. His eyes keep slipping shut, mind going fuzzy at the edges. Molten pleasure is coursing through him, down to his toes, consuming all of him in a way that feels near unbearable. 

Shifting inside the tight hold as best as he can, Cloud manages to get one hand off the mattress. Stroking and squeezing his neglected dick and sack is both an immediate relief and immediately makes him want more. He can't help his own stuttered moan. 

Teeth nip at the back of his neck in reprimand. "So impatient."

Cloud’s only response is to squeeze around the sex inside him, causing a satisfying hitch in Sephiroth’s breathing. 

And then, suddenly, the world tilts and he finds himself lying on his back on Sephiroth's chest, the cabin ceiling above them. Before Cloud can get his bearings, his foe hooks an arm underneath his right knee and hikes his leg up, while the other arm pins Cloud’s hands to his chest, so it’s impossible for him to keep touching himself or really move at all. Then, Sephiroth plants his feet on the mattress and rocks up into him, hard. 

“Ah fuck, uhn, fuck—!” 

His foe keeps a steady, inexorable pace, and then when he finds the right angle to hit Cloud’s sweet spot, he presses into it mercilessly. By this point Cloud doesn't even have breath left to curse, reduced to panting and to crying out wordlessly. Sephiroth’s heart is beating rapidly against his back while his foe’s stuttered breathing washes over the sweat on his temple. He's holding Cloud so tightly against himself, as if being literally inside him isn't enough, as if he's trying to do something that barely has anything to do with sex at all. 

Whatever it is, Cloud’s body finally can't take it anymore, and he comes all over himself with a hoarse shout. The clenching of his inner muscles pulls Sephiroth along mere seconds later, moaning into Cloud’s hair as his spend slickens the last couple of frantic thrusts. 

In the aftermath, Cloud is left gasping and shaking as residual waves of pleasure course through him, unable to move even once his leg and his arms are finally released. Sephiroth nuzzles his nose into Cloud’s sweaty hair, and strokes a hand down his heaving side. He's still inside, and only slowly softening. It's too much, really, but it also makes Cloud’s spent dick twitch weakly. 

Once his limbs are at least somewhat obeying him again, Cloud gropes around for the towel and wipes himself off with it. And then he throws an arm over his eyes and settles in for a brief nap. Just a couple of minutes and he'll be good to go again. 

Everything is nice and soft and floaty, and then the peace is disturbed by…something touching his face. A mouth. A mouth pressing light kisses to his right cheek. “Beloved,” a velvety voice says. It sounds like its owner is smiling. “It's time to wake up now.” 

Cloud scrunches his nose in displeasure and rubs his face into the softness he's lying on. “Ngkh.” He keeps his eyes shut and his hands stubbornly buried in whatever it is they're holding onto. 

“Cloud,” that annoying voice says. “You still need to eat an actual meal.” 

Barely grasping the meaning of the words, Cloud grumbles a “Later,” and then turns his head to the other side and goes right back to sleep.

Chapter Text

The sun is hitting the hardwood floors from the wrong angle. The sunbeams are the wrong color too. Golden, like it's early evening, and not…and not…

Cloud blinks the sleep from his eyes. 

He's lying on his belly with the covers tucked up to his shoulders. But his upper body is not lying directly on the sheets. Instead, his face is nestled into soft black feathers. The fingers of both of his hands are buried in the feathers as well, holding onto them like a toddler with a comfort blanket. 

“What the—” 

He pushes himself up and turns around, only to come face to face with a certain someone's annoyingly amused expression. 

Sephiroth is lying on his side, head propped up with one hand as he watches Cloud. 

“You talk in your sleep sometimes. Usually it's nonsense, but this time you were very adamant about wanting my wing to lie on.” 

Cloud’s cheeks do not flush at that. They just don't. 

“Whatever,” he grumbles. “I'm gonna shower.” 

The mattress shakes with his foe’s silent laughter, probably at whatever expression is on his face. Which only serves to make Cloud scowl harder. 

So what if he wanted to sleep on the wing? Feathers are nice for sleeping on; everyone knows that. Otherwise they wouldn't put them in comforters. And also it was probably just reunion messing with him while he was unconscious. 

Cloud rummages through his shoulder bag for some fresh underwear, then grabs his fatigues and stalks off to the bathroom on legs that are definitely not still somewhat unsteady. 

He doesn't even look in the mirror—he can feel the residue of all the dried fluids on his skin, on top of whatever other muck he's acquired by driving for an entire night and then hiking right after. 

Stubbornly ignoring his own blush, he cleans himself out in the shower, cursing his foe under his breath the whole time. Even though he himself was the one to…well…whatever.

The soap he'd left here when he stocked the cabin with non-perishables smells unexpectedly sweet when he opens the cap. All Cloud had paid attention to when he'd bought it was that it was advertised as being shampoo, body, and face wash in one. He blinks the water from his eyes and squints at the label…’Peaches & Cream’. Why would anyone want to smell like food? 

Still, he's in a marginally better mood when he emerges from the bathroom, toweling his hair dry and only wearing his fatigues. 

Sephiroth is barefoot just like him, but otherwise he's fully dressed again. And his wing is still out. Weird…

“Cloud,” he says sternly, “it's unhealthy to put off eating for this long.” 

Rolling his eyes, Cloud leaves the towel to dry over a chair in the corner. “Yeah, yeah. I'll cook something in a bit.” His stomach is more of the opinion that he should eat something right the fuck now, but Sephiroth doesn't need to know that. It'll only make him more annoying. 

Unfortunately, Sephiroth seems to have reached that level of overbearing all on his own. 

“No,” he says. “Now.” 

When Cloud turns around, his foe is suddenly right there, and then the next thing he knows, he's being grabbed and the wing extends and—

Instinctively, Cloud closes his eyes. There's a bizarre sensation of weightlessness, combined with a feeling like everything around him is moving very fast. He feels air currents brush his skin and ruffle his hair, accompanied by the distinct sound of a large wing flapping. The whole thing only lasts a few seconds, and then there's suddenly solid ground beneath his feet again. Not just ground though, it's…sand?

“What the fuck.”

When he leans back within the circle of Sephiroth's arms and turns his head, he sees they're standing on a beach that looks suspiciously like it's in Junon. The ocean is to their right, and to their left, half-hidden behind some rock formation is—

“Did you just…fly me to a noodle shop?! How did you even know that there's one here?” 

Unfazed by his incredulous tone, his foe looks down at him and says, “It was in one of the pictures you showed me.”

Oh…that's right. The shop isn't that far from the nearest port. Cloud went to this beach once or twice to kill time while he was waiting for the ship to arrive.

He sighs and steps out of Sephiroth's arms. “You're lucky I have gil on me.” Then he realizes something else. “Wait, I'm not even wearing shoes! Or a shirt!” 

Sephiroth seems unfazed by that also. “Is that not common at the beach?” 

“I don't like being shirtless,” Cloud hisses. “It feels weird, and it makes people look at me weird.” 

The next thing he knows, his foe takes off the leather jacket and settles it around Cloud’s shoulders.

It's heavy and entirely too big and Sephiroth's sweet, floral scent is clinging to it. 

Cloud splutters. “That's—no way, now everyone's going to think that I just—! That we just—!”

Sephiroth crosses his arms in front of his chest and looks down at Cloud sternly. “We're not leaving until you've eaten.” His wing disappears in a whirl of black feathers. 

There's no arguing with him when he gets like that. Defeated, Cloud shuffles off in the direction of the shop, kicking at the sand and grumbling the entire way about the overgrown mother hen who's the bane of his existence. 

The shop is small, but seems quite popular. Several people in beach attire are sitting at the counter and at the small tables that are spread out along the beach in front of the shop. A radio is playing quietly from somewhere inside, and there are string lights strung up around the chalkboards advertising the food. 

“What can I getcha?” the person behind the counter asks cheerfully. They have dark skin and are wearing big sunglasses and a tank top that says “Pasta la vista, baby!” in neon pink letters. 

“Uh…” 

For such a small shop, it offers a lot of different things. And some of the names make no sense. What in the fuck is a ‘poke bowl’ supposed to be? Did they misspell pork or…?

As if sensing that Cloud is overwhelmed, the person behind the counter points at the sign next to them. “If you’re asking me, try today's special! It's our famous seafood pasta, and it comes with a free drink of your choice!” 

He's never had seafood pasta. But it doesn't sound like it's something spicy, and it comes at a reduced price, so that ultimately seals the deal. 

“And what kind of drink would you like?”

The list of drinks is very long. Half of it is stuff Cloud doesn't like, and the other half is stuff he doesn’t even recognize.

Squaring his shoulders, Cloud lifts his head and fixes the shop owner with a look.

“You got cold milk?” 

They do.

Cloud fishes the gil out of the pocket of his fatigues and forks them over; all the while the sleeves of the leather jacket keep sliding down over his hands. 

As he waits for his order to be ready, he scowls at the counter, which is annoyingly close to eye-level.

Why does his foe have to be seven gazillion feet tall? No, actually why couldn't Cloud have grown to be seven gazillion feet tall? 

The people sitting at a table near him giggle, but when Cloud turns his scowl on them, he realizes they're not laughing at him. In fact, they're not paying any attention to him at all. They're eating pasta from the same plate, blushing and giggling every time their forks clash or they end up putting the opposite ends of the same noodle into their mouth. There's a lit candle and a single flower on their little round table. 

The display is a little weird, but maybe they're trying to save money by sharing? Still, Cloud can't imagine sharing a meal with someone like that. It seems inconvenient and messy. At least they appear to be having fun. 

“There you go, eat up while it's still hot!”

His dish is served in a blue ceramic bowl with paintings of dolphins on the sides. Cloud grabs it and his milk, and only then does it occur to him that he doesn't know where to sit. 

The question answers itself the moment he turns away from the counter and spots someone sitting at the table that's farthest away from all the others, closed in on one side by a rock formation and obscured by a big potted plant on the other. 

Green eyes glow from the shadows as they focus on him, and Cloud ambles over with a sigh. 

Because of the rocks and the plant, the table has a bench instead of chairs, and only on one side. Sephiroth is sitting sprawled over it with his back leaning against the rocks—one leg propped up on the seat and the other stretched out along the ground. It doesn't leave any place for Cloud to sit except between the V of his foe's spread legs. 

Well. At least he can use Sephiroth’s propped up leg as a backrest. 

Cloud glares at his foe when he sits down, and then once more when he has to shove the leather jacket's sleeves back again so his hands can actually hold the fork and spoon. 

Sephiroth just smiles smugly and nudges Cloud with the knee he’s leaning against. “Eat your food, Cloud.” 

Cloud does, though not without scowling. Except it's kind of hard to stay mad, because the food is actually…really good? The noodles are just the right level of doneness, and the sauce is creamy and mild. Some of the seafood has a texture he doesn't care for, but most of it actually tastes much better than it looks. The milk also tastes nice—cool and fresh and definitely full fat, none of that skimmed crap. 

Also, despite the questionable seating arrangement, their table offers a good view of the ocean and is in a comparatively secluded spot. There's a single lit candle on it, and, judging by its look and citrusy scent, it's one of the ones that are meant to discourage insects from coming close. Cloud found a package of those at the cabin while he was fixing it up. 

“Hey,” Cloud says, and nudges Sephiroth's other leg with his foot. “Wanna try? It's good.” He holds up a bite of noodles with his fork.

Sephiroth has his head tilted back against the rocks, and is watching Cloud through heavily lidded eyes. The fading sunlight paints his silver hair in golden tones, like a halo around his head. 

“It would be wasted on me.”

Cloud rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, you're a god and you don't need to eat. But you can still taste, right?” 

Sephiroth hums. “Every single molecule.” 

…Okay, that does sound like it would ruin the entire experience of eating.

Before Cloud can put the bite in his own mouth, though, Sephiroth leans forward and eats it straight off the fork. His mouth closes around it elegantly, and when he draws back again he chews carefully. 

“...and?” Cloud asks, after his foe has swallowed. 

“The water these were cooked in must have come from an area heavy in limestone.” 

Cloud blinks. “Right…good to know I guess.” He's about to go back to eating—he certainly cannot taste any limestone in the food, not that he'd know what that'd taste like in the first place—when he realizes something. “Wait, what does it taste like to you when we…when you…” 

The moment he's blurted out the words, he regrets them. 

Sephiroth props his head up with one hand and smiles at him smugly, very obviously enjoying Cloud’s embarrassment. “You wish to know what you taste like when you want me?” 

It's a good thing they're close to a big body of water, because Cloud’s cheeks must be on fire.

“No! I—fuck! Sh-shut up! Forget I said anything!” 

He turns away and shoves noodles into his mouth, and ignores the way the bench shakes with Sephiroth’s silent laughter. 

Since they're already here, Cloud wants to see the ocean from up close. So, once he's brought his now-empty dishware back to the shop, he tugs at Sephiroth’s arm to get him to follow. 

It's a little nerve-wracking to walk around with him this close to other people, but the sun has set by now, and the low, blueish light of dusk provides good cover. Besides, most people are either going home or busy buying fancy drinks with those little umbrellas in them. Since it's still early summer, there's not that much going on yet, and they have the rest of the beach mostly to themselves.

The sand is still warm from the sunlight, but there's a fresh breeze rolling in over the ocean. The water is quite cold, and leaves traces of seafoam on Cloud’s feet as he steps close enough to let it wash over them. 

“C'mon,” he says, waving his foe over. “Try it, it feels nice.” 

Sephiroth comes closer, with something hesitant in his steps, as if he somehow expects the ocean to bite him. But he obediently lets the waves wash over his bare feet, while staring down at the water and seafoam and sand like they're a puzzle to be solved. 

“It's wet,” he says eventually.

A short bark of surprised laughter escapes Cloud’s chest. “That it is,” he agrees, shaking his head at his foe’s bizarre reactions, but unable to tamp down on his smile. 

Cloud ends up sitting down in the sand to watch the waves. Sephiroth eventually wanders over as well, sitting down behind him with his legs propped up on either side of Cloud’s and drawing him close against his chest. 

They're far enough away from the shop and everything else that the only noises are from the breeze whispering through the high grasses somewhere behind them, the seagulls that are flying off to their roosting places for the night, and the endless waves washing over the shore. 

“There is a planet out there,” Sephiroth says, after they've been sitting for long minutes in silence, “that is almost entirely ocean, with only a thin strip of land. The water is white like the sky and the sand on the shore is black.” 

Cloud tries to imagine what that must look like. “That sounds…weird.” 

Sephiroth huffs a breath of laughter that ruffles the hair at the top of Cloud’s head. “That it is.” 

They're quiet again for a while. Cloud fiddles with a loose thread on his fatigues. “You know,” he finally confesses, “this beach is actually where I found that piece of sea glass I gave you.” 

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Do you…do you still have it?” 

Another huff of laughter. “Of course. It's right here.” 

Cloud turns around within the cradle of Sephiroth's body, only to blink in confusion at the way his foe has placed his hand over his own heart. 

“Wait…are you saying it's inside you?!” he blurts out in shock as it finally clicks for him. “What, did you eat it or something?!” 

Sephiroth looks amused at the idea. “Something like that,” he says, smiling cryptically. “How else was I to keep it close?” 

Cloud stares at him for a long moment and then turns back around and slumps into his arms once more. “You're so fucking weird.” 

It's completely dark by the time they arrive back at the cabin. Sephiroth lands them outside, on the large balcony that's attached to the bedroom, but seems more interested in watching the stars than going inside. Cloud rolls his eyes at him in exasperation, but joins him back outside after changing into a tee and sweatpants and grabbing a few of those anti insect candles. 

“So, your wing looks better,” he says, while he lights the candles and puts them down on the small table—really just an old wooden crate—next to the deck chairs. “And you weren't four months late this time. Is your eternity clock all fixed up?” 

He's asking partly because Sephiroth’s silent staring contests with the sky tend to make him uneasy, but mostly because he genuinely wants to know. That time when his foe was gone for over half a year…sucked. Like, a lot. And he'd like to know if he should brace himself for a repeat of it. 

Sephiroth is quiet for a long moment, and then he completely throws Cloud for a loop by saying “My wing was damaged. I could not travel for a while.” 

“What?” Cloud stares at him. “You said you lost track of time, like, literally.” 

“That too.” 

Sephiroth stands with his back to him. At night, the blue henley looks just as dark as his black leather fatigues, in stark contrast to his hair and his pale skin. Since he's close to the railing and a good distance away from the candles, only the light of the rising moon illuminates him. 

“So…what was that about your wing?” Cloud asks as he carefully steps closer. He tries to keep his tone light, but something about the whole thing feels…off, and it's making him feel tense all over. “Did you fight space monsters after all? Why didn't you say anything?” 

Sephiroth’s gaze is still fixed on the stars above the tops of the surrounding pine trees. “It wasn't a ‘space monster.’ And I did not wish to speak of it.” 

Cloud steps a little closer still and eyes him warily. “Why?” 

His foe crosses his arms in front of his chest and says, in a strangely flat tone, “Because it was kin.” 

What?

“Kin,” Cloud repeats. “You mean like…Jenova?” 

“Mm.”

There's more of those alien monster things out there?!

Great. Just awesome. 

No further explanation is forthcoming, so Cloud dares to probe a little deeper. “Okay. So…why would it attack you?” 

Sephiroth still isn't looking at him. 

“It was injured and under siege from other entities. I…suppose that due to the pain and confusion, it was unable to recognize us. Unable to realize that we and it were one.” 

It takes Cloud a moment to sift through that strange explanation and realize that when he says “us”, Sephiroth seems to be referring to himself and his "mother" as two beings sharing one body. And then Cloud has to grit his teeth against the urge to point out that of course that fucking alien didn't recognize him as a member of its own species. As a hybrid, Sephiroth is literally the only one of his kind. And no matter what he does to himself, he will never fully get rid of the part of him that's human. Cloud won't let him. 

“I fought the others off, but my kin lashed out in its death throes. As we are the same, the wounds reached deep and took time to heal.” 

Cloud is still processing his previous words, so it takes him a moment to catch up. When he does, cold realization grips like a fist around his heart. 

“Wait…you almost died. Didn't you? That's why I felt like I was dying! How could you not tell me?!” 

Finally, Sephiroth turns to look at him, his previous blank expression having morphed into a frown. “Cloud, what are you talking about?” 

Cloud glares up at him, fingers curled into fists and heart already racing. “I thought it was just nightmares, but it was all real, wasn't it?! The blood, the pain—I puked my guts out and then I fell unconscious, for three days! And when I woke up, I was—! I couldn't—”

Sephiroth takes a step closer, something alarmed in his tone as he reaches for him. “Cloud—” 

“No!” Cloud bats his foe's hands away, even as his vision swims and his chest heaves and angry tears start to drip down his chin. “You d-don't get it! I couldn't—I couldn't feel you! I c-couldn't f-feel you, a-at all! It was l-like, l-l-like th-there was j-just n-nothing—” 

His voice finally breaks as his sobs steal all his remaining breath. His foe’s arms envelop him and gently press him against the soft cotton covering Sephiroth’s chest. Even as he struggles and pushes, they hold him with nothing but care. It doesn't take long for his body to give up the fight and collapse into the embrace, overwhelmed by the memories of those awful months: the unending cold, the loss of time, the emptiness.

The way he had been whole, and yet torn apart. 

One of Sephiroth's hands cradles the back of Cloud’s head while the other rubs circles into his shaking shoulders. Cloud's own hands are clinging to Sephiroth's sides, fingers buried in the henley. His forehead is pressed to Sephiroth’s chest while his tears drip down onto the wooden decking and both of their bare feet. 

It's not until Cloud’s breathing starts evening out again that Sephiroth speaks. “As you carry my cells, our bond must have flared up in response to the severity of the damage sustained, and then become dormant for a while. I did not realize at the time that you would feel it so keenly.” 

Cloud sniffs and leans back a little, though not far enough to leave the embrace. “Just…” His voice sounds wrecked, but he can't bring himself to care. “Just tell me next time. Not knowing is worse.” 

Sephiroth looks down at him. “You did not tell me that you suffered like this in my absence either,” he points out. “Not the true extent of it.” 

Cloud weakly shrugs one shoulder. “Guess we're just too freakin’ similar.” 

“Hm.” It's unclear whether his foe agrees or disagrees with that statement, but he doesn't say anything more, just gently strokes away the last of Cloud’s tears with his long fingers. 

It's nice, but the lump in Cloud's throat is still there. His fingers clench where they've remained buried in soft fabric, and he closes his eyes before forcing the words out through his teeth with a voice that's still kind of wobbly. 

“Kiss me?”

Those fingers slide into his hair and tilt his head back carefully, and then a soft mouth presses against his. He leans up into the kiss, opens his mouth to deepen it. 

It's alright now, Cloud tries to reassure himself, and the persistent ache in his throat that seems to travel all the way down to somewhere between his ribs.

He's here. Sephiroth is here.

It's alright now. 

“You're making that up!”

“I am not.”

“It rains diamonds?! For real?”

Lying with his back on Sephiroth's chest, Cloud can't see his face, but he can hear the amused smile in his voice. 

“Yes. ‘For real’.” 

They've moved to one of the wooden deck chairs, lowered to a reclining position so they can observe the night sky better. Cloud’s head is tucked beneath Sephiroth’s chin, and his foe is busy carding his fingers through Cloud’s spiky bangs, stroking them back from his forehead in a soothing, repetitive motion. 

“It's not rain as you would know it,” Sephiroth goes on to say. “That planet doesn't have a solid surface, but is made out of gas. The diamonds form in lightning storms and sink through the atmosphere towards the planet’s core, where they melt into a liquid sea.” 

Cloud blinks up at the river of lights stretched out above them. “That's so fucking weird.” He searches the sky for a moment. It's one thing learning about these things from dusty old books and squinting through a telescope, and another to hear it from someone who's actually seen those celestial bodies up close. 

“What about that bright yellow one?” he asks, pointing with one hand. “That's a planet too, right?”

“Mm, correct.” His foe strokes Cloud’s hair back again, his other hand resting on Cloud’s stomach. “It's surrounded by rings of icy debris and orbited by over eighty moons.” 

That part, Cloud already knew. “And how's the weather?”

Sephiroth is silent for a moment and when he speaks, it's with an odd tone to his voice.

“You would like it. It's very…cloudy.”

Oh, so he's trying out jokes again. 

Cloud rolls his eyes but can't help his incredulous smile. “Har har,” he says sarcastically. “Never heard that one before.”

He doesn't even need to turn around to know that his foe is very pleased with himself. 

“No, seriously, what's it like?” 

Sephiroth shifts him in his arms a little. “Complicated. Mostly very cold and dominated by electrical storms. And yes, it rains diamonds there too sometimes.” 

Not for the first time, Cloud wonders what Sephiroth is even doing, scouting out the cosmos like that. It seems to be partly out of genuine curiosity, but…there is something too methodical about the whole thing for that to be the only reason. Sephiroth did say he wanted his “mother” to feel at home, but is that really all there is to it? 

Cloud is still feeling too raw inside from earlier, though, so the big, dangerous questions are going to have to wait for…some other time. Instead, he asks, “So, not a vacation spot. Ain't there any planets that are, like, tropical? And with rain that doesn't bonk you on the head and then melt into goop?” 

They keep talking while the stars move above them. And Cloud is absolutely awake and listening, except the next thing he knows, his eyes are closed, he's curled up on his side beneath something heavy and warm, and there are…birds chirping?

When Cloud blinks his eyes open, the first things he sees are black feathers. Sephiroth’s wing is curved over him, with the large flight feathers trailing on the floor. Judging by the angle of the sunbeams it's still quite early in the morning, and there are birds sitting on the railing next to them, chirping and grooming themselves. 

He's curled up in a ball on Sephiroth's chest, feathers whispering over the bare skin of his feet and arms with every minute movement. His foe's body is…well, not exactly comfortable, being mostly rock-solid muscle and bone, but…it just feels so…

So safe, lying underneath the wing. Like it'd be okay to just keep lying there for hours breathing in the fresh morning air and listening to the birds.  

Cloud’s not a little kid though, so he blearily forces himself to sit up a little and lift his head. 

There's something strangely soft in Sephiroth’s expression as he looks up at Cloud, but it's probably just the early morning light. Or maybe it's some kind of optical illusion caused by the deck chair cushions his foe is lying on. Cloud got them at the same flea market stand where he bought all the bedding for the cabin, so the cushions are covered in floral patterns as well: white blossoms with a yellow center, spread over a light blue background. Something about the pattern seems to gentle all the sharp edges of his foe's features, making him appear deceptively peaceful.

“You fell asleep,” Sephiroth explains helpfully, as if Cloud hadn't already deduced that fact by himself. 

Cloud glares at him, but instead of forming words, his mouth only manages a disgruntled groan. He decides that the only solution is to lie back down. Just for a couple more minutes. 

The birds are once more completely ignoring them, hopping around on the railing and the decking, chirping and foraging for food. When Cloud glances up at him, Sephiroth has his head tilted to the side and is watching the birds as well. His eyes follow their every movement, slit pupils restlessly dilating and contracting as they focus and refocus. 

Weird. Did he really see so little nature in his life that a couple of sparrows are that fascinating? 

The thought reminds Cloud of what they're here to see, and so he forces his protesting body to leave that nest of warm, smooth feathers. Seriously, what is it with that wing? Cloud’s used to roughing it, especially while he's on the job, and now that damn thing is turning him soft. 

As soon as he's crawled out from under it, the wing disappears in a flurry of black feathers, which startles the birds for a moment. They fly up, but then as soon as Cloud has stepped through the balcony door, he can hear them settle back down. 

Since Cloud failed to open the windows yesterday, the air inside the cabin is quite stuffy. He shuffles into the bathroom to throw cold water on his face and wash up a little, and then goes to rectify yesterday's laziness. Thankfully, the windows all have fly-screens on them, which Cloud had meticulously repaired, because fuck bugs. 

Breakfast is instant coffee made with water heated on the stove, and two of Fio's granola bars. Hot drinks never quite agree with Cloud, but he hasn't gotten around to repairing the refrigerator yet, so there's no milk. Instead, as soon as the coffee pulver has dissolved, he adds cold water at the sink until the temperature is more reasonable. 

Why do hot drinks even exist? Do other people enjoy burning their mouths? What a stupid habit. 

Sephiroth still hasn't come to join him, as apparently a few tiny birds are much more interesting than Cloud all of a sudden. He glares in the general direction of the balcony from where he's stood leaning against the counter, and grumbles to himself while he washes out the cup and fills his banged-up thermos with cold water. 

Earlier in the bathroom, Cloud had discovered that the t-shirt he'd grabbed out of his bag yesterday and put on without really paying attention is one that Yuffie gave him—bright blue, and on the front there's a big yellow chocobo juggling various materia with its wings. Yuffie had laughed her ass off at Cloud's expression when he'd unwrapped it. 

Now, as Cloud heads back to the bedroom to get dressed for the day, he asks himself once more why he even packed the damn thing. Yeah, he doesn't own a lot of tees, but still. Maybe it was inside out, and so he didn't realize it was that one. 

He pulls on his fatigues and a black tank top, and only remembers to put on sunscreen because his searching fingers bump into the bottle inside his bag. What? So he burns easy; sue him. 

There's also the black silk robe, which Cloud brought with him as well because…because of reasons. He'd folded it and re-wrapped it in the expensive paper that it originally came in, and now he carefully takes it out and puts it on the nightstand. Also for reasons.

His phone is lying there too, and that's where it'll stay. He's on vacation. There'll be no need to talk to anybody. 

Before strapping his harness to his back, Cloud pulls all the blades of the Fusion Sword out until only the main one remains—no need to drag all of them around if one is enough in case they run into some fiends. He fixes his thermos to his belt with a carabiner hook, and then he's good to go.

Sephiroth has left the deck chair and is now standing further down the balcony, gaze fixed on the morning star still faintly visible above the tops of the pine trees. His hair is reflecting gold and pink as a gentle breeze plays with the strands. 

It stops Cloud in his tracks, how strangely vulnerable his foe looks like this. Alone underneath a wide blue sky, surrounded by light that makes him appear as beautiful and fragile as a fleeting dream. As if he'd break apart like a reflection on water, or melt like seafoam in the waves if Cloud so much as called out to him. 

Even once Sephiroth turns his way, it takes Cloud a moment to remember what he came here for in the first place. “Uh. Let's go? Mountain ain't gonna hike itself.” 

His foe obediently follows him downstairs, puts on his boots when Cloud does, and lets Cloud lead him on a meandering path around the lake. It's still kind of weird, how docile he's been acting, but maybe that means he likes it here? It's hard to say, with how quiet he's been. 

They pass some cherry trees, and though Cloud has just had breakfast, free food should never be passed up, right? He picks some from the lower hanging branches, and when he bites into one, it's soft and juicy. Yum.

“Want a cherry? They're good.”

Sephiroth looks at the offered fruit in Cloud's hand. 

Looks up at the tree. 

Looks back down at Cloud. 

“Those are plums,” he says. 

Are they? Huh.

Cloud shrugs. “Same difference, right?” He flicks the pit of the one he's been eating into the underbrush and then stuffs the rest of it into his mouth. “Jey bosh grow on treesh.” 

For once, his foe doesn't seem to know what to say. 

Instead, he reaches up into the branches, and suddenly Cloud’s hands are filled with plums. And then Sephiroth just walks off, while Cloud stares at his back in befuddlement. 

Why does his foe keep trying to feed him? Cloud gained back the weight he'd lost during those awful months of feeling half-dead, so what gives? 

He ponders that question while he munches on his unexpected plum wealth, but in the end comes to the conclusion that it's probably just Sephiroth being Sephiroth. Even after all this time, and their more recent…closeness, it's still hard to tell what goes through that guy's head. 

The path becomes steadily steeper as it leads them higher into the mountains. The forest has fully woken up now, and the green leaves and grasses are patterned with dappled sunlight.

It's always so calming to come here, far away from cities and people and expectations. It's easier to breathe here than in Edge, in a way that only partly has to do with air quality. Like it's easier to just…be. 

Cloud’s the one taking the lead now, because Sephiroth, once again, keeps randomly stopping and staring. At some point, his foe picks up a pinecone and turns it over in his hands. But when Cloud suggests he keep it, Sephiroth carefully sets it back down exactly where he'd picked it up. “The seeds won't sprout then,” he says, as if the ground underneath the tree isn't covered in pinecones. What difference is one going to make? 

On the other hand, anything that inclines his foe towards preservation rather than destruction has to be a good thing.  

It's not long after this that Sephiroth stops again, his head tilted back as he stares upwards. With the sunlight hitting his eyes like that, his pupils become needle-thin slits. 

Cloud suppresses a sigh. “What is it?” he asks, because all he can see in that direction is tree branches. 

“A bird of prey.” 

Cloud squints. Nope, just leaves and shit. “Where?” 

Sephiroth looks down at him and makes a thoughtful noise. And then the next thing Cloud knows, he's being picked up and set on Sephiroth's shoulders, blade strapped to his back and all. 

“What the—put me the fuck down! I ain’t a little kid!” 

Sephiroth, as usual, ignores his complaints. “Look again,” he says. 

Still grumbling, Cloud looks.

A bird of prey is circling in the sky, visible through a gap in the tree canopy that Cloud…maybe couldn't see before, because of his perfectly adequate height. 

“Okay, I see it. Now let me back dow—hey!”

Sephiroth starts walking again, which makes Cloud flail and then helplessly clutch at his foe’s hands where they're gripping his thighs to keep him in place. 

“Put me down!” 

He is not put down. “It's important to experience a shift in perspective sometimes,” his foe says instead, which is really rich coming from him. 

Cloud is about to say so, but then he actually looks up instead of glaring down at the top of Sephiroth's head. 

This is…wow.

Stuff that was close enough to touch before is now very far away. Stuff that was far away before is now close. Cloud only has to reach out a little and he can trail his fingers through the leaves of the trees that are growing alongside the path. 

“I'm gonna get my eye poked out by a branch.” 

Sitting like this, he can feel Sephiroth’s shoulders move as he laughs silently. “You will not.” 

Indeed, his foe manages to move effortlessly along the path, in a way that always keeps Cloud safe from overhanging branches. It's certainly weird, though, being that high up. Everything looks different. So much…wider. But also much more removed. It's weird.

“Oh! There it is again, look!”

Through another gap between the treetops, the bird of prey can be seen again. It's circling above a couple of boulders that are forming a steep hill to their left. 

“Bet the view is nice from there.” 

Sephiroth stares in the direction Cloud is pointing at for a moment, and then he suddenly bends and sets Cloud down again. And then there's the sound of a large wing being extended and a wall of black feathers blocks out the sky. 

“Hey, no, don't even think abou—!”

The ground is abruptly gone. Wind rushes past him, and he instinctively closes his eyes. He opens them again when his feet are set down on something solid a few heartbeats later, and blinks against the sunlight that is no longer blocked by the trees. 

They're on top of the hill, and the view is so spectacular that Cloud completely forgets to grumble and complain. 

“Wow.” 

The sky looks endless like this, wide and blue, with only a few fluffy white clouds here and there. Beneath it, the forest stretches out in all directions, an ocean of different shades of green. 

Sephiroth has let go of him but not moved away. His wing is stretched out behind him, and his head is tilted back. Directly above them, the bird of prey is circling. 

From this close, it's easy to identify it as a red-tailed hawk. 

Sephiroth lifts his left hand up, and before Cloud can ask what he's doing, the hawk is letting itself drift down and land on the offered hand like a perch. 

Its talons are big and look razor sharp, but even though they visibly dig in, they can't seem to break Sephiroth’s skin. It keeps its wings half-spread and, since it landed facing away from them, ducks its head to scrutinize Sephiroth from upside-down. 

Frozen in a mix of alarm and confusion, Cloud can do nothing but stare as his foe and the bird of prey assess each other silently for several long moments. Then, the warm breeze picks up again, and Sephiroth gives the hawk a supportive push upwards as it spreads its wings wide and is carried up and away by the wind. 

Sephiroth lets his hand sink down again, though his gaze stays fixed on the bird. His face has remained mostly expressionless, his eyes the only part of him that's moving. 

“So,” Cloud asks eventually. “You like birds, huh?” 

He doesn't really expect an answer, and is partly just asking to distract himself from how odd that whole thing was.

With a flap that sends strands of his hair flying around him, Sephiroth stows his wing away again. As it disappears, a handful of black feathers are dislodged and left to dance on the breeze around them. 

“I used to envy them,” he says, his tone unreadable, “when I was a child.” 

And then he turns around and starts walking down the slope at the back of the hill. 

Cloud stares after him, taken aback by the confession. One of the black feathers drifts past his face and he catches it in his palm. 

He stares down as it disintegrates a heartbeat later, with a feeling in his chest that he'd rather not name.

Chapter Text

Since Cloud doesn't actually want to hike all the way to the top of the mountain, he leads them onto a side path that branches off from the main one. It's too far to the top, especially since they’d have to walk the entire way back down again. And no, Cloud does not want to be flown, thank you very much. Not up the mountain, and not to any more food stalls either—he’s made it very clear to Sephiroth that he intends to catch himself a fish for dinner later. 

Maybe if he were hiking with someone else, he might have considered trekking all the way to the top, but…the fact of the matter is that Sephiroth is just too damn slow. 

Cloud isn't really feeling impatient anymore, though. He sips from his thermos and watches silently as his foe inspects the leaves of a fern growing on the rock wall, some of its stems still curled up like tiny little snakes. 

This side path should eventually lead them back to the cabin, but as it sees less use than the main one, it's rockier and narrower, and more overgrown. This also means that it has more unexpected features, like this rock wall that has little rivulets of water running down almost all the way to the ground. There's probably a creek higher up or something. 

The water glistens and glitters in the sunlight; there are birds bathing themselves in the puddles that have formed, and insects buzzing around and taking a drink. A dragonfly has landed on Sephiroth's left hand, near where he’s touching the fern, and now it's crawling around investigating his fingers while he stares at it curiously. It's shining a brilliant turquoise in the sunlight, its wings translucent and incredibly fragile-looking. 

“So…those things that were attacking your—” Cloud has to force the word out through his teeth, “—kin. What were they? Like, do I have to worry that they'll come here and kick everyone's ass?”

For a moment, it seems like Sephiroth won't answer, and Cloud will be spared this conversation that he doesn't actually want to have in the first place. Then, the dragonfly leaves his foe's hand to fly back up the rock wall. Sephiroth follows it with his eyes, and says, “The Ancients knew of them, though they never worshiped them or any other gods. They called them the Archons, or simply the Seven, as they are seven in number. The Archons fancy themselves the rulers of the universe, guardians of the planets, upholders of celestial law.” 

Guardians…of the planets?

“So, they're like protectors? Then where were those guys when…when, uh.” 

Sephiroth smiles sharply and finally starts walking again. 

“When I was so close to claiming what is mine by right of birth, and you denied me?” 

Cloud doesn't dispute it, and Sephiroth doesn't appear to have expected him to. “Do not think of them as benevolent, Cloud. Their aim is not to safeguard but to subjugate. It is only self-interest that drives them.” 

Unlike what drives you? Cloud thinks bitterly, but doesn't say out loud. It won't do to antagonize his foe unnecessarily, not when he's finally getting some real answers. 

“Your question is not without merit, though,” Sephiroth goes on to say, “as I have asked myself the same. My ascension is a threat to their authority, and yet they never appeared here to stop it from happening. However, it seems there is a difference between the stars and planets they choose to rule over, and those they grant autonomy, however unwillingly it is given.” 

A low-hanging branch blocks the path; Sephiroth bends it back and then keeps holding it until Cloud has passed. Which is ridiculous, and makes Cloud glare at him even while he walks past the now-neutralized obstacle. What is he, some kid that could be held up by an unmoving stick with leaves on it? 

Completely ignoring Cloud’s wordless ire, Sephiroth keeps talking. “The lifestream is not to be underestimated. My theory is that this planet's will and power are too strong to be subjugated by the Seven, and as such they pick weaker planets and stars that cannot muster the necessary defenses. Therefore, they did not object to my mother claiming this planet as her own. In fact, they might have welcomed it, as its devouring would have meant one fewer world in defiance of their rule.” 

Cloud chews on that for a moment. “Okay, so they're giant dicks, got it.” When he glances at Sephiroth, walking by his side, he catches his foe’s fond smile. “But you haven't been hanging around just on this planet, you've been all over. Why did they leave you alone until now? You said it was your…your kin that injured you, not them.” 

Sephiroth’s smile edges into something sharper again. “Not for want of trying. However, not only can they not match the strength my mother has granted me, they are not entirely free agents themselves. There is one power in the cosmos to whom they too must bend their knee, and that is their creator—the embodiment of celestial fate. It's not implausible that this entity ordered them to avoid me in the interest of self-preservation. That is, until I involved myself.”

Cloud's frown deepens as he takes all that in. The side path has started to slope downwards, and though the rock wall is still to their left, at some point the path should pull away and to the right, back to the lake. For now, it's still overgrown and narrow; the air filled with the scent of blooming flowers, the noises of the water, and the breeze ruffling the leaves. 

It's hard to pay attention to any of it, though, because Sephiroth’s words have brought back things that Cloud’s tried hard not to think about. Smudged, confusing images of blood and ice; painful feelings of sorrow and guilt.

Trying to ignore the way those memories make his head and chest ache, Cloud asks, “Then…why did they attack your kin in the first place? Just for kicks, or because it threatened one of the places they rule? And then why did they just…leave you there?” 

Sephiroth holds another branch to the side, but this time Cloud is too distracted to remember to glare. 

“Hard to say for certain. When I arrived, the battle was already underway—though it seems my kin was headed for a nearby nebula. And as those are the birthplaces of stars, and more stars equal more power, it is possible that they did see its presence alone as a threat.” 

This entire time, he hasn't looked at Cloud once. His voice remains calm and analytical, but his expression is strangely blank. “As for why they left me there, I suppose it was not enough to kill my kin in front of me just when I had finally found it. Their cruelty could only be satisfied by letting me stay where, as I recovered, my kin's remains would continuously remind me of my failure.” 

‘Finally found it?’ 

Cloud stops walking abruptly as the realization dawns, cold and suffocating. 

“Wait…is that what you've been doing out there all this time? You’ve been looking for your kin?” 

Sephiroth stops now as well, though he doesn't turn around. 

“...my mother was alone for over two thousand years. Is it so surprising that I would want her not to feel that way anymore?”

Cloud stares at Sephiroth's back and shifts his weight uneasily. 

No matter what his foe says, he’s pretty sure that this isn’t about Jenova. Not really. That thing doesn’t care whether it’s alone or not. 

This is about—

Sephiroth still hasn't moved. His arms are lax at his sides, and his head is ducked down. The breeze is playing with his hair, some strands of it almost but not quite touching the leaves of the large ferns growing on the rock wall. The playful birdsong and the colorful flowers suddenly seem like they belong to a different world—a place that is as foreign and unreachable to Sephiroth as the stars are for Cloud. 

Even as he's standing here, in the midst of the forest, it feels like Sephiroth has gone away. Inside. Back to that place where whatever he had been feeling had forced Cloud into wakefulness, with a scream lodged in his throat and tears burning in his eyes. 

Slowly, Cloud moves forward. One step, two, three, four, five. He comes to a stop at his foe’s back, and, after one more moment of hesitation, wraps his arms around the man's narrow waist and holds him close. 

Sephiroth tenses in his embrace immediately. They don't usually touch like this without the warning of seeing each other, not if closeness hasn’t been established before. His foe doesn't move away or break the hold, but he does ask, in a very flat tone, “What are you doing?” 

Cloud doesn't answer immediately, the side of his face pressed into silky silver hair. The words are hard to say, even though they're true. Maybe because they’re true, and they shouldn't be. He doesn't know or care anymore. 

“‘M sorry that happened.” 

Silence. Sephiroth has gone still, though Cloud can feel his ribs move as he breathes. It's strange, how the man's body doesn't seem to have absorbed any of the warmth of the day, even with the dappled sunlight shining on him. 

“You would see my kin as a threat just like they did. You are not sorry it was killed.” It’s a statement, not a question, and Cloud doesn't deny that it's true. 

“‘M sorry you had to watch it happen,” he says quietly. “I get it if you're sad.”  

Sephiroth’s body tenses again, though not in a way that Cloud would have noticed if he weren't holding him. Chest pressed against his foe’s back, Cloud can feel as his breath gives a minute hitch, and then almost stops altogether, becoming flat and controlled. Sephiroth’s head ducks down further, hair falling forward with a soft swish. Shielding his face even though there's no one around to see it. 

Cloud has never seen Sephiroth cry outside of the emotional release of sex, and it doesn't seem like he's crying now. It's questionable whether he's even capable of having that kind of reaction to anguish anymore. He's just…quiet, and still, and somewhere far away. 

Carefully, Cloud lets his fingers press in a little more; holds on a little more tightly. “You know it's not your fault, right?” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “That you couldn't…save it. Sometimes…sometimes that's just what happens.” 

These words are hard to say as well. For one thing, because there's a whole laundry list of things that are Sephiroth’s fault, so telling him the opposite for once feels…weird. Even though, objectively speaking, it is true. And then for another because Cloud hates it when other people say stuff like that to him. It always sounds so empty, so stupid. What do they know? But…

If a bit of compassion, deserved or not, can keep Sephiroth's mind from destroying itself again, then maybe…maybe it doesn't matter if it's stupid.

In any case, Sephiroth doesn't show any strong reaction to those words either, negative or positive. Cloud suppresses a frustrated sigh and falls silent, but keeps up the one-sided embrace.

He's never…held Sephiroth like this before. He's clung to him and clawed at him and dug his fingers in, but he's never done this. 

His foe must understand what comfort is by now and how it works; he shows it through what he does whenever Cloud gets…emotional. And yet, when it comes to himself, he doesn't seem to know how to handle it—just becomes motionless. 

It's strange to do this without all the armor and thick leather in the way. Holding him like this, with only a single layer of cotton between them, it's unmistakable how lean Sephiroth’s tall frame is, despite all its muscle. To an extent where Cloud vaguely wonders if the man had been losing weight for a while before his first death. It's an odd thing to ponder, especially after all these years.  

They stand like this for some time, while bees buzz around them and the warm breeze picks up a little. It sounds almost like ocean waves, when the wind ruffles the leaves like that. 

Finally, Sephiroth encircles Cloud’s wrist with his left hand, and gently but firmly breaks his hold. “We should leave,” he says, his voice calm and controlled. “You have yet to catch your dinner.” 

Cloud falls into step beside him. When he chances a glance up, Sephiroth’s eyes are still hidden by the fall of his hair. There's something almost skittish about his demeanor, so Cloud moves his attention to the path ahead and leaves him be. 

“Don't really feel like fishing anymore,” he says offhandedly. “But don't worry, I'll cook something else. You do not need to fly me places again.” 

Sephiroth doesn't respond to that for so long that Cloud almost trips in surprise when he suddenly asks, “Why do you dislike flying?” 

Cloud glances at him again, but Sephiroth still isn't looking at him. 

“It feels weird. Like falling, but upwards. And you fly really fast. If this god thing doesn't pan out, you could always try moonlighting as a flight provider. Make Rufus’ stupid private planes look as old and slow as snails.” 

That actually manages to make Sephiroth smile, though he lapses back into silence. 

Things continue like this all the way back to the cabin. It's still early in the evening, but maybe Sephiroth was a tiny bit right earlier. Cloud is really hungry. 

He's busy rummaging through the pantry for the still tightly-sealed package of rice when, suddenly, his foe is right behind him. 

“Do you have grains?”

Cloud turns around and frowns up at him. “What?”

Sephiroth is finally meeting his eyes again. Outwardly, he looks normal, but there's still something off about the way he's behaving. 

“Nourishment that birds can safely consume.”

Oh, so now looking isn't enough; he wants to feed the birds too?

Cloud really shouldn't enable him. The birds are gonna get used to it, and hang around more, and shit all over the nice balcony that he scrubbed and repainted not that long ago. 

With a sigh, Cloud turns back to the pantry and looks for the oatmeal. It's still sealed, too, so he's going to have to move it to a glass jar once he opens it. 

“Gimme your hand.” 

Sephiroth holds out his left, palm up, and Cloud carefully shakes some oatmeal out of the bag. Once he's done, Sephiroth’s fingers curl around it protectively, and then his foe turns around and walks silently upstairs on bare feet. 

Cloud watches him leave and then shakes his head to clear it. 

Cooking. Right. He can do this.

Sephiroth doesn't come back through the entire ordeal of Cloud fighting with the stove and re-reading the instructions on the bag of rice. Yeah, he's cooked rice before, but with him being on the job so much…most of the time he just grabs a bite whenever and wherever. Also, cooking is just so…stressful, and boring at the same time. And he hates grocery stores. Everything inside them is so—so much. So much stuff, and so many people. And sometimes the shelves are really high. 

The rice and veggies turn out a little bland, but edible. Cloud has maybe had a few mishaps with spices in the past—seriously, how is anyone supposed to remember what goes with what? There are way too many, and so he mostly avoids them now. It's not like it matters, right? The way food tastes doesn't change how filling it is. 

He takes his bowl and goes upstairs, where he predictably finds his foe on the balcony again. Sephiroth is standing in front of a group of sparrows perched on the railing, all of them chirping excitedly. 

Cloud had expected that the oatmeal would be long gone by now, but it turns out that Sephiroth has been feeding it to the birds piece by piece, and is also busy breaking up fights over the food whenever they happen. He gently inserts his hand between the quarreling parties and separates them, with a frown on his face like it puzzles him that they don't understand that there's enough for everyone. 

The display is so surreal that Cloud can't even laugh about it. He sits down on one of the deck chairs and pinches himself. 

Ouch. Yep, he's definitely awake. 

At least Sephiroth’s struggle against the birds’ greedy beaks makes for great dinner entertainment. For a while, that is. It's unusual for his foe to ignore him for this long. In Cloud's opinion, the birds look quite fat and round already. Surely there's no need to hand-feed them like this. 

Finally, the last piece of oatmeal is gone, though it takes the birds a while to realize this, as they seem quite stupid. They keep pecking the railing, and some even fly up to perch on Sephiroth's left hand and investigate it for crumbs. He lets them do it, holding perfectly still while his eyes watch their every movement. 

His bowl now empty, Cloud gets up with a huff and goes back downstairs to scrub the dishes. In a normal way of course, not an angry way. Then he stomps back upstairs and shuts himself in the bathroom to scrub himself. The sunscreen has started to feel tacky against his skin, which is why he hates putting it on in the first place. It needs off, now.

When he catches sight of himself in the mirror, he realizes he is scowling. Which deepens the scowl.

At least once he's done showering there's too much steam in the room for him to make out his reflection. Even while he brushes his teeth, he remains a vaguely yellow and pink smudge.

He's still toweling his hair dry, a second towel tied around his hips, when he stomps back into the bedroom and stops short. 

The balcony door is still open, though with its screen pulled shut: keeping the insects out and letting in only the mild breeze and the chirping of cicadas. Golden light floods the room, crossing through the windows behind the bed as the sun begins to set.

Loosely clad in only the black silk robe, Sephiroth is lying sprawled over the bed, with one leg stretched out and the other propped up. The dark fabric is a stark contrast to his pale skin and barely covers his thighs. His silver hair spills over the flower-patterned bedding and fans out around him. His left hand is lifted up and he's…playing with a sunbeam?

His fingers slowly, gracefully curl and stretch; one moment glowing with light, then cast in shadow, then light again.

When Sephiroth moves his head and notices him staring, he lets his hand sink back down, taking in Cloud's half-naked state with a sharp smile and heavy-lidded eyes. Eyes that glow in the shadow of the headboard where the sunbeams don't reach, familiar and dangerous and—

The towels are dropped to the hardwood floor, and then Cloud steps forward, and then he is knee-walking over the mattress. His foe's arms come up around him and hold him close, and then Cloud is kissing him, hard. Is pressing his tongue in, deep. 

Sephiroth hums appreciatively, his hands roaming up and down Cloud’s back, fingers mapping out the knobs of his spine. 

Cloud’s skin is still a little heated and pink and sensitive from the shower. His hair is still wet, droplets of water sliding down the back of his neck. None of that really registers—there is only his wildly beating heart. Only his fingers, violently digging into Sephiroth’s silk-clad shoulders, holding him in place. Only the promise of reunion, prickling over his skin. Only want, rising like a tidal wave—pressing against his ribs from the inside, threatening to break them apart and tear its way through his flesh. 

He wrenches his mouth away from Sephiroth’s with a wet noise. When he looks down, already panting, his foe’s lips are shiny, and his slit pupils slightly dilated where they stare up at him in return. 

Sephiroth should always look like this while looking at Cloud. More than that—he should always be looking at Cloud, and nothing else. Not at the stars, not at what he's hoping to find among them. 

Cloud kisses him again, harshly, digging his teeth into Sephiroth’s plush bottom lip. Then he wrenches himself away once more and tugs the silk robe open with shaking, impatient fingers. As soon as his foe's chest is bared, Cloud digs his fingers into one of the only places on Sephiroth's body that has any real give and softness to it. His mouth follows the path of his kneading hands, biting and licking and sucking. 

“Cloud—”

Sephiroth’s left hand is cradling the back of Cloud’s head, the other resting between his shoulder blades. Every time Cloud sucks especially hard, Sephiroth’s fingers jerk and his legs shift restlessly. His breathing has picked up, the rising of his chest pressing his flesh up into Cloud’s biting caresses. 

That's right, Cloud thinks vindictively. Say my name. You've barely said it all day. 

“Uhn, Cloud—”

He sucks hard until the areolas are swollen and the skin around them pink. Then he lifts his head, a string of saliva still connecting him to his work. 

Sephiroth’s eyes are half-open and already glassy. The hand that isn't in Cloud's hair slides around to his chest, over his beating heart and towards his pecs, as if to return the favor. 

Impatient, Cloud grabs it and shoves it down where he really wants it. Folds those long fingers around his dick and strokes them upwards and— 

He has to bite his lip to hold back a moan as his foe’s palm rubs over his leaking tip. Squeezing his eyes shut, he guides Sephiroth's hand further down again to massage his sack. Cloud has to balance himself with one hand on his foe’s abused pecs while he straddles Sephiroth’s middle, knees pressed into the mattress and thighs trembling. 

They had sex just yesterday, and the night before that Sephiroth got him off too. So why does the need to be touched still feel so urgent; the way it did during those long, lonely months, lying in bed with one hand between his legs and the other desperately grasping at the sheets? 

Lately, it's like the more he gets, the more he wants. Is it ever going to stop? 

It has to. At the end of this week, he'll be alone again. 

The drag of Sephiroth's fingers on his dick is a little too dry, but Cloud’s body seems hard at work to rectify that. Panting, he forces his eyes open, pressing against Sephiroth’s hand to try to get his grip tighter.

His foe is staring up at Cloud's face as if mesmerized. The angle of the sunbeams has changed, and now half of Cloud’s skin is bathed in golden light, like dark, thick honey. The green glow of Sephiroth's eyes seems stark and cold in contrast, his snake pupils dilating as they fixate on Cloud’s expression. 

“Don't,” Cloud hisses out through gritted teeth, “look at me like that.” 

Sephiroth keeps staring up at him as if he didn't even hear, entirely lost in whatever is happening in his head. 

It's infuriating. His touch is still too gentle as well, no matter how much force Cloud exerts on the fingers wrapped around him. They only ever deign to squeeze softly around the base, and then continue in their softness, stroking lightly up towards the tip, as if more intent on caressing him than anything else. 

Even the slick noises are too soft, offset by Cloud’s harsh, frustrated breathing. 

With an angry noise, he pushes Sephiroth’s hand off him. Then he moves backwards and bullies his way between his foe's legs; pushes the open robe away from his lower body. He hooks his hands underneath Sephiroth’s knees to get his legs propped up, and drags his nails down those milky inner thighs. 

It's not hard enough to draw blood, but it does leave pink stripes behind. And it finally gets him a real reaction again as Sephiroth’s eyes squeeze shut and his head tilts back as he moans. His sex, not fully erect yet and lying on his belly, also swells further in response. 

His foe could probably get hard much faster if he touched himself, but Cloud has never witnessed Sephiroth do that. It's like the idea doesn't even occur to him, and sometimes it seems almost as if he forgets that that part of his body exists at all unless Cloud is doing something to it. As if, even before he'd lost his mind and then his body, he never did that kind of stuff, and so he doesn't do it now either. 

Which is…

Which is good, actually. It means that any pleasure Sephiroth gets is coming from Cloud, and from Cloud only. 

Slickening his fingers with his own precome, Cloud wraps them around his foe and starts to stroke. With dark satisfaction, he listens to the hitches in Sephiroth’s breathing, watches the way those long fingers clench in flower-patterned cotton. It only takes a few strokes for the flesh to harden fully; for the slit to leak against his thumb. 

Yeah…you need me to get you hard, don't you? To get you wet. To make you come. 

He keeps stroking until there's an obscene squelching noise every time he squeezes around the tip, and then moves his hand down to massage the testes, just to watch the way it makes Sephiroth’s thighs quiver. 

It always takes so little to get his foe to come undone like this. Already, he looks on the verge of reaching his peak: his breathing unsteady, his fingers visibly trembling where they're grasping at pink and white roses. His eyes are still squeezed shut, the side of his face pressed against the pillows. There's a faint flush on his cheekbones, partly obscured by silver strands and the deepening of shadows as the sun is setting. 

It's very satisfying on its own, to render him so vulnerable, but Cloud’s own need is starting to border on painful. That brings back all those acidic, barbed feelings in his chest, and it's a struggle to not be too rough as he opens his foe up. 

Sephiroth is no help in that regard either. He lets his thighs fall open as if he completely trusts Cloud to take care of him. As if he doesn't care how Cloud takes him as long as he does. 

His bitemark-covered chest is rising up and down—breath noticeably faster than before—and his mouth is slightly open, brows furrowed as if he has to concentrate not to come from just this. 

He's so beautiful. He's too far away. 

They need—they need to be closer, now. So close that they can't be separated again. 

Maybe that way, at the end of this week… 

No. That's not how it works. That's a final kind of fantasy, a dream for stupid kids. 

Neither of them are innocent anymore. 

His first thrust inside is so hard that it shoves Sephiroth higher up the bed, pressing him into the mattress. Cloud fists his hands in the bedding for leverage, rumpling the roses past recognition, and continues to shove his hips forward with force. 

He keeps it up, even as his fingers dampen the bedding they're clenched in and sweat drips from his forehead. Sephiroth’s body is gripping him tightly, legs splayed open over Cloud’s thighs and trembling, shifting restlessly. Though he's being taken hard, the angle of the thrusts is such that they only barely brush that bundle of nerves inside him, so the expression on Sephiroth’s face is now a blend of pleasure and frustration. 

Long fingers buried in the pillows on either side of his head, Sephiroth is making tiny, soft noises. Breathy. Needy. They're barely audible over Cloud’s own panting and bitten-off moans, but they fuel the fire in him more than even the slick slide of their reunion.

Every time Sephiroth shifts his hips to try to get Cloud where he wants him, Cloud denies him. Instead, he relentlessly chases his own pleasure, eyes fixed on his foe’s face until they slip shut, as the tension snaps at last and he spills himself. 

His stuttering hips keep thrusting for a few moments more, off-rhythm, until the sensitivity finally becomes too much. He withdraws from Sephiroth’s body with a wet noise, and there’s a “Ngh” sound of complaint from his foe as he's left unsatisfied. 

Cloud crawls over the trembling form beneath him, entirely at his mercy, and presses their mouths together harshly. 

Sephiroth immediately opens up for him, deepening the kiss, his shaking fingers burying themselves in Cloud's hair and clinging to his back. Every line and minute tremble of his body speaks of his unfulfilled need, so Cloud takes his time.

When he finally has to break away for air, his foe keeps pressing kisses to the line of his jaw. Sephiroth’s long fingers shift from Cloud's hair to playing with the silver earring in his lobe. Then he leans back against the pillows again, and looks up at Cloud with heavily-lidded eyes and a darkly amused smile. 

“What a vicious little wolf cub you can be.” 

Scowling, Cloud turns his head and nips at those playful fingers with his teeth. “Not a cub,” he growls. 

Sephiroth’s smile widens. 

“No. I suppose you're not anymore.” 

He sounds amused, but there's still a subtle, yearning tension to his frame. Cloud grabs Sephiroth’s hand and shoves it down between his legs. “If you want to cum,” he hisses, gritting his teeth against the discomfort of being touched while still soft and oversensitive, “get to work.” 

The second round is slower, and the slide wetter, but Cloud makes sure that it's no less hard. There's just…something in him that won't be satisfied until Sephiroth yields to him completely. 

Until reunion becomes more than a tug in his chest and a whisper in his mind, more than a prickle over his skin and an urge to be closer that he'd have to fight hard to deny. 

Until it's like this: his foe arching up into him, quivering around him, pressing his thighs against Cloud’s ribs. Even the most minute movement of Cloud’s body causes an instantaneous reaction in Sephiroth’s; a gasp of breath, a tremble of muscles, a desperate writhing of limbs. 

Reunion, like this, means they're as close to answering the call to be one as Cloud can get them. But he's the one holding the strings that tie them together. 

Sephiroth may fly to the farthest stars, stay away as long as he wants, but he'll never be free of this hold, this entanglement of their heartstrings. 

No…not heartstrings. Hearts have nothing to do with this. Strings of fate, maybe. If Cloud believed in such a thing. 

One hand is digging into the pale flesh and hard bone of his foe's hip, while the other keeps hold of the leg slung over his shoulder. Sephiroth is staring at him, the glow of his eyes seeming to burn in the descending dark, but with every thrust his eyelids threaten to slip shut completely. Their heavy breaths are almost in sync. 

It feels so good like this that it would be easy to let go. But Cloud isn't deliberately angling himself away from certain places this time, and he can tell that Sephiroth is close. It's there in the hitch of his breath, the way his quivering legs are trying to press Cloud impossibly deeper inside. 

There's a weird thing that Sephiroth's been doing lately that he does now, too: make a grab for Cloud’s hand right before he comes. He clings to Cloud's fingers where they're digging into his hip, as if silently urging Cloud to take his hand in return. As if he needs it held when it happens. 

Watching his foe like this is almost enough to make Cloud crest himself; the way his eyes squeeze shut as his head tilts back and his mouth falls open, how his hips cant up as he spends himself helplessly. 

And still—

Cloud reverses the hold of their hands, grabbing Sephiroth’s bigger one and squeezing it. 

With a broken noise, it's like Sephiroth comes again; his inner muscles clenching around Cloud and his sex giving a jerk and another spill of fluid that drips down his side, onto the rumpled roses below. 

Now Cloud’s really going to have to change the sheets. Never mind that they were already messed up. The thought has him angrily shoving his hips forward with force. 

“Ngh—”

It's clear that his foe is starting to become overstimulated, his hips instinctively trying to lean away, his thigh tensing in Cloud's grasp while his free leg churns against the bedding. 

Cloud keeps going regardless, his fingers clinging to Sephiroth's. His heart is racing, sweat burning his eyes. Finally, the rhythm of his hips starts to stutter, and he—

“Ah—uhn!”

For several long, timeless moments, everything seems to fall away; the damp bedding, the deepening darkness, the chirping of the insects outside, the violent beat of his own heart. There is only Sephiroth’s hand crushed tight in his grip; only the molten heat inside him reaching a fever pitch. 

Only reunion—as close as they can get to it. 

When he comes back to his own body, it's trembling all over. Or maybe the shaking of Sephiroth's limbs has transferred to his. 

They both make a weak noise of discomfort as their bodies separate, and then Cloud is clumsily crawling over Sephiroth’s prone form once more. Everything feels vaguely wrong and claustrophobic until he leans down and their mouths touch and they're kissing. 

It takes a while for both of them to calm down, and for Cloud’s hazy mind to at least somewhat clear again. But even then it's a struggle to break away, because there's another weird habit that Sephiroth's developed recently, which is to get really fucking clingy after sex. 

Cloud only just manages to pick up a towel from earlier and give himself a perfunctory clean. The bedding is a lost cause, and he only gets as far as wiping his foe’s belly clean before he's seized and pulled close. 

There's definitely still a mess between Sephiroth’s thighs, but he just says, “Leave it,” and tucks Cloud’s head beneath his chin, folding him up against his chest. 

“Not a plush toy,” Cloud grumbles, and then ruins it by yawning. 

Since he's not given a choice anyway, he might as well get comfortable. At least only the top of the bedding is soiled, he thinks grumpily, as he tucks his legs beneath it. 

Sephiroth’s heart, when Cloud rests his head above it, is still beating a little faster than usual. 

They're both curled up on their sides, like two halves doing their best to form a whole. Cloud’s skin is not as pale as Sephiroth’s, but it's still a stark contrast to the deep black of the robe. He runs his fingertips over one of the stitched snowflakes cascading down the sleeve, and tries not to think about what he's saying as he asks, “What does…um. What does it feel like to you? Reunion. When we…when we do it like this.”

For a long moment, Sephiroth doesn't reply. All Cloud can hear is their breaths, the cicadas outside, and the shifting of fabric as he fidgets.

“Like…like a wave,” Sephiroth finally starts to explain, haltingly. It's strange for him to hesitate and search for words like this. His voice is soft and quiet, like he's not quite present. “A wave that has been rising up from an ocean of unity and is now finally flowing back into it.” 

Cloud frowns as he chews on that for a bit. Really he's too sleepy for the bizarre way Sephiroth seems to perceive things and then express them, but that's what he gets for asking. 

“What do you mean, ocean of unity?” 

Another pause as his foe seems to again struggle with finding the right words. “In the planet's embrace, all life is as one. So am I and my mother. So are you and me.” 

Sephiroth’s arms are heavy around Cloud, even as they hold him with care. 

“Every star that spans the distance between us when we are separated, and every feeling in your heart when we are reunited—they all rise up from this unity, then fade, then rise up again, endlessly, while the unity remains. Forever.” 

Suddenly feeling strangely cold, Cloud presses himself closer to Sephiroth before he realizes what he's doing. His foe shifts him in his arms and gently cards fingers through the messy hair at the back of Cloud’s head. 

Forever…is there really such a thing?

“But even like this,” Sephiroth goes on to say, sounding wistful, “it is not a full reunion. I cannot tell you what that would feel like between you and me.” 

Probably for the best that it isn't, Cloud thinks grimly. Yeah, so maybe in the moment, he also just wants…more. Feels like no matter how deeply he digs his fingers into Sephiroth’s flesh, no matter how intimate they get with one another, that frustration of them not being close enough remains. 

Maybe some part of that is normal though. Sex, as Cloud has discovered over the last one and a half years or so, feels really damn good. And it's normal to not want what feels good to stop, right? 

After all, this has nothing to do with hearts, or stars, or any of that other weird stuff. 

Cloud finally loses the fight against his heavy eyelids as the slow thump thump thump beneath his cheek pulls him down, into sleep.

He's kneeling in a pool of frozen blood. The sky is spinning above, turning, tumbling—

It's snowing. The white snow falls without a sound. Falls in complete darkness. His breath is silent too, even though he can feel his heavy heart beat, feel his heartbeat, feel his heartbeat…

Someone is handing him a flower. It obscures the person's face from view.

“It's on the house.”

It's…white. Shouldn't it be—

Rain is falling. No, what’s falling is glittering like crystals; making a sound like a thousand wind chimes. Lightning flashes through the bulging clouds. Stormy wind tugs at his feathers, whips his hair around him. There's no sky, and there's no ground. 

He is alone. 

He is—

He is alone. His knees hit the rough concrete under a star-filled, empty sky. Aerith's flowers, spread over the roof in their pots, look as pale as the moonlight itself. 

His heart beats his heart beats his heart beats. His nails dig into his temples until blood wells up. 

Drip, drip, drip, go his tears. They make no sound. But inside his head, they do. Inside his head they're screaming 

where 

where 

where!

It's night. The wall is striped with moonlight and moonlight’s shadows. He blinks, shifts his head a little. He's lying cushioned on Sephiroth's chest, tucked into his side and held. His eyes feel a little wet. His heart beats a little fast. 

The hand that isn't holding Cloud is holding aloft an empty sphere. Or…is it empty? It seems to shine, white and blue, but maybe that's just the moon as well. It almost looks like materia, but not quite, like there's something off about it. 

Cloud blinks again, fighting against his heavy eyelids.

There is no sphere. Sephiroth strokes his fingers over Cloud’s forehead and down over his eyelids, closing them gently. “Sleep, Cloud.” 

Why does it still feel like this? 

The ocean is as wide and white as the sky. Gentle waves wash over the black shore. He watches them. The water and the wind in the grasses are the only sound.

She is with him. She is with him everywhere. 

Why does it still feel like this? 

He stares at the horizon. It's hard to see—here, sky and sea are truly one. Somewhere inside, his heart still beats. It's not necessary anymore. Neither the heart, nor the beat. But it does this anyway. It feels—

He feels—

He lifts his head. 

Wide is the sky, and empty.

Chapter Text

There's cool, smooth fabric underneath Cloud’s cheek. The wrongness of that only really registers when he slowly blinks his eyes open and is met with the empty side of the bed. 

He's lying on his side with one arm stretched out, as if reaching for something that's no longer there. It's still dark out, and Sephiroth is nowhere to be seen. 

The tug of his presence is close, though. 

Probably stargazing again, Cloud thinks grumpily, and rolls out of bed. 

The balcony is deserted, so he throws on a t-shirt and underwear, goes downstairs, stomps his feet into his boots, and ventures outside. 

His searching gaze immediately falls onto a lonely figure. Sephiroth is standing by the shore of the lake, barefoot and with the robe tied loosely around him. His head is tilted back. 

A meteor shower is streaking through the clear dark sky, blazing bright and silent. The shooting stars seem to fall towards the horizon and then disappear, one after another. 

Cloud sighs and makes his way over to his foe, through the wildly growing grasses and the flowers that have closed their blossoms until the morning comes again. Maybe some of them do bloom in the dark, though, because there's a heavy, sweet scent in the air. It's very warm tonight, and as he walks there are fireflies flying up around him like miniature suns.

Sephiroth doesn't acknowledge him when Cloud comes to a stop on his left. He keeps staring upwards, as if transfixed. 

Cloud glances at the spectacle, but the sight isn't exactly evoking happy memories, so he glares at the lake instead. And then at the greenery on the shore when he realizes that the still, dark water is reflecting the meteors’ shiny trails.

“So what, you change your mind?” he snaps. “Already wanna fuck off back up there and screw us over?” 

In the corner of his vision, he can see Sephiroth shift his stance towards him. There's a soft noise of fabric swishing against the grasses and flowers as Sephiroth closes the distance between them. More fireflies fly up as he passes by.

Arms come up around Cloud and press him gently against the heart that beats beneath a pale, bare chest. 

Sephiroth bends down, rests the side of his face on top of Cloud’s head, and sighs. 

“I do not wish to leave you behind again,” he says, his voice soft with something that might be regret or might be wistfulness. 

It's unclear whether this is a reply to Cloud's accusation. Sometimes Sephiroth doesn't seem to hear what anyone says at all; lost in his own world, in its shadows and whispers. 

If you don't wish to, then don't, Cloud wants to demand. But he bites it back. 

His hands have come up to cling to the loose fabric of the robe at Sephiroth’s sides. He closes his eyes and grits his teeth, and presses his forehead more firmly against his foe's skin.

I can't go with you. Not yet. I'm not…I'm not ready.

Thinking about what you're gonna need to do to my body to make it survive up there makes me wanna puke. Makes me wanna run.

But I can't ask you to stay either. I won't. You're still mad, unpredictable, and dangerous. 

The more time you spend away from here, the safer everyone will be.

Just what…what are we supposed to do?

One of Sephiroth's arms is wrapped around Cloud’s shoulders, with the other cradling the back of his head. They draw him in even closer, the sleeves of the robe coming up around Cloud like dark wings; like snow falling in the summer night. 

“Beloved,” Sephiroth says, with something that doesn't have a name rendering his voice tender and quiet. “Have me again?”

Cloud’s fingers clench in the robe as his eyes fly open and his heart is suddenly in his throat. 

Sephiroth has never asked. Not like this. He's offered with his body; he's teased and seduced and pushed Cloud’s buttons, but he's never asked outright. Not this sincerely. 

Cloud pushes away from the embrace just enough to tilt his head back and look up. 

His foe stares down at him, eyes gleaming in the dark. 

On the surface, he looks calm. But there's something almost vulnerable in the way he awaits Cloud’s decision. 

Sometimes…

Sometimes, when I look at you, I'm not sure what I'm seeing. 

What do you see…? 

…when you look at me?

Unable to keep holding his foe’s intense gaze, Cloud lowers his head again. Words won't come, so he grabs Sephiroth’s left hand and starts leading him back to the cabin.

Except as they walk through the blooming grasses, Cloud's steps slow, and finally come to a halt. He stares at the sleeping flowers, and at the fireflies that glow all around: as if they are the stars that have fallen and are now trying to get back up to the sky. 

He tugs at Sephiroth’s hand. “Lie down.” 

His foe does, in one graceful, languid motion, pulling Cloud down with him. 

The moon is bright tonight. So very bright. 

Once again, Sephiroth looks like a star himself, descended from the sky. Where his body isn't wrapped in dark silk, it seems to shine among the dark shadows of the flowers. 

Dislodged by his descent, petals have fallen onto him like snow. They've settled among the silver trails of his hair and joined the embroidered snowflakes frozen in time. Sweet smelling pollen dances in the air around them, adding to Sephiroth's own rose-sugar scent. 

Kneeling at Sephiroth’s side, Cloud stares down at him. 

He does not see the firmament reflected in his foe’s eyes—only the fireflies’ tiny, ever-moving points of light. 

Maybe it's because Sephiroth isn't looking at the sky anymore. His glowing gaze is fixed on Cloud, and on Cloud alone. 

Their fingers intertwine. 

When they kiss, it's really…soft. Slow. Like it's the first time, even though it isn't. Even though their first time was nothing like this. 

Sephiroth’s sweet scent hangs heavy in the air around them. Cloud presses kisses down his throat, inhaling deeply. Vaguely, he thinks that his foe smells even more sugary than usual. And his skin is…warm. It’s never warm.

Sephiroth’s free hand has slipped beneath Cloud’s t-shirt, caressing his back and the knobs of his spine. It, too, feels unusually warm. 

Before Cloud can ask about it, the thought has already slipped his mind. 

The marks he left on Sephiroth's chest earlier have disappeared, so he remakes them with his teeth. The hand that isn't intertwined with his foe's slips underneath the robe and strokes down Sephiroth’s side. 

The smooth skin beneath his fingertips shivers at his touch. Sephiroth makes an odd, almost surprised sound. His hand tightens where it's holding Cloud’s, and then there's a whoosh of displaced air as his wing appears and flattens the grasses around them. 

Flower petals and fireflies are tossed up into the air, and then slowly settle back down. Cloud lets his teeth unclench from Sephiroth's flesh, leaving angry red divots behind, and stares at the wing. 

His foe is already breathing harder just from being bitten and caressed. He'd writhed so beautifully the last time Cloud had sunk his mouth and hands into Sephiroth’s feathers, and used his foe’s own strange body against him. 

It's unusually easy to slip free from his foe's hold. Cloud knee-walks over the flowers to reach the wing. Grasses tickle the soles of his bare feet. 

…wasn't he wearing shoes? When did he lose them? 

His hands sink into the dark expanse of feathers. He finds a couple of filoplumes by touch, and then leans down and closes his mouth around them. 

The wing jerks in his grasp as Sephiroth gasps and writhes next to him. Feathers fluff up around where Cloud's mouth and fingers work. He pushes his face deeper into the warm, sweet-smelling softness. Licks, and sucks, and tugs. 

Sephiroth is making wonderfully needy sounds.

In the night, his wing looks as black as the sky itself. Darker, even. And with far fewer stars adorning it—there are only a handful of small white spots, scattered here and there. 

Feathers slide beneath Cloud's aimlessly grasping hands, slick from his mouth. His cheeks, too, are smeared with saliva.

His body feels warm. His mind hazy. It's…nice. 

Something is tugging at him though. Tugging at a place deep inside. It disturbs the pleasant haze. It feels…urgent. 

Clumsily, Cloud wrenches himself away from the feathers he's buried himself in and returns to Sephiroth’s side. 

The moment they're kissing, the urgent tug fades, and Cloud whines into Sephiroth’s mouth with relief. Maybe his foe felt a similar need to be closer—he clings to Cloud's shoulders with shaking hands, and kisses Cloud back with trembling lips. 

Smooth, black cloth is hiding parts of Sephiroth's body from view. From touch. Cloud doesn't like it. 

It's difficult to stop kissing him long enough to get the clothing out of the way. A sloppy trail of saliva slides down Sephiroth’s cheek when Cloud leans away. There's a feverish glaze over his foe’s eyes. His body seems weirdly uncoordinated and limp when Cloud eases it free from the fabric. 

Sephiroth’s bare form shines under the moonlight, amidst the ocean of black flowers and tiny suns. 

Cloud feels himself smile.

My star… Mine, only mine. 

“Cloud…?”

Sephiroth’s voice sounds strange. His eyes struggle to stay open and his chest is heaving up and down. 

“Cloud, I—” 

He sounds…confused? Almost alarmed. 

It's okay. Cloud’s gonna make it okay. Right? 

He leans down and licks Sephiroth’s cheeks clean. Strokes away the strands of silvery hair that stick to them. Nuzzles the side of his foe's face. Inhales.

So…sweet. 

The night air presses down on them, sweltering and heavy. Vaguely, Cloud becomes aware that his own body is shaking too. That his heart is beating very hard. And that something is chafing his skin. Clothes…they need off. 

One moment he's struggling to control his fingers enough to tug the fabric away, and the next it's gone. 

He lies between Sephiroth’s legs, the side of his face pressed over his foe’s heart. It beats, beneath the cage of flesh and blood and bone, fast as a baby bird's. 

Or is that his own heartbeat he hears? Or…both of theirs in sync? Yeah…yeah, that's right. He can feel it. One heartbeat, reverberating through both of their bodies. One set of lungs, inhaling. Exhaling. 

Fingers grasp weakly for his hand. He reaches back. Squeezes them reassuringly. 

It's all going to be okay. They…they just need…need to…

He lets go of Sephiroth's hand. His foe tries to hold onto him, but his grasp is too feeble. 

He strokes his hands down Sephiroth’s sides. Skin shivers and shifts beneath his touch. Then he leans down and licks at the sticky wetness that has gathered on Sephiroth's belly. When his cheek nudges the swollen sex next to it, he licks that too. 

“Uhn!”

Thighs clamp down around his waist in response. Sephiroth’s body writhes and trembles, and as the wing shifts restlessly there's the noise of grasses being flattened anew. When he looks up, the moonlight illuminates flushed cheeks and pale hands desperately fisted in the stems of crushed flowers.

His own hands slide down Sephiroth’s thighs and spread them further apart. There's resistance, but so weak that it barely even registers. Narrow hips attempt to shift away, so he holds them in place. By touch, his fingers find the way inside, where it's wet and feverishly hot. Where it feels…different than it used to, somehow…and the deeper he goes, the more it's like like something is clinging to his fingers, pulling them in—

“Cloud!”

That's the voice of his beloved. But why does it sound so strained and…scared?

He looks up. Above them, the sky is black and full of stars. There aren't any clouds at all. Not a single one. 

So why…

Oh. He frowns. That's right, it's his na— 

A sharp shard of glass is suddenly inside his head. It stabs at his temples. He flinches; curls into himself. 

Where…where are they? What is happening?

Something is—

The pain fades. In its place, there's a gentle humming in his head. A melody. …a…lullaby? 

Right…that's right…it's all going to be okay. They're not going to be alone anymore. Never again. 

His hand reaches down. His own arousal feels hard and leaking beneath his touch. When he leans forward and guides it inside, his eyes slip shut. And yet, he can see a sky full of cold stars above him while he burns with feverish heat below. 

His eyes are shut. His eyes are struggling to stay open. He's bent forward on his knees. He's lying on his back. He gasps as he pushes further inside and molten pleasure climbs up his spine like a slithering snake. He inhales shakily as he's taken, as his body is pushed into, as it clings and pulls the other body deeper in. 

Feverish haze blurs his vision. Stars are still falling above…falling down to where they are. 

Falling into them. Igniting inside. 

Inside—

wave 

wave 

wave

breath 

can't breathe 

heat engulfing flames pain 

grasping 

fingers held held held hold me ocean hold me 

falling falling down 

home home home above down below we came from stars once one one one hear us we are 

one hear us hear us hear us one one one one one one one one one one we are one 

we are one 

ignite ignite 

ignite 

Birdsong.

Light, behind his closed eyelids. 

Something soft tickling his nose. 

He falls back into a dark, dreamless sleep.

He's…outside? 

When Cloud manages to blink open his heavy, crusted eyelids, he can't quite make sense of what he's seeing. 

He's lying on his side among the grasses and flowers and buzzing bees. The sun has already risen and is warming his bare skin. 

Wait, why is he…? 

With shaking arms, he manages to push himself upright. He spots his black t-shirt and boxers and boots among the flattened grasses. Pulls them on with fingers that insist on being clumsy. 

Then he turns around, only to freeze at the sight that greets him. 

Sephiroth is lying behind and slightly curled around him. Silvery strands of hair are tangled in crushed flower stems, and dappled sunlight is making his still form appear both glowing and shadowed. 

He looks…well, he looks beautiful, as always. But also strange in a way Cloud can't pinpoint, until he realizes that his foe's eyes are closed, and his chest just barely moves up and down with breath.

Sephiroth is…asleep? 

He never sleeps. 

Cloud drags a hand over his face and rubs at his eyes. His mouth is dry. His head is…it hurts. It feels weird. 

The black robe is lying behind Sephiroth’s back, shoved haphazardly aside like a discarded wing. The man’s milky inner thighs are coated with dried fluids almost all the way down to his knees. 

Cloud stares for a long moment while his mind refuses to comprehend what he's seeing. He kneels in place and breathes. His heart beats; slow, even. That feels strange too.

Like it's…too alone. That thought makes no sense to him either. 

A bee buzzes past his ear. The birds sing. A warm breeze moves the grasses back and forth. Like ocean waves… 

Ouch. 

Thinking makes his head pound painfully. Cloud reaches out and squeezes Sephiroth’s left hand. 

“Hey—”

His voice comes out like a croak and he immediately sends himself coughing. 

“Sephiroth!” 

For several long, lonely heartbeats, nothing happens. 

Then, a flutter of eyelids. A sliver of vibrant green slashed through with needle-thin pupils. 

Sephiroth blinks up at him. It takes a moment for his eyes to focus. 

When they do, they immediately roam over Cloud’s features. Sephiroth’s expression remains calm, but also a little…out of it. 

He slowly sits up when Cloud tugs at his hand. Looks up at the clear blue sky. Blinks dazedly. 

Cloud reaches around him and picks up the robe. 

“C'mon,” he coaxes, dragging the silky fabric up Sephiroth’s back and over his shoulders. 

His foe lifts his arms a little but not in a way that suggests he’s really comprehending what Cloud wants him to do. His gaze is still fixed on the sky. 

With a sigh, Cloud maneuvers Sephiroth’s arms into the sleeves. Ties the robe closed in the front. Tugs at his foe's hand again. 

Sephiroth lets himself be led. His gait isn't unsteady like Cloud’s, but the way he follows after him is weirdly docile. Like he's barely aware of his own body and the fact that it's moving. 

By the time they're inside the cabin and Cloud is downing his second glass of water, Sephiroth still hasn't said a single word. 

The stains on his inner thighs are visible through the slit in the messily tied robe. He doesn't seem to be aware of those either. 

Something about the sight of them makes Cloud’s head hurt again. Makes his stomach feel weird. 

Is it…

Did he…

Did he do something? Like…go too far? 

Is that why everything feels so…off? 

Maybe it's just the water he drank, but he feels nauseous suddenly. 

Sephiroth is still standing in the middle of the room, where Cloud left him. He's watching the sunbeams on the wall. Or at least that's what Cloud assumes he's looking at. His foe's gaze is kind of…empty. 

Even when Cloud puts his glass in the sink and moves back to Sephiroth’s side, there's no reaction. When he takes Sephiroth’s left hand again, the fingers don't curl around his. 

Cloud leads them upstairs, and then into the bathroom. Strips. Unties the robe and carefully pulls it off his foe's body again. 

Aside from his thighs, Sephiroth looks…clean. His hair lies smooth, and though his skin feels oddly warm, it doesn't have any dirt smudges or grass stains.

The same cannot be said for Cloud. It's certainly not the first time that his skin has been left feeling tacky and visibly dirtied after sex. But this feels…

Like he got pulled out of his body, and then shoved back in, and now nothing fits anymore. 

Cloud leaves his own clothes in a heap on the floor, but folds the robe up carefully. Then he scrubs himself in the shower until his skin turns pink. 

The weird feeling persists. 

The shower stall is basically just a dip in the tiled floor with a curtain around it. Whoever built it definitely didn't account for someone of Sephiroth's height. Cloud shoves the curtain aside to make room and tugs Sephiroth forward by the hand. Then he takes the shower head off its holder, grabs a fresh washcloth, and crouches down. 

The tiles are the same deep forest green as the curtain. The dark colors usually feel soothing, but right now everything feels wrong: the red fabric of the washcloth in his hands, soaked in water and a bit of soap. The way it looks as he rubs it carefully over Sephiroth’s inner thighs, slowly working his way up. The sound the water makes as he aims the showerhead to wash away the suds. The water itself, as it flows over the tiles between their feet and towards the drain. 

Everything is just…

“Cloud?”

Sephiroth's voice sounds disturbingly subdued and uncertain. Like he just woke up from a deep sleep and still isn't quite awake. 

Cloud keeps his gaze fixed on Sephiroth's knees and the movements of the washcloth between them. Forces out a flat and quiet “What.”

For another long moment, there's only the noise of the water. Then, Sephiroth shifts slightly as he lifts his hands, previously hanging limp by his sides.

“I feel…” 

When his foe trails off again, Cloud chances a glance up. Sephiroth is staring down at his palms. 

“...strange.” 

Panic tries to rise up in Cloud's chest at that, but he pushes it back down. “You and me both,” he huffs bitterly, and then focuses back on his task. 

It's weirdly difficult to make his hands move up further. Even though he's looked at and touched those places many times before. And done…other things to them. 

It's just that he usually remembers those things; every heated, shameful, violent detail. 

But if he keeps hesitating, they'll be here all day. 

When he nudges Sephiroth's knee, his foe's stance obediently widens, after a moment's delay. It makes cleaning him easier even while it deepens the pit in Cloud's stomach.

Sephiroth doesn't speak again. He lets Cloud lead him out of the bathroom and then just stands there while Cloud pulls his tank top over his head; his fatigues up his legs; his gloves over his hands.

The mere thought of trying to wrangle his foe's large frame into his own clothes while he's this unresponsive makes Cloud feel exhausted. 

Maybe…maybe just underwear, and then the robe over it? When it's actually put on and tied correctly, it should completely cover Sephiroth’s chest and legs. 

There's no resistance as Cloud moves his foe's limbs this way and that. Sephiroth blinks every now and then, but doesn't otherwise react. Cloud mostly tries to avoid looking up into his face. 

It's therefore only when he tries to reach up and fix the robe's collar that he notices the dried tear tracks on Sephiroth's cheeks.

Cloud’s gloved fingers pause as he stares.

Those are obviously from last night, but…

Are they from feeling good?

Or from hurting?

Cloud steers Sephiroth towards the bed and pushes him down to sit on the edge. Then he goes back to the bathroom to wet another washcloth with lukewarm water. 

He carefully dabs at the tear tracks until they disappear. When he strokes a few wayward strands of silver hair back from Sephiroth’s face, his foe tilts his head into the touch. 

From this close, Cloud can watch those snake pupils as they dilate and contract in barely visible pulses. 

It's almost as if Sephiroth is…drugged. But how? There shouldn't be anything on this entire planet that could affect him in that way. And he would never deliberately do anything to himself that would leave him this vulnerable. 

So…so was it really…

Cloud withdraws his touch. Straps his sword harness to his back. Picks up Sephiroth’s bare hand with his gloved one. “C'mon,” he coaxes quietly. 

It's too silent and still in the cabin. Maybe if they just go outside, they'll both…properly wake up. And then maybe everything that's weird will just go away. 

Sephiroth lets himself be led by the hand until they get to the plum tree. Then he abruptly stops and stares up into the branches.

Cloud frowns up at him. “Did you see something?” 

Wordlessly, Sephiroth reaches up with his free hand and plucks several plums from the tree. Cloud barely manages to catch them when they get dropped onto his palm, and then suddenly Sephiroth is the one pulling him along. 

He's not walking very fast, but is definitely moving with more purpose than before. 

He's also…barefoot. 

Whoops?

Well…it's not like stepping on sticks and stones will actually hurt him. Right? So it's probably fine. 

Cloud's not hungry at all, but the easiest way to get rid of the plums in his hand is by eating them, so he does. “Where we going?”

It's a good thing he didn't really expect an answer, because he doesn't get one.

Sephiroth walks along the lake in the opposite direction to where they went on their hike. His stride isn't unsteady, but it is a little…meandering. Sometimes he stops and seems to listen to something inaudible before changing direction slightly. 

He steps over jagged stone and soft grasses as if he doesn't feel any difference. The hem of the black silk robe sweeps over the blooming flowers but doesn’t pick up any pollen. 

It's like he's not only mentally absent, but physically as well. Like he's there, but also…not.

Cloud tightens his grip on Sephiroth's fingers. 

They walk for what feels like about an hour, along an overgrown path that curves around the lake, and then moves to curve around the mountain instead. The underbrush crowds in closer and closer. Cloud is considering taking the lead, to force it back with his sword, when Sephiroth abruptly stops. 

“What is it?” 

Cloud looks up at him, and then follows his line of sight. 

At first, he can't make out anything unusual. There's the mountainside to their left, and trees, and plants. The hum of insects. A soft breeze ruffling the leaves. Birds singing. 

Then, he realizes that what he'd thought was a mere shadow caused by the rock formations is actually…the entrance to a cave?

He's barely finished with that thought when Sephiroth starts walking towards the cave. Since Cloud is still stubbornly holding onto his hand, he is pulled along with him. His foe strides through the thicket growing in front of the entrance as if it's not even there, still somehow without getting either his hair or robe tangled in anything. 

Meanwhile, Cloud has to repeatedly swat away the myriad branches that try to slap him in the face. 

Once they're through the entrance, there's abruptly way less vegetation, probably by virtue of it being dark as fuck. 

It's colder in here than outside, too, though not as damp as Cloud would have thought. Sephiroth keeps walking, and so does Cloud, his grip tight around Sephiroth’s lax fingers. The cave is wider than it looked—more than enough space for him to walk right next to his foe. 

Sephiroth must be able to see in the dark much better than he can. There's no hesitation in his steps, and not once does he bump into anything, even though at his height he must be dangerously close to the ceiling. 

It's really quiet in here, but quiet can be deceptive. Cloud reaches up and curls his free hand around the handle of his blade, ready to strike. 

It's hard to say for how long they walk through this darkness—something about the lack of light and the quiet makes it feel like time is standing still; like every moment is a small eternity. By the time the darkness goes from completely black to dim to lighter and lighter, Cloud is thoroughly sick of stumbling over rocks he can't see.

Finally, the tunnel opens out into a vast chamber, and—

“Oh…wow.”

Sunlight is flooding in through several ragged holes in the stone ceiling. Its beams illuminate the ground, covered in soft mosses, grasses, and delicate flowers the likes of which Cloud can't recall ever seeing outside. The chamber is big enough that it could fit the whole of Aerith's church inside, and then some. 

Pulled along by Sephiroth, Cloud turns this way and that to take it all in. It's very quiet in here, though there are faint sounds of…water?

When they reach the middle of the chamber, Cloud catches sight of a smaller cave in the back. Tucked away in that cave are two springs: one of mako, and one of crystal clear water that bubbles up and forms a small pond. 

No wonder everything's so lush and green in here, then, with both a water source and the lifestream so close to the surface. 

Sephiroth doesn't go near the smaller cave, though. He stops underneath one of the holes in the ceiling and stares upward, swaying in place a little. 

Cloud watches him silently for a moment. 

Confronted with the unexpected beauty of the chamber, the unease he'd been feeling was pushed aside for a bit, but now…

It's warmer in here than it was in the tunnel, but Cloud feels cold all over.

“Sephiroth.” Cloud squeezes his foe's lax fingers. “Talk to me. What are we doing he—”

Abruptly, Sephiroth’s knees give way under him, and he falls heavily against Cloud’s side.

“Fuck—” 

Cloud only just manages to catch his foe around the middle and keep him from crashing to the ground. Sephiroth’s body feels…limp. And really fucking heavy. 

The easiest way to deal with this would be to guide him down in a controlled fall, but for some reason that feels dangerous. As if once the whole of Sephiroth's body is touching the ground, he won't get back up again. 

“Sephiroth,” Cloud hisses out through clenched teeth. “Stand up!” 

Nothing happens for a long, tense moment. Then, Sephiroth’s bare feet drag over the mossy ground, as if struggling to remember what it is they should be doing. His foe shifts in Cloud's arms and braces himself against his shoulder with one hand. With Sephiroth’s head ducked down and his hair in the way, his face remains hidden.  

“...Cloud?” 

He still sounds out of it, but at least he's talking again. 

“Yeah.” With the way his foe is still leaning most of his weight on him, Cloud’s voice comes out strained. “Could you please stand up?” 

It's bizarre seeing someone normally so graceful in everything he does struggle just to get his feet under him and stand upright. Even once he does so, Sephiroth keeps swaying in place. He lifts his left hand to his temple, eyes squeezed shut and a frown between his brows. 

His arms held in a loose circle around Sephiroth’s swaying form, in case he falls again, Cloud’s muscles tense, and his unease picks up another notch. 

“Does your head hurt?” 

It's unclear if Sephiroth hasn't registered the question or hasn’t understood it. 

“Cloud?” he asks again, and this time he sounds almost…fearful. 

Okay, fuck this. 

Anxiety and adrenaline prickle over Cloud’s skin as he reaches up and grips Sephiroth’s arm firmly, near the crook of his elbow. 

“That's it, we're getting outta here. Come on.” 

Thankfully, Sephiroth both lets himself be led and keeps his feet under him. His steps are a lot more uncertain, though, and several times he stops and needs to be more or less gently encouraged to start moving again. 

The way back through the tunnel is the worst. Cloud draws his sword and uses it like a stick to check for obstacles ahead, all the while fervently hoping that the tunnel doesn't have any side branches for them to get lost in. He breathes a deep sigh of relief when there's finally light ahead.

Once they're out, Sephiroth slows to a stop again, swaying in place and blinking rapidly, as though the change from dark to bright is hurting his eyes.

Cloud digs his fingers into Sephiroth's arm. 

“Hey, you with me again? What the fuck is going on?”

It takes a long moment for Sephiroth to react. He lifts his hands and stares at his palms, and then says “...I feel strange.”

“Yeah, you said that already,” Cloud hisses impatiently. “Strange how?” 

That, Sephiroth doesn't seem to know how to answer. 

Cloud sighs and tugs at him. “Forget it. Let's just leave.”

Even though they've been outside the cave for a while now, Cloud still feels cold. Or maybe not cold exactly...maybe it's more that the warmth from the sun feels. Distant. 

Everything feels a little distant, honestly. A little…numb, though inside his head his thoughts are racing.

What the fuck is happening?

Back in the cabin, he mechanically strips the bed and stuffs the soiled bedding into the industrial washing machine in the bathroom, just to have something to do with his hands. 

All of this started after last night. 

Last night—

“Uhn!”  A sharp pain stabs at his temples, and he has to catch himself against the linen closet as his vision swims. And then he punches a fist against it in frustration, making the wooden doors rattle on their hinges. 

He stays like that, eyes squeezed shut, until the pain recedes. And then he angrily grabs some fresh sheets and bedding and makes the bed. 

The pale green duvet cover was from the flea market too, and it also has a flower pattern. The flowers are small and white, and for once Cloud knows their name: lily of the valley. He can recall Aerith teaching him the name while they picked flowers for the orphanage. 

They look too fragile to go on their bed. Too…innocent. 

That's a stupid thought, though. They're not real. 

Cloud finishes making the bed too quickly, and then suddenly his hands are empty again. His fingers clench into nervous fists, and he has to consciously unclench them again. 

Something about the idea of sleeping in a bed of flowers, even fake ones…of maybe doing…other things in there as well…

It suddenly leaves him feeling sick. 

He's fighting the urge to tear the fresh sheets off again when something brushes his shoulder and Sephiroth is standing next to him. 

Cloud had left him outside on the balcony, where Sephiroth had also just sort of…stood, swaying in place, staring at nothing. 

He's doing that now too, but at least he moved on his own. 

“Hey, are you—”

His foe doesn't acknowledge him at all. He brushes past Cloud, lies down on the bed on his side, closes his eyes, and seems to fall asleep instantly. 

Silver hair and black silk fan out over the bedding, burying the lilies beneath. Sephiroth’s spine is curved, his legs slightly drawn up to fit all 6’7’’ of him on the bed. 

It's bizarre to see his face so slack. 

He looks kind of…exhausted, even in his sleep. 

Carefully, Cloud sits down on the edge of the bed. 

“...Sephiroth?”

His foe doesn't even twitch. 

Cloud stares at him for a moment longer, and then turns around and lets his head sink into his hands. 

Just…what the fuck. 

It's not long until his leg starts to jitter with restlessness, and he pushes himself to stand again. 

For some reason, it feels weird to leave Sephiroth behind when Cloud goes downstairs and grabs his fishing gear. Not in the old way—he doesn't think his foe will try anything while he’s not in Cloud’s line of sight. But there’s a persistent tug in the middle of his chest that seems to want to call him back to Sephiroth’s side.

Cloud drags his knuckles over his heart and curses under his breath as he walks down the pier.

It’s probably just reunion, being worse than usual because of last night.

They obviously had sex…sex that Cloud saw the evidence of but can’t recall at all. 

He stops at the end of the pier. 

Had it just been… so intense that it messed both of them up? That’s not a thing, right? Except it’s not like either of them are normal human beings.

Cloud attaches a spinner lure to the fishing line. It glints a brilliant green and silver in the sunlight, the feathers at the end tickling his skin. 

And why is he mostly feeling okay, while Sephiroth is…like that? If his foe did something, shouldn’t it be the other way around? It’s not like him to compromise himself like that.

The lake is calm. Insects flitter over the deep blue surface. Cloud takes his boots off and dips his toes into the cool water. 

Maybe it really is just reunion aftereffects? Sephiroth tends to get weird about it, and weird about sex in general. Maybe he just overdid it goading Cloud to “reunite” with him and bit off more than he could chew.

And considering how Advent Day went…it wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened.

What was that whole thing with the cave, though? Was his foe somehow drawn to it because of the mako spring? Why? 

Hopefully Sephiroth is sleeping off his strange episode right now, and will be back to normal once he wakes up. Well, back to his normal levels of insane anyway. 

Cloud rubs his knuckles over his chest again and turns his head to look up at the cabin's balcony, with the door to the bedroom behind it. 

There are only a few sparrows, hopping along the balcony’s railing. 

When he turns back around, something is tugging at the fishing line.

It turns out to be a coastal angel trout. A female, and though spawning season is already over, Cloud throws her back in. 

He’s…not actually hungry. 

He should be, but… It’s like there’s no space in his body for hunger. 

Swallows fly low over the water, preying on the insects. 

Cloud fiddles with a loose thread on his fatigues and belatedly realizes that he never put on sunscreen. 

The entire time, the persistent tug of reunion doesn’t leave him alone. 

They just had sex. What the fuck does it even want him to do? 

Cloud resists it for as long as he can, but when the late afternoon shadows lengthen and darken, he packs up his gear. 

There is a single male trout swimming in his bucket, and he kept it more out of spite than anything else. He’s going to gut it, and cook it, and eat it, and he’s going to ignore that annoying tug the entire time. 

Chapter Text

It's still light out when he crawls into bed next to Sephiroth. 

Stupid reunion. 

There, Cloud thinks balefully as he puts his head down on the pillow. Happy now?

The duvet is anchored down on one side because Sephiroth is sleeping on top of it. He doesn't appear to have moved at all, and he doesn't react to Cloud's presence either. 

It's strange seeing his fingers so lax. 

Curved towards his foe, Cloud stares at him for a moment, and then closes his eyes. He probably won't be able to sleep yet, but that doesn't mean he has to keep worrying. 

What's there to worry about anyway? The man was like a walking tank even before he turned into whatever he is now. There's nothing in a remote bit of wilderness that could have hurt Sephiroth, and so there's nothing to fear. 

Nothing but Sephiroth himself, anyway. But Cloud’s got a good track record of dealing with him by now. He can handle weird. It'll probably all be back to business as usual once they wake up. 

He's closed the balcony door, but tilted one of the windows above the bed open a bit. There's the chirping of the cicadas, and a lone bird singing—probably a blackbird. 

Birds really are the only animals that Cloud knows anything about, at least enough to differentiate a few of them. Probably because they'd featured heavily in one of the books his mom used when she taught him to read. Cloud remembers staring at the pictures a lot and tracing them with his fingertips.

The pictures had been drawings, not photographs. Detailed, incredibly lifelike drawings of sparrows and crows, magpies and cranes. For a while, Cloud had tried to make similar drawings of the birds he saw around the village, until he got frustrated, because his didn't look as pretty, and gave up. 

And then of course there had been the ocean chocobos. Cloud had snuck out often to see them; both the wild ones and the ones kept in an enclosure near the village. The other villagers didn't like seeing him there, but Cloud was smart, and knew the best hiding places. 

He'd soon come to realize that chocobos were a lot nicer than people, and much easier to understand too. From then on, he hadn't been interested in learning about anything else but them.

Until, of course…

Cloud’s fingers bump into Sephiroth’s on top of the bedding, and he quickly draws them back and curls them into a fist. 

The fabric of the bedding and the sheets is still warm in places from the sunlight. Everything has that nice, freshly washed cotton scent…though, as his breathing deepens, Cloud can also smell familiar roses and vanilla. 

It must be because he's sleepy and stuff, but his foe’s sweet scent seems stronger than usual somehow.

Why does that thought…feel familiar?

Cloud’s still pondering that as his limbs grow heavy. And then he is walking towards Sephiroth through a dark field. It's night. Stars are falling above, streaking across the sky in slow motion with their blazing tails. 

His foe's arms are around him. He's saying something, but the words sound muffled in Cloud's ears. The edges of his vision are weirdly hazy. 

His heart pounds, loud in his ears. But its rhythm slows as his body starts to feel heavy, as if gravity has increased tenfold.

The sky spins. He's on his back, suddenly, looking up at it. The stars are still falling, even slower than before. 

His beloved…his beloved is here with him. Is touching him. Whenever the touch leaves his skin, there is a piercing, insistent pain. 

It's offset by the pulsing pleasure that's making his every limb tremble. His body feels…heated. It feels…strange. It feels….as though it cannot hold its form for much longer.

His wing writhes on the ground, unable to lift itself. Wetness leaks from his eyes, and is licked away by an attentive tongue. 

Everything is blurry. He can't see the stars anymore. 

The heart inside this body is beating very fast. The heart of his beloved lies on top of it, echoing its cries as their lungs breathe as one. 

He calls out to his beloved. Clings to his hand.

No reply. The hand slips away.

More wetness slides down his cheeks. His sides are caressed, and then his sex. It feels good. It feels…wrong. 

His thighs are parted, as his body refuses to obey his command. As it behaves like a weak puppet. As it acts like it used to back in the la—

He calls out to his beloved again. Wrongness pervades his every sense. Inside him, something is sinking.

Sinking like…fear.

His hips try to shift away but are easily held in place.

No, not like—not like this!

He tries to open his eyes. The sky is spinning, as though the entire celestial plane is descending on them.

Cloud?

You have to leave. Leave me. Something is—

Inside his body. Searching fingers. They caress his inner walls, the places that are…shifting. Changing. Instead of pushing the fingers out, his body reacts with sticky wetness. With growing tiny limbs that sucker onto the fingers and try to pull them in deeper. 

Deeper towards—

His eyes fly open wide. For a moment, he sees himself, spread out over a dark expanse, his skin flushed and on the verge of formlessness, his fingers grasping uselessly at nothing. Then the sky above, so full, so full of stars. 

Cloud?

I can't feel you. Did you leave? You need to leave. No, don't, don't leave me! I—

I am—

A gentle humming washes over him. A melody he has not heard in a long time. 

….mother? 

His limbs stop their senseless resistance. 

Mother is singing to him. Like she used to when he was small and scared. 

Is it alright? Is it alright, then?

He is pushed into, and held in place, and rocked back and forth. Wave, after wave, after wave, like a primordial ocean. 

Mother is here now. Mother will make it okay. 

He blinks. The stars are falling faster now. Falling down to where they are. If only he could move his hands, he could reach up and touch their brightly blazing trails. 

Two bodies are rapidly becoming one as the flesh melts from his bones and shifts like sand, as it transforms and intertwines with his beloved's. As it pulls him deeper inside and—

And ignites—

Ignites—

Mother?

It hurts.

Mother? Is it okay that it hurts? 

She sings to him, to both of them, as they are rocked back and forth as one. As one as one as one. Hear us hear us hear us, she sings she sings she sings. 

A soothing hum, deep and reverberating and gentle as they are held held held—

At first, he doesn't realize that his eyes are open. For several long, frantic heartbeats, he does not know where he is. Does not know who he is. 

Then he inhales shakily, and the familiar scent of sugary roses shocks him back into his body. 

He can't see well because it's dark. Because the side of his face is pressed against—

Sephiroth’s chest. Over his slowly beating heart. 

Cloud is folded into his lap. Held. Sephiroth is rocking them back and forth on the bed. Cloud was…dreaming? But his body doesn't seem to have gotten the memo that it's awake now. It's shaking all over. And in his ears, he can still hear that pervasive humming he heard in his sleep. 

He can…feel it too, where his body is leaned against Sephiroth’s ribs. 

Which means—

With a gasp, Cloud pushes against Sephiroth’s chest with all his strength, desperately trying to escape the cage of his arms. 

“L-lemme go, let go, let go!” 

Sephiroth stops humming, and the melody abruptly falls away. His arms do not. 

“Cloud—"

“Let go, let go!”

Cloud kicks and pushes, and when Sephiroth’s arms finally cease their suffocating hold, he scrambles out of his lap.

Breathing heavily and still shaking all over, Cloud scoots away to the end of the bed. 

“W-what was that?! What were you humming?!”

Sephiroth stares at him in an eerily blank way, as though he doesn't grasp what Cloud is talking about. Then he blinks and says, “My mother used to sing it to me. When I was a child.”

…what?!

“No, she didn't,” Cloud hisses, completely out of patience for his foe’s delusions. “She wasn't with you.” 

Another blank look. 

“She was.” Sephiroth sounds calm, but also like he isn't really present. “Though I did not realize it at the time.” 

…what the fuck.

Cloud drags a trembling hand down his face and exhales harshly. 

Sephiroth is still staring at him. There's not enough air in the room. 

He swings his legs over the edge of the bed. 

“‘m thirsty. Gonna get some water.” 

Cloud’s feet have barely touched the hardwood floor when there are suddenly hands under his armpits, lifting him onto Sephiroth’s hip to be carried like a child.

“Wh—hey, put me the fuck down! I can walk by myself!”

Sephiroth doesn't react. Without turning on the lights, he descends the stairs with Cloud in his arms, and then pauses as though he cannot remember where the sink is.

Cloud stares up at him as Sephiroth’s glowing snake eyes flick around the room, and finally find the kitchen counter. He's carried over, and then carefully set down right beside the sink. 

Sephiroth’s arms remain in a loose circle around him as Cloud twists awkwardly to get a glass out of the cupboard, and then fill it with water. 

He's not actually all that thirsty. Mostly, he just wanted to get the fuck out of that room and have a moment to himself. 

Cloud sips from the glass and scowls at Sephiroth’s collarbones in front of him. 

So much for that. He should have—

There's a rustling noise from outside. Cloud barely even registers the sound as he puts his empty glass in the sink, but Sephiroth reacts as though faced with a sudden threat. 

His arms abruptly tighten around Cloud again, clutching him to his chest while he draws up to his full height; eyes fixed on the direction the noise came from, entire body tense. 

“Nghk.” 

With his lungs crushed against Sephiroth’s chest, it takes Cloud a moment to even realize what must have caused this sudden alertness. 

“Let go,” he wheezes out, pushing uselessly against the iron hold. “That was probably just a mouse or something! The fuck are you freaking out for?”

No reaction. When he looks up, Cloud can see Sephiroth stare at the direction that the noise came from, slit pupils restlessly dilating and contracting as if trying to focus on something that…

…isn't there.

It's warm inside the cabin, and Cloud's wearing boxers and a tee. But he feels cold all over with unease, heart stuck in his throat. 

Does Sephiroth…even know where he is?

Because if not, this could turn real bad real quick.

“Sephiroth! Hey!” Cloud manages to free one hand enough to yank ungently on his foe's silver bangs. “There's a forest outside! Remember?” It's difficult to yell while being held so tightly, but it's made easier by the fact that Cloud is getting increasingly alarmed, and increasingly pissed off. 

“Sometimes there are animals in the forest, and sometimes they make noise. You think some fucking mouse could hurt me?! Let go already!” He punctuates that last bit by pushing against Sephiroth’s chest again with all his strength, and at last the hold on him slackens enough that he can breathe more freely. 

“What the fuck is going on with you?! You can't just—hey!”

Sephiroth stares at him blankly for a moment, and then picks him up again and carries him back upstairs. He lies down on his side in bed, with Cloud held tightly in his arms, back to chest. 

“Still not a plush toy,” Cloud hisses, thoroughly annoyed but unable to even scowl directly at Sephiroth in this position. 

His head is tucked beneath his foe’s chin and they're pressed close enough together that Cloud can feel the way Sephiroth’s ribs move with slow, even breaths. 

He tugs at the sleeve of the black robe insistently. “Hey, don't go to sleep again. Talk to me. What happened last night?” 

Sephiroth just breathes for another couple of heartbeats, and then he presses his nose into Cloud’s hair and sighs. “I was with you.”

From the reverent tone of his voice Cloud doesn't have to ask what kind of 'with' he means. His cheeks still have the audacity to warm a little.

“Okay. And then what happened?”

It's hard to judge without being able to see his face, but there's something in Sephiroth’s silence that makes Cloud suspect he doesn't quite remember either. Not while he's still this out of it at least.

Awesome. Just great. 

Switching tracks, Cloud asks, “What did you mean earlier when you said that your mother used to sing to you? How did that work?”

Sephiroth continues to be silent for so long that Cloud starts to think he's either asleep already, or that he didn't register the question. Then he says, “When I was in pain, she would soothe it. When I was starving, she would bring me nourishment. She would sing, so I could sleep without remembering.”

…what? 

“Okay, but…that didn't actually happen,” Cloud counters carefully, highly aware of the dangerous ground he's treading on. “She wasn't actually there. So…you must have just dreamed it.” 

His heart pounds, awaiting his foe's reaction. But while Sephiroth still sounds like he's not quite present, his voice remains calm. 

“I thought so too, at the time. It must have hurt her deeply, knowing that I dismissed her reaching out to me as mere mirages and illusions. Only when I finally found her and recognized her voice did I realize the truth.” 

Cloud’s breath catches. His chest suddenly feels too tight, and his hands and feet become cold and numb with shock. 

‘Recognized her voice’? So Jenova really did sink her claws into him when he was still a child? Creeping into his dreams while she was caged, to spy on what he wanted most, and then using that to lure him in… 

So then…was everything lost before it even began? Was there nothing that could have kept Sephiroth from burning down the world in her name, because she got to him before Cloud was even born? 

Hands curled into trembling fists, Cloud squeezes his eyes shut and bites his lip hard. It's useless of course—pressed this close together, Sephiroth can feel the way his heartbeat has picked up and how his body has grown tense. 

His foe draws him even deeper into their embrace, and curls his larger body around Cloud’s protectively. 

What is clearly meant to be comforting only feels suffocating. 

“Mother loves us, Cloud.” Sephiroth says in a soothing tone, as if he thinks Cloud needs to be reassured of that fact. “She loves us. She will never leave us.” 

Cloud’s nails dig painfully into his palms. The tears burn as they finally slip free.

That thing doesn't love you, and it doesn't love me. And even if it did, I wouldn't want it to. 

I hate it. I hate it so fucking much. 

A large hand rubs circles into his shuddering chest. He can feel the vibration through his trapped body as the hum of that sickly sweet lullaby starts up again. 

Everything is calm and floaty and then there's a really annoying ringing sound. It rips Cloud out of his dreams and drags him into a reality where his head is pounding and his throat hurts and he doesn't want to open his eyes. 

The ringing is still there. Right, that's his phone, over on the bedside table. 

He put up a sign at the shop, and let Tifa know he was taking a break, but maybe some customer didn't get the memo. That's fine—once the call goes to voicemail they'll know that he won't be available until next week.

The ringing stops and Cloud settles back into his pillow. 

And then it starts up again. 

Cursing under his breath, Cloud turns over halfway, grabs his phone, and flips it open without looking at the caller ID. 

“I'm on vacation,” he hisses into the speaker, not even bothering to hide his annoyance. 

“I know, I'm sorry—”

“Tifa?” He's immediately wide awake and sitting up. Tifa sounds apologetic, but also like something bad is going down. “What's wrong?”

His sitting dislodges Sephiroth’s arm—previously curled loosely around him—but doesn't wake his foe up, because apparently he's already awake. Sephiroth is lying there with his head propped up on one elbow, watching Cloud curiously. He seems more aware again; yesterday's blankness has been replaced with mischief twinkling in his eyes. 

Cloud glares at him and pointedly presses the phone against his ear. 

“You know how Barret, Reeve and Cid have been researching whether windmills could be used to generate electricity in Midgar like they do in Cosmo Canyon?” Tifa asks. She sounds tense, but also like she's trying to keep her cool. “Well, Cid was meant to fly a group of engineers over to check out possible sites, but he just called—and everything's chaos over there right now. At first they thought it was an earthquake, but—”

Cloud, who's been busy batting Sephiroth’s hands away as they keep trying to slip underneath his tee, freezes as the realization hits.

“It's the Gi, isn't it? They’re trying to break out again?” He's barely finished the sentence when it hits him what that means. “Fuck. Nanaki.”

“Apparently he ran to the cave entrance right away. And you said you were going on a road trip, so I thought maybe if you were close—”

Cloud grits his teeth and has to suppress the urge to curse again. 

He isn't close. He's on the wrong fucking continent. There's no way he could make it in time to—

Wait. 

Cloud fixes Sephiroth with a stern look, and his foe blinks up at him innocently in turn. 

“Yeah, I'm close actually. ‘M gonna make sure he doesn't do anything stupid, like play the hero.”

Tifa sighs in relief. “Keep us posted, okay? Barret's still on the phone with Cid, but there's not really anything we can do from here.” 

“I got this. Don't worry.” 

Tifa hesitates for a moment before saying, “Stay safe, okay? Don't go in there without backup.” 

The corner of Cloud’s mouth twitches. In theory, his ‘backup’ is the most powerful there is, but in practice that means nothing if his foe decides to be a hindrance rather than a help. Still, he says, “Roger that,” and salutes, even though Tifa can't see him.

They hang up, and Cloud immediately scrambles out of bed before Sephiroth can get any bright ideas about keeping him there. 

“I gotta get to Cosmo Canyon,” Cloud explains, while he hurriedly gathers up his clothes and puts them on. “Right the fuck now. You're gonna fly me there.”

Sephiroth arches one eyebrow, watching Cloud with obvious amusement. “Oh am I?” he asks. On the surface, his tone is playful, but there's a certain sharpness beneath. A warning not to push. 

Naturally, Cloud pushes.

“Yeah, you fucking are.” He fixes his foe with another glare. “This is your mess too! You're the one who was so desperate to get his greedy hands on the black materia, and now the Gi are acting up again because they want it back!”

Sephiroth blinks at him. “And you want me to give it to them?” he asks, though from the way his eyes are smiling cruelly, Cloud suspects he already knows the answer. 

Better play it safe though. “No! Fuck no. Just—” He drags a hand through his messy hair and sighs in annoyance. “Just get me there. I'll handle the rest.” 

Not waiting for a reply, Cloud stomps into the bathroom and throws cold water on his face to remove the stickiness of sleep. Then he stomps back out, straps his harness to his back, and shoves all six blades into it. 

“Okay, ready. Let's go.” 

Sephiroth has finally deigned to leave the bed. As always, he looks perfectly put together and not sleep-mussed at all. He's still barefoot and wearing only the robe, but if that doesn't bother him, then Cloud won't care either. 

But instead of making his wing appear, his foe crosses his arms in front of his chest and looks down at Cloud sternly. 

“We're not leaving until you've eaten.” 

Cloud throws up his arms.

“Seriously?!”

They don't have time for this! 

Unfortunately, Sephiroth has that look on his face that means he won't budge until he gets his way, so Cloud stomps downstairs and shoves one of Fio's granola bars into his mouth. He chews it as fast as he can, gulps down half a glass of water, and turns back around. 

“Happy now? Great. Let's go.”

He steps close to Sephiroth, and as his foe's arms come up around him only just remembers to say, “Land somewhere out of sight.” 

Heedless of the sharp blades strapped to Cloud's back, Sephiroth pulls him close against his body. “So demanding.” His tone is back to amused and teasing, but Cloud is given no time to reply, and can only shut his eyes as feathers rustle and gravity disappears.

It never feels like they're flying through actual air. It's completely silent, and even through his closed eyelids Cloud can see strange flickers of colors. One of these days he really needs to open his eyes and look, even if the sight might make him throw up. 

Another thing he really needs to do is talk to Sephiroth about last night…and even more importantly, the night before that. Sephiroth’s body still feels too warm, and he still smells too sweet, but at least he seems mostly coherent again. 

Hopefully his foe will be able to tell him if any of what Cloud saw in his dreams actually happened…but then again, would he be acting so calm if it did? Is he just pretending not to remember? Is he…planning something? 

Cloud’s gloved fingers tighten in the folds of the robe at Sephiroth’s back.

The Gi really have the worst fucking timing ever. Just for that he's gonna kick their undead asses.

After a few seconds of flight, there's solid ground beneath Cloud’s boots again. When he blinks his eyes open, he sees to his relief that they seem to have landed in a deserted spot. Red stone walls rise on either side of them, opening up to the vast desert beyond. Hopefully they're not too far from the cave entrance.

He's barely finished the thought when the ground he expects to be steady shakes beneath his feet, dislodging stones that tumble down the red walls. 

“Fuck.” Cloud steps out of Sephiroth's embrace. “I know you're not gonna help, so just…wait here and look at the scenery or whatever. Stay out of sight. I gotta go.”

Not even waiting for a reply, Cloud turns around and runs. 

The ground stops shaking after a few more seconds, which makes running a lot easier. And then it starts up again. 

When he arrives at the cave entrance, he almost doesn't recognize it under the many stones which have fallen down around it and scattered themselves over the sand. The sealed gate is…no longer sealed. Wind howls from it, as if a storm is trapped inside. And there's a sound coming from its black depths that's making the hairs on the back of Cloud’s neck stand up. Like a drum being beaten, far beneath the earth’s surface. And with every beat, the ground shakes as if it's about to split open. 

Nanaki is alone in front of the open gate, every line of his body tense and poised for a fight. He turns around when he hears Cloud approach, his voice deep and commanding. 

“I said not to—Cloud?! What are you doing here?”

Cloud comes to a stop beside him and shakes his head. “Long story,” he answers evasively. “Where is everyone?”

“I finally managed to get them to leave. The guards cannot help with this.” Nanaki says firmly, his eye flickering back and forth between Cloud and the cave entrance. 

Ignoring the way the weird wind is tugging at his clothes and hair, Cloud crosses his arms in front of his chest and glares down at his friend.

“You mean you sent them away so they wouldn't stop you from sacrificing yourself for the vale like Seto did.” 

Nanaki sighs. “Cloud—”

“No, don't gimme that crap. I'm here now and I ain't letting you do anything stupid like that.” 

He draws his main blade and one of the saw-toothed ones, and takes another step closer to his friend's side. “So let's kick their asses until they—”

Nanaki has suddenly gone completely still and is staring up at him fixedly. “Cloud,” he says, his tone carrying a tense, dangerous undercurrent. “Do you know whose scent is clinging to you right now?”

Cloud freezes in his tracks, his heart skipping a beat and sending tiny, painful stabs of panic through his chest. Despite the sun shining down on them from a wide blue sky, he feels cold all over. 

The last time he saw Nanaki, he hadn't been around Sephiroth in months. And now, the strong wind must have concealed his scent, until Cloud made the mistake of stepping too close.

His mind blanks as his heart starts to race.

“Th-that's. I don't know what you m—”

He's not even given time to finish the lie before Nanaki turns around and starts to growl. And that tug that Cloud has been foolishly ignoring lets him know that his foe is walking up behind him. 

Well…fuck. 

Cloud turns around halfway and glares at Sephiroth. “I told you to stay out of sight.”

His foe completely ignores Nanaki in favor of smiling at Cloud with his eyes. “You did,” he says, his tone mild and amused. The “and I chose to ignore it” goes unsaid, but Cloud hears it loud and clear. 

Nanaki's growling cuts off as he demands, “Cloud. What is he doing here?” 

Completely unbothered by everything going on around him, as always, Sephiroth walks to Cloud's side and examines the cave entrance with curious eyes. The weird wind is tugging at the sleeves of the black robe and whipping his long silver hair around him, a few strands caressing the skin of Cloud’s arm.

Defeated, Cloud just gestures at him vaguely in reply. “Beats me.”

Nanaki doesn't sound like that was in any way reassuring. “Cloud—”

Just then, the shaking of the ground intensifies. Cloud struggles to keep his feet under him, and Nanaki redirects his attention to the cave, visibly bracing for a fight.

Sephiroth doesn't react to the shaking, and instead starts walking into the cave, like they're back in the woods and taking a leisurely stroll. 

“Hey, what the—wait!” 

Cloud hurries after him, Nanaki at his heels. 

Just like when they'd entered this cave for the first time all those years ago, the moment they cross the threshold it's like they're cut off from the outside world by an invisible barrier. 

The Cetra magic that's been keeping the Gi trapped must still be in place, then.

For now.

If the shaking is anything to go by, he Gi must be throwing themselves against their prison bars with all their might. 

Some of the torches illuminating the tunnel have been destroyed by falling stones, so the light in the passageway is dim. As he ducks to avoid more debris falling from the ceiling, Cloud thinks grimly that it's monumentally stupid to enter a cave on the brink of collapse. 

Maybe that's one good thing about Sephiroth being a brat and not listening to what he’s told. He might actually be their only chance at making it out of here alive. 

“So what's the plan?” Cloud asks his friend. “Push ‘em back until they give up, like last time?”

“...”

Nanaki's jewelry chimes from his place on Cloud's right, but he himself stays silent. He's probably pissed at Cloud. Or doesn't want to speak in front of Sephiroth. Or both. 

Which is understandable and all, but they don't have time for it. 

“C'mon, talk to me,” Cloud tries again, as they descend another set of ancient steps. “Trust me, he won't care,” he adds, jerking his head at Sephiroth next to him. 

Indeed, his foe seems more interested in studying the red stone of the cave walls than paying any attention to them, like there’s stuff on them that only he can see. While Cloud has to make sure to watch his step, Sephiroth walks with bare feet over the sand and stones, as though they were the softest grass. The howling wind that had been blowing from the cave is gone, effortlessly extinguished by a single motion of Sephiroth's hand. 

Nanaki stays stubbornly silent until they've reached the next pair of steps, and then he sighs.

“Beating them back will not be enough this time. Their suffering has become too great—they will not settle without a sacrifice to soothe it.” 

The stone steps feel like they're on the verge of shaking apart, and Cloud curses. “Yeah, no. I ain't letting you do that. Didn't you say you had a lead on a third way? What is it?”

Red sand rains down from a crack on the ceiling, and Nanaki quickly steps out of the way to avoid it. “Nothing that will help us now.” 

The sound of the drum seems to be getting louder. That's probably not good.

Cloud grits his teeth and grips his sword handles tighter. “Tell me anyway.”

They descend the last couple of steps, and the elevator comes into view. There's still no sign of any Gi spirits. Either they're still being held back by the barrier, or they're waiting for something. 

Probably us, Cloud thinks grimly. This is such a bad idea. 

It also seems like a bad idea to board an elevator in the midst of an earthquake, but apparently it's bad idea day today. Cloud pushes the button to open the gate, and then once they've all boarded, he pulls the lever. They descend. 

It seems that Nanaki has decided to ignore Sephiroth the same way the man is ignoring him. 

“Do you remember what the Gi told us about how they got here?” he asks Cloud. 

“Uh.” It had been a little hard to listen back then, since apparently the Gi were of the opinion that storytelling should be accompanied by fighting. “Their planet kind of…died? And then crashed into our planet. And because they didn't come from the lifestream, they can't return to it.” 

“Right.” Nanaki nods, making his jewelry chime. “Which means that had they been on their own planet when they died, they would have been able to pass on without getting stuck. I was thinking about this one day, and then I started to wonder…what if there were still pieces of it left?” 

Another tremor makes the walls shake, and Cloud has to shift his stance as the elevator briefly stutters.

“You mean like in space?”

It's hard not to glance at Sephiroth behind him. If anyone would know about that, it would be…

But Nanaki shakes his head. “Possibly, except those pieces would have long since been flung beyond our reach. But remember what the Gi said—that their planet was subsumed by our own.”

Cloud feels himself tense all over as what Nanaki is getting at clicks. 

“You think those pieces could still be in Gaia’s core.” 

“Yes.” Nanaki turns toward the gate as the elevator starts to slow. “While Gaia incorporated those pieces into herself, it is possible that they remained intact. And it is mere speculation, but I believe that if the spirits of the Gi were to be reunited with their planet in its last resting place, they too would be able to finally find rest.” 

Then he sighs. 

“But there must be a reason the Cetra never tried this. It would take immensely strong magic to transport the Gi there, and maybe the planet refused to lend the Cetra its power for this purpose. That, or they thought the risks to the planet were too great.” 

Damn. 

“So…dead end?”

The elevator comes to a stop. 

“Possibly. But I have made a promise.” Nanaki fixes his gaze on the tunnel beyond, his stance shifting back to a fighting one. “Brace yourself.”

They're barely out of the elevator when a group of Gi lancers and archers materializes in front of them.

“Remember to stay away from their poisoned arrows!” Nanaki yells, as he slashes at one of the spirits with his claws and tail.

Right. This was all a lot easier last time, when they were equipped with materia that would protect them from poison. But Cloud has vowed not to use materia anymore, so he's just going to have to pay extra attention. 

One of the lancers is coming at him. The moment it takes a swing at him, Cloud hooks and traps its lance with his saw-toothed blade, and then stabs the spirit with the main one. It disintegrates into red mist and is immediately replaced by another. 

He slashes his way through three more, and then he hears the sound of a bowstring being pulled back. Whirling around, he brings both blades up into a cross-block position, just in time to shield himself from a poisoned arrow aimed at his heart. 

The arrow barely has time to clatter to the ground at his feet before there's a sudden and uncomfortably familiar explosion of light and darkness. When Cloud lifts his head, there's nothing but red mist where the spirits were.

Casting Shadow Flare seems like serious overkill for those guys, but it did get the job done. Nanaki does not seem to agree though, glaring and growling at Sephiroth. He probably had to jump out of the way to avoid getting hit himself. 

Annoyed, Cloud scowls up at his foe, who is now walking towards him. “I had it under control. You didn't need to—hey!”

Ignoring his complaints, Sephiroth plucks Cloud’s main blade straight out of his grip and examines it critically. 

“It is very foolish to fight opponents like this without protection against magical attacks.” 

Cloud crosses his arms in front of his chest. “I've been fighting this way for years. Ain't my fault you never realized until n—what the fuck are you doing?!”

Sephiroth is running the palm of his hand down the edge of the blade. Blood wells up immediately, but his focused expression doesn't change. He strokes his cut-open palm down the flat of the blade, and instead of leaving behind red smears, a series of glowing symbols appear on the steel. 

They disappear again, too fast for Cloud to make them out. And then, the moment Sephiroth lifts his hand away, every piece of the Fusion Sword lights up with that same purple glow. 

“What—!”

The glow fades after a few seconds, but Cloud’s heart is left racing and his skin shivering from the prickle of extremely powerful magic. 

“They should serve you better now,” Sephiroth says, his tone annoyingly self-satisfied. He hands back the blade, and Cloud stares down at its smooth steel for a moment.

Should he like…say thanks? 

The question answers itself when Sephiroth sighs and adds, “I'm afraid I can do nothing for their crudeness, though.” 

Cloud goes right back to glaring up at him. “I prefer function over form,” he shoots back caustically. “And besides, I kicked your ass with them, so they can't be that bad.” 

Sephiroth smiles at that as if recalling a fond memory. He starts walking unhurriedly down the tunnel again, and Cloud hastens to follow. 

“That speaks to your talent, not your blades. You're my only equal—you could succeed with any weapon, if you put your mind to it.”

Cloud…stumbles, and only just manages not to fall flat on his face. 

There must have been a rock he didn't see. 

“Th-that's—no way. If that were true, there'd be no reason for you to still be using Masamune.” 

Sephiroth isn't fazed by the rebuff. 

“Of course there is. It holds a piece of my mother, and so it is a part of me. Forever.” 

This time, his foe's words almost stop Cloud dead in his tracks.

Is that why Sephiroth can summon it at will? 

Did that space monster insinuate itself into every aspect of his life until he didn't even realize he was caught in its web? 

Cloud is given no time to dwell on those questions. The ground gives another intense shake, and then around the next corner are a pair of Stingers, as well as several Two Faces.

And of course they attack immediately. 

Nanaki jumps into the fray with him, and Cloud belatedly realizes that he had completely forgotten about his friend.

Only for a moment, though. And only because he had to keep an eye on Sephiroth. 

After all, it's still unclear why his foe is acting helpful all of a sudden. If there's one thing Cloud knows, it's that the man is a calculating bastard. He doesn't do things for no reason. 

So…what's his angle?

Chapter Text

Cloud and Nanaki have barely fought their way past the fiends when the next wave of Gi spirits attack them. There seem to be more of them than before, and Cloud quickly realizes that they have a sorcerer with them, which revives its fallen comrades the moment they disintegrate. 

He grips the handles of his two blades tighter. 

Perfect timing to find out if whatever Sephiroth did to his sword was worth the theatrics. 

The sorcerer is at the back of the group, so Cloud has to fight his way past the other spirits to get to him. Nanaki must have spotted the sorcerer as well, as he immediately starts clearing a passage, his spinning attacks viciously tearing the spirits apart.

This time when Cloud is assaulted by magic, there's a bright flash as he brings up his blades in defense. The moment the magic hits the steel, it disperses and fades away into nothing. 

Huh. 

Sephiroth is somewhere behind him, but Cloud doesn't need to turn around to know that his foe must be smiling in that infuriatingly self-satisfied way of his. 

A wave of arrows flies towards Cloud and Nanaki; Cloud slices them in half. Then he does the same to the sorcerer, and after that they have a much easier time taking care of the rest of the specters. 

The passage in front of them is clear again.

For about five minutes, that is, and then the next wave of specters attacks them. And of course they have two sorcerers with them. 

“Never a dull moment with these guys,” Cloud comments dryly as he falls back into an attack stance at Nanaki's side. 

“They're trying to stall us. We need to dispatch them quickly.”

His friend sounds as tense as he looks. Which…yeah. The ground still shakes every couple seconds as the Gi rail against their prison. 

This would all be so much easier if a certain someone would be willing to lend a hand. But Sephiroth seems content to hang back, and only deigns to flick away whatever dares to come too close to him. 

When Cloud turns his head to aim a glare at Sephiroth, he finds his foe's eyes already fixed on him, mouth curved into a soft smile. 

Is Sephiroth…enjoying watching him fight?

Cloud turns back around and scowls at the fading red mist left behind by the specters. 

It must be the exertion from the battle that’s making his face feel hot. He flicks imaginary blood off his blades and hurries after Nanaki.

They've reached that weird lake with the even weirder cave ceiling by now, and for once there are no specters in sight. The pier and the longboat are there, but no ferryman. 

“Where's what's-his-name? He hasn't shown up at all.” 

Nanaki is already making his way towards the boat. “Gi Nattak. And I suppose he is waiting for us in the village.” 

“Why?” Cloud asks as he climbs into the boat after Nanaki. “Haven't they already decided to break out by force?” 

The longboat sinks a little deeper into the water as Sephiroth boards it as well, and then it starts to glide over the lake by itself, leaving the pier behind. 

“He trusts me,” Nanaki says. Then he sighs. “Or he did. He expected me to keep my promise.”

Cloud sits down beside him and tries to even out his breathing. Being on a boat tends to make him a little…queasy. “Okay, but you did. You finally found a way to give them their… their peace, or whatever.” 

Nanaki shifts his stance with the rocking of the boat, making his jewelry chime. “In theory, yes. But it will be hard to convince them, and even harder to make them settle down once more and wait patiently until I've worked out a plan. And what if after all of that, it turns out that I'm wrong? What if there isn't any part of their planet left at all?” 

“There is.” 

Twisting around in surprise, Cloud looks up at where Sephiroth is standing behind him. His foe has his hands clasped behind his back, snake eyes watching the swirling of the lifestream in the water with rapt attention. 

“Their planet was made up of a different matter than this one is, and so it could not be assimilated completely. The pieces are kept in stasis, engulfed but otherwise left untouched.” 

Right…with all the time he's spent in the lifestream, of course Sephiroth would know stuff like that. Not to mention him planting his ass inside the core of the planet to fix his body. There's probably—

Wait.

“Those pieces,” Cloud asks, his heart picking up speed, “can they be accessed through the Northern Cave?” 

Sephiroth shifts his glowing gaze to him. The smile is audible in his velvet voice. 

“They can.” 

Cloud holds his gaze.

“So you could take the Gi there.” 

Nanaki growls. “Cloud—”

“I could.” Sephiroth’s smile widens, eyes shining with cruel amusement. 

“Cloud, what are you doing?!” Nanaki demands. “He cannot be trusted.”

Cloud holds Sephiroth's eyes with his own. “Most of the time, no. But there's something you want, ain't there? That's why you were suddenly cool with bringing me here and tagging along.” 

The expression in Sephiroth’s eyes shifts from amused to something more fond. “Mm,” he agrees, and then of course doesn't elaborate any further. 

Cloud sighs and finally breaks eye contact. He can already tell that this is the most he'll get out of his foe at the moment. 

When he turns back to Nanaki, he almost flinches at the fierce glare his friend is directing his way. 

“Look, it's the best play we got right now,” Cloud tries to explain. “Your ghost pals are obviously out of patience. But if you explain your plan to them, they'll know you kept your promise, and they'll have no reason to attack the vale. And if they decided to make trouble inside the planet, they'd be no match for this guy.” 

Cloud inclines his head towards Sephiroth and very deliberately does not glance up to see his reaction.

Nanaki does not look swayed in the least.

“Except that their pain and anguish would make them the perfect tool for harming the planet yet again.” 

Cloud opens his mouth to reply, but doesn't quite know what to say. 

That line of thought is…it's not wrong, exactly, but…

“If I were aiming to harm the planet, I would do it myself,” Sephiroth says. “No need for any ‘assistance’.” 

He sounds a little affronted, of all things. 

Cloud fights down the urge to bury his head in his hands and groan. 

“Then what is it that you came here for?” Nanaki growls, directly addressing Sephiroth for the first time and glaring up at him. Every line of his body is visibly tense and poised for attack.

Please don't start a fight on the boat, Cloud thinks miserably. The rocking is bad enough to deal with as is.

As expected, though—and to Cloud's silent relief—Sephiroth ignores both Nanaki's words and his threat display completely. 

His gaze has shifted from the lifestream-infused waters to the strange, glowing expanse above. “Cloud,” he asks conversationally, glittering eyes not moving from where they're fixed on some kind of turquoise mist, “do you remember what I told you about the Archons?” 

The what? Oh, right.

“You mean those seven gigantic dicks? Yeah, I remember.” 

Sephiroth keeps gazing upwards, but the corner of his mouth twitches.

“Why are you bringing them up? Wait…you think they might be connected to his whole mess?” 

“Mm. There is a possibility that the demise of the Gi's planet did not come about naturally. Or that it did, but that its collision course with this planet did not.” 

“You think they used the Gi's planet to weaken ours so they could take control of it.” Cloud frowns, chewing on that for a moment. “But if that's what's happened, then neither the Gi nor the Cetra could have known about it, or they would have mentioned it.”

“Are you talking about the Seven?” Nanaki interjects. “I came across them in my search for answers on how to fulfill my promise. But if the Cetra ever mentioned a possible connection between them and the arrival of the Gi, then those records have been lost to time.” 

Fucking figures. 

Ahead of them, the shore comes into view, and Cloud shifts back into a ready stance. 

“Forget it. None of that theorizing is gonna help us now.” 

He and Nanaki are the first to step off the boat, and then the moment Sephiroth’s bare feet touch the ground, the vessel sinks beneath the waters. 

His blades at the ready, Cloud quickly looks around to assess the situation. 

The beacons on top of the strange statues on the shore are blazing brightly, and the village is teeming with Gi specters. But instead of attacking immediately like before, they only hover in the air and watch silently. 

It's so fucking creepy that Cloud would almost prefer it if the Gi were fighting them instead. 

The ground is still shaking along with the beating of that drum. As they're walking up towards the center of the village, one of the steps breaks apart beneath Cloud’s feet from the vibrations, and he's suddenly putting his weight on empty air.

Before he can even twist around to catch himself, a large hand grabs him underneath the armpit and lifts him effortlessly onto the next step. 

The moment both of his feet are on solid ground again, Cloud elbows Sephiroth’s arm away and scowls up at him. “Stop grabbing me and shit. I ain't some little kid that can't handle a fall.” 

Sephiroth ignores his complaint. He's walking over the uneven, shaking ground as gracefully as he does everything. And for some reason, the steps don't break apart beneath his feet, even though he's by far the heaviest out of the three of them. What does he even weigh? It's got to be three hundred pounds or so with how tall he is. 

On the outside, Sephiroth still looks calm and largely indifferent to the spectacle going on around them. But there's just…something that's off. Like there's something he doesn't want Cloud to notice. 

Not to mention his complete lack of acknowledgement of all the weirdness of the last two days. Is he just pretending not to remember, or is there something else going on? 

Ahead of them, the village center comes into view, and Cloud forces his attention back to the present. Gi Nattak waits for them just as Nanaki had suspected, so now is really not the time for Cloud to be distracted by his foe.

Except, when he looks to where Nanaki is walking to his right, it appears Cloud isn't the only one distracted by Sephiroth. Nanaki's eye is fixed on the man, nostrils visibly flaring.

What, does he think he can scent it if Sephiroth’s about to fuck them over? 

Cloud’s nose might not be able to rival Nanaki's, but he's the one who's spent the most time with Sephiroth. So if that was a thing, he definitely would have noticed by now. 

“Hey!” Cloud calls out to his friend, a little harsher than he'd meant to. “We got a plan, remember? So you better not try any of that sacrifice crap after all.” 

Nanaki's focus switches to him, his voice growly and tense. “You cannot ask me to trust him of all people with something this important.” 

Which is…reasonable, to be fair. But.

“Yeah, well, right now I ain't trusting you with it either!” Cloud shoots back angrily. “You let them kill you to make them chill out, and then what? It ain't gonna change anything! And I'm gonna kick your furry ass for it!” 

Now Nanaki really growls. “This is my responsibility. Do not treat me like an immature cub.”

Cloud glares right back. “I ain't! I'm treating you like a friend who wants to do something stupid!” 

“Protecting the vale is not stupid!”

“And how are you gonna protect it if you're dead?!”

They've reached the village center by now, so Nanaki growls at Cloud one last time as if determined to get the last word. Which Cloud thinks is really childish. If they weren't surrounded by enemies, he'd stick his tongue out at him. 

“Finally you have come, son of Seto,” Gi Nattak, either oblivious to or ignoring their bickering, greets Nanaki with his deep, severe voice. 

He still sounds calm, but that might change once he realizes that they have not brought him the black materia. 

Cloud tightens his hold on his blades and glances at where Sephiroth is standing to his left, looking around with curious eyes.

Or…have they brought it? Like, technically?

As the ground shakes again, Cloud shifts his weight in a way that happens to bring him a little closer to his foe.

Here's to hoping the Gi have been cooped up here for so long that they don't know who Sephiroth is and what he's done.

“I have come,” Nanaki replies, having switched back to his younger voice, “So there is no need for you to break out and attack the vale.”

“That remains to be seen.” Behind his bone mask, Gi Nattak's eyes are fixed on Nanaki. “Have you kept your promise?” 

“I have.” 

The specters immediately grow more restless and Gi Nattak extends one hand. 

“Then give it to us.” 

Nanaki hesitates. “I have promised to find a way to grant you peace, and I have. But I need a little more time.”

Gi Nattak withdraws his hand. “Have you come only to deceive us?” His gaze abruptly swings over to Cloud and Sephiroth. “Is that why you have brought the Dreamweaver with you?” 

Cloud looks up at his foe just in time to catch Sephiroth’s eyes widening slightly in surprise and a hint of a smile tugging up the corners of his mouth.

Does it make him…happy? To be mistaken for his “mother”? 

Nanaki doesn't reply to Gi Nattak's question, but he's giving Cloud a look that seems to say he's your foe, you deal with it. 

Cloud rolls his eyes and, hindered by the blade in his grip, gestures at Sephiroth vaguely. “He brought himself,” he explains, already thoroughly done with the whole thing. “If we wanted to deceive you, you think we'd be doing it openly?”

Gi Nattack seems to think this over for a moment, his gaze heavy on the three of them. “Then what is it doing here? We have not forgotten the plight this creature brought upon the Cetra.” 

There's something that…chafes at hearing Sephiroth be called that. Like there's truly nothing left of him as a person, like he's become Jenova through and through. Which is just not true. 

Right? 

“Never mind him,” Nanaki growls. “I did not ask him to come. Listen to me—I believe that a part of your home world still exists within this one. And that if you were reunited with it, you would finally be able to rest!” 

At that, a murmur goes through the crowd of specters. Gi Nattak pauses, his eyes behind his mask narrowed in suspicion. “All we asked was for you to retrieve what has been taken from us. Can you prove that what you're offering us instead is more than just false hope?” 

Nanaki's tail swishes about restlessly. “I…”

At Cloud's left, there's a soft sound almost like a sigh, and then Sephiroth steps forward as if having lost patience. “See for yourself,” he says, his voice velvety and his smile sharp. He raises a hand, and—

With a sound like the very air is being sliced open, a rip appears in front of them. It's like a slice of the darkest night has descended down from the sky, glowing purple at the edges and sucking in all the light. A heartbeat later, it widens to show a place glowing with lifestream energy, where odd shapes hang suspended in midair as if gravity does not exist there. 

The core of the planet.

Cloud’s fingers tighten around the handles of his blades, his eyes fixed on Sephiroth's back. 

Is his foe really going to…?

The portal now shows a rocky mass that appears to be about the size of an entire continent, colored a rusty red and shaped like a ragged crescent moon. As if maybe it was part of something big and round, once, that had then broken apart. 

“Wait, is that really—”

The Gi's reaction answers his question before he can even finish it. They surge forward, their deep voices shocked and desperate as they exclaim things in their own language that Cloud doesn't understand. Even Gi Nattak loses his composure for a moment, his eyes widening and one hand reaching out for the portal in a display of uncharacteristic vulnerability. 

The drumbeat that has been shaking the ground abruptly falls silent.

“Long has it been since we laid eyes upon our home… We thought every last piece of it lost forever…” Gi Nattak trails off, something far away in his tone and expression. When he comes back to himself, his gaze focuses on Sephiroth just as Cloud has stolen back to his foe’s side.

“A creature such as you would not offer its assistance out of the goodness of a heart it does not possess. What is it that you want?” 

Sephiroth smiles.

“Something that you will soon have no need for anymore—your memories. The combined knowledge of your people.” 

Their…memories?

What the fuck does he want with those? He tried to ditch his own, and that didn't quite work, so now he wants someone else's? What for? 

While Cloud is still eyeing Sephiroth suspiciously, Nanaki is openly growling again. “Don't listen to him! You don't know what he'll do with that knowledge!” 

Yeah…Cloud has a feeling that these guys don't give a fuck about that. And really, why would they? Why care about the world that has rejected and imprisoned them? 

Gi Nattak stares at Sephiroth a moment longer, his expression unreadable, and then his gaze sweeps over his brethren. Some kind of silent communication seems to take place, and then—

“We accept.” 

Sephiroth’s eyes flash with an excited, dangerous glint, and his smile sharpens. It's the look that says he's getting exactly what he wanted, which can mean nothing good. 

“No!” Fangs bared, Nanaki turns to Cloud. “We have to stop him!”

Cloud’s hands clench around the handles of his blades so hard it hurts, and he turns his face away. 

When Sephiroth gets like this, stopping him means killing him. 

On Cloud’s left, his foe raises one hand. The entire cave starts to shake around them with a noise like a mountain falling apart. Enormous symbols appear on the walls, glowing a bright green only to burn out and leave behind nothing but shadows and cracking red stone as Sephiroth breaks the magic that has kept the Gi imprisoned for thousands of years. 

The portal widens. With one hand still raised, Sephiroth extends his other towards the Gi, palm open and inviting. “Come,” he beckons, “Your salvation is waiting.”

In answer to his call, the specters dissolve into a red mist that forms a swirling orb above Sephiroth’s palm, glowing brightly like a dying star. 

“Don't follow him! You don't know what he's going to do! He hasn't even told you that he is—”

Gi Nattak interrupts Nanaki as though he hadn't even spoken, eyes fixed on what remains of his homeworld. “We thank you for keeping your word, son of Seto. You are now released from your obligations.”

Nanaki growls and whips around. Cloud only just manages to free one hand by fusing both of his blades together before his friend lunges for Sephiroth. 

Cloud grabs him mid-jump and wrestles him to the ground, only narrowly avoiding being sliced open by sharp claws. Nanaki wrenches himself out of Cloud’s grip and bares his fangs at him. “Cloud, what are you doing?!”

“I told you I ain't letting you get yourself killed!” Cloud yells back over the noise of the cave breaking apart, placing himself between his foe and his friend. 

Nanaki narrows his eye at him and is about to growl something back when Sephiroth suddenly speaks again. 

“Cloud,” he says, his voice calm and fond. When Cloud turns around, Sephiroth is looking down at him with smiling eyes, as though there is nothing else worth looking at. As if it's just them. “Wait for me outside. I won't be long.” 

The storm of magic he's conjured up is whipping his silver hair around him, is lifting the hem and the snowflake-adorned sleeves of the black robe. He looks otherworldly and terrifying and beautiful. 

Cloud has barely even registered his words when there's another noise behind him, like the air being sliced open. Sephiroth reaches out and gives him the lightest shove, still powerful enough to topple him over. And then Cloud can only just grab ahold of Nanaki's tail, stopping the attack on Sephiroth in its tracks, before they both fall backwards through the second portal. 

The last thing he sees is Sephiroth extending his wing, black feathers swirling around him as he calmly carries the red star in his hand towards its final resting place. 

Then the portal closes, and he and Nanaki fall through a confusing space of pearlescent shining colors for 

one

two

three heartbeats.

Cloud’s feet hit the ground hard, and he quickly lets go of Nanaki's tail as he stumbles to regain his balance. 

The cave entrance has completely collapsed. The sky is wide and blue. The portal has disappeared, the ground has stopped shaking, and the quiet left behind feels eerie and disorienting. 

Nanaki whips around to face him and growls, entire body tense. “Cloud.”

Here it comes. 

Still with his main blade in hand, Cloud turns away and averts his eyes. “Listen, I know it sounds weird, but this might not be such a bad thing. Sephiroth thinks the planet is his or whatever, he'd never let anyone else fuck it up. And the Gi were—”

Nanaki exhales a harsh breath. “Never mind them right now. What is done is done. But he has become even more of a threat than I thought possible. Which is why I must know—Cloud. Are you aware of his condition?”

At that, Cloud turns back around out of sheer confusion. “His what? What do you mean?” 

Nanaki's stance shifts into something less antagonistic. “...So you aren't.” He shakes his head. “To think that there are more of those monsters out there...he must have concealed them from us.” 

Cloud’s heart picks up speed as fear prickles through his veins in the shape of adrenaline. “What are you talking about? What condition?”

Nanaki pauses as if bracing himself and then lifts his head and fixes Cloud’s gaze with his own.

“That he is with child.” 

Rain.

Rain is…is falling. Is rushing in his ears. 

An ocean. He is submerged. His lungs are being crushed by the weight of water. Ice-cold water. It's biting every inch of his skin with needle-sharp teeth. 

It…

hurts.

It—

Through the water, noise filters back in, distorted and confusing. 

He—

blinks. 

The water clears a little. The pain remains. 

There's…red sand. Nanaki's tense form. His mouth is moving. 

“—wasn't for his scent. I could not figure out at first why it seemed different, or what it meant. Or maybe I could, and I just did not want to believe it.”

Fingers shake around a sword hilt. 

“He might be carrying more than one. All I can smell for sure is that they are not human. They are moon calves—abominations, monsters just like him. Cloud, we cannot allow them to be born.”

The sand is so very red. 

“...Cloud?”

A mouth opens. A heart is thudding along, beat by beat. 

“Yeah,” a voice says, tone flat but calm. “I hear you.”

“Cloud, are you—”

A wing beats in the stillness, shattering it. 

Sephiroth is standing several paces away, surrounded by black feathers that slowly drift down and disappear. Some last traces of purple mist still cling to him. His palm now empty, he lets his hand sink down and looks up at the sky. His expression is—

Stars. Stars were falling. The grass was a black sea. Hands engulfed him. Hands tugged him down into the sea. Thighs fell open around his hips. Fever swallowed him whole. 

Green snake eyes stared up at him, reflecting the stars, sucking him in and swallowing his will with slitted black mouths. 

Sephiroth was standing with his back to him, strands of his hair moving softly in the breeze as he said, “My mother was alone and isolated for over two thousand years. Is it so surprising that I would want her to not feel that way anymore?”

Everything clicks into place.

Sephiroth lowers his head and smiles at him. An outwardly calm expression that shows nothing of what is truly going on beneath. 

A breeze carries his scent over, sweet sugar and innocent flowers.

A burn like bile rises in Cloud’s throat. 

Beside him, Nanaki is growling, claws audibly digging into the ground. 

“Leave it to me,” Cloud hears himself say. “I'll take care of it.” 

Nanaki says something about helping, about backup, but Cloud is already walking away from him. “No one's ever been able to handle him but me.” His own voice sounds cold. “You'd all just be in the way.” 

Is his heart still beating? It feels distant. 

Sephiroth’s expression doesn't change until Cloud reaches his side and then grabs the lapels of the black robe and yanks, hard. “Take us back right the fuck now.” 

His foe blinks down at him and then makes a noise almost like a sigh. “There is no cause for anger. Their spirits have already moved on—”

“I don't care about that!” Cloud’s fingers tremble where they're buried in black silk. Everything is starting to become tinged in red. His heart is no longer distant, but instead beating so hard it makes his chest hurt. 

Sephiroth pauses and then lifts his head to look over at Nanaki, snake eyes narrowed with suspicion. 

“Don't you fucking dare!” Cloud yanks again at the fabric in his grip. “Take us back, now!” 

There's a moment where it seems like Sephiroth will ignore his command, but then he puts his hand on Cloud’s shoulder, and his wing lifts, and the red sand and blue sky fall away. 

Cloud keeps his eyes closed during the brief flight, though he can still see the strange flashing lights through his eyelids and feel the nauseating vertigo. The moment there is solid ground beneath his feet again, he pushes Sephiroth’s hand off his shoulder and stumbles backwards, away from his touch. 

Sephiroth frowns down at him. “Cloud, what is the matter?” 

They've landed closer to the lakeshore than the cabin. The sky is still blue and the air still smells like flowers. 

It should be warm, with the sun out, but Cloud’s entire body feels like it has turned to ice. 

The other parts of the Fusion Sword are at the ready in the harness at his back, but Cloud’s hands don't reach for them. It's all he can do to hold on to the main blade already in his grip. His knees shake. His lungs heave like he's running even though he's standing still. 

“Like you d-don't know! Stop pretending you c-care!” 

Sephiroth’s frown deepens. He takes a step forward and reaches out—

A flash of steel, and Sephiroth's palm is laid open, blood splattering onto the flowers. He doesn't even flinch, but he does stop. 

“D-don't touch me!” Cloud’s vision is blurry. Why? It's not raining. The sun is out. The sun is…burning. It's burning somewhere deep inside of him. “Don't touch me ever ag-g-gain!” 

Sephiroth stares at him, gaze roaming over his face like he is trying to figure something out. “Cloud, you need to calm down.”

The shaking tip of the sword is pointed at Sephiroth’s middle. “This entire time you were j-just using me, weren't you?” Cloud's hands are clenched so hard around the handle it sends stabs of pain through his knuckles. “Was it fun? Fucking me while pretending that y-you a-actually—th-that you—”

Every kiss. Every caress. Every honey-sweet word. 

Nothing but a sticky spiderweb. 

“Don't even try t-to deny it! He told me! He could smell it on you!”

Sephiroth’s snake eyes narrow and for the first time there's a glint of cold anger. 

“What lies did that treacherous creature you call a friend put into your head?”

“He told m-me the truth!” The tip of the sword shakes and shakes. Why can't he hold it still? He needs to step forward. To push it in deep. Deep towards where—

A hand, skin already healed shut but still bloody, grabs the blade and pulls it out of Cloud’s trembling grip with ease. He stumbles back. His foot catches on something, and then suddenly the world tilts and he's on the ground. The blades still strapped to his back dig painfully into his disoriented body.

Before he can right himself, hands grab his shoulders and steady him. Sephiroth is down on one knee before him. Head bowed, trying to catch his gaze. “Cloud, what are you talking about?” 

Even though Sephiroth has been found out, he's still bothering to make his voice sound tense and confused. Cloud pushes against his chest, struggling to get out of his vice-like hold. Inside him, the sun has set his lungs on fire. The flames are leaking out of his eyes, too. He can't…breathe…

“Lemme go! I w-won't let you mess with my h-head again! C-cuz I know! I know now! You w-were only lookin’ for kin cuz you wanted it t-to breed you so you w-wouldn't be lonely anymore! And when that didn't work out y-you used me t-to—to—ugh—”

Ducking away from Sephiroth’s suddenly slackened hold, Cloud leans to the side and coughs out the bile that's flooding his mouth. 

When he can lift his head again, Sephiroth is no longer quite looking at him, his focus turned inward. His foe lifts his left hand, places it over his own heart, and then slides it downward slowly, as if looking for something. It stops low on his belly and—

From up close, Cloud sees Sephiroth’s eyes widen. Sees his tall frame start to tremble all over. With stomach acid still dripping down his chin, he watches Sephiroth’s waterline fill with tears that slide down his pale cheeks. 

His foe’s breath hitches, and then snake eyes focus on Cloud again, slit pupils thin like needles and glazed over with mania. It's all Cloud can do to stare up into them, frozen in place, his heart somewhere in the grass amidst splatters of bile. 

“Mother…” Sephiroth’s voice sounds raspy and threadbare. His hand is still pressed to the black silk over his belly. Tears keep on sliding down his face. “This is a gift to us from mother...” His voice breaks on the last word, and then suddenly he's curled over Cloud, embracing him, pressing him to his chest. 

Cloud’s body lets it happen. It stares up into the wide blue sky over Sephiroth’s shoulder, still and quiet even as his foe shakes against him and makes weird choking noises as he cries. 

Cloud's lungs inhale with a shudder. His senses are flooded with the intense scent of vanilla and roses, and then suddenly, his heart isn't in the grass anymore. It's thudding in his chest, hard and painful. His fingers aren't lax anymore, but clenched in the silky fabric covering Sephiroth’s bowed back. 

His knees are pressed into grass and flowers, flattening them. His foe's weight is heavy in his arms. His shoulder is being soaked in tears. Large hands are pressing into his spine, clinging to him.

They're kneeling in the same place Sephiroth was standing that night when—

“Mother…mother, thank y-you…”

Cloud’s hands curl into fists as his foe's body shudders through another sob, as though it doesn't quite know how to cry. He ducks his head and buries it in Sephiroth’s shoulder, clenches his teeth against the urge to retch again. 

If…

If you didn't know either, then that means that thing forced us. 

It drugged us and forced us and made us forget, and you're thanking it. 

This is going to make you worse, isn't it?

It's going to make you worse again. 

The burn from the sun withdraws from Cloud’s lungs, leaving thorny pieces of ice in its wake, and curls up behind his eyes instead. It hurts when it leaks out. It hurts in his eyes, on his cheeks, in his throat, and in his bile- and grass stain-covered heart. 

What am I supposed to do?

What am I supposed to do now?