Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.”

*

Sephiroth wakes up to a small square of blue. Fluffy white clouds drift lazily across it, disappearing at the edge of the sunroof. Even shielded behind cracked glass, the sight of the open sky is no less disquieting.

Somewhere under him, an engine hums. He remains perfectly still, but the hitch in his breath must have given him away. The driver’s seat creaks and his captor squints back at him with a frown. 

Blue eyes study him. They don’t look like the eyes of a killer, if one can tell such things just by looking. 

Trace amounts of Hojo’s sedative linger in Sephiroth’s system, though not nearly in a high enough concentration to have kept him under for this long. He feels weak and numb, his ears still ringing with the phantom shriek of sirens. The screaming had sounded distant, muted, as if he’d been dunked inside a mako tank, but there had been no mako green to dull the colour of blood splattered across white lab tiles. 

Some of that blood still clings to his captor’s hair. 

Sephiroth holds his captor’s gaze. The man stares back at him, something uncertain flitting across his face. His mako-stained eyes glow even under the harsh sunlight. 

A large bump in the road rattles him. Strange scents assault his senses. As far as Sephiroth knows, no simulation can quite replicate the intricacies of smell. He’s lying on his back in a moving vehicle, and there is no sound of pursuit within earshot. Before him and easily within striking distance, his captor regards him with a deepening frown.

Use your youth to your advantage. Tremble, weep, exaggerate your injuries.

Outdated advice. He’s no longer young enough to inspire that kind of sympathy, and he wouldn’t have managed it, even then. 

“It is advisable,” Sephiroth says instead, “to keep one’s eyes on the road when driving.”

This earns him a slow, incredulous blink, then his captor’s shoulders relax somewhat, and the man turns back to the road with a huff.

Sephiroth swings his legs off the seat and sits up. A deserted landscape greets him through a half open window. Dusty wind tousles his hair. Sephiroth is unarmed, dressed in nothing but a thin medical gown, but seemingly unharmed.

For someone who appears to have single-handedly carved a bloody path into the depths of Shinra’s headquarters just to steal him, Sephiroth’s captor seems wholly unconcerned by the fact that this ramshackle vehicle cannot possibly contain him.

Then again, for someone who appears to have single-handedly carved a bloody path into the depths of Shinra’s headquarters, perhaps the man need not be concerned with containing Sephiroth.

Sephiroth stares at the back of the man’s blond head, then meets his eyes again in the rear-view mirror. 

Who are you? Sephiroth thinks, heartbeat thundering in his chest. 

*

They travel along the same road for one hour and twenty-seven minutes, then turn into a narrow forested path. Their tiny vehicle bounces every which way as it fights through the thick undergrowth spilling onto the gravel. 

“This would be easier,” Sephiroth says against every instinct screaming at him to stay silent, “if you had prepared an appropriate off-road vehicle.”

His captor ignores him and continues to abuse the accelerator, cursing under his breath when the engine whines and sputters.

“You won’t be able to clear that slope,” Sephiroth informs him, immediately before the vehicle jolts to a halt, the base of its chassis catching on a small outcrop and teetering precariously.

Wordlessly, his captor exits the vehicle, circles to the back, and gives it a vicious kick. The vehicle springs free and begins to slide forward, quickly gaining speed as it careens off the path and slams into a tree trunk, still carrying the captive whose acquisition has cost an as-of-yet unknown number of lives.

Sephiroth recalibrates every half-formed theory he has about his captor’s motivations and goals. He nearly flinches when the man rips open the rear door with unnecessary violence and stares down at him. “Get out. We’ll walk.”

When Sephiroth does nothing but sit there, frozen in place, his captor’s frown morphs into what might be a grimace. “You’re able to walk, right?”

Time seems to slow, and Sephiroth’s mind unfurls from its mess of frantic, scurrying thoughts to a sheet of stillness. His body leaps into motion. His right fist connects with the man’s jaw, the pair of stolen forceps in his left hand a silver blur as it lunges for the man’s jugular. His opponent blocks his strike with his bare forearm, and before Sephiroth can fully register what is happening, he’s lying on his back on the forest floor, a heavy knee pressing down on his chest. 

Damp soil wets the back of Sephiroth’s neck. The man hasn't drawn his sword. The weight on Sephiroth’s chest disappears, and he sucks in a shaky breath, his ribs aching from the force of the blow. He waits for further retaliation, shivers a little at the realization that his captor can easily kill him, put an end to Shinra’s great weapon thirteen years in the making right here on the muddy forest floor, but the man merely glares down at him, eying the surgical forceps in Sephiroth’s hand with suspicion. “Where did you even get that?”

Silently, Sephiroth picks himself off the ground, uncaring that the large tear in his gown has left him nearly nude. His captor is barely taller than Sephiroth, but it’s clear now that some terrible power lurks within that unassuming form, the knowledge of which sends a strange, unnameable jolt of something down Sephiroth’s spine. 

The man juts his hairless chin at Sephpiroth’s makeshift weapon and holds out a hand expectantly. Sephiroth tightens his hold around the forceps’ handles and readies himself for another confrontation, but then he catches sight of it, and his entire body goes still.

There on the man’s bare forearm, a globule of blood oozes from a thin cut—not red like his own, but green, like mako.

Blue eyes follow his gaze. The man jerks his hand back, quickly swiping the blood away and shielding his forearm from Sephiroth’s view. “Never mind, hold on to it if it makes you feel better. I really don’t care.”

Then his captor turns his back to him and begins to walk away: “Follow me.”

Follow you where? What do you want from me? Who sent you? What is your purpose? Questions fill Sephiroth’s mind in a dizzying swirl, until a physical pressure starts building in his throat. He wants to scream for answers. He wants to turn around and run. He wants to drive his forceps into the man’s exposed back, just to see if he can make him bleed again, because he has to make sure he hasn’t imagined it, because none of this makes any sense.

Sephiroth does none of those things. Morbid curiosity has taken over him, joined by a skittish sort of excitement. This is probably the closest thing to an adventure that’s ever graced his existence, and some part of him wants to see it through, even if it leads him to his doom. He trails after his captor like a pet pulled by an invisible leash, his bare feet padding on fallen leaves and soft dirt. His captor’s golden hair gleams under the flecks of sunlight that have fallen through the forest canopy, and the back of his neck is damp with perspiration and slightly pink, like any other red-blooded creature.

When Sephiroth opens his mouth again, he is surprised by the evenness of his own voice. “The excessive noise you’re making will disturb the local fauna, which may alert any human population in the area.”

His captor ignores him and proceeds to trample a low bush, though he now seems to be stomping his feet on purpose.

“We are easily tracked, like this,” Sephiroth continues to speak for reasons unknown to himself. “There are many ways to conceal our move—”

“Be quiet,” the man snaps, and Sephiroth falls silent. Barbed vines cut into his bare feet, but the cuts are shallow enough that they immediately heal, only to be cut open again, the sensation more of a nuisance than any real pain. His eyes trace the massive sword on his captor’s back, watching sunlight dance on the edges of the strange interlocking blades. Despite his many peculiarities, his captor appears to take impeccable care of his weapon.

Just to see how his captor would respond, Sephiroth stumbles noisily when he climbs over a fallen log. His captor twists around and shoots him a warning look, then his gaze falls to Sephiroth’s bare feet, now slightly bloodied and covered in mud, and the man’s eyes harden and his lips thin. 

His captor takes a sudden step forward. Sephiroth takes a step back. For a silent moment, they stare at each other standing approximately seven feet apart, then the man’s shoulders slump and he runs a gloved hand through his hair: “We won’t have to walk much further. I should’ve—” the man waves his hand, a strange, nonsensical gesture. “Anyway, let me know if you have trouble keeping up.”

Sephiroth does not have trouble keeping up. He’d even consider this excursion pleasantly stimulating, had it not been for the circumstances surrounding it. Lately there’s been talk of deploying him in Rhodare, and he’s spent hours, days really, imagining what it would be like to finally serve a real purpose, free to roam the wider world.

The world feels almost too wide now, and Sephiroth is no more free here than he was in the labs. They abandon the forest path and follow a small stream, where the only sign of civilization is a rusted canteen half buried in the mud. Tension builds in Sephiroth’s body until he feels his head throb, so he doesn’t try to stop himself when he feels the urge to open his mouth again: “We’ll be harder to track if we walk in the stream.”

His captor lets out an audible sigh. Feeling reckless, and perhaps just a bit hysterical, Sephiroth heads down to the stream and strides in. The rocks beneath his toes are mossy and slippery, but something about the coolness of the water soothes him, like finally stepping into a cold shower after trudging through a maze of blood and monster guts.

He doesn’t know why he feels so compelled to antagonize his captor. It is certainly unwise, yet it feels as if these small acts of rebellion are holding something much more dangerous at bay, like throttling the strange man, or loudly demanding answers. The stream widens under his feet; tiny fish graze his bare skin. He gasps at the sensation, then quickly attempts to hide it by pointing to the shrub his captor is currently trampling.

“Toxicodendron vernix,” Sephiroth says. “Its leaves are poisonous, and can cause severe neurotoxicity upon contact.” 

His captor doesn’t even spare it a glance. “Thought you were resistant to most poisons.”

“I am,” Sephiroth says, feeling oddly cowed now that his captor is actually acknowledging him. “But are you?”

His captor responds by kicking a rock out of his way. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the man may already know everything there is to know about Sephiroth. Still, it makes Sephiroth faintly sick in the stomach to imagine him pouring over Hojo’s notes in some secret hideout, his glowing eyes dissecting every detail of Sephiroth’s anatomy, right down to each individual cell.

“Are you my brother?” Sephiroth blurts out before his mind can catch up with his mouth.

His captor whirls around to stare at Sephiroth, aghast. 

The reaction does not inspire confidence, but Sephiroth presses on: “Father, then?”

The man’s expression shutters, then his face twists unpleasantly. “Do I look like your fucking dad?”

Sephiroth manages a facsimile of a shrug. “I wouldn’t know. You seem… familiar.”

The man turns away and begins to storm off, then as if suddenly remembering that he’s meant to stay close to his captive, he slows his pace and grumbles: “I’m not that old.” 

“My own spermatozoa have been viable since I was nine years of age,” Sephiroth offers placidly.

“Your own sperma—” the man lets out a wheezing sort of sigh. “Okay, I’ll make you a deal. You shut the hell up, and I’ll get you a proper weapon once we reach the safehouse. Deal?”

Sephiroth clenches his jaw. Even though he’s been riling up his captor on purpose, and he does in fact want a proper weapon, the words still sting.

*

The safehouse is a decomposing cabin in the woods. Under its soggy, waterlogged roof, Sephiroth is offered three pairs of boots in varying sizes, one pair of cotton underwear, three pairs of oversized denim trousers of varying lengths, one leather belt, and one loose linen shirt.

Whatever inside information his captor was fed must’ve been outdated, since even the longest pair of pants leave his ankles exposed. No socks have been offered.

His captor fulfills his end of the deal by handing Sephiroth an army knife. It’s not his preferred weapon, but it’s sharp, and it’s better than nothing. Sephiroth refuses to relinquish his forceps, and the matter is not pressed. He is also given a plastic water bottle, which he does not drink out of. His captor chews on a protein bar as he dusts off an oversized dirt bike and pushes it outside. Sephiroth follows him, because where else can he go, now?

“It’s just water, you know,” his captor squints at the unopened bottle in Sephiroth’s hand. “If I wanted to do anything to you, I’d have done it already.”

“I’m saving it for later,” Sephiroth lies.

His captor marches right up to him, snatches the bottle out of his hand, and takes a large, sloppy swig. Water drips out of the corners of his mouth. His throat is half a shade paler than his chin. 

“There,” his captor tosses the bottle back at Sephiroth.

Sephiroth stares.

His captor throws up his hands. “If you pass out from dehydration later, I’m tossing you in a river. Come, we’re leaving.”

“What should I call you?” Sephiroth asks.

“Huh?”

“Your name. What should I call you?”

His captor appears blindsided by this simple question. He peers at Sephiroth with a strange look in his eyes. “Cloud.”

“Cloud?”

“Yes, Cloud. Like clouds in the sky.”

“It’s fitting,” Sephiroth decides.

Cloud raises a blond eyebrow. “Is it, now?”

“Yes,” Sephiroth nods. “You are very… fluffy.”

Sephiroth regrets it as soon as the words leave his mouth. He may have only started his social etiquette lessons last week, but it sounded inappropriate.

Cloud, however, only chokes out a bark of laughter. He turns away shaking his head, then proceeds to rummage around in a duffle bag. He eventually produces a safety helmet, and he’s in the process of putting it on when he pauses, marches back to Sephiroth, and begins to affix it to Sephiroth’s head instead.

Any remark about the fact that Sephiroth’s skull is significantly stronger than the helmet dies on his lips when he meets Cloud’s eyes. Sephiroth is no stranger to being manhandled, but something about Cloud being so close, about him staring so intently at Sephiroth makes everything feel off kilter, like he’s arrived at a crucial moment in a long training mission, only to suddenly realize he’s forgotten something very important. 

Cloud finishes with the clasp under Sephiroth’s chin and steps back to examine his handiwork, the ghost of a smile hovering on the corner of his lips. “Well, come on.” 

Sephiroth is instructed to mount the bike behind Cloud. He wraps his arms around Cloud with more trepidation than the action deserves, the small knife tucked in his belt digging at his midsection. It would be so easy to slit Cloud’s throat like this. He does not understand why Cloud has offered to arm him. Perhaps it’s meant to be a test, but even considering the disparity in their strength, it’s madness to tempt fate so. Perhaps the man isn’t a man at all, and would simply laugh in the face of mortal concerns such as a knife to the heart. Sephiroth imagines the arc of bright green arterial blood spraying out of the warm body between his arms, and wonders if it would burn like mako. Would Cloud scream at him in rage, or would he simply sigh and turn those cool blue eyes to him, disappointed yet indifferent?

The dirt bike lurches into motion, and Sephiroth tightens his arms around Cloud. Chest pressed against Cloud’s back, he listens to the thumping of Cloud’s heart, strong and inhumanly fast, the same thud thud thud that drummed against his ribs when Cloud dragged his half-conscious body out of blood-splattered labs. 

The forest rushes past him in a verdant blur. His wrist bumps into Cloud’s bare forearm, and a brief burst of something, sharp and raw like an electric shock, passes through his entire being. 

What was that? Sephiroth breathes shallowly, then presses the palm of his hand against Cloud’s skin.

A shuddering inhale. It’s like nothing he’s ever felt before. The world rights itself, and Sephiroth is no longer alone.

Cloud jerks out of his grip. “Stop that!”

“Do you feel it too? What’s happening?” Sephiroth whispers, breathless and awed. His voice is lost to the wind, but Cloud hears him.

“I—it doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t be happening. It shouldn’t even be possible.” The bike sails off a small cliff, and there’s a moment of feathery weightlessness before they land with a heavy thump. “Look, I’ll explain later, but for now will you stop touching me .”

“But why—”

“Just drop it , okay?” Cloud snaps, wresting his arm out of Sephiroth’s reach. It’s the first time Sephiroth hears genuine anger in his voice. Sephiroth acquiesces, feeling rattled yet inexplicably reassured. Something strange is happening, a mystery whose nature lies just beyond his understanding, but he now believes with absolute certainty that Cloud is somehow connected to him, and that Cloud is special to him, as he is to Cloud.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice that sounds like Hojo’s mocks him for making baseless assumptions. But Sephiroth shuts that voice away, and Hojo—images of blood and broken glass flicker before his eyes—Hojo is likely dead.

*

They ride for the rest of the day, then through the night. They stop once near the shore of a small lake, where Sephiroth relents and accepts the bottle of water, and is then strong-armed into consuming a too-sweet protein bar. They do not talk.

Pressed up against Cloud’s warm body, Sephiroth thinks. His current leading theory is that Cloud is another lab-grown Shinra weapon, likely a predecessor of his, but something has caused him to go rogue, something that R&D does not want Sephiroth to know. Whatever happened, it must have been bad enough for Shinra to scrub all traces of his existence from their records, and for Hojo, boastful and ungovernable as he is—was—to keep his mouth firmly shut.

The question remains: what does Cloud want from Sephiroth? Whatever it is, it seems to require Sephiroth’s cooperation, at least for the time being. It would have been trivial for someone like Cloud to incapacitate Sephiroth, yet here he is, grudgingly feeding and clothing him, arming him and then turning his back to him, even when every twitch of his muscles radiates unease.

Cloud’s show of force back at HQ was as brutal as it was efficient. If Cloud wishes to use Sephiroth for ransom or a hostage exchange, or to simply weaken Shinra and send it a message, it would make no sense to bother with these pleasantries, half-hearted as they are. If Cloud instead wishes to evaluate him for potential recruitment—something in Sephiroth’s chest jitters at this thought—his methods leave much to be desired. Sephiroth has been extensively trained to resist bribery, intimidation, and seduction, and his loyalty to Shinra has been absolute.

Perhaps Cloud is simply bad at it. Sephiroth himself has certainly never received this kind of training. His one and only purpose is to kill, and Cloud far outstrips him in that department. 

*

They arrive at their destination at the break of dawn. A single-story dwelling sits at the foot of a mountain, far enough from the closest town to avoid scrutiny, but close enough to easily acquire supplies if needed. 

Sephiroth is ushered into the house without fanfare. Cloud shows him around its interior with monosyllabic remarks and grunts. Sephiroth does his best to appear unphased while he quickly catalogues all potential exit points and structural weaknesses. 

Sephiroth is deposited in a large room with a double bed, a thick rug, and a wooden desk. He receives no instructions as to what he is meant to do here. There is a window on the wall that Sephiroth can easily slip through, and he stands motionless in the middle of the room, listening to Cloud rummage through kitchen cabinets. 

The bed looks preposterously big. Four of him can fit on it with room to spare. The sheets are thick and slightly rough to the touch, and Sephiroth runs his fingers across threads dyed turquoise and blue, wondering what it says about his life that his prison cell seems more luxurious than his room back home.

Things smell different, too. Sephiroth bends down closer to the sheets and inhales. Something floral, perhaps; the scent is unfamiliar, but not unpleasant. 

“You aren’t allergic to anything, are you?” Cloud’s voice cuts through his musings.

Sephiroth jerks up straight, feeling almost affronted. “Of course not.”

“Well, let me know if I need to change the detergent,” says Cloud, who’s leaning on the doorframe with his arms crossed, watching him. “You should wash up and rest. I laid out some fresh clothes for you in the bathroom.”

With that, Cloud turns and disappears down the hallway. Sephiroth stares after him for a moment, then steps out of the room gingerly. The bathroom is not quite as needlessly spacious, but still overabundant in colour and texture. There is a bathtub and a shower, next to which a large mirror shows Sephiroth staring back at himself. His face is ghastly pale, and he squashes the sudden urge to pull out his knife and cut into his own cheek, just to check that his blood still runs red. 

Instead, he turns the knobs on the wall at random until the showerhead bursts to life. He leaves the door open and undresses. His reflection is a pale blur in his peripheral vision, and as cool water splashes across white tiles, Sephiroth suddenly thinks of home. The small shower tucked into the corner of his room. The steel desk holding his books. The plastic box under his bed, in which he’d placed the locket holding his mother’s image.

It’s possible that he may never see his room again. Never read his books, never feel the weight of that silver locket in his hand. What has happened to it in the days he’s been gone? Is Shinra still counting on his return, or has the whole project been deemed a failure and cleared away, now that both its head and primary subject are gone?

His breaths are coming out in quick, shallow bursts. He feels his legs tremble, registers his fingernails digging into the pale flesh of his arms. Cloud’s presence is near. Cloud’s voice is speaking. Cloud may be appraising him for recruitment, and he should not conduct himself like this in front of Cloud. Hojo would laugh, a grating, screeching sound, right before dragging him off for assessment and reeducation. Hojo is likely dead.

And Sephiroth—what has he been doing, again? What is he meant to do, here? He ought to be given a mission—or has he been forgotten? Cloud is speaking again, but the sound of water is drowning out the words.

Warm, calloused hands reach for him. That strange shock of recognition, at once familiar and startling, engulfs him, and Sephiroth falls apart.

Chapter Text

The planet’s mission is simple. Rewind time, infiltrate Shinra, and eliminate Sephiroth while he’s still young and relatively defenseless.

Cloud’s mission is a little less simple. Rewind time, infiltrate Shinra, retrieve Sephiroth while he’s still young and relatively defenseless, and unfuck whatever mess Hojo has made of his mind before it’s too late.

With a miniaturized version of Sephiroth shaking and gasping in his arms, Cloud is once again rethinking the actual surmountability of his task. 

“It’s okay, It’s okay,” Cloud murmurs uselessly as freezing water drenches him to the skin. “You’re safe, I got you.”

Sephiroth’s too-big eyes are wide and unblinking, and his thin hands are gripping Cloud’s with enough force to crush an ordinary man’s bones. His mouth is moving, but no sound comes out except for rapid gasps for air.

“You’re hyperventilating,” Cloud tries again in his best attempt at a calm, soothing voice. “You’re safe here, I promise.”

Sephiroth continues to shake. Fuck. What are you actually supposed to do in this situation? Cloud usually just holds his breath until he either calms down or passes out, but that’s hardly going to help Sephiroth. Why hasn't he thought to read up on it? Cloud tries to at least free one of his hands so he can shut off the water, but Sephiroth immediately tightens his grip, squeezing Cloud’s fingers like he’s trying to grind them into paste.

“Cloud,” Sephiroth says, voice so small it’s almost inaudible among all the splashing. 

Gods above, Cloud thinks Sephiroth is crying. Or maybe it’s just water from the shower. Cloud tells himself it’s just water, because he’s really not equipped to handle the alternative.

“Come on, let’s get you out of the shower,” Cloud pleads as he tries to lift the boy’s slippery body up by his arms. Sephiroth goes limp for a brief, hopeful moment, then he coils into himself, and yanks back. A thin elbow smacks into a wall and sends bits of white ceramic flying. Another powerful yank, and Cloud is slammed bodily into the wall. Burning hot water sprays him in the face from a now broken faucet. 

Fuck it. “Operative Sephiroth,” Cloud grabs the boy and barks. “I need a SITREP, now.”

The change is immediate. Green eyes snap to him and Sephiroth blinks. “I am secure and undamaged.” Green eyes quickly survey their surroundings. “Currently located in a bathroom inside a civilian dwelling at an unknown location, together with—”

Sephiroth’s eyes snap back to Cloud’s, and he blinks twice, his breaths finally calming. “I’m—” He looks down at his own nakedness, then back at Cloud. Freezing water is dousing Cloud from above while boiling water sprays him in the back. It’s an indescribable sensation. Cloud tries not to wince at it, instead opting for what he hopes is an open, unthreatening demeanor. 

“I… ” Sephiroth looks down at the floor, and his next words come out a stilted whisper. “I am sorry.”

And isn’t that a mindfuck. Sephiroth apologizing to Cloud, for something that isn’t even his fault.

“It’s fine,” Cloud says hurriedly. “Don’t worry about it. Happens to anyone. Let’s get you dried off and dressed, yeah?”

Maybe he should just leave the room and let the kid gather himself. Cloud wouldn’t want somebody fussing over him at a moment like this, had their positions been reversed. But he thinks about the way Sephiroth clung to him, the way his own fingers still ache from the sheer desperation behind his grip. Was it the effect of Reunion, or was it just the natural impulse of a child so frightened and overwhelmed that he’d latch onto anything within reach?

Reunion. Cloud suppresses a shudder at the thought. It shouldn’t be possible. His body, remade from scratch for the singular purpose of defeating Sephiroth, no longer has the alien cells to cause any sort of resonance. 

And yet it’s undeniably there. It’s not quite the same sensation—it’s sharper, somehow both colder and warmer—but the pull of it feels familiar enough that he’d probably end up breathing into a paper bag himself, once he’s actually had the time to sit down and really think about the implications. 

But for now he has to take care of Sephiroth. A small, wet, frightened, and possibly irreparably-traumatized-by-Cloud’s-own-actions Sephiroth, but this is still Sephiroth, capable of unimaginable devastation and ruin, should anything go wrong with Cloud’s plan.

It’d be awfully ironic if he ends up scarring Sephiroth worse than Hojo ever could, Cloud thinks as he wraps Sephiroth in a large towel and leads him out of the bathroom. The outfit he laid out for Sephiroth is thoroughly soaked, so Cloud ends up lending him his own clothes. The boy looks even smaller and paler now, shivering in one of Cloud’s oversized black sweaters, his face doing a weird back-and-forth between looking contrite and defiant. 

“I apologize,” Sephiroth says stiffly when Cloud gets him to sit on the living room couch, his too-soft face finally settling on impassive. “It won’t happen again.”

“Look, it’s fine,” Cloud says as he towels his own hair. He blanches when he sees what looks like days-old blood on it—has he really spent the past two days running around like this, drenched in the blood of people the boy probably knows by name? “I mean, shit happens. I punched a hole through a bathroom wall once, all because I thought I saw—” 

—You. 

“Anyway,” Cloud clears his throat, “like I said, don’t worry about it. I’ll have that shower fixed by tomorrow.”

Sitting ramrod straight on the threadbare couch, Sephiroth finally seems to relax. He still looks a bit like a drowned cat, and Cloud has to squash down the urge to towel his hair dry for him. Instead, he hands the boy a fresh towel and goes to shut off the main water valve, because wasting water is bad, and because Cloud might also need a moment to gather himself.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to think of the boy as Sephiroth , the man who murdered his mother, the nightmare who haunts Cloud’s dreams. But that’s a good thing, isn’t it? Isn’t that the whole point of putting the both of them through this mess? Exorcizing the ghost of the man who ruined the world, and raising a boy strong and whole enough to defy Calamity’s call?

The familiar taste of doubt lingers on the back of Cloud’s tongue. He pulls the door shut and stands there in the murky gloom of the utility closet. If he fails, the consequences will be catastrophic, and the truth is he has very little faith in his own chances. He doesn’t even fully understand why he’s doing this—rewriting his own mission, defying the will of the planet. And if it all goes to shit, he may have to kill Sephiroth anyway, only then he’d have to do it knowing what the boy looks like when he clings to Cloud for dear life, his thin hands wrapped around Cloud’s fingers, his eyes wide and terrified. 

In his short but tumultuous career, Cloud has cut down swathes of enemies without a second thought, has probably created more orphans than he can count. What is the life of one boy, next to the survival of an entire world? What’s so special about Sephiroth?

But killing Sephiroth might not be the correct solution to begin with, Cloud tells himself. He’s done that plenty of times already, hasn’t he? The planet could have misjudged the situation. Even with Sephiroth gone, there’s no telling what else Shinra would do in their mad quest for the Promised Land.

Cloud sighs and massages his temples. He’s doing it again, trying to rationalize his decision. But what he does know is that he’s already come this far, and there’s no going back, not after thoroughly botching his initial plan of faking Sephiroth’s death during his extraction. Shinra is probably already on his tail, and he has to secure Sephiroth’s full trust and cooperation as soon as possible. 

Cloud heads back to the living room and finds Sephiroth still sitting on the couch, his wary green eyes following Cloud’s every movement. Cloud hovers at the threshold of the room. He’s really not cut out for this, is he? Why him, of all people? It’s yet another sign that Gaia is not infallible—It has thoroughly misunderstood Cloud’s role in postponing Its demise. Everything he has achieved, he has achieved propped up by the hands of others. Alone, he is nothing.

But he’s got no one else. The friends he knew do not exist. The future he knew will never be.

Cloud sucks in an unsteady breath, presses his grief into a cube small enough to safely lock away somewhere in the very back of his mind. Maybe food will help smooth over whatever conversation he’s about to have. Cloud marches up to the kitchen and gets to work, opening and closing cabinets, rummaging through the small fridge with a manic sort of abandon. He’s a shit cook, as Tifa was so fond of reminding him, but whatever he comes up with can’t possibly be worse than Shinra slop. 

The kitchen is only separated from the living room by a glass sliding door, and Cloud feels slitted green eyes drill holes into his back while he busies himself cutting and dicing. Gods, it’s all so familiar yet jarring. Of all the ways he imagined this would go, he never imagined that a younger Sephiroth would be so damn weird . 

Cloud thought he remembered what the man was like, before everything. He’d seemed so put-together, so unbelievably composed, until he wasn’t. Clearly, either a whole lot has happened in the space between Sephiroth the General and Sephiroth the Boy Sitting in the Living Room, or Cloud’s memory is even more fucked than he thought.

Now that he thinks about it, having a panic attack in the bathroom is probably the most normal thing Sephiroth has done after being forcibly dragged across the world by a complete stranger. He’s been oddly cooperative, considering the circumstances, except for that one hiccup where he came at Cloud with a pair of tweezers.

The Son of Calamity, battling the Champion of Gaia with tweezers. Cloud greases a frying pan and snorts at himself. He’d written off his shirt and maybe his pants, too, when he gave the kid a knife, fully prepared to end up with bloody holes in interesting places, but the kid hadn’t tried to stab him even once. At that age, Cloud would probably need to be tied up in ropes with his eyes covered and his mouth gagged, because otherwise he’d be fighting his kidnapper with everything he’s got, the consequences be damned.

Not that Sephiroth was particularly quiet about it. There were moments when Cloud was dead certain that Sephiroth had somehow retained his memories and was just fucking with him, but then the moment would pass, and Cloud would be left feeling a little stupid. This child is no Son of Calamity, at least not yet. Cloud would do well to remember that, even if some old vestige of rage-hatred-betrayal still wants to well up when he feels the mako burn of slitted green eyes. 

Standing in front of the stove, Cloud does his best to create a good range of options with the limited ingredients he has on hand. Different palates, different textures, different temperatures. He throws in two vegetarian options, just in case, and cuts some fresh fruits. He really should just ask the kid what he wants, but he’s afraid Sephiroth might say something weird, and Cloud really doesn’t have the energy to deal with that right now. The kid’s survived Hojo for gods know how long. He’ll survive one bad meal. 

Cloud sets the table and calls the boy over. Sephiroth rises from the couch so promptly it nearly makes Cloud jump, and approaches in cautious steps. He stops half a foot from the table and examines the offerings, then looks back up at Cloud questioningly.

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s not poisoned.” Cloud tries not to shuffle his feet. “Come on, take a seat. We’ll talk after you eat, promise.”

“This far exceeds my nutritional requirements,” Sephiroth says, his face perfectly blank.

“Yeah, no shit. You’re supposed to pick out the food you like.” 

Sephiroth considers this for a moment. “That seems wasteful.”

Cloud tries not to sigh. “Don’t worry, I’ll finish the rest. Just eat, will you? You haven’t had a real meal in days.”

Hesitantly, Sephiroth takes a seat and stares down the row of mismatched plates. He carefully removes exactly half a portion from the leftmost plate, then begins to eat with mechanical efficiency, working his way from left to right, finishing one dish before moving on to the next. Cloud half-expected him to shove things into his mouth with his bare hands, but Sephiroth eats like he’s dining at some fancy restaurant, his back straight and his head slightly bowed. He’s even holding his knife correctly, even though nothing on the table really requires the use of one. 

He seems unbothered by the fact that Cloud is watching him. Cloud supposes he’s probably used to worse, his every move monitored and scrutinized. The plates on the table deplete at an impressive rate. Cloud tries to get a feel of his preferences, but the boy wears the exact same unchanging expression as he goes through what is turning out to be an astonishing amount of food.

When Sephiroth’s belly begins to visibly bulge under Cloud’s loose sweater, Cloud opens his mouth to intervene, but then he quickly closes it again, afraid that the boy would take any comment he makes the wrong way. Surely he’s old enough to know not to make himself sick? How old even is Sephiroth right now, for that matter? 

Cloud breathes a small sigh of relief when Sephiroth finally puts down his fork and wipes his mouth with a napkin, looking satiated instead of nauseated. The boy looks up to him with no trace of his earlier hesitance: “You said you’d finish the rest.”

“Right,” Cloud blinks. “I did.”

Cloud pulls out a chair, refusing to dwell on the sheer surrealness of the situation. He’s forgotten to grab a plate for himself, so he reaches across the table to plunder Sephiroth’s empty plate, then nicks his spoon, too. The boy is back to staring at him with wide eyes. Cloud shoves a spoonful of fried eggs into his mouth, suddenly feeling self-conscious. Is he doing something to upset the boy again? The food is tasteless, and Cloud isn’t sure if it’s more a reflection of his cooking skills or his current mental state. 

He’s trying to get through the meal as quickly as possible when it finally occurs to him—he’s so used to camping out in the wilds and putting whatever in his mouth that he’s forgotten that most people avoid sharing utensils. Even back in public security, nobody really gave a shit; the whole dorm shared a single mug at one point. 

But to somebody who grew up in some sterile lab environment, it probably looks pretty gross. Cloud huffs a little at that thought. It’s not like he hasn’t gotten way worse things than Jenova-contaminated spit in his mouth. He’s swam through fucking sewers, bathed in raw mako, though it’s probably not a good idea to think about this while eating.

Then his mind is seized by a sudden shock of memory. The taste of blood, alien and fetid and metallic, as he drives his sword into a pale body again and again, high above the ruins of a city. 

Cloud puts down his spoon and swallows the remaining food in his mouth with a grimace, then turns to Sephiroth.

“All right,” Cloud pushes away his plate. “Time to talk. You must have questions.”

Sephiroth sits up straighter, his eyes sharp and attentive. “The unusual sensation when we touch. What is it?”

“Unusual sensation?” Cloud says, completely thrown off his script.

Sephiroth studies him. “Yes. You said you’d ‘explain later’, when I first asked about it.”

“Right, I did,” Cloud says, scrambling to organize his thoughts. “It’s—I believe it has to do with what they did to me. To us. Just a side-effect of the whole—” Cloud gestures vaguely at himself “—enhancement process.”

Sephiroth is leaning forward slightly, his attention rapt. “‘They?’ So you are a Shinra defector.”

“I suppose I am,” Cloud looks away. It’s a little unnerving, to have those too-big eyes fixed on him like this, even without the old glint of malice. The kid really is just... so damn weird . Sometimes he seems so much younger than his appearance suggests, and other times he seems ageless, almost machine-like.

“How old are you?” Cloud decides to simply ask the boy.

Sephiroth narrows his eyes. “Thirteen. Please do not try to change the subject. I wish to know more about our connection, and you said you’d answer my questions.”

Thirteen, fucking hell. That’s a couple years younger than Cloud thought. “I wouldn’t really call it a connection,” Cloud says, even as a tiny drop of dread gathers in his gut at the boy’s apparent fixation on the subject. “Just the result of some fucked-up Shinra experiment. That’s all there is to it. Well, that’s my best guess, anyway.”

Sephiroth seems to consider this. He tilts his head a little, a thinking gesture, and Cloud realizes with a jolt of disquiet that he’s seen it before. 

Sephiroth—the Sephiroth he knew—did it too. Cloud knows this, because he’d been drinking in every last bit of his hero, right up until the day everything went wrong. 

But of course they’d have things in common. They’re the same person, after all. Cloud clears his throat and wills his tongue to work. “Speaking of Shinra. What they did to you, it’s… bad, and wrong. I don’t know what they told you, exactly, but I can guarantee that they’re all lies. They were just using you for their own ends—but you must know that already, with all the stuff going on in the labs.” 

Sephiroth stares at him impassively. One of his pale hands is resting on the table, and his thumb and forefinger are rubbing against each other absentmindedly. 

“You want me to defect, like you did,” Sephiroth finally says.

“Sure. Something like that.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Cloud echoes, just for something to say.

“Why go to such lengths? Why risk so much, for someone who may or may not help you?”

Cloud doesn’t fucking know. He feels a migraine coming on, and he resists the urge to stand up and pace. “I don’t need your help. It’s not about that. I just—I had to get you out of there. I’m not asking for anything from you, except to trust me and bear with me until I sort a few things out.”

Sephiroth is watching him with a razor-sharp intensity, as if he’s trying to turn him inside out. Cloud can’t really fault him. He doesn’t know what’s rattling around inside his own head half the time. He probably looks sketchy as hell and halfway insane, but surely that’s still an upgrade from Hojo.

“Look,” Cloud finally says. “Just—think about what I said, all right? We can continue this conversation later. We’re both tired. You need rest.”

“It is daytime,” Sephiroth says, matter of fact.

“You can still rest. Or, I dunno, lie down and relax. Or read a book, or something.”

Sephiroth tilts his head again. “Read a book?” 

“Ah, yeah, I got you books. They should be on your desk somewhere.”

Does Sephiroth even care for books? Cloud doesn’t know why he had the impression that pre-batshit Sephiroth was the bookish type, but Cloud had gone to the library and asked for suggestions, then personally sorted through the list and taken out anything that might contain Shinra propaganda.

“You don’t have to read,” Cloud adds when Sephiroth makes no move to get up. “I don’t care what you do, as long as you stay inside the house. It’s not safe for you out there, and I will know the moment you set foot outside, so don’t bother trying.”

With that, Cloud pushes away from the table and begins to head down the hallway. He peeks inside Sephiroth’s room when he passes by, noticing that the large window inside lacks curtains. Cursing his forgetfulness, he circles back to the living room and grabs the stack of blackout curtains he was planning to put up, and this time Sephiroth trails after him, his bare feet producing tiny thuds against the floorboard. 

Cloud grabs a chair and begins to hang the curtains. Sephiroth stands at parade rest and observes Cloud with cautious eyes, until Cloud thinks, to hell with it, and directs Sephiroth to help him with the task.

Sephiroth complies without protest. As dark grey curtains blot out the sun, Cloud quietly marvels at the absurdity of the moment. Here he is in an impossible timeline, doing home renovation with Baby Sephiroth. 

Baby Sephiroth says nothing when Cloud leaves him in the room and goes to fix the broken faucet. His presence is a constant dot of coolness/warmth in Cloud’s mind, and Cloud can pinpoint his exact location, even when he does not see or hear him. It’s extremely unnerving, yet very convenient, especially when after a long stretch of stillness, that presence begins to dart in the direction of the front door. 

Cloud drops his wrench and breaks into a jog. He bursts through the front door and finds Sephiroth standing on the porch, just a couple feet away. The boy’s feet are bare, and he has the nerve to look bored, like he’s been waiting for Cloud to show up, the little shit. 

“What did I tell you?” Cloud all but yells. “The hell do you think you’re doing?”

“So you feel it, too,” Sephiroth says, his face a smooth, impassive mask.

Of fucking course. So it goes both ways. Cloud wants to throw something, but he settles for taking a step toward Sephiroth and looming a bit, because payback is sweet, even when the target is all wrong. “When I tell you to stay inside, you stay inside. Is that understood?”

Sephiroth’s eyes dart to the door, then he nods stiffly. He’s rubbing his thumb against his forefinger again, the movement small and rhythmic. 

It’s a nervous tic, Cloud realizes. Cloud looks away, suddenly feeling awful. He steps back and softens his voice. “I was just worried. But don’t do that again, ‘kay? If you want fresh air or something, just let me know. I’ll come with.”

Sephiroth nods again, turns, and goes inside without a word. 

Fuck. Is he upset? What the hell is Cloud even doing? Why did he ever think he’d be able to pull this off? And what is all this about, really? Trying to, what, save Sephiroth from himself? Cloud is probably the last person on Gaia qualified for the job.

Cloud sits down on the front steps and sighs. Around him, the forest shivers, and life sings all its disparate, cacophonous tunes. Maybe that’s really it. If he can prove that even Sephiroth can be saved, then maybe Cloud can be, too.

Chapter Text

The mattress is too soft. Sephiroth lies on it nevertheless, because Cloud has suggested it, and because he needs a moment to simply be. His fingertips trace the patterns on the strangely textured sheets as he waits for the hammer to fall.

It was a calculated risk, to test Cloud. The rules and boundaries within this house are ill-defined and shapeless, and one cannot give shape to something without pushing against its bounds.

Whatever Cloud’s true purpose is, he appears wholly devoted to his mission. It’s unlikely that Cloud would discard his plans over a minor transgression. Sephiroth would be disciplined for it, true, but he’s certain that not even the worst punishment Cloud can devise will hold a candle to the tamest of Hojo’s games.

The two men cannot be any more different. That much is clear, after just two days of observation.

Sephiroth sinks down further into the feathery duvet, his belly full to the point of near discomfort. It’s a curious thing, to be given the license to do as he wishes with something as mundane yet essential as food. If it was a test, Sephiroth cannot see what purpose it serves. His mind still reels from the memory of the discordant flavors, almost like blinking into daylight after spending hours in perfect darkness.

Cloud had prepared the meal for him with his own hands. Was it an attempt at bribery? It’d be another point in favour of the recruitment theory, along with the stack of books sitting on the shelving unit attached to the desk assigned to him. The desk, too, is larger and more elaborate than anything he’s ever been given back home. A thin, swirling pattern is carved into its side—a nature motif perhaps—and its surface is shiny with a fresh layer of warmly coloured lacquer, appearing almost liquid in its umber smoothness.

If Cloud is appraising him for recruitment, then Sephiroth must have made a terrible case for himself. After that pathetic showing where Cloud put him on his back in a single strike, Sephiroth then proceeded to thoroughly debase himself in the bathroom. He’s not had that kind of lapse in years. In many ways, the upcoming punishment will be an opportunity. Sephiroth is confident in his ability to endure whatever it entails unflinchingly and without complaint, and he will show Cloud that he is strong.

But is impressing Cloud something he should want? It seems like madness to even entertain the possibility—that he may so easily betray everything he has bled and toiled and suffered and almost died for, all for lavish meals and a soft bed.

You know this has nothing to do with the meals or the bed , a small voice whispers in his mind.

In the quiet recess of Sephiroth’s consciousness, Cloud’s presence is a tiny, quivering thing. His location has remained stationary for the past twenty two minutes, and the anticipation is making Sephiroth feel restless. Cloud is hiding something, Sephiroth is certain of it. Cloud is, in fact, hiding a great deal of things. Sephiroth is used to being kept in the dark, has endured it all his life, but now that darkness is finally starting to close in, its cool walls pressing down on him like a physical weight.

Sephiroth sits up. Sunlight streams through a finger-wide gap in the thick curtains, and he knows he needs only approach it to see Cloud sitting on the porch, unarmed yet still deadly, his body a weapon unto itself, much like Sephiroth’s. 

Sephiroth instead reaches for the stack of books Cloud has assigned to him, examining the titles on their spines. It’s a haphazard collection with no discernible theme or pattern, and most appear to be fiction. Sephiroth flips through them, brows furrowed. This, too, has been one of Cloud’s suggested activities. Is there a message to be found here, a clue? 

The only work of nonfiction is a history book written in a rather puerile style, but the full-page illustrations that accompanied it are quite pleasant to look at. All other books contain stories and legends, some so long and intricate they span hundreds of pages. Sephiroth has never needed to or been interested in studying this type of material, but now he’s quickly turning the pages, trying to gather any kind of information that might hint at Cloud’s intentions. 

A young girl searching for her mother in a far-flung land. A boy sailing a ship manned by ghosts and sea monsters. A group of teens traveling with a theatre troupe that puts on outlandish performances, which Sephiroth assumes are merely allegorical. Most of the stories feature young characters in unusual predicaments. What is Sephiroth meant to glean from all this? Cloud seems insistent that Sephiroth’s own upbringing was “bad, and wrong.” Was this merely meant to showcase other possibilities, and foster a sense of resentment for and distrust in Shinra?

Sephiroth lies back and leans into the too-soft mattress—he has been more or less ordered to do so, so this cannot be misconstrued as laziness—and begins to work through one of the books at a more leisurely pace. 

It’s the most confounding of the bunch, since all it seems to be is a droll documentation of a teenage girl’s romantic exploits, as well as the minor details of her day to day life. Said girl attends a fictional educational institution in a fictional small town, and shares a made-up single-family home with her equally made-up mother, father, brother, and two cats named Lili and Lulu, respectively. There is nothing especially noteworthy about her life, yet Sephiroth finds himself pouring over the pages, strangely captivated by every odd minutia of this make-believe existence. 

Sephiroth learns that a hair curler is a tool used to create artificial curls in one’s hair, because the shape and colour of one’s hair is of great importance to some individuals, and can either boost or diminish one’s social status. He learns that fathers often take their children on excursions big and small, with no other purpose than the pleasure of it. He learns that langues de chat —or cat tongues—have nothing to do with either cats or tongues, but are a type of sweet biscuits that confer no discernible nutritional benefits but are eaten purely for enjoyment, often shared with peers and family members to strengthen social bonds. He learns that mothers often plan elaborate celebrations for their children’s birth anniversaries, showering them with gifts and praises for successfully undergoing the simple passage of time.

Sephiroth’s eyes trace the shape of each letter, each word, as if to crack some kind of alien code. He is wrapped up in attempting to make sense of the fictional town’s byzantine social hierarchies when Cloud appears at his door with a glass of water.

“Uh,” Cloud says, squinting at the cover of the book in Sephiroth’s hands with a slightly bewildered expression. “I hope the books are okay. I can always get you more, if they aren’t. You’ll have to tell me what you want though. Never been a big reader myself.”

Sephiroth glances at the page number and puts the book down. He eyes Cloud carefully. “Are you taking requests?”

“Sure,” Cloud says, still looking somewhat befuddled. “Give me the titles and I’ll see what I can do.”

“I will consider it.”

“Right,” Cloud nods, looking around the room like he’s searching for evidence of misbehavior. “Speaking of requests, what do you want for dinner?”

“Dinner?” Sephiroth says, taken aback. The light outside does look dimmer, warmer. Has it really been that long? “I… believe there is still food left from our previous meal, which you said you’d finish, but did not.”

Cloud huffs a little and looks away. “Yeah, yeah. I was just wondering if you wanted anything in particular. Menu’s limited by ingredient availability, obviously, but I can still try to throw something together.”

“I do not have any requests,” Sephiroth says, suddenly feeling very uncertain. “In fact, I may have overeaten earlier, and will not require any additional nutrition today.”

Cloud sighs. “That doesn’t make up for skipping meals for two days. Come on, I’ll heat up some leftovers for us. Think of it as an evening snack.”

*

Dinner—or evening snack—is eaten over the same small table they occupied earlier. Cloud does not wait for Sephiroth to finish first this time, and uses his own clean set of utensils. They eat in silence, the only sound in the room the occasional clinking of silverware and quiet chewing.

Sephiroth feels off kilter, unmoored. A viscous kind of tension is gathering in his chest, making the richly flavored food taste false and mocking. He thinks back to the scenes in the book, to all the boisterous dinner parties and quiet Sunday breakfasts, and his throat feels swollen with something too hot and too thick.

Cloud shoots him probing glances throughout the meal, and Sephiroth avoids his eyes. It’s when Cloud has put away the dishes and is getting ready to retire for the night, that Sephiroth finally cannot bear it anymore.

“Cloud,” Sephiroth calls after the man’s retreating back.

“Hm?” Cloud turns back to him.

“What will you have me do?” Sephiroth asks, almost pleading.

Standing in the darkened hallway, Cloud blinks at him in visible confusion. “Have you do? What do you mean?”

“What is my punishment? I will not cause any more trouble. This waiting—I just need to know.”

Cloud looks outright alarmed. “Punishment? What?”

“Yes, my punishment,” Sephiroth grits out, his impassive mask close to slipping. “For breaking the rules and going outside. I’d like to at least know what to expect, please.”

Cloud stares at him, face going through an indiscernible series of expressions. Sephiroth feels his chest heave with anxiety—does he want Sephiroth to beg? He did not think him the type, but Sephiroth has been wrong about things, wrong about people—

“Gods help me,” Cloud breathes out. He begins moving towards Sephiroth but pauses halfway, looking at him with a tired sort of anguish. “There’s not going to be any punishment. This isn’t—it’s not how this works. Listen, you’re not going to be punished, okay? Me keeping you here—I know it looks bad, but you’re not supposed to be a prisoner. The rules and everything, they’re all temporary, they’re just meant to keep you safe.”

“What am I, if not your prisoner?” Sephiroth retorts with a boldness he’ll likely soon regret. “And regardless, you seem intent on becoming my new handler, but refuse to provide clear guidelines and expectations.”

“All right, all right,” Cloud says, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “How about this. You can have your punishment, which is… making yourself comfortable, then having a good night of sleep.”

Sephiroth narrows his eyes. “That doesn’t sound much like punishment.”

Cloud throws up his hands. “Well since I’m apparently your ‘new handler’, what I say goes.”

Sephiroth opens his mouth to snap back, but his rational mind finally catches up with him, and the words die on his tongue. What is he doing, antagonizing his captor like this? To argue for his own punishment, of all things? 

He lowers his eyes to the floor as a gesture of deference, hoping that Cloud won’t press further. Strangely, the ball of anxiety in his chest is no longer present. He feels… a bit calmer, more in control. Cloud really isn’t going to punish him—perhaps he can still work with this, leverage it in his favor. 

He hears Cloud sigh, and when he looks up again Cloud is already walking away. 

“I’m gonna go take a very long bath,” Cloud says. “Call for me if you need anything.”

Sephiroth goes back to his room and wonders.

*

The night is full of music. It’s not music that would be considered pleasant in the traditional sense, but it’s still quite extraordinary. The sounds of nocturnal life fill the darkness that stretches out to the glimmering stars, in so many distinct voices that not even Sephiroth’s enhanced hearing can make sense of them all.

Cloud’s breathing is calm and even in the room across the hall, but Sephiroth can tell he’s still awake. Cloud will likely not sleep at all tonight. Even factoring in his superior capabilities, it would be neither safe nor wise to fully drop his guard.

Both their doors have been left open, and Cloud’s room is small—laughably so, compared to Sephiroth’s. The only piece of furniture within it is a thin mattress placed directly on the ground, so tiny that Cloud, already small for a grown man, can barely fit on it. The strangeness of the situation—with Sephiroth taking up the massive bed, and Cloud lying on a cot like he’s the prisoner—is yet another thing that does not make sense. Sephiroth may have to get used to things not making sense, if he’s to be trapped here for the foreseeable future. 

Unlike Cloud, Sephiroth is free to rest, should he wish to. There’s nothing Cloud can do to him asleep that he cannot already do awake, so there’s nothing to fear. Sephiroth has been trained to sleep standing, should the need arise, and it does not take him long to slow his breathing and relax the hold of consciousness on his body. 

His dreams are scattered and nebulous. The coldness of space, the paleness of stars. The touch of another presence brushes past him, luminous and feather-light, and he shudders, his entire dream-universe shattering delicately into microscopic shards. 

When Sephiroth wakes again, it’s to the sound of something sizzling in the kitchen. A warm, fragrant smell wafts through the open door, and he gets up and goes to search for the source of it, still half asleep. 

He finds Cloud in the kitchen, pouring a cup of something out of a steel pot. Cloud takes a sip of it and grimaces, then reaches for a spoon and stirs a golden, gooey substance into it. He looks up to Sephiroth when he enters the kitchen proper. “Sleep well?” 

“Yes,” Sephiroth answers truthfully.

The corners of Cloud’s lips quirk up. “Punishment accomplished, huh?”

It takes Sephiroth a moment to recall what he’s referring to. Sephiroth looks away, embarrassed. In the light of day, what had seemed so grim and urgent the previous night now seems a little ridiculous. Cloud was once a Shinra asset, too. It makes sense that he would not want to do things the way Shinra did, now that he’s actively working against them. Sephiroth should have factored that into his way of thinking.

Cloud pours another mug and hands it to Sephiroth. Sephiroth sniffs it—coffee, perhaps, though not a variety Sephiroth has ever encountered. He’s never tried any himself, but he’s seen and smelt lab techs go through entire bathtubs’ worth of it, day in and day out.

Breakfast is a quiet affair. The coffee is different from what he expected, but the taste is not unpleasant. The food is delectable and filling as always, and when Sephiroth finishes with his plate, he puts down his fork and stares at a spot next to Cloud’s left ear, and he says in a voice that’s much quieter than he means it to be: “Thank you.”

Cloud’s head snaps up, and he blinks at Sephiroth owlishly. “Huh? I mean, you’re welcome. But what for?”

“For the food,” Sephiroth looks down at the table. “I’ve never… met anyone who’s prepared food for me before.”

“Oh,” Cloud says, voice low. Then he clears his throat. “It’s nothing. I mean, I gotta eat anyway, myself, so um. Don’t feel like you have to thank me for the bare minimum. My cooking could use some work, too. Anyway,” Cloud continues with feigned levity. “I got a proposal for you today.”

“A proposal?”

“Well, it’s not much of a proposal,” Cloud smiles wryly. “But I was thinking, I gotta head into town for supplies at some point, so I was wondering if you’d like to come with. You don’t have to,” Cloud quickly adds when he sees the look Sephiroth’s giving him, “but the option is there, if you want it. It’s up to you. I’ll figure out the supply issue some other way, if you’d rather stay put.”

Head into town? Sephiroth has never visited a real town, not in person. Sephiroth stares at Cloud. He could raise some kind of alarm, attract attention. Alert the local authorities to their presence. Run away during the chaos and strike out on his own.

If this is a test, it’s a very badly thought out one, unless there’s some vital piece of information Sephiroth is not privy to. Does Cloud have contacts in the town? Or is the whole town a base of operations for whatever anti-Shinra organization Cloud is working with, so there’s no real risk of Sephiroth running loose?

Yet something in Sephiroth is already abuzz with anticipation, the hum of it growing louder until it’s drowning out all fear and reason. How much would this town resemble the one Sephiroth has read about? Would it contain families living in houses, children engaged in petty schoolyard squabbles, strange girls with rhinestone jewels and curled hair?

“Or we could go some other day,” Cloud is still speaking, his voice soft and uncertain. “We still got enough food to last us—”

“No,” Sephiroth says. “I mean—yes.” Sephiroth meets Cloud’s eyes, his heart beating fast. “Yes, I would like to go today.”

Chapter Text

It’s drizzling lightly when they make their way down the meandering trail. Cloud pulls his foot out of a small quagmire and steps over a puddle. He’s offered to drive, but Sephiroth has chosen to go on a small hike instead, maybe just to clear his head and burn off some energy. He probably isn’t used to sitting still. 

That much the two of them have in common. Sephiroth walks in front of him, nimbly descending crumbling stone steps that really ought to be reported to the local authorities for being a two mile long death trap. He’s still dressed in Cloud’s borrowed clothes, and his silver hair is hidden beneath the fluffy white beanie Cloud asked him to put on. 

“Remember,” Cloud says as he bats away a low-hanging branch, “if anyone comments on the shades—”

“Explain that I suffer from extreme light sensitivity due to a congenital medical condition.”

“Right. And if anyone asks, you’re—”

“Your distant cousin, Seph, who’s visiting and looking to start a long-term apprenticeship with you in monster hunting,” Sephiroth shoots him a look that’s somehow both impatient and serene. “My mother passed away three years ago, and I wish to start making my own way in the world instead of relying on my aging father, who’s being cared for by my two older sisters in a small town near Mt. Corel.”

“Yeah—wait, what’s all that other stuff? You got a whole backstory now?”

The next look Sephiroth shoots him is ever so slightly annoyed. “I am trained in basic infiltration and espionage, Cloud. It’s prudent to prepare for all eventualities. I assume that you too are operating under a synthetic identity?”

“Maybe,” Cloud says, rubbing eyes irritated by the coloured contacts he’s wearing. It’s honestly a relief to see Sephiroth being his weirdly irritating self. Mouthing off, being a know-it-all—typical teenager behavior, probably, as opposed to… well, everything else. It’s a good idea to take him out and about, Cloud reassures himself, even if it’s a little premature. The kid is used to action. 

That, and Cloud would personally rather face down a dozen malboros than sit down and talk about Feelings. 

Perched atop the silvery green landscape, Sephiroth turns around to face Cloud fully. “Would it not cause problems, if I cannot corroborate your story?”

Cloud has to suppress a smile at the way Sephiroth frowns at him with the utmost seriousness. “You already know the most important bits. I hunt for a living, which is more or less the truth these days. As for the rest—well, I left home after a bad breakup with a very wealthy and very vindictive ex-girlfriend, which is why I’m out here trying to lay low for a bit. It’s the same story I used when I rented the house.”

Sephiroth gives him a curious look. Cloud sighs internally; it was a cover story Yuffie came up with, back in the day. Not his favourite, but it worked well the first time. Apparently, it’s perfect for Cloud because he’s “obviously trophy husband material,” and exudes “malewife energy,” whatever that means. 

A faint tinge of longing-pain-sorrow throbs in some hidden part of Cloud’s chest cavity. Yuffie would be an infant now, blissfully unaware of what’s to come. What kind of person will she be, in this lifetime? Cloud has been avoiding the Wutai region, afraid that one wrong move could set off some kind of butterfly effect that’d put her at risk.

Every breath you take is a whole damn butterfly, a voice chides him. Here you are attempting to cause the mother of all butterfly effects, fucking around with the very fate of the world like it’s some sort of personal project.

Cloud swats that voice away, but it remains a persistent buzz in the background. The town is within sight now, a cluster of beiges and burgundies nestled among the greenery. A serpentine creek winds through it, glistening like mercury in the distance. Up above, the rain clouds are retreating towards the western horizon, leaving sunlight to spill into the world with languid mellowness. 

Sephiroth’s gaze is fixed upon the scene before him, his eyes bright and attentive. His pace slows and he says quietly, as if only to himself: “There are… people.”

Cloud hums in agreement, for the lack of anything better to say. It’s only occurring to him now that this may be the first time Sephiroth has ever directly laid eyes on civilian life. Looking at the boy take in the run-down little town like he’s discovered some secret fairytale realm, Cloud is suddenly hit by the brutal immensity of it all—his mission, humanity’s fate, and one boy’s stolen, defaced childhood. 

“Looks like the town fair’s still in session,” Cloud says in the most neutral voice he can manage. “That’s good news for us. More people around, less attention on strangers passing through.”

Sephiroth considers this with a small frown.

Cloud throws him a nervous glance. Is he afraid of crowds? “Don’t worry, the place is pretty isolated from the outside world, we probably won’t run into trouble. It’s going to be—” Cloud flounders a bit for the right word, “fun.”

“Fun,” Sephiroth echoes, contemplative.

“Yep,” Cloud says, sounding like the most un-fun person in the world. 

The town itself is bustling with far more activity than Cloud expected; the main square is overflowing with gaudy market stalls and hastily cobbled together picnic tables, and it looks like everybody living within a twenty mile radius has chosen to congregate here, now that the weather has cleared. The two of them slowly approach the eye of the storm, with Sephiroth suddenly deciding that he’s no longer interested in taking the lead and would prefer to tag after Cloud at what would normally be considered an uncomfortably close distance. 

The Fusion Sword has been disassembled into a straight blade small enough that an unenhanced person can conceivably wield it. The sword on Cloud’s back is paired with an old hunting rifle, since he’s meant to be a professional hunter, and he keeps a vigilant eye on Sephiroth as they cut through the crowd. 

Now would be the time to start something, if the boy wants to take full advantage of the fact that Cloud’s movements would be constrained by the droves of defenseless civilians around them. Eyes hidden behind dark shades, Sephiroth surveys the crowd the way a soldier would survey a battlefield. He visibly flinches when a toddler lets out a shrill wail not far from where Cloud’s pretending to browse a fruit stall.

“Don’t stare,” Cloud whispers. “People might notice, even with the glasses.”

Sephiroth tears his eyes away from where a haggard looking young woman scoops up the tiny child, who’s now squirming and screaming with increased fervor. 

“What’s wrong with him?” Sephiroth whispers back, looking mildly bewildered.

“Eh, he’s fine,” Cloud says, “Kids are just like that, sometimes. I think I saw him drop ice cream on himself earlier.”

Still looking perturbed, Sephiroth lets Cloud nudge him toward the high street. A family of four pass them by, all dressed in moogle costumes and laughing uproariously. A group of teens barrel through the crowd hooting and shrieking, nearly knocking into a father who’s struggling to balance the giggling little girl sitting on his shoulders.  

Sephiroth watches all this in silence, his marble-smooth face pensive under the warm sun. Cloud looks away, feeling the tendrils of guilt that have taken permanent residence in his belly coil and uncoil. The boy has no idea what trials await him, and what Cloud will have to do if he fails. Would his predecessor have worn the exact same look on his face, had somebody only brought him here, a lifetime ago?

Predecessor . Is that what Cloud is calling him now? Cloud chews the inside of his cheek, then nearly jumps out of his skin when the full force of Not-Reunion pulses through him like a thundara.

A pale hand has wrapped itself around Cloud’s. Cloud stares down at the joined hands, then back up at Sephiroth, who is gazing into the crowd placidly, as if this is the most normal interaction in the world.

“What the hell?” Cloud whispers. Sephiroth turns his head a bit to the left, and Cloud follows his gaze to find what looks like a large extended family all holding hands. It’s disgustingly cute, really—the kids are lined up by height and marching forward in matching outfits, but it surely cannot have escaped Sephiroth’s notice that these kids are all significantly younger than him.

Cloud tries to shake him off discreetly, but Sephiroth only tightens his hold. At a loss, Cloud stands there holding hands with Sephiroth in the middle of the garishly-decorated town fair, feeling like he’s walked into some kind of alternate reality. He is about ninety-five percent sure that this has something to do with Sephiroth’s strange fixation on the Not-Reunion effect, but it seems like a bad idea to cause a scene over something so outwardly trivial and damage Sephiroth’s fledgling trust, as much as the whole situation unnerves him.

At Sephiroth’s age, Cloud would probably rather cut off his own arm than be seen in public hanging onto a grown-up like some toddler. Then again, things might have been different, if that grown-up had been General Sephiroth. If he’s honest with himself, Cloud’s younger self would probably refuse to wash his hand for weeks afterwards, hoping that some of that greatness might rub off on him.

Lost in thought, Cloud pulls Sephiroth towards the clothing shop he’d been aiming to visit. They enter the oddly empty shop still holding hands, and are immediately greeted by an exuberant little old lady in a floral dress. 

“My, my!” the lady smiles far too wide. “It’s not every day you see such dashing young men stop by this humble little showroom. Oh gosh, just look at you! Are you brothers, my dears?”

“Uh—no,” Cloud takes a step back. “We’re cousins—”

“Ooh, aren't you just the sweetest! But what is that outfit you’re wearing? Please, come on in! We’ll fix your wardrobe right up!”

“I’m just here with my cousin, actually,” Cloud says quickly, backing off further. “No need to fix my anything.”

The lady’s attention immediately turns to Sephiroth, who’s standing so straight that Cloud is afraid he might snap into a salute. 

“Ah! Let me see, let me see,” the lady steps in closer and examines Sephiroth from head to toe. “Oh you poor sweet dear, nothing but hand-me-downs, hmm?”

Cloud decides to step in. “I think it’d be better if we just browse a bit on our own—”

“Nonsense, nonsense!” the woman waves both her small hands. “I have just the thing for you!”

The “thing” she has turns out to be at least a dozen outfits in various configurations, which she presents to Sephiroth with a slightly manic-looking grin. For his part, Sephiroth just stares at the offerings dumbly, until the lady’s gaze moves first to Sephiroth’s sunglasses then to he and Cloud’s still joined hands, and she covers her mouth and gasps. 

“Oh gosh! I’m so sorry, my dear! You can’t see very well, can you? I should have asked!”

“Ah, no,” Cloud cuts her off and finally wrests his hand free. “He sees fine, his eyes are just sensitive to light.”

“Oh! You poor thing!” the lady exclaims. “Still, what’s your favorite style, angel? Anything you simply can’t live without?”

Sephiroth’s mouth moves for a bit before it finally produces sounds. “I am… unsure.”

The lady mimes fainting on the spot. “Gods have mercy! Well, a favourite colour, then?”

Sephiroth shoots Cloud a helpless look. “...Black, perhaps.”

The woman perks up and hums happily, dashing around the shop to retrieve even more garments. By the end of the ordeal, Cloud steps out of the shop laden with way more clothes he’d ever consider spending gil on if he’d been shopping for himself, feeling thoroughly ripped off yet too turned around to protest. 

Sephiroth walks beside him looking similarly dazed, and Cloud is secretly relieved that he’s carrying too many bags for Sephiroth to casually take his hand again. 

“Sorry about that,” Cloud says. “That was definitely not a good introduction to the civilian shopping experience. It’s not usually like this.”

“I see,” Sephiroth says, eyes flicking back to the storefront. 

It’s difficult to read him behind those dark shades, and Cloud, feeling awkward and slightly out of sorts himself, decides that a lunch break is in order. The only place that isn’t already overflowing with customers is a small cafe off the side of the high street, where they’d quickly discover that the shop is unpopular for a reason. Cloud’s eyes water when he first bites into the sandwich he ordered, and even Sephiroth has lost some of his unflappable composure.

“This far exceeds the sodium requirements,” Sephiroth says, voice uncertain.

Cloud grimaces. He’s promised Sephiroth “fun”, and the day is turning out to be both shockingly okay and absolutely disastrous. Okay, in the sense that Sephiroth has made no move to stage a daring escape or pull out the army knife hidden under his belt, and disastrous, well, in basically every other sense.

The sound of laughter echoes in the distance. The window they’re seated next to faces a small pond with a dozen sprinklers installed haphazardly around it, where young children can be seen running back and forth as they shriek at the top of their lungs and splash each other with water. Food forgotten, Sephiroth watches the scene with absent-minded fascination, a sliver of his too-bright eyes visible in the tiny blank space next to darkened glass. 

“Wanna join them?” Cloud says, mostly as a joke. Sephiroth turns back to him and gives him a flat look.

Cloud shrugs. “I’d go too, if you go.”

“I am not an infant,” Sephiroth says.

“Well, neither am I, but I’d go.”

Sephiroth looks back to the makeshift water park, his face once again a smooth mask. 

The sandwiches are a bust, but the drinks and desserts turned out okay. Sephiroth is weirdly interested in a type of oblong biscuits called “cat tongues”, so Cloud orders two dozen more tongues to go. They stop by a bookstore once they leave the cafe, where Cloud tells Sephiroth to “knock himself out,” and has to then explain that he does not mean that literally. Cloud himself grabs a bunch of recipe books, and does a double take when Sephiroth emerges from the back of the shop with what looks like fluff novels for teenage girls. He dutifully pays and does not question it. 

Outside, the market stalls are abuzz with overlapping voices and music. A large group of children are gathered around a toy stall, all of them wheedling their long-suffering parents for some new Shinra brand action figure. 

Something bitter wells up in Cloud at the sight of the Shinra logo, and when he turns to check on Sephiroth, he sees that the boy has noticed it too. There’s a tightening of his lips, a stiffening in his posture, and Cloud quickly looks around, searching for anything that might distract him.

“Hey, look. Those kind of look like you,” Cloud points to a row of small plushies shaped like white cats. Their soft rotund bodies are almost spherical, and their green eyes are so big they take up two thirds of their faces. 

Sephiroth stares at the plushies, then gives Cloud a puzzled look. “What are they?”

“Uh. Cats?”

“I understand that they resemble cats,” Sephiroth says. “But what are they for?”

“They’re just toys,” Cloud plucks a plushie off the shelf and hands it to Sephiroth. “They’re nice looking, so I guess you just put them somewhere and look at them. Or, I dunno, use it as a stress ball or something.”

Sephiroth accepts the small plushie gingerly, holding it in his palm like he’s handling a live animal. “A stress ball?”

“Uh-huh. People say it relieves stress to squeeze something with their hands. Well, maybe not people like you and me. It’d probably explode if you squeeze it too hard.”

Sephiroth looks down at the plushie in his hand with alarm, and Cloud adds hurriedly: “No, not explode like a bomb; the thing’s just bits of cotton and fabric. I just meant it’d fall apart. So don’t squish it too much, yeah?” Cloud frowns. “Wait, actually, it’s also fine if you do want to squish it. It’s yours; you can do whatever you want with it. I can always buy you new ones.”

“I will endeavor to not break it,” Sephiroth says drily, cradling the tiny plushie in his hand. The little cat really does look a lot like Sephiroth, now that they’re side by side like this. The white beanie on Sephiroth’s head is a perfect match for the cat’s white fur, and Cloud can’t help but smile a little at the sight.

Sephiroth chooses that moment to look up at him, his eyes shining even behind those ridiculous shades. The corners of his lips curve ever so slightly upwards, and Cloud is really smiling now, his whole body going lax with relief, like finally letting out a breath he’s been holding for too long.

Sephiroth smiles back for too brief a moment, then he ducks his head and bites his lips. A strand of silver hair peeks out from under the beanie, which sits slightly crooked from the day’s activities. Cloud reaches out to adjust it for him, and for a second it almost feels like the boy is leaning into his touch. 

“Come on,” Cloud says, voice so soft he barely recognizes it himself. “Let’s go grab some groceries and be on our way.”

Chapter Text

The saying goes that cats have nine lives. It is not meant to be taken literally, of course, but it certainly attests to the common perception that they are durable creatures, perhaps with something unearthly and fey in their lineage.

The cat-shaped toy is a barely perceptible weight on Sephiroth, swaying gently with his steps.  There is a small metal hoop sewn into the back of its velvety-soft torso, which Sephiroth has clasped to his belt so he can help Cloud carry his purchases. By Sephiroth’s estimate, it will take him seven and a half minutes to reach shelter if he travels at full speed, but instead he meanders and stalls, taking in the scenery as if he really were a country boy out on a stroll.

Is that what people really do, and not just fanciful stories made up for the books? Wandering around without a goal or purpose, and simply exist, be ? Cloud seems content to let Sephiroth set the pace. The strange, persistent desire to reinitiate physical contact with Cloud would have alarmed Sephiroth, had he not been already so overwhelmed by an endless number of other concerns.

His touch appears to be a source of alarm for Cloud too.

“Is it uncomfortable, when I touch you?” Sephiroth finds his mouth moving almost without his input. Birds scatter above them, a hundred startled trills echoing in the valley. 

“Huh?” Cloud turns to give him an inquisitive look. “What makes you say that?”

“It seemed to distress you, back when we were at the town square.”

Cloud’s footsteps falter, and he shuffles a parcel in his left arm to his right. “Well, I wouldn’t say distress, exactly. It’s just… weird , don’t you think, that it does that? You gotta admit, the whole resonance thing feels a little creepy.”

Something in Sephiroth goes cold. “No,” Sephiroth says. Then, much quieter, “Not for me.”

The footsteps stop. “Wait, sorry, I think that came out wrong. What I meant was—that I—I mean it is weird. But you aren’t the problem, and I don’t actually mind it when you touch me. Here—” Cloud starts juggling the parcels in his arms until they’re stacked together in one precarious pile, and he sticks out a now-empty hand in Sephiroth’s direction. “We can hold hands, if you want.”

One of the smaller boxes begins to slide off the pile, and Sephiroth catches it before it plops down on the ground. He does not take Cloud’s hand.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Sephiroth says, willing his voice to not sound so hollow. “Not when we still have to transport your purchases.”

“Right, of course,” Cloud sullenly withdraws his hand.

It’s just as well, Sephiroth thinks to himself. What kind of weapon of war would he be, if he can be swayed to the enemy’s cause by offers of hand-holding? Besides, it’s still unclear what Cloud’s cause is, other than that it works against Shinra. This may indicate that Sephiroth is not yet trusted enough to gain that kind of insight, even though Cloud is clearly attempting to foster an atmosphere of camaraderie. 

Wind rustles the leaves. Residual rainwater falls from the forest canopy in shimmering splatters, and Sephiroth raises an arm to shield the unblemished fur of the tiny toy hanging from his waist. Sephiroth has never been taught to clean anything except blood off his blade. He looks up at the treetops, then pulls his borrowed sweater over his belt. 

*

The full force of the afternoon sun is baking down on them when they return to the house. Sephiroth draws the thick curtains close and places the cat toy on the desk, next to the new books. Its enormous eyes stare at him, and Sephiroth stares back, wondering if a real cat would find kinship in his similarly slitted eyes, or bolt away in horror. 

Cloud pokes his head in through the doorway, the rest of his body only following when he appears to find whatever he was looking for inside. He walks in and drops the numerous bags of clothing on the bed, then pulls open a large closet and begins to unfold and hang the garments with a clumsiness that suggests inexperience.

Most of Cloud’s own clothes are stored in crumpled piles in a drawer. Sephiroth knows this, because the outfit he’s currently wearing has been pulled out of one such pile. 

“Would you like your clothes back?” Sephiroth asks, lifting his hands to the hem of his sweater.

“Hm?” Cloud says, distracted. “Nah. Unless you want to put on something that fits better. So, I’ve been thinking—” Cloud pauses, smoothing out a shirt with his hands. “That is, I’ve been wondering if you want to go out again later, for a spar.”

“A spar—with you?”

Cloud is wearing an uncharacteristically fretful look. “I mean, yeah.”

Sephiroth considers this. “All right.”

“Cool,” Cloud turns to give Sephiroth a lopsided attempt at a smile. “Kay, see you in a bit then. I still got some stuff to put away.”

Sephiroth watches Cloud depart, remembering too late that he does not have a weapon appropriate for the task. Does Cloud wish to assess his combat capabilities with only a basic army knife? Perhaps he wants a hand-to-hand demonstration, after what must have been a very disappointing encounter when Sephiroth first woke up in the car and tried to kill him with a pair of forceps.  

Those forceps are still hidden under the desk. They are the only things from home he has left, stolen and damaged as they are. 

Home . Even the word feels like some kind of mockery now, a joke at his expense. Sephiroth stares into the open closet, studying the neat row of clothing hanging from the steel bar. Is he expected to choose his own outfits from now on? The possibilities are almost daunting, even more so now that he’s gotten a glimpse of the larger world.

He’s always known, intellectually, that the vast majority of the world’s population consists of civilians with lives so far removed from his own that they might as well be an alien species. But he’s never fully comprehended just how different he was, until he’s finally free to stand among them, and found himself looking out of a sealed glass chamber.

Was Cloud the same, when he first left the labs? Or has his upbringing been different, and has his eventual betrayal contributed to the harshness of Sephiroth’s training? Sephiroth sits on the bed and stands again. He picks out a pair of leather gloves from Cloud’s new purchases and puts them on, noting the softness of their palms. These are meant for comfort, not function. Nothing about Sephiroth is built for comfort.

Cloud is waiting for him when Sephiroth approaches the entryway, looking strangely relieved that Sephiroth is indeed going along with what he’s already agreed to do. Cloud tries to make stilted, idle chit chat as they circle behind the house and head down a different trail, until he eventually gives up and the two of them continue in silence.

They arrive at the southern side of a stream, where the vegetation is sparser and there is a decently-sized open field. Cloud reaches for the massive sword on his back and begins to take the blades apart, like he had already done once this morning.

“Why did you put it back together, just to disassemble it again?” Sephiroth breaks the silence.

Cloud shrugs. “I find it kinda calming, I guess. Here,” Cloud hands a smaller blade to Sephiroth.

Sephiroth stares at it for a long moment, then wraps his hand around its hilt. Its weight is unfamiliar, but well-balanced. Sephiroth gives it an experimental swing. A bit more drag than his preferred weapon, but Sephiroth has been trained to adapt to unexpected combat situations. Cloud will hopefully account for his initial clumsiness when accessing him.

Cloud watches him with a pensive look. Sephiroth looks down at the sword in his hand again. He’s wielding a part of Cloud’s weapon, something that feels almost too intimate.

“All right, just so we’re on the same page,” Cloud says as he leads Sephiroth to the open field. “This is just a casual spar, so no materia or funny tricks. And be careful with your surroundings. We don’t want to leave signs of battle all over the place.”

Not unreasonable constraints. More a test of fineness than pure strength, then. Sephiroth can work with that.

“Oh, and try to avoid injuries, yeah? Even minor ones. I’ve got a healing materia over here, but I’d rather not have to use it. I don’t know what kind of spars you’ve been doing at Shinra, but uh, this isn’t a life-or-death kind of thing. More of a light-afternoon-workout kind of thing.”

Sephiroth tries not to look too irked by Cloud’s tone. By Cloud treating him like he’s new at this, like he’s incompetent. He pushes away a strand of hair that’s fallen too close to his eyes. “What are my main objectives? Anything in particular you wish to focus on?”

Cloud sighs and rests the tip of his sword on the ground. “This isn’t supposed to be a training mission, Sephiroth. Just a friendly spar to blow off some steam. I guess the only objective is… to have fun?”

Sephiroth frowns. Is this a different kind of test than what he’s envisioned? Some sort of team cohesion evaluation?

Cloud runs a rough hand through his hair and regards Sephiroth warily. “Look, let’s just have a go at it, yeah? See what works. We can call it off if it turns out to be too much.”

“No,” Sephiroth bites out, lifting his chin in defiance. “I will do this.”

“All right, all right,” Cloud says, finally moving into position and lifting his sword. “Come get it, then.”

Sephiroth focuses his attention on his opponent and shifts into a ready stance. A peculiar look flickers across Cloud’s face, but Sephiroth is already charging. Cloud bats his strike away easily, as is expected, and Sephiroth closes in again, throwing a quick series of probing attacks his way to gauge his reaction. 

It’s novel, sparring with Cloud. No human instructor has been able to keep up with him in years. Cloud hits with a physical strength that’s almost supernatural, and he moves with a speed that still astonishes Sephiroth, who’s always prided himself in his natural-born agility. His movements are water-tight, almost as if he could predict the ebb and flow of Sephiroth’s strikes, and in the moments between their dancing blades, Sephiroth wonders why Cloud needs him at all, and what has gone so wrong for Shinra to lose one such as Cloud.

Sephiroth’s next attack sends the both of them leaping through the trees, and his borrowed blade cuts through a gnarled branch and sends bits of bark flying before he can pull back his strength. Sephiroth grits his teeth—he’s been instructed to avoid damaging his surroundings, and that was a careless and unnecessary blunder. 

He closes the distance between the two of them again, simultaneously exhilarated and frustrated. It’s a heady feeling, to finally meet his match, but how is he meant to show Cloud his strength, assure Cloud of his value, if he cannot even find a single crack in his defense?

A lone bird chirps in the distance. A cool sheet of silence blankets Sephiroth’s mind. He pauses, breathes deeply, and charges back in. The clash of their blades sends a shockwave of pain through his arm, and he ducks, swings again, then drives the army knife in his right hand directly into his opponent’s gut—

Cloud barely manages to block him. “Hey! Remember what I said about—”

Sephiroth leaps into the air, quickly reorients himself, then dives back at Cloud in a blur of silver and black. There is a flash of wide blue eyes, then he feels his sword get wrenched out his hand while he is tossed bodily through a web of foliage and into cold water.

The stream rushes past him. There are tiny white flowers blooming on its bank. When he sits up panting and clutching his arm, he sees Cloud running toward him. 

“Shit,” the man is slightly out of breath, “I’m sorry. Are you okay? I didn’t mean to hit you that hard. Did you hit your head?”

Sephiroth looks around him. He’s not sure where he’s dropped Cloud’s sword. Regret and mortification is starting to set in, and Sephiroth shakes his head as if to reawaken his rational mind. 

“No, it was my fault,” Sephiroth mutters to the small fish gliding through the water. “I got carried away.”

Warm hands grip his shoulders, the jolt of recognition so bright he almost wants to go limp in them. 

Cloud is checking him over, his voice small and soft. “Does anything hurt? Did I nick you anywhere?” 

“I am undamaged,” Sephiroth says, almost wishing that it was a lie. The scrapes on his elbow have already healed, and the small cut on the back of his hand is likely no longer visible. The way Cloud is looking at him—with so much quiet concern, so much needless warmth—makes him wonder how he’d react, had Sephiroth really been injured. Would those cool blue eyes soften further with sympathy and guilt? Would he heal his wounds as he touches him with gentle hands, perhaps even carry him back to shelter?

Perhaps he should have let Cloud damage him, Sephiroth thinks, before the ugliness of his own thoughts startles him out of his reverie. Nothing about the situation calls for that kind of unscrupulous manipulation. He nimbly gets back up on his feet, showing Cloud that he is in perfect condition.

After finally ascertaining that Sephiroth is indeed fine, Cloud lets out a small sigh of relief and goes to retrieve the missing piece of his sword. Sephiroth sits on a large mossy rock and takes off his boots, turning them over to empty the water inside. Cloud returns with his sword and collapses on the grassy field not far from him, squinting into the horizon for a moment before turning his eyes to the small flowers decorating the riverbank. 

“You know, I thought this would be a fun, de-stressing kind of thing,” Cloud mumbles. “Something nice and familiar, after tossing you into the unknown earlier.” 

Sephiroth peers at him through his lashes. “Some of it was familiar, and moderately entertaining.”

Cloud lets out a huff of almost-laughter. “Yeah, yeah. Until I let things get out of hand. I’m not used to—” he makes an abortive movement with his hand. “I dunno. Sparring for fun, I guess. Every time I use this sword, something dies or gets knocked out. Never gone through traditional combat training. It was always, ‘here’s a big sword and here’s an enemy. Sink or swim.’”

It is not totally dissimilar to how Sephiroth was trained, in spirit. Cloud leans back into the grass with a sigh. His breathing is slow and calm, yet Sephiroth can hear his heart thundering as if he’s running forty miles per hour. 

“Your heartbeat,” Sephiroht can’t help but whisper. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Hmm?” Cloud turns to him, muscles shifting, his movement languid and slow. “Oh. I dunno. It’s been like that since…” Cloud looks up into the sky, eyes growing distant. “It doesn’t bother me, so I just try not to think about it.”

“Does it also have to do with—” Sephiroth cuts himself off. Cloud doesn’t like to discuss the nature of their connection, that much Sephiroth has learned.

Cloud gives him a puzzled look. “With what?”

“...R&D,” Sephiroth only says.

“Ah. Not really. I mean, I guess, in a roundabout way, but not directly. You don’t have to worry about it affecting you.”

Cloud seems to be in a mellow mood, and Sephiroth lets himself grow a little bold. “Do you happen to know anything about… the details of my origins? Are you certain that we are not related?”

“Yes, I’m pretty certain,” Cloud throws him an unreadable look, then softens his face into a small smile. “I do know that we share the same birthplace, so that’s something.”

“Midgar?” Sephiroth whispers.

“Nah. Some tiny village on the Western Continent. Most people have never heard of it.”

Then something in Cloud’s demeanor shifts. Something like sorrow flits across his features, chasing away the languid easiness in his movements. 

Sephiroth cannot begin to guess what has brought this on. The water is cool around his bare feet, and Sephiroth watches his own rippling reflection. 

Then, a tug, somewhere within him. He thinks he smells burning. Anger, ancient and immense, rages in him, and then it’s all gone within the same fraction of a second, doused as suddenly as it flared to life.

Sephiroth blinks at his reflection. He hears the flutter of wings, then the chirps of birds circling the forest. Cloud is quiet next to him, the unnatural rhythm of his heartbeat steady and sure. 

He must have made some kind of noise, because Cloud’s eyes are on him. “You okay?”

“Yes,” Sephiroth says. And he does feel okay, now. That flash of… emotion/sensation was so brief that it felt like coming into contact with burning coal for just a split second, his hand removed too quickly for the heat to transfer.

He reaches down to the stream and dips his hand in it, breaking up his reflection into shimmering little pieces. A nascent idea begins to form in mind, and before he can fully process or examine it, he’s grabbing a handful of cool water and hurling it at Cloud.

Cloud yelps, looking up at Sephiroth with his mouth open and his eyes wide. Water drips down the tips of his blond hair. Sephiroth splashes him again. Cloud sputters and stares at him in such utter bewilderment, that Sephiroth would have laughed if he weren't so afraid that he’s made the wrong call. 

Cloud rolls out of the way of Sephiroth’s next attack, holding up his hands in defeat. Heart hammering in his chest, Sephiroth sends another splash his way, and this one gets Cloud square in the face. 

“Fine, I see how it is,” Cloud spits out a mouthful of stream water and goes for a counterattack. 

The two of them circle each other around the narrow stream, neither of them saying a word as they splash and flail around like young children, or a pair of drunkards. There is no strategy or purpose to it. Sephiroth wonders, idly, if Cloud has the strength to upturn an ocean, but the stream is small and its content finite, so they settle for lightly dousing each other.

They continue until the horizon glows red, and fall, one after another, on the grass-covered riverbank. Cloud pulls off one of his boots with a wet squelch and says, his voice still a little breathless, “I knew you were jealous of those kids at the pond.”

“I merely thought it unfair that I was the only one drenched in water,” Sephiroth says.

“You wouldn’t have been, if you hadn't tried to play dirty first,” Cloud grumbles.

Sephiroth does not argue against this. He stretches out on the grass field and watches the setting sun, feeling implausibly content.

Chapter Text

It is day six, and Sephiroth is organizing his growing collection of books in alphabetical order and sipping a cup of tea when he realizes that he does not ever want to return to Midgar.

The realization comes with as little fanfare as the thrumming of his own pulse. He leans back in his plush, newly-acquired armchair, and watches a stray tea leaf sink to the bottom of the cup. Is that it, then? Five days of relative peace and comfort, and he’s willing to betray everything he thought he was meant for. 

There must be a flaw in Shinra’s design, some kind of defect that made both Cloud and Sephiroth so susceptible to abandoning the sole purpose for which they were created. There’s some measure of comfort to be found with this line of thinking—that it is Shinra’s failing, and not his, that has resulted in his current predicament. Still, it aggravates him that he has not been given a new purpose. Cloud has remained stubbornly vague on this subject, preferring to talk about sword maintenance and food preferences, if he talks at all.

Sephiroth hears the sound of baking trays clattering in the kitchen. That’s where Cloud spends a significant portion of his days now, devising new recipes for Sephiroth’s benefit. He’s been told that what he’d thought of as veritable feasts were in fact the pitiful first attempts of an amateur, something that Cloud appears to be dead set on changing, in lieu of addressing more pressing matters, such as what Sephiroth is supposed to do now.

When Sephiroth is feeling particularly fanciful, he dares to entertain the idea that Cloud may have whisked him away from the labs just to save him from a lifetime of bland meal portions, but it’s blatantly clear that Cloud expects more from Sephiroth beyond playing a part in his newfound interest in the culinary arts. The intentional ambiguity in his language, the many pauses and false starts whenever a question is asked—Cloud is not particularly good at subterfuge, or subtlety.

“Dinner’s ready!” he hears Cloud holler from the kitchen.

Sephiroth hoists himself out of his oversized armchair—when did he start thinking of the chair as his? All things are impermanent. Cloud has admitted that much, when Sephiroth questioned him about the state of their sleeping arrangements.

“Ah well,” Cloud shrugged. “What’s the point of wasting gil on another bed, when we might have to pack up and leg it at a moment's notice? Besides, I don’t sleep much these days.”

And yet Sephiroth’s room continues to fill up, as does his closet. The meals, too, were lavish and sometimes wasteful, with Cloud once going as far as declaring a perfectly edible attempt at a kind of fried root vegetable a failure and refusing to let Sephiroth sample it.

Shafts of golden sunlight filter through the curtains. Sephiroth follows the smell of freshly baked bread and finds Cloud hovering around the small table, his blond hair looking even wilder than usual. It’s still too early for dinner, but Sephiroth has made peace with the fact that life in this house follows not any coherent schedule, but the whims of its occupants. 

He’s been held captive for six days, and he is freer and more lost than he has ever been. He has no deadlines to meet, no objectives to complete. It’s starting to feel disingenuous to think of the house as his new cage; it’s too big, too warm, too soft.

Dinner is consumed, and the food is sumptuous as usual. Cloud flits about with an air of nervousness that’s eventually explained when he sits back down and clears his throat: “So, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

Sephiroth’s hand pauses around the glass he is reaching for. He’s always suspected that Cloud did not operate alone. Is Sephiroth finally about to be brought into the fold?

“He may seem a little… peculiar,” Cloud continues, “but he can be trusted. Probably more than anyone else in the world, when it comes to your safety. He’s also ex-Shinra. Ex-Turk, actually.” 

Sephiroth sits up straighter. “There’s no such thing as an ex-Turk.” 

“Well, there is one,” Cloud smiles. “I hadn’t planned on introducing the two of you so soon, but he happens to be in the area, and I, um. I got some business to take care of, away from here. So I figured—”

Sephiroth feels his body tense. “Away? We’re leaving?”

“Just me, and just for a day. It’s going to be fine!” Cloud holds up a placating hand. “The guy’s totally cool, promise. And you’ll want some time alone with him, I’m sure, once the two of you get a chance to speak—”

“Why would I want to spend time alone with an ex-Turk?” 

“Right, yeah,” Cloud rubs his neck, “I should have led with that. The two of you have history. Well, not history you’re aware of, but he knew Gast, and he knew your mother when she—”

“My mother,” the legs of Sephiroth’s chair scrape across the floorboard. “Mother… Jenova? He knew—but that means… Why have you not mentioned this before?”

Cloud flinches. “I was really hoping to do this once you’re more settled in—”

“Does this mean that you also knew her? Did you know Professor Gast, too?”

Cloud looks away. “Not exactly, I mean I knew of them, but I didn’t—I thought you’d prefer to hear it from someone who was actually there, when it all went down.”

Sephiroth is breathing too hard and too fast. “What ‘went down’, exactly? Why can’t I hear it from you?”

“Look, I—” Cloud sighs. “I don’t know the details. I just know that Hojo eventually killed him and took over the project—killed Gast, I mean. And your mother…”

Professor Gast—Sephiroth has already suspected that much. “What about my mother? Did Hojo kill her as well?”

“Not directly, no,” Cloud’s voice is soft. “But he might as well have. Though your mother… she isn’t truly dead.”

Sephiroth’s breaths stutter, and Cloud continues before he can interject: “But she… she isn’t really alive, either.” Cloud runs a rough hand through his hair, “Gods, that sounded—I really don’t know how to explain this in a way that makes sense.”

“What does that mean ?” Sephiroth’s voice trembles. “How can someone be neither dead nor alive? What aren’t you telling me? What happened to her ?”

Cloud stands and begins pacing around the kitchen. “I—fuck, I knew Vincent would be better at this. I think she—she became very unwell, after Hojo took you from her, and then she—”

“Hojo took me from her?”

“Yes, I think right after you were born. And she was very upset, obviously, and then—I’m not totally clear on the details—she locked herself away, and ended up suspending herself in a crystal fountain—”

“She did not die after giving birth to me,” Sephiroth whispers to himself. “That was a lie, too.”

“I’m sorry, Sephiroth,” Cloud says, finally looking at him again. “I’m really not explaining this very well. Vincent—that’s the guy I said I wanted you to meet—he said he’ll drop by tonight. He’ll have answers for you, promise. Let’s just… wait for him, yeah?”

Mind reeling, Sephiroth does not push back when Cloud ushers him to the living room.

*

There is a small television set in the living room that Cloud has recently managed to restore to a semi-operational state. The signal is spotty and the images grainy, but Cloud likes to put it on in the evenings, if only to listen to the sound. 

An old black-and-white documentary fills the room with static and murmurs, and neither Cloud nor Sephiroth pays it any attention as they sit there watching the clock.

At 20:00, there is a quiet knock on the front door. Their visitor does not wait to be admitted. The door swings open to reveal a tall man in a billowing red cape, who looks as different from a Turk as a bird from a fish. He appears to be barely older than Cloud—surely too young to have taken an active part in his mother’s past. Yet something about him feels distinctly unnatural, even more so than Cloud, who despite his many peculiarities, still seems more earth than wind.

“Vincent,” Cloud jumps to his feet and goes to greet the man with uncharacteristic exuberance. He stops very suddenly near the entryway, nearly bumping into Sephiroth who followed him, and he looks around and lifts his hand in a futile attempt to smooth over his hair. “Um, hi. Good evening. You brought the thing, yeah?”

The man called Vincent inclines his head. Something strange seems to be happening to Cloud’s body—it’s as if he wants to step in closer to the cloaked man, but has to constantly hold himself back. Instead, Cloud turns to Sephiroth as he waves the man in. “Sephiroth, Vincent. Vincent, Sephiroth.” 

“Hello, Sephiroth,” Vincent says, his voice low and composed. A pair of glowing red eyes bores into Sephiroth, and Sephiroth has to crane his neck to meet them.

“Hello,” Sephiroth responds, like a machine reacting to input. 

Unphased by or perhaps unaware of the awkwardness permeating the room, the man called Vincent retrieves a long, thin package from the folds of his cloak and tears off the brown paper wrapping noisily. “I’m pleased to finally meet you. I have something for you. Here.”

A sheathed katana, its hilt silver and glinting, is handed to Sephiroth. Sephiroth stares at it, only accepting the blade when Cloud gives him an unsubtle nudge. He unsheaths it and runs a finger along the edge of the blade. It’s a fine weapon. Is he finally going to be assigned a real mission?

The two men are watching him expectantly, Cloud with some nervousness, Vincent with an unnerving intensity. They look at him as if waiting for a performance Sephiroth has never received the script for, so he turns to Vincent and says instead: “I understand that you were an acquaintance of my mother’s.”

The hall is silent except for the distant murmur of the television. Something changes in Vincent’s gaze. “Yes. You could say that.”

Cloud clears his throat. “Maybe we should move this to the living room? Vincent, I’ve got your favourite—Oh. Um, you still like jasmine tea, right?”

“Yes,” Vincent says, his crimson eyes lingering on Sephiroth. 

They are both herded into the living room and seated around the coffee table, which Sephiroth’s new sword is now resting on. Cloud fusses with the tea set before deciding that the leaky roof above the bathroom must be fixed in the middle of the night, and makes an escape before either Sephiroth or Vincent can protest.

Sephiroth would feel more irked by this, had he not been able to sense Cloud presence on the other side of the wall, flitting about like little bursts of brightness. So he simply studies the strange man before him as the man studies him in return.

“My mother,” Sephiroth says, suddenly too exhausted to keep the urgency—the desperation—out of his voice. “Cloud says you knew her.”

Vincent shuts his eyes briefly, and begins to unravel Sephiroth’s world.

*

His mother’s name was not Jenova.

Sephiroth holds a cooling cup of tea in hands, vaguely surprised that it does not shatter. Vincent Valentine regards him with an unreadable look in his eyes, and Sephiroth wonders if the man is merely searching for traces of his mother in his face.

“Do you have a picture of her?” Sephiroth asks after a long stretch of silence.

Vincent blinks, briefly disturbing the uncanny glow of his eyes. “No, not right now. I can try to find you one, if you want.”

“That would be—appreciated, if it’s not too much trouble.”

Vincent lowers his gaze. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Is she… Is she still there?” Sephiroth says in a half-whisper. “You said you found her in a cave.”

“Yes, thanks to Cloud. Would you like to meet her?”

Sephiroth feels his fingernails dig into his palms. “I don’t know.”

He does not ask Vincent who his father was.

*

Cloud returns long after the conversation has died down, and Sephiroth’s entire life has been revealed to be lies built upon lies. He has no reason to trust a man he’s only known for hours, yet it all makes too much sense. The inconsistencies in Hojo’s version of story, the way some of the lab techs looked at him with both pity and distaste. Would things have been different, if Lucretia hadn’t changed her mind and had remained involved in the project, or would his life have followed a similar trajectory? 

Could Hojo really be his—

Vincent hasn’t revealed the full truth to him, either. There are gaps in his tale, page-long blank spaces that Sephiroth can only fill out with his best and worst guesses. 

On the other side of the house, Cloud is stomping through the entryway in a completely unnecessary manner to warn him of his return, as if Sephiroth cannot detect his every movement, and as if an ex-Turk—if that’s really what Vincent is—can be sneaked up on. Some of Sephiroth’s distress must have shown on his face, because Cloud immediately approaches him with a worried look, stopping just out of Sephiroth’s reach.

“You okay,?” Cloud is fretting again. “Do you want to go for a ride, or something?”

“I think I would prefer to retire for the night,” Sephiroth manages.

Cloud exchanges furtive glances with Vincent, then as if reaching some silent agreement, Cloud holds out a hand to Sephiroth, who takes it after a long, aimless moment.

He breathes out when contact is made, his bones trembling with the relief of it. Cloud tugs him toward the bedroom, where his too-big bed lies soft and inviting. Sephiroth has read about young children being put to bed by their carers, and had thought that experience lost to him, along with all the other things, but then Cloud’s pulling back the covers and helping him in, his hand resting briefly on the bare skin of Sephiroth’s forearm.

“Want me to stay with you for a bit?” Cloud asks.

“I’m fine,” Sephiroth lies.

Cloud watches him for a moment. “Call out if you need anything, ‘kay?”

Sephiroth nods, and does not remind Cloud that he still hasn’t brushed his teeth. 

The night is chilly and unusually still. Sephiroth does not sleep. Cloud’s presence flutters in the direction of the living room, where the silence is eventually broken up by quiet arguing over who should take the mattress in the other room. No victor emerges, and the house returns to stillness. 

Then, just as Sephiroth is about to drift to uneasy sleep, there’s the sound of whispers, volume almost too low to be heard: 

“Are you sure about this?”

“No,” Cloud whispers back.

A long pause. “I don’t know what I expected. I suppose I’d let my imagination run wild, after everything you told me, and everything I know of Hojo.”

“He’s just a kid.” A quiet sigh. “I gotta at least try.”

“I concur, but I can’t help but wonder: what would happen, if despite our best efforts, things don't pan out the way you intended?”

“Then I do what I must,” Cloud says.

The night is quiet after that, and Sephiroth dreams. There are no sights or sounds within his dreamscape, only a dull sensation of burning, like being immersed in mako while he’s too sedated to feel the full brunt of it. Feelings come and go, too brief to really take shape, then a sort of hunger and longing begins to swallow him up, until he wakes up gasping for air.

There is a split second of panic before he remembers why there is a second voice speaking in the house. Vincent Valentine, former Turk, former protector, former lover, who claims that he’d be there for him, should Sephiroth ever need him.

And who he will be left with while Cloud goes away for the day, acting as both a guardian and a guard.

Cloud appears to be in better spirits today, all tiny smiles and soft eyes as he makes stilted conversation over breakfast. Sephiroth cannot speak for the state of his own spirits. His mind is being pulled in all directions, and for once he wishes he could cry, or scream, or react however a normal person should react, in a situation like this. 

Sephiroth’s new sword is sharp and easily within reach. Perhaps it was simply given to him as a token of trust, and not as the prelude to an upcoming mission. Sephiroth cannot decide if he’s relieved or disappointed. 

Once they finish breakfast, Cloud clears away the plates and shows Vincent the towering stack of food containers he’s left in the fridge. He explains to Vincent how to operate a microwave multiple times, somehow overlooking the fact that Sephiroth is fully capable of operating it himself, then proceeds to recite a lengthy list of Sephiroth’s habits and preferences, until even the stoic ex-Turk grows noticeably exasperated.

“We promise to not burn down the house in your absence,” Vincent looks to Sephiroth: “Isn’t that right?”

Sephiroth bites his tongue. 

Outside, the sun is bright and dazzling. Sephiroth waits until Cloud is speeding away on his bike before he finally turns to Vincent and says: “Did you meet Cloud, too, back during your time at Shinra?”

If Vincent is thrown off by his line of questioning, he does not show it. The man pulls his cape closer to himself. “No. We only met a few months ago, when he convinced me of the importance of his mission, and we’ve been working together ever since.”

“And what mission is that?”

Vincent fixes him with his crimson stare. “Getting you out of the labs, for one.”

“And the rest? What happens then? And why now, after all this time?”

Vincent looks away, his voice grave. “He would have come earlier, if he had the chance. And I… I was a coward, and a fool. If I’d known—” Vincent exhales. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Sephiroth. You’ve been failed by too many people, but Cloud is not one of them, of that I can assure you.”

Sephiroth stands up taller. “Is it because of our bond? Do you know anything about how it came to be? Cloud insists that we are not related by blood.”

“Bond?” Vincent turns to face him fully, his voice carrying a tinge of alarm. “What do you mean?”

Sephiroth shrinks back, suddenly regretting bringing it up. Cloud’s presence is growing ever more distant, but it remains just as radiant. “I—It’s just a strange feeling I get when I’m near him. It’s likely nothing, then.”

“Hm,” Vincent regards him. “Is Cloud aware of this?”

“Yes,” Sephiroth says tightly. “He doesn't like to talk about it. He doesn’t like to talk much about anything, in fact. I’d only found out about my mother less than two hours before you arrived.”

Vincent nods in sympathy. “That must have been distressing, to have that suddenly dropped on you. Do you wish to talk about it? Or about something else?”

Sephiroth wants to know everything there is to know about his mother, like he wants to know everything there is to know about Cloud, but he slowly shakes his head. 

“That’s okay,” Vincent says, his voice soft. “We can talk whenever you’re ready. I meant it, when I said I wanted to be there for you. I may not be around much, due to the nature of my work, but I’m always a call away. Now, I hear that you’re becoming a fan of sparring? Would you like to test out your new sword?”

Sephiroth must have nodded, because Vincent smiles at him, secretive yet full of understanding. “Come, then. But do go easy on me—I might be a little out of shape.”

Chapter Text

Cloud feels like he’s spent half his life on the run. It doesn't make much of a difference if he’s running away from or running towards something—it’s the anxious urgency of it all, of feeling like if he stops for even a moment, everything will go to hell in some novel and spectacular fashion.

He misses Fenrir, misses the steady hum of its engine, and gleaming curves of its body. He sighs and attaches his sword to the smaller and much frailer bike he’s pulled out of the bushes, too drained to even sweep the damp leaves off the seat as he mounts it. 

He got sloppy today, but in the end it doesn’t really matter; one guy with a sword isn’t going to stop the construction of a reactor. A global conglomerate is like one of those grey goo aliens in that game Zack liked so much. You destroy one of the blobs, turn your back for one hot minute, and it’s already reformed into something bigger and more grotesque. Human greed might as well be a big pile of sentient goo, shambling about and gobbling things up independent of the actual individuals who think they pull the strings. 

It’s the second time Cloud has hit the Condor construction site. He’s been a little more thorough, shown his face and left some vaguely threatening marks. Whether that’s enough to delay their progress in any meaningful way or throw them off Sephiroth’s trail remains to be seen, but with the situation in Wutai escalating into all-out war, maybe they’ll rethink the cost-effectiveness of at least one of their current pursuits. 

Cloud needs time he doesn’t have and resources he no longer has access to. These days he really does see the appeal of power and influence, and he fucking hates it. Some part of him will always be a rank-and-file trooper; point him in a direction and he commits acts of violence, that’s his thing. Even the planet seems to agree—WEAPON, soldier, assassin. All the other stuff, the Big stuff, is beyond him. He can’t even begin to wrap his mind around it, yet here he is getting all tangled up in it again. Once more, with feeling.

He chooses a random town in the general direction of Midgar and scurries off. The sky hangs low and gray, and he’s thankful when it finally begins to rain and he gets enough mud splattered all over him to hide the bloodstains. The town is in the middle of its own version of an evening rush when he arrives, which means that there’s an entire handful of people running along the high street, all shivering in the cold and shielding their faces from the rain. Cloud pulls on his hood and hurries to the general store, ignoring the dirty look the cashier gives him when he tracks mud all over the floor.

Nothing on display looks particularly appealing, or appropriate for a seven year old girl. Is Aerith’s birthday even this month? He’s thought long and hard about it, tried to remember as his insides twisted with shame at his own carelessness, but it’s as if the date of her birth has been superseded by the date of her death, and all Cloud has left is the vague memory of spring and the smell of flowers.

He ends up picking out a nature-themed colouring book and the fanciest-looking crayons he can find. He considers getting a pre-written note to go with it, something too generic for the Turks to make much sense of, but he quickly abandons that idea and shuffles out of the shop, feeling more like a fugitive than when he had half an army bearing down on him.

It was some cruel twist of fate, to dump him on the shores of a world a mere two weeks after Ifana’s death. Gaia’s mission apparently didn’t involve saving the last pure-blooded Cetra. Didn’t involve much of saving anyone or anything. Track down target, eliminate target—leave the rest to somebody more capable and less of a wreck.

Cloud hugs the newly purchased package closer to his chest. The rain beats down on him in a relentless torrent, and he can only pray that the colouring book isn’t already ruined. The post office is empty when he bursts through the doors. The guy behind the service counter points a lethargic finger at the clock: “We’re closed.”

“Come on, man, there’s still half a minute left. I’ll be quick,” Cloud grabs a pen and quickly writes down Elmyra’s address. The book and the crayons get shoved into a box, then Cloud pauses, pulling a small silk pouch out of his coat. The bracelet inside should be worth at least a couple months of Lower Plate bills. He includes no note and no return address. 

The package is begrudgingly scanned and accepted. Cloud watches the small box get tossed into a sack and disappear behind the counter, carrying his meager sorrow-love-gratitude for the woman who once saved the world.

*

The world is dark when Cloud returns to the house, his rain-soaked hair about to freeze solid in chill air. The lights are off and there’s no sign of activity. Cloud kills the engine outside of the direct view of the windows and listens. No sound except for the frantic beating of his planet-issue heart.

He’s reaching for his sword when he hears it—a distant yelp, followed by a thud. His body reacts before his mind does, and he only vaguely notices himself racing through the woods, cutting down the branches in his way like some madman. 

He skids to a stop. A pair of glowing green eyes blinks at him in the dark, soon joined by a pair of narrowed red eyes. Sephiroth—covered in mud, his shoulder-length hair in complete disarray—lowers his sword and takes a hesitant step toward him: “Cloud?”

Cloud gawks at them. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

Sephiroth gives Vincent a sidelong glance and shifts a bit on his feet. “We’re sparring.”

“ Sparring ? In the dark?”

“We both see perfectly fine in the dark,” Vincent’s smooth voice interjects. “His swordsmanship is impeccable, I must say.”

“Thank you, Vincent,” Sephiroth says with a little bow of his head.

“I—” Cloud looks back and forth between them. “Is that what you've been doing all day? Is that materia on your sword, Sephiroth? And why are you covered in mud?”

“So are you,” Sephiroth says, then looks pointedly at the long trail of fallen branches Cloud has left in his wake. “And I made sure to not damage the forest, like you told me.”

Vincent holds up a hand before Cloud can suck in a breath and really get into it. “No, we only came out about an hour ago. Sephiroth was getting a bit antsy that you still haven’t returned. How was your trip today, Cloud?”

Cloud slowly breathes out. “It was—fine. Let’s just… head back and get cleaned up before it gets even colder. You guys had dinner yet?”

“No, Sephiroth was hoping that you’d join us,” Vincent says amicably. 

Cloud suppresses a grimace. “Ah. Well then. Better late than never?” 

What the fuck even is that reponse? Cloud turns away before he can say something dumber, and marches back the same way he’s come.

*

“Here, for the sword,” Cloud drops a pile of gil on the table in front of Vincent. “Killed a drake on the way and managed to do some trading. How much was that thing, anyway?”

The shower is still running; Sephiroth wouldn’t be able to overhear. Vincent gives him a strange look over the cup of tea he’s nursing. “There’s no need. It did not cost anything.”

Cloud huffs. “Yeah right. Seriously though, how much?”

“Like I said, it did not cost anything. I did not purchase it.”

“Huh?” Cloud gives him a blank look and goes to check on the oven. “You had a sword like that just sitting around?”

“No, not exactly. But you did ask me to ‘find a nice sword, preferably of Wutaian make,’ and so I did. Only it did not involve any monetary exchange.”

“What, so you robbed someone?” Cloud begins to laugh, then quickly stops, turning to stare at Vincent. “Did you actually rob someone?”

Vincent hums, a small smile appearing on his face. “I suppose I did.”

“You did not .” Cloud plops down on a chair. “Do I even want to know?

“Depends,” Vincent says, looking stoic yet way too pleased with himself. “Did you ever know a Phillip Hull?”

Cloud shakes his head.

“Ah. Could be before your time. A Shinra executive, though more of the paper pushing kind. I had a few run-ins with him back in the day. The man had a thing for exotic swords, kept quite the collection. Turns out he’s still around. I paid one of his country homes a visit.”

Cloud sighs into his hands. “Please tell me you were at least discreet about it.” 

“Says the man who broke into floor 63,” Vincent smiles at him with the slightest hint of teeth.

“And you helped me do it,” Cloud reminds him.

Vincent is about to say something when the shower stops and Sephiroth steps out of the bathroom in his new pajamas. They’re one of Cloud’s more indulgent impulse purchases—shit’s probably fancy enough to attend a ball in, if that ball’s theme happens to be slumber party.

Cloud rushes to set the table. Sephiroth is quiet but seems to be doing okay, considering the bombshell they dropped on him last night. Sometimes he really does seem shockingly well-adjusted for somebody raised by Hojo. Did he have a good time with Vincent? He probably did. Not for the first time, Cloud wonders: is he really the man for the job? Looking after Sephiroth when he has no idea what he’s doing, with the full weight of their future-past constantly hanging over his empty head. 

Vincent is not the best long term solution, either, even disregarding his lack of consistent availability. Cloud has always envisioned something more—normal, more typical for the boy, once things calm down. A woman, ideally. A real mother to sooth his wounds, to help him connect with humanity. Perhaps some siblings. Extended family. A group of friends. Maybe even a future lover, a life partner to keep him tethered to earth. 

Across the dinner table, Sephiroth studies him. He’s playing with his fork absent-mindedly. “Has your mission been successful, Cloud?”

“It wasn’t much of a mission, but yes, more or less.”

Sephiroth pauses, cautious and tentative. “If it wasn’t a mission, then why were you gone so long?”

“Oh you know. I just had some errands to run. Made some gil, mailed a parcel; stuff like that.”

“Hm,” Sephiroth frowns and sits back.

Vincent watches the exchange wordlessly, his eyes flickering between them. Did Vincent let something slip, while Cloud was gone? He couldn’t have—the guy was a former Turk. There’s no pulling information he didn’t want to share out of him, no matter how hard Sephiroth tries. Cloud supposes he has been acting kind of suspicious, but there’s no need to burden Sephiroth with needless worries, not when there’s nothing he can do about them, and when he’s still trying to figure so much out about himself. The kid is thirteen, for gods’ sake. The biggest worry Cloud had at that age was whether he should finally cut his hair, and whether Tifa actually liked him.

They spend another peaceful night at the house, and in the morning Vincent takes his leave. Sephiroth does not show any outward emotion about Vincent’s departure, only nodding to him solemnly and wishing him well. 

“I’ll bring you a photo next time,” Vincent promises.

Sephiroth looks down at the floor. “You don’t have to, if it’s too much trouble.”

“It’s not. Take care, Sephiroth. I hope to see you again soon. Remember what I said.”

“I will. Goodbye.”

Vincent smiles, his eyes glinting in the morning light. There is a swish of red cloaks and then he is gone.

*

“What did he say? That he told you to remember?” Cloud can’t help but ask.

Sephiroth shrugs noncommittally. 

Fine, he can keep his secret. It hurts Cloud’s head to even think about the nature of their exact relationship, so he does not. At least Vincent seems to have reached the boy in ways Cloud could not, in just a day. Frankly, the whole thing has gone much better than Cloud had hoped. 

Sephiroth sits in front of the TV, his eyes staring just a little too far ahead of the nature documentary playing on the screen to be believably engaged. Cloud glances out the window—it’s nice out, just the right amount of sun. He hasn’t made any particular plans for the day, but something about the sight of Sephiroth sitting there in silence worries him in a way that doesn’t quite make sense.

“All right, here’s our plan for the day,” Cloud declares standing right in front of the TV screen. “We’re going hunting.”

That seems to jolt Sephiroth out of it. The boy stares at him with tangible confusion. “We are?”

“Uh-huh. Gil doesn’t print itself, you know. Now that Shinra isn’t footing the bill anymore, you’ll have to learn to make a living, eventually. Monster hunting is a good start, given your skillset.”

Sephiroth slowly blinks at him. “Does this have something to do with the cover story you created for me? With me being your apprentice.”

“Huh? Oh. No, but now that you mentioned it, that just makes even more sense. Come on, let’s mosey.”

Sephiroth remains seated. “I already know how to hunt.”

“You know how to kill stuff,” Cloud says. “Civilian hunting is different. You need to know how to take down your prey without causing damage to the valuable bits, know what to harvest and what to discard, what to keep and what to sell. It’s a whole other art. You’ll see.”

Sephiroth still looks dubious, but he does get off the couch and go to retrieve his sword. The day is warm and golden when they finally make it out the door, the forest swaying gently around them as they make their way into the wilder parts of the landscape. The small streams near the house coalesce into a flowing river that leaps into a great big waterfall, under which they find a cave next to a shaded grove teeming with wild mushrooms.

“This one should be safe to eat,” Cloud bends down to examine one. “I’m about ninety, ninety-five percent sure. Huh. On second thought, better not risk it. I’m not all that familiar with the area, and wild mushrooms can be kind of dodgy.”

Already reaching out to pick a mushroom, Sephiroth gives him a thoroughly unimpressed look. “I have been tested on all possible combinations of natural and synthetic poisons since infancy. I do not think a few mushrooms can kill me.”

Cloud shuts his eyes briefly. It’s alarming how quickly he grew numb to this kind of thing. You just never know what’s going to come out of the kid’s mouth next—could be a comment about the weather, could be a graphic summary of some of the most horrific crimes committed by man. 

“Doesn’t matter if it kills us or not,” Cloud stands up. “I don’t want to spend hours vomiting into a toilet bowl.”

“I thought you were ninety-five percent sure they’re safe.”

“What about that other five percent?”

“A tolerable risk, if we’re running low on gil,” Sephiroth explains, looking put upon the way kids often do.

“We’re not running that low,” Cloud says. “Where did you even get the idea? That we’re low on cash? Did Vincent say something?”

“Aren’t you the one who suggested that I learn to make a living?”

Cloud opens and closes his mouth. “I—I didn’t mean it like that . I meant it like,” Cloud waves his hand, “I dunno, in a future hypothetical way. Why are you so fixated on these mushrooms?”

Sephiroth actually sighs. “You are the one who stopped to examine the mushrooms.”

“Yeah, but then I remembered I don’t actually know mushrooms that well. Not here, anyway. Nibel had a whole different climate.”

Sephiroth pauses. “Nibel?”

Shit. “Yeah, I… grew up around there, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Fine, so I did grow up there. What does it matter?”

Sephiroth stares at him. “You didn’t grow up in the labs?”

“What? No. I was around your age when I joined Shinra.”

Sephiroth’s slitted eyes are fixed on him, his face impassive but alert. “Were you born in Nibel, then? Is that where you meant, when you said we shared the same birthplace?”

Cloud resists the urge to groan. This excursion was meant to help take Sephiroth’s mind off these things. “Yeah, yeah. There was a Shinra lab there. They had this whole building, from back before they got as big as they did.”

“I see,” Sephiroth says, lost in thought.

To appease Sephiroth, Cloud helps him pick a whole bag of mystery mushrooms. The original target of their hunting trip doesn’t reveal itself until the sun is halfway down the western sky. They barely detect any movement before the great scaled beast barrels out of the trees and lunges at them.

Sephiroth leaps out of the way, letting Cloud take the lead as they’ve agreed. Cloud makes short work of the basilisk. With a single strike, Cloud runs his sword through the beast’s heart, watching its violent twitching slow to one last shudder as he whispers a short prayer.

“What are you saying?” Sephiroth asks, also whispering.

“An old hunting tradition. A prayer to thank the planet, to pay respect to your fallen prey, the cycle of life, and all that.”

“Is this also a part of the ‘art’ of monster hunting?”

Cloud pulls out his sword and takes out his knife. “Not usually, no. It’s just something I started doing recently, because, well, I feel like it’s only proper. This basilisk wasn’t doing anything to us, living so far away from civilization, and we kill it anyway, because we need to feed ourselves. Kind of messed up, if you really think about it. So we take only what we need and offer our thanks.”

“But it was already dead, when you thanked it. And it would not have understood human language, even if it weren’t.”

“It’s not really about how it feels, but how we feel. I guess humans are self-centered like that,” Cloud pauses—is this really a line of conversation he should be having with Sephiroth? He backtracks: “What I meant was, it’s something to remind ourselves that this death wasn’t senseless. We’re just another kind of animal on the prowl, hunting for our own survival, and we recognize the—” Cloud struggles to find the right words, “the gravity and significance of that.”

Sephiroth studies the lifeless body of the basilisk, his eyes somber and distant. They skin and harvest the carcass, extracting tooths and venom alike. Cloud hasn’t planned on taking any of the meat for food, but now he feels like he has to, after that little impromptu speech he gave. Packs laden with fresh bounty, they circle around the area to retrace their steps back to the house, only to be interrupted by a second basilisk not far from where the first had fallen.

“This one’s all yours,” Cloud tells Sephiroth, stepping back.

Sephiroth raises his sword and readies his stance, waiting for an opening to deliver a single well-timed strike. Then something in his posture changes, and he stands there unmoving, right as the basilisk charges. 

“Sephiroth!” Cloud rushes in to push Sephiroth out of the way. A massive claw still catches the boy in the thigh, and Sephiroth doesn’t even flinch, just stares at something in the distance.

“The hell are you doing?” Cloud wants to shake him. He blocks a bone-crushing blow with his sword and slides backwards, stumbling as one of his feet gets caught on Sephiroth’s.

“Cloud, look,” Sephiroth whispers as Cloud tries to pull him behind some cover.

“ What,” Cloud snaps, then he sees them. Behind the gigantic animal and under a rock overhang, tiny hatchlings are squirming among the tallgrass, pieces of cracked eggshell still sticking to their almost translucent scales.

“Shit,” Cloud says under his breath. “We should leave this one. Gotta let the small ones grow up a bit, so we don’t over-cull the local population.”

Sephiroth is silent and obliging when Cloud drags him back, the basilisk hissing up a storm and baring its fangs. When they finally clear out of her immediate territory, Cloud heaves out a sigh and helps Sephiroth sit against a tree.

“Lemme see that leg,” Cloud takes out his healing materia.

Sephiroth turns his face away. “I’ll be fine in a moment. It’s already healing.”

“Dammit, Sephiroth. Just let me see. Couldn’t you have at least dodged out of the way, or something?”

“I was… distracted,” Sephiroth says, his voice quiet. “Apologies.”

“What are you apologizing to me for? It’s your leg. Here,” Cloud holds out the materia and watches the little sphere of ancient magic come to life. The wound looks far worse than he thought—and the boy didn’t make a single noise, didn’t even flinch.

“Did we kill their father?” Sephiroth murmurs.

“Huh?”

“Those smaller basilisks. Did we kill their father, before?”

I killed your father , Cloud thinks.

“I don’t know,” Cloud says. “Basilisks don’t form family units like that. I guess it’s not impossible.” Should he have lied? “But like I said, they don’t really have a concept of fatherhood. The males would mate and go on their way, while the females stay to hatch the eggs and take care of the hatchlings until they’re about three months old, then they’d go on their way, too.”

Sephiroth does not offer a response. He’s looking down at his bloodied leg, but his mind seems elsewhere. The wound has closed, and Cloud gently wipes away the remaining blood with a clean cloth. 

They both shiver when Cloud’s hand grazes Sephiroth’s bare skin. Cloud quickly pulls his hand back. “Does it still hurt?”

Sephiroth shakes his head. 

“Cool, that’s good. You think you can walk fine?”

“I…” Sephiroth bites his lip, then finally looks up at Cloud. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Huh,” Cloud says, bending down to check the boy’s leg again. It looks fully healed, but you never know with materia. “Alright, that’s no problem. Grab my arm and I’ll carry you.”

Chapter Text

The average human body usually rests at a temperature of around thirty-seven degrees celsius. A mako-enhanced human such as Sephiroth runs a little hotter, usually at around thirty-eight to forty degrees celsius.

Cloud runs hotter still. He is soft radiant warmth, with his strange heartbeat thumping against Sephiroth’s like a pair of mismatched metronomes. That indescribable sense of knowing pulses in Sephiroth every time he brushes against Cloud’s bare skin, and so he buries his face in the nook of Cloud’s neck, letting that sensation wash over him as Cloud grumbles something in his hair.

Leaves rustle around him and he breathes out a silent sigh. He sometimes wonders if there is something wrong with him in more ways than he’d previously imagined, for him to be this addicted to this connection between him and Cloud. His fascination is clearly one-sided. Perhaps he ought to be more concerned about it. Perhaps there really is something more insidious at work, and Cloud is right to be wary, but with Cloud’s arms wrapped around him so securely, Sephiroth simply cannot bring himself to care.

“Stop sniffing me,” Cloud is saying. “That’s just weird.”

I am weird , Sephiroth thinks, and makes a point to bury his face in deeper.

Cloud gives a barely perceptible shudder. “How’s that leg feeling? You think you can walk now?”

“No,” Sephiroth mumbles against Cloud, sounding petulant even to himself.

“I see how it is,” Cloud huffs. “You’re just too lazy to walk, hm? Thank gods you barely weigh anything, instead of whatever—”

Cloud cuts himself off abruptly. He sighs and pushes some of Sephiroth’s hair out of his face, smoothing over a few stray strands.

“Your bag of mushrooms is about to tip over,” Sephiroth tells him, ignoring his slip.

“Thought they were your mushrooms.”

“They are not,” Sephiroth reaches over to right the bag.

“Are so.” 

Sephiroth smiles covertly despite himself. Is this what it’s like to have a friend? Is Cloud something of a friend? The possibility is as terrifying as it is thrilling. It feels like hope , and hope has always been a dangerous thing.

Cloud, too, is dangerous. His arms are strong, too strong, and his eyes burn with something that isn’t quite like the mako glow of Sephiroth’s own. He could destroy Sephiroth, should he choose to. When Sephiorth looks up the sun is bright and overwhelming, and he counts the golden lashes framing Cloud’s eyes. Sephiroth has the strange urge to pluck out one and hide it somewhere safe, in case Cloud dissolves into the sunlight in a waft of golden dust.

Cloud gives him a disgruntled look. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Why did you join Shinra?”

Cloud’s steps falter. “Why do you ask?”

“I’m thinking about what you said, earlier. It sounded as if you joined them willingly, only to then betray them.”

Cloud frowns. “They betrayed me .”

Sephiroth waits, and Cloud resumes walking: “I guess I did join them willingly, but I was… deceived, you could say. Still had more of a choice than you did.” Cloud sighs. “I wish I could’ve gotten there sooner, you know? Grabbed you while you were still a baby or something. No child should be raised like that. Even basilisks know that.”

Sephiroth’s next words come out a half-whisper. “They said I was meant for greatness.”

Cloud scoffs. “Nobody’s meant for anything. We just happen to—” Cloud tries to make some kind of gesture with his hands, and Sephiroth has to cling to Cloud to not fall, “—be here, and we make do with what we have. And we try to make things… better, because what’s the point otherwise?”

Cloud falls silent. They reach the house too quickly, and for a brief, desperate moment, Sephiroth thinks of increasingly implausible ways to postpone their impending detachment. 

Nothing comes of it. He is carried through the door and deposited on the cold couch, where he sits watching Cloud sort through their loot in the kitchen. Cloud spends a long moment staring at the mushrooms with great suspicion, then seemingly making up his mind, he takes out a pot and begins rinsing the mushrooms in the sink.

“If we get poisoned, I call first dibs on the trash bin,” Cloud tells Sephiroth.

“There are multiple bins,” Sephiroth reminds him.

“Maybe I’ll need all of them to projectile vomit into. These mushrooms smell fine though. You ever had mushroom stew before?”

“I don’t believe I have, no.” 

“Well, hope this will be worth it, then. My ma…” Cloud takes a deep breath. “My ma used to make it, whenever I got sick or hurt or just happened to feel down. Never asked her why. I guess it’s just something warm and digestible, goes well with pretty much anything. Never asked her for a recipe, either, but I’ve seen it made enough times to sort of know what I’m doing.”

Because his input isn’t required, Sephiroth simply watches Cloud. Sephiroth has been watching for as long as he can remember. Through sheets of glass, over operating tables, across training rooms. Observation was necessary for survival, and he’s learned to mold his actions to suit the expectations of his observer. Meek to those prone to violence and anger, passive to those prone to fear and paranoia, forceful to those prone to weakness and intimidation.

It’s strange to think that Cloud had a mother. Someone he knew and spoke to, a woman who fed him and cared for him long before he’d ever known the care of Shinra. Sephiroth was chosen before his birth; why had Cloud been chosen? Had his mother, too, offered him up on the altar of greatness? Perhaps not, judging by the way Cloud spoke of her, so why, then? Cloud has never addressed his initial question.

But because Sephiroth has been watching Cloud, he knows not to push. Steam rises from the pot Cloud is bent over, and it smells like warmth and sustenance.

When dinner is ready, Sephiroth continues the pretense that he’s too damaged to walk properly, and Cloud plays along even as he sighs heavily. Cloud has many sighs—exasperated, anguished, resigned. It’s extraordinary how far Cloud is willing to go to humor him, when he is not feeling threatened.  

The stew is exquisite. Neither of them get sick from it, but Cloud remains apprehensive.

“Let me know right away if you start seeing or hearing things, or if something smells or looks funny,” Cloud tells him again.

“There are no hallucinogens in the mushrooms, Cloud. We’d have known within the first ten minutes, given our metabolism.”

“You never know,” Cloud mutters darkly. “There was this one time when Cid—ugh, never mind. Just, be very careful around anything potentially psychoactive, ’kay? In fact, steer clear of all of it. But you know that already, yeah? How dangerous someone like us can be if we aren’t in the right state of mind?”

The conversation turns into a lecture about the dangers of recreational drug use, and Sephiroth nods along, mostly listening to Cloud’s voice rather than his words. As night falls, Cloud helps him to bed again, and his hands are warm and gentle as he tucks Sephiroth in. Sephiroth suppresses a shiver when Cloud briefly rests his hand on top of his head, and he wonders if Cloud would stay, if he asked.

Cloud’s smiling at him a little lopsidedly. “What, you want a bedtime story too?” 

“Maybe I do,” Sephiroth says.

“Oh,” Cloud blinks. “Uh, I guess I do know a few. Hold on,” Cloud leans over Sephiroth to dim the lamp, and Sephiroth watches soft shadows move across his face. “Ahem—so, there once was this little girl whose ma died young and her father remarried, and her stepmom was very mean, and she had even meaner daughters…”

Sephiroth already knows the ending to that story. He listens quietly nevertheless, and he does not remember drifting off. Cloud is gone when he wakes up in the dark, but he hears his even breaths in the next room, can imagine his chest rising and falling beneath thin sheets draped over his sleeping form. His presence is slight and jittery in Sephiroth’s mind, as if Cloud is having a troubling dream. 

Sephiroth wonders if Cloud can sense him in his dreams, too.

When the morning light comes, Cloud rises before Sephiroth, and Sephiroth listens to the pitter-patter of his bare feet in the kitchen. The following days stretch out in a dreamlike trance of reading and television-watching, the quietness of his routine only punctuated by further hunting trips. He discovers that no simulated training can ever compare to the feeling of real dirt under his feet, real sunlight on his back. Sephiroth cannot tell if he is helping or merely getting in the way, but he complies with Cloud’s requests, no matter how inane and coddling they sometimes are.

Then he’d falter, and let himself bleed.

The first two times it happens, Cloud does not notice anything amiss. Sephiroth has carefully chosen the moments to make his mistakes believable. Cloud would heal him and fuss over him, and Sephiroth would bask in his undivided attention, even as his neck burned with shame at having resorted to this farce.

Then the third time he gets overconfident, and everything goes wrong all at once.

“What the hell, Sephiroth,” Cloud is screaming at him, using both his hands to staunch the blood pouring out of Sephiroth’s chest. “You could have easily blocked that! Or side-stepped, or—or gotten out of the way! What the hell has gotten into you?”

Sephiroth opens his mouth to let out a wet gasp. A Curaga pulses through him in great dizzying waves, knitting together both flesh and bone. The sky above him is a brilliant blue, almost the same shade as Cloud’s wide eyes.

“I am fine,” Sephiroth gasps.

“Like hell you are!” Cloud casts a second Curaga. It is not pain that makes Sephiroth whimper, but the anxious guilt filling up his lungs and constricting his ribs. Has he ruined everything, already?

When it is over, Sephiroth is hunched over himself on the forest floor while Cloud leans against a tree trunk, his hands leaving bloody fingerprints on his face as he rubs his eyes and wipes the sweat off his forehead. 

“You better start explaining yourself, or I’m never taking you hunting again,” Cloud mutters tiredly.

Sephiroth looks down at his own feet.

“I…” Sephiroth tries, his voice a dry rasp. “I liked the mushroom stew.”

For a moment, Cloud just stares at him, then his face crumbles. He starts pacing and abruptly stops, running a hand through his hair and tugging harshly on the strands. “Fucking hell, Sephiroth. I don’t… I don’t even know what to say.”

Sephiroth doesn’t know what to say either, so he remains silent. 

“You, you could’ve—” Cloud starts to pace again. “You could’ve just asked for the stew! There are mushrooms everywhere! Gods! Were the other times—Were they also—?”

Sephiroth’s silence might as well be an admission of guilt.

Cloud lets out a noise of frustration and crouches down in front of Sephiroth. He’s reaching out a hand toward him, and for a moment Sephiroth thinks he’s about to violently shake him, but then that hand simply slumps to Sephiroth’s shoulder, and Cloud closes his eyes.

“Dammit Sephiroth. Don’t ever do that again, okay? I’ll make you all the stew. I’ll—” Cloud looks up at the sky as if searching for answers. “I’ll tuck you into bed and sing you lullabies, or whatever the hell it is you want. I need you to promise me that you won’t try dumb shit like that again, okay?”

Sephiroth nods.

“That’s not a promise.”

Sephiroth peers at him beneath his bangs. “I promise.”

“Promise what?”

“Promise to ‘not try dumb shit like that again.’”

Cloud sighs and sits back on the bloodsoaked ground, wiping his face but only smearing more red on it.

“I swear to the gods, Sephiroth…” Cloud trails off, and Sephiroth hangs his head.

Cloud carries Sephiroth back to the house again, and this time the journey is silent. Face buried in Cloud’s shirt, Sephiroth feels lightheaded in a way that’s unrelated to his blood loss. When they return, Cloud draws him a warm bath and leaves him to soak, and Sephiroth hears the sound of the water hose going off outside.

That night, Cloud makes more mushroom stew and regards Sephiroth wearily as he eats. The television murmurs softly in the background, and all of a sudden Sephiroth’s throat closes up and his eyes burn.

“Hey, hey,” Cloud’s voice is soft. A calloused hand comes to rest on top of Sephiroth’s. “It’s okay. I’m not mad at you. I’m just… I don’t even know, Sephiroth. I just don’t want to see you get hurt. And you shouldn’t either—want to get hurt, I mean. You understand that, don’t you? If you need something, you can just ask, you know?”

Sephiroth nods, and does not let any tears fall. 

*

Sephiroth does not scar easily, and the new wound only leaves a faint, barely noticeable ridge on his pale skin. Sephiroth runs a finger along it as he lies in bed, imagining that it was Cloud’s hand.

The next day, Vincent Valentine comes by with a picture of Lucretia. Vincent himself is also featured in it, though it takes Sephiroth far too long to recognize him.

“Are you sure you want me to have this?” Sephiroth asks as he blinks into the morning light.

“I’ve got other copies,” Vincent says. “I’d wanted to bring you more, but this is the only one I’m able to get a hold of at the moment, I’m afraid.”

Sephiroth looks down at the image of his mother, small and glossy and frozen in time. “This one is enough, Vincent. Thank you.”

Cloud pokes his head in through the door: “Whatcha looking at?” He comes in closer to peek at the picture, then immediately shrinks back. “Oh. Um, I’ll leave you guys to it, then?”

Cloud dashes out of the room before either of them can respond. Sephiroth looks up at Vincent, who gives a miniscule shrug. 

Cloud is off “running errands” again, and Sephiroth spends the day in front of the television set, deferring to Cloud’s judgement that he should stay put and rest. Vincent only lets out a somewhat baffled hum at Sephiroth’s choice of entertainment—a serial show based on one of the books he has been reading, featuring a very well-dressed teenage girl and her complicated social life. 

Vincent is seated next to him, his cloak wrapped tightly around his lanky body, his long legs stretched out in front of him. “Well, I can’t say I’ve ever sat down to watch one of these.”

Sephiroth turns to him. “Is it something civilians often do? Watching pre-recorded performances on television?”

“I suppose it is,” Vincent blinks at the flashing screen. “This one must be quite popular, if it’s airing on a main daytime channel.”

“Would you say that it's an accurate representation of civilian life?”

Vincent gives him an indiscernible look, his voice quiet against the jaunty music playing from the lone speaker. “Some of it, yes. But it’s mostly meant to entertain. Somewhat idealized, often exaggerated. Based on life, but larger than life, I’d say.” 

Sephiroth turns back to the screen, not completely certain he understands what Vincent means by that. On screen, the girl called Sophia is engaged in a social battle with her former friend. It seems that the plot has moved beyond what the books covered—false rumors have been spread to damage Sophia’s social standing, and she appears distraught over the setback.

Even in idealized fantasies, there is still pain and betrayal. Perhaps the fantasy would not be believable otherwise. Sophia concocts a daring plot of revenge, only to break some kind of rule and gets punished by her parents. She is “grounded”—confined to her massive and handsomely decorated house, but still free to enjoy its many luxuries.

Not unlike what Sephiroth is currently made to do. Sephiroth bites his lip. Is he being punished? Cloud has mentioned nothing of the sort, but perhaps it’s something that’s simply expected to be understood. Should he ask, when Cloud returns?

His thoughts are interrupted by a break in the show. Shinra’s logo is plastered over the screen as a woman’s voice boasts of the many features of a new line of mako-powered vehicles. 

Vincent stands up, his movement silent but for the rustle of his cloak. “Hm. We can find something better to do than listen to this poppycock. Would you like to go for another spar?”

Sephiroth studies the floor by his feet. “I am not supposed to go outside today.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“I was… injured, yesterday. Cloud asked me to stay in.”

Vincent’s gaze grows sharp and alert. “Injured? What happened?”

“A hunting accident,” Sephiroth says stiffly.

Vincent considers him. “Must have been some prey.”

Sephiroth looks at a pot of plastic plants hanging by the door. For a moment he considers telling Vincent—all of it, every last detail, but he’s not sure he’d be able to explain it, even if he wanted to. 

So he says nothing. Vincent will find out from Cloud, and there’s nothing Sephiroth can add that will make it sound less pathetic, or disgraceful.

*

‘ A locket of at least five centimeters in diameter ’ goes on the list of requests Cloud has asked Sephiroth to write down, next to a long list of book titles. They include more novels of a type similar to Sophia’s story, but most are titles one cannot find at the local bookstore. Books on physics, psychology, sociology. Some are not on subjects he particularly cares for, but rather the rarest and most hard to find volumes he can remember, because he wants to see… 

See what, exactly? Cloud’s reaction, perhaps. The true limit of his patience, how far Sephiroth can go until he’s denied and chastised. 

Sephiroth chews the end of his pen just because he can. For the first time in his life, no one and nothing is watching him. 

Vincent departs the same day he arrives, and Cloud studies Sephiroth list over the dinner table with a palpable air of confusion 

“ Origins of Life: A Treatise On the Evolutionary History of Plants by Dr. H.K. Jenkins,” Cloud reads. “You want to read a whole book about plants ?”

“Plants are very interesting,” Sephiroth says. It is not a false statement, even though the only reason he included the title was because he heard it mentioned once by a lab tech, in the context of how fantastically obscure it is.

Cloud throws him another incredulous look and goes to wash the dishes. The next time Cloud goes out on an errand run, he returns with an empty locket as well as a stack of books. Unsurprisingly, none of them are Origins of Life .

What is surprising, however, is that when Cloud returns after a second trip, he dumps a heavy bundle on the dining table and regards Sephiroth with crossed arms. “You better become an expert plant biologist after this. I’m a hundred percent serious, Sephiroth. I’m gonna quiz you.”

Sephiroth opens the bundle and feels his breath catch. A heavy tome, its leather covers aged and brown. 

“How did you get your hands on this?” Sephiroth asks, a bit dumbly

Cloud waves a dismissive hand. “Oh you know. Went to a library, looked around some.”

Sephiroth flips through the pages. The paper is thin and brittle, and the letters are faded. Sephiroth slowly looks back up at Cloud, an impossible realization taking form in his mind. “This is an original copy. They never lend these out to the public. Did you steal it from a Shinra archive?”

Cloud’s face has taken on an unusually pink shade. “What? Of course not—Stealing is bad, you know! And I’m sure they have other copies. What does it matter if it’s original or not? It’s just some old book.”

Sephiroth stares at him, utterly at a loss for words.

He’s still in a state of disbelief when Cloud leaves him to fix up his new truck outside. Sephiroth re-examines the book to verify that yes, it is indeed an original first-edition copy, with the author and editors’ hand-written notes still adorning some of the pages. He spends the rest of the night reading, as if a book about the evolutionary history of plants might hold his answers to everything.

The treatise itself is quite fascinating. It’s old and its information outdated—more conjecture and philosophical musings than rigorous science—but it’s written in an understated way that seems genuine and full of quiet passion. There’s a long chapter on the origins of photosynthesis that devolves into a discussion of Gaia’s relationship with its sun, complete with mythological references and religious allusions. Sephiroth traces the chemical diagrams on the page, wondering how on earth that in the eons since the universe’s conception, he’s arrived at the same space and time that Cloud occupies.

He catches Cloud reading through the book the next day, likely to make good on his promise to quiz Sephiroth. It takes him about two pages for his eyes to start to glaze over, and a further two pages to snap the book shut and glare at it with a deeply affronted look. Cloud does not mention the quiz again. 

The picture of Lucrecia and Vincent goes into Sephiroth’s new locket, and he wears it on a silver chain around his neck. He’s unsure how he feels about his mother now, in light of recent revelations, yet the weight of the locket centers him, reminds him that just like everything else, he comes from something tangible and true.

*

Like all things that are too good to be true, they come to an abrupt end when Sephiroth least expects it.

They are on their way home laden with fresh harvests and bickering about nothing when it happens. Cloud hears it first—he freezes and places a hand on Sephiroth’s chest. Sephiroth raises his face to the sky. There’s the whirl of great blades churning through the cool evening air, then the sound of terse orders and heavy wheels tearing down the dirt road. 

Cloud swears and flattens the both of them against a tree. 

“Three in the air, multiple ground vehicles moving in,” Cloud mouths at Sephiroth, his face pale and still in the shadows of the great tree. “I’ll deal with them if we’re discovered. You get back to the house and grab any valuables on the way, then run straight for the truck. Here, keys.”

Sephiroth clutches the small pieces of cold metal shoved into his hand, his eyes wide. “No, I should—”

Cloud grabs the front of Sephiroth’s shirt, his lips pulled back in a furious whisper. “Dammit, now’s not the time! You listen and do exactly what I say, understand? This is—I thought we’d have more time. I thought—” Cloud breathes in deeply. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll talk after. Just do what I tell you in the meantime, ‘kay?”

“But—”

“Shhh!” Cloud shoves him forward and tosses away the basket of wild greens they’d handpicked not even an hour ago. Sephiroth had been looking forward to trying them. His half-read novel is still sitting face down on his desk. He has not made his bed.

“Stay in the shadows,” Cloud whispers at him, as if Sephiroth has not been trained for this all his life.

They almost make it back to the house when floodlights drenches the world in white and machine guns fire. There’s no call for surrender, no attempt at negotiation. Fiery streaks of light rain down like tiny comets, and Cloud yells something unintelligible beside him. 

Sephiroth’s body is moving as if on auto-pilot. He weaves through the hail of gunfire casting and blocking, yet his mind is full of static. 

“Go, go, go!“ Cloud’s voice is screaming. “I have things under control. Go get the truck!”

Sephiroth is halfway up the hill in front of the house when the earth shakes and he turns around to see a ball of flame light up the night sky. The glint of Cloud’s sword dances effortlessly through the air, then another explosion, then another. Voices both human and machine howl in a maelstrom of fire and death, and for the first time since knowing Cloud, Sephiroth thinks he is afraid. 

Then Cloud hurls himself through the burning forest and screams: “Don’t just stand there! GO! That’s a fucking order!!”

Sephiroth runs. 

The interior of the house is dark, and the windows quake in their frame with every blast and explosion. Sephiroth bursts into his room and looks around wildly. An unmade bed, a soft white pillow still bearing the shape of his head, an unwashed teacup sitting on the bedside table. Breathing shallowly, he grabs the heavy tome on the shelf, runs out, then runs back in to grab the cat-shaped toy. A great shockwave tears through the front of the house and nearly knocks him off his feet. He does not look back when he leaps out of the window and lands on a sea of broken glass, his hand clutched tightly around the small toy.

It takes him two tries to start the truck. Somewhere in the back of his mind, an old trainer’s voice berates him for his sloppiness. Outside, the sound of battle is dying down, and when he pulls out of the driveway the car door is wrenched open, and Sephiroth nearly runs his sword through the intruder before he realizes that it is Cloud. 

Cloud shoves him off to the passenger seat, his hair wild and his eyes gleaming in the dark. “Took care of most of them, might be more ground troops on the way. Any injuries?”

“None,” Sephiroth says, his voice small and flat.

“Good, good,” Cloud says, and stomps on the accelerator. 

In the rear-view mirror, Sephiroth numbly notes that half of the house is collapsed and in flames. Soon, even that is gone, and there is only smoke rising above a dark line of trees. 

Sephiroth does not notice that he is shaking until a warm hand envelops his own and stills him. Cloud glances at him, his gaze pausing on the cat toy clutched in his hand. 

“It’s going to be okay,” Cloud squeezes Sephiroth’s hand. “They’ll never have you, not while I’m around. You know that, right?”

Sephiroth nods, swallowing thickly. He does not tell Cloud that the source of his uneasiness has nothing to do with his personal safety. 

“It’s going to be okay,” Cloud repeats, voice low and assuaging. “We’ll switch to the bike in the morning and head to the Western Continent. Got another safehouse there. I’ve planned for this, always knew it was a matter of time. You’re going to be okay.”

“I’d left my gloves on the kitchen counter,” Sephiroth whispers, then immediately feels foolish. 

Cloud looks at him with soft eyes, so unlike the vision of destruction scorched into Sephiroth’s mind. “It’s okay. We can get you new ones at our next stop. All that stuff, it’s just that. Stuff. We’ll replace them. And hey, maybe we’ll find even cooler stuff next time. You like shopping, no?”

Sephiroth looks down at his own hands. He’s still got his copy of Origins of Life tucked under his arm. He can’t explain why he’s chosen that particular book to bring with him, out of all the things he left behind. His closet full of barely-worn clothes. The jar of coins in the kitchen. The windchimes Cloud had just hung up on the porch a few days ago. Cloud had told him to “grab any valuables.” The book may be of some value, true, but only if they’re able to access a blackmarket with a demand for outdated scientific treatises. Sephiroth’s nose burns and his vision blurs, and he cannot explain to himself why he wants to cry.

“It’s going to be okay,” Cloud murmurs, his calloused warrior-hand warm around Sephiroth’s. “It’s going to be okay.”

Chapter Text

They tear through the wilderness in the dead of night. Their previous ride has been abandoned in favour of the dirt bike Cloud had tied to the bed of the truck, and Sephiroth is seated behind him with his arms wrapped around Cloud, the scene strangely reminiscent of the first time they really met each other in this unlikely version of reality. 

There’s a feeling of wetness in the back of Cloud’s shirt where Sephiroth has his face pressed against him, and thin arms are crushing his ribs to the point of pain. Next to Cloud’s heart, the boy’s pale hand is still clutching the stuffed toy, his fingers wrapped gently around the soft fur of its white belly. Vaguely, Cloud remembers once telling the boy to not squish the toy too hard, then suddenly he finds himself holding back tears.

It’s all so fucked. Their situation, Shinra, the planet, everything. Cloud wants to take out his bloodstained sword and bash it into something, just out of the wrongness and sheer idiocy of it all. Would it kill them to leave a thirteen year old kid alone? How much bloodshed could have been spared, both in this world and the one before, if they could only find it in themselves to rein in all that desperate grasping—

The thought is as futile as his attempt to keep it together, but at least Sephiroth can’t see his face right now. How many lives have been lost to that skirmish in the forest alone? Cloud had tried to keep the casualties minimal, but there really was no way to tell in the heat of battle. And all for what?

His mouth tastes like blood. He can’t abandon Sephiroth. The very idea is unthinkable, even disregarding his duty to the planet. Thoughts, ideals, a soul—Cloud’s no longer sure he has any of that. He’s just some thing in the shape of a human body hurtling through the dark, and he does what he must. 

Sephiroth probably could have taken down that detachment by himself, though it’d have cost him. The fact Shinra seemed unaware of this is bizarre, but less so than the fact they made no attempt to capture him alive. What the hell is going on back at R&D, now that Hojo is out of the picture? Last he heard Hollander had stepped up, and Cloud only has the haziest memories of tracking that man down in another life.

Whatever their reasons for wanting Sephiroth back in a body bag, they’re not having him. Sephiroth’s arms have loosened around Cloud ever so slightly, and Cloud takes a moment to gather himself.

“You need a break?” Cloud shouts into the wind. “There’s food and water in the bag.”

Cloud feels him shake his head. 

They almost get lost in the dark—they end up about five miles south of their intended destination, and there’s a few tense minutes when Cloud’s looking up at the stars and trying to figure out where the hell they even are. Years of wandering around the world pays off, however, and they eventually find their way to the meeting point on the coast. 

A tall cloaked figure is already waiting for them on the crumbling pier, his hair dark and wild against the moonlight. 

“Oh thank gods,” Cloud breathes out and stumbles off the bike. “You run into any trouble?”

“No,” Vincent’s low voice murmurs in the night. “I’d gone to the house to warn you of the threat, but it appears I was too late.”

Cloud waves him off and drags Sephiroth towards the pier. “Never mind that. We need to get him off the continent ASAP. You take him and I’ll take the boat. Here,” Cloud pushes a duffle bag into Vincent’s arms. “Supplies for a couple days. It might take me a while to cross over. You two head for the safehouse and I’ll catch up when I can.”

Next to him, Sephiroth shifts. “What? I thought—”

“Pace yourself, yeah?” Cloud tells Vincent. “Kid’s still growing. He won’t say anything but please remember to feed and water him, because he won’t remember to himself—”

“Cloud,” Sephiroth cuts him off, his voice sharp and tremulous. “I’m coming with you. We should stick together.”

Cloud sighs and wipes cooling sweat off his forehead. “We can’t all fit on the boat. Splitting up is the best option. We’ll meet up again in a couple days at most, promise.” 

Sephiroth’s too-big eyes are luminous in the dark. “No. I will come with you.”

“Not now, Sephiroth.” Cloud exhales and gestures at the tiny sailboat floating by the pier. “Look at that thing. I’ll probably end up swimming across. I’d go with Vincent too if he could take two. Don’t make this more difficult than it has to.”

Sephiroth juts out his chin. “I’m a strong swimmer.”

Cloud’s sucking in a deep breath and opening his mouth again when he feels a hand on his shoulder.

“Perhaps it’s best that he stays with you,” Vincent whispers. “I’ll scout ahead, make sure the coast is clear. The ocean is vast; you should be able to stay well-hidden until landfall.”

“Yeah, but it’s still easier if you just take him—”

Vincent shakes his head and gives him a look, and Cloud falls silent. Gods damn it. He’s blaming Vincent if Sephiroth drowns. With an unhappy sigh, he nods to Vincent tugs Sephiroth towards the small sailboat, trying not to grimace at the way Sephiroth holds his wrist in a death grip.

They’re climbing into the sailboat when Sephiroth suddenly detaches himself and runs to Vincent. Cloud’s about to applaud him for his change of heart, then he sees the boy shove his brick of a book and stuffed toy toward Vincent.

“Would you look after them for me?” Sephiroth asks, voice tentative and so painfully young. “They would not fare well in seawater.”

“Of course,” Vincent inclines his head.

“Thank you. I wish you a safe journey,” Sephiroth says, and gives Vincent one last solemn nod before rushing back to the boat. 

Not fully trusting his voice, Cloud waves to Vincent and releases the sails. They smell like mold and are full of holes. It really wouldn’t surprise him if the entire boat falls apart in the middle of the ocean and he tells Sephiroth as much, but the boy just looks back at him with a challenging glare. 

“I told you, I’m a strong swimmer,” Sephiroth says.

“You ever swam in open waters before?”

Sephiroth looks slightly less assured. “I’ve read about it.”

Cloud sighs. “At least the weather looks clear. All right, here goes nothing.”

They float away from the shore huddled together in their tiny, wobbling vessel. Cold black waves crash against the hull, pushing them to and fro. The sea is boundless and dark; not even their enhanced vision can penetrate its depths. 

The wind picks up—it’s at least in a somewhat favourable direction. Cloud silently prays that the mast holds and thanks the gods that whatever Gaia did to him has cured his motion sickness. Sephiroth decides to tie a single long rope around both their waists, in case one gets tossed overboard, and Cloud honestly doesn’t have enough sailing experience to know if this is a good idea or not.

“It’ll probably be fine,” Cloud assures him, though his voice sounds uncertain even to himself. “Things look pretty calm. Think we’ll spot dolphins? There are supposedly a lot of sightings in this region.”

Sephiroth actually looks out into the pitch black horizon. “I do not see any at the moment. Perhaps they are sleeping.”

“Speaking of sleeping, c’here,” Cloud shifts a bit and pats the space next to him. “There’s enough room to lie down for some shut eye.”

“I am not tired.”

“Come on, it’s the middle of the night and nothing’s happening. We still got some ways to go, once we make it to land. You wanna be well-rested and alert for that, don’t you?”

There’s some grumbling and tangling of limbs before Sephiroth finally settles down with his head resting on Cloud’s chest. If Cloud is unnerved by how clingy the boy is getting, he tries not to show it. The night is cold and the salty wind is biting, and this is probably the most comfortable sleeping position he’s able to get into. Not-Reunion tremors under Cloud’s skin like tiny shockwaves, and he really does not understand how the boy is able to relax like this.

A caesura in the gently swirling clouds pours silver moonlight onto the ocean surface, and Sephiroth’s hair glimmers under its soft rays. Sephiroth’s face is slack and unguarded, and Cloud runs his fingers through the dozing boy’s hair, marveling at the unnatural smoothness of the silver strands. 

The strange thrumming under his skin reminds him that this is Sephiroth , has always been Sephiroth. Nothing separates the man from his nightmares and the boy in his arms except for the passage of time. This is what the man who killed his mother would have looked like, this is what his hair would have felt like, this is what his breaths would have sounded like, its soft huffs warm against Cloud’s chest. 

And then there’s silent wetness on Cloud’s face that tastes of salt. It’s unfair, twisted, this cosmic irony of existence. In another life Cloud might have been willing to die for Sephiroth, but here even that choice is taken from him, as he must be the one to cut him down at the first sign of things going awry again. His body, his impossible gift from the planet, is stronger than it has ever been, but Cloud feels like a piece of driftwood bobbling aimlessly in the night.

He must have drifted off at some point, because the next thing he knows there’s sunlight warming his face. He jerks awake, startling Sephiroth so badly that the boy shoots to his feet and reaches for his sword.

“It’s okay!” Cloud flounders on the deck, still blinking sleep from his eyes. “Urgh, sorry. Just gotta adjust the sails.”

Thankfully, they haven’t drifted too far off course. The sky is clear and the ocean is calm, and there’s nothing but an endless expanse of gentle waves shimmering under the morning sun. 

“I’ve never seen the ocean before,” Sephiroth mutters beside him, his voice distant and soft.

“It’s really something, isn’t it?” Cloud leans against the helm. “Wild to think that we know more about space than we do the ocean’s depths.”

“I’m surprised that Shinra has not expended more efforts to exploit it.”

“Yeah, well,” Cloud huffs. “Guess it’s too difficult to extract mako down there. Might as well invade all the landmasses in the world first.”

“Is that why you left?” Sephiroth glances at him. “Because you disagree with the invasion?”

Cloud feels some tension return to his body. “Not really. Not initially, I mean. They really sold their whole propaganda thing,” Cloud waves his hand. “Progress and unity and all that. I still feel like an idiot for ever believing it, but—they get you while you’re young, and the next thing you know you’re already in too deep.”

“But you no longer believe in it. In their supposed progress and unity.”

“It’s a whole load of horseshit. They just want more mako, so they can sell it. They don’t even care what mako is , just what they can do with it to turn more profit.”

Sephiroth turns to face him. “But you do care, then? About what mako is.”

Cloud lets out a long breath. “Sure.”

Sephiroth gives him a questioning look, and Cloud turns away and looks out into the sea. “You know anything about the Lifestream?”

Sephiroth is silent for a moment. “It was mentioned to me in vague terms, when I was younger. Nothing in recent years.”

“The Lifestream, it’s… real,” Cloud stares at a flock of seabirds circling a small island in the distance. “I’ve been in it. Multiple times, in fact. All that religious mumbo jumbo, there’s some truth to it. I know it sounds far-fetched, but it really is the lifeblood of this world. And Shinra’s burning through it like it’s just… fuel. And we’ll all die. People, animals, fish, seaweed, the planet itself. Everything will die, if we destroy the Lifestream.” 

Sephiroth offers no response, and Cloud huffs out a laugh. “Great. Now you think I’m some religious nut.”

“No,” Sephiroth says. “I am just… thinking.”

“About?”

“Being in the Lifestream. Is that why you bleed green? I’ve always assumed it has something to do with R&D, but now I wonder…”

Cloud gives him a startled look. The kid’s too sharp for his own good, sometimes. “I guess it’s pointless to deny it at this point. Yeah, it does have something to do with the Lifestream. It’s… really complicated.”

Sephiroth is studying him, his gaze sharp. “Is that why you really left Shinra? Your knowledge of the Lifestream and our impending doom?”

Cloud wants to laugh at the absurdity of having this conversation with Sephiroth, of all people. He hides his face from him. “I guess that’s a big part of it, yeah. There are other more… personal matters, but knowing Shinra is set to bring about the literal end of the world does serve as a pretty strong motivator.”

“And where do I come into this?”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

There’s a touch of impatience in Sephiroth’s voice. “You recruited me for a reason, did you not? Is it to help you destroy Shinra? How do we do that when we’re being chased around the world? Who else are you working with? How do they operate? How strong are their forces?”

Cloud suppresses a sigh. “You don’t have to do anything. Not actively helping Shinra ruin the planet is help enough.”

“No, that can’t be it,” Sephiroth is shaking his head. “You want to simply keep me out of the way, while you try to take down a global conglomerate?”

“This isn’t about keeping you out of the way,” Cloud finally turns to him, a bit bewildered by his reaction. “You’re just a kid! Ask me again in ten years, then maybe we’ll talk.”

“ Ten years ?”

“Okay, maybe more like, seven, but still! I barely even know what I’m doing, and I’ve been at this for years. I’m not getting you involved in this.”

Sephiroth looks at him with narrowed eyes. “I am already involved in it. You and I both know that I’m not ‘just a kid.’ This is absurd.”

“No, it really isn’t—”

Their conversation is interrupted by an eruption of water and air. Twin jets of steam send them scrambling backwards, and the boat sways as a great barnacled body emerges from the blue depths. Massive fins glide through the water, carrying large ripples across the ocean’s surface.

“The Akishima whale,” Sephiroth whispers as if reciting from a book, “of the genus Eschrichtius . Peaceful unless provoked.”

“You better hope it is,” Cloud mutters, gripping the edge of the hull as if that would do anything, if this creature decides to tip over their boat just because.

The sailboat, of course, is headed directly in the whale’s direction, and they both go still with bated breaths as the whale’s unblinking brown eye meets theirs. 

“Hello,” Sephiroth whispers.

The whale watches them, then as if dismissing them as too insignificant to be a threat, dips below the waves again. Cloud lets out a sigh of relief, immediately before multiple colossal bodies breach the water surface all at once. At least a dozen of the ocean’s behemoths glide lazily around them, leaving white foam in the wake of their powerful tails. A much smaller and chubbier whale—probably no more than an infant but still larger than the sailboat—leaps out of the water tossing and splashing, at one point doing a big barrel roll in the air.

Cloud and Sephiroth look on in stunned silence as their tiny boat drifts away. “They’re really something, aren’t they,” Cloud says quietly. “Not the promised dolphins, but still cool as hell.”

“We could still run into dolphins,” Sephiroth says, sounding hopeful.

Cloud smiles at him. “Sure. Too bad we haven’t got a camera; would’ve loved to get a picture of that baby. Never took you for a whale fan, though.”

Sephiroth looks oddly abashed. “I’ve read a book or two.”

Cloud suddenly has to resist the urge to squish the boy’s cheeks, like he’d seen Tifa do to Marlene once. “Uh-huh. Maybe we could come back out here again some day, in a proper ship and not this piece of junk.”

Sephiroth looks out into the blue horizon, deep in thought.

As if taking offense at being called a “piece of junk,” the sailboat’s motor gives out not long after that. The wind carries them, however, and they continue to make decent progress. They do actually find dolphins—or their distant silhouettes, anyway, which are only visible because of their enhanced sight.

“Hey Sephiroth,” Cloud says, as they both stare at the setting sun. “I don’t know why I’m suddenly bringing this up, but I just wanna tell you—that you belong here, you know?”

“Belong where?”

“Just… here, in general. I’ve spent so long feeling like some kind of freak, like I’m not even a—a real person. I had good friends, but I don’t think any of them really got it, except for maybe Vincent. But at the end of the day, we’re all still children of Gaia. No matter how… different we seem, because of what happened to us, we’ll always have a home here.”

Sephiroth gives him a strange, worried look. “I am not suicidal, Cloud. I very much plan on remaining on Gaia, no matter what Shinra tries to do about it.”

“Wait, no, I didn’t mean it like that. Of course you aren’t suicidal. I just meant—ugh, I don’t even know anymore. Forget I said anything.”

“Hm,” Sephiroth says. “I think I do see your point. No matter how long we’re forced to run, where we’re forced to hide, we will carve out a space for ourselves wherever we go.”

“Yeah, something like that,” Cloud murmurs to himself.

*

They make landfall in the middle of the night. The jungle stands tall and imposing before them, dark and full of secrets. They abandon the sailboat and head inland, going south into the Ancient Forest. 

Chapter Text

The air is humid and heavy in Sephiroth’s nostrils. Small motes of nocturnal life flit on the edge of Sephiroth’s awareness, scurrying and squirming. Moonlight cannot penetrate the thick tree canopy, and even Sephiroth’s mutant eyes struggle to map out the jungle’s gloom.

“Gotta thank Shinra for one thing,” Cloud mutters as he hacks away at the vines in their way. “Mosquitoes would have eaten us alive if it weren’t for all the mako in our system. That stuff really puts them off.”

Sephiroth does not think of life in terms of gratitude and debt. Things either were, or they weren’t. The fact Shinra wants him dead makes it all so much simpler—it’s just another fight for survival, and Sephiroth has always been a survivor.

When their last glowstick dies, Cloud declares that it’s time for a break. Sephiroth leans on a fallen tree and accepts an offered water bottle, looking up into the black canopy of nothingness  as he drinks. “I cannot see the stars at all. Are you certain we aren’t lost?”

“Pretty sure we’re still going in the right direction,” Cloud’s cheek bulges around a mouthful of protein bar. “There’s this small mako spring a couple miles from the place, and it’s almost like I can sense it.”

Sephiroth pauses. “You can sense it?”

Cloud shrugs. “Sort of. A side effect of taking one too many dips in the Lifestream, probably. Not as useful as you might think; I’m no Cetra.”

“Cetra?”

“Ah,” Cloud swallows with a grimace. “Did R&D never bring you up to speed?”

When Sephiroth does nothing but frown at him, Cloud sighs. “A.k.a Ancients. You must have heard all about the Ancients, with the way Shinra goes on about them.”

“Only that they’re connected to mako and that they have gone extinct.”

“Not quite extinct, no,” Cloud’s voice is low as he stands up and reaches for his sword. “Not that it matters to us right now. Come, let’s keep moving.”

“And you are certain that you aren’t one? An Ancient, that is.”

“Yes,” Cloud says, the muscles in his arms shifting as he swings his heavy sword and fixes it to his back. His eyes gleam in the dark, the burning embers of the Lifestream itself, perhaps.

“You dropped a wrapper,” Sephiroth says, bending down to pick it up.

Cloud sighs, then does a double take when their eyes meet. His face twitches, like he’s trying to suppress a smile.  

“What is it?” Sephiroth shoves the wrapper into their bag, suddenly self-conscious.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s clearly not nothing. You are looking at me strangely.”

Cloud huffs out a quiet laugh, a lopsided grin turning his eyes into small crescents. “It’s just… Your pupils. They’re all big and round, like a cat’s.”

Sephiroth looks away. “Of course they are. It is exceedingly dark.”

“Well, lucky you. I can barely see my own hands in front of me. Wouldn’t say no to being an itty-bitty kitty-boy.”

Sephiroth cannot begin to decipher what that was meant to convey—an endearment, or an attempt at mockery? Before he can formulate a response, a calloused hand reaches for his face and grazes his cheek.

It was so light that it was barely a touch at all. Only the faintest murmur of their secret connection buzzes under his skin.

Sephiroth stares at him, flummoxed. 

Cloud looks down at his own hand, as if it has acted on its own volition, then shoves his hand into one of his many pockets. “Uh, sorry. You just looked—” Cloud coughs. “Sorry.”

The darkness around him is warm and heavy. When Cloud all but flees into it, Sephiroth trails after him, unsure what has happened. Was there some kind of social cue that Sephiroth has missed? Perhaps it was meant to be an invitation, a way to demonstrate that Cloud no longer finds physical contact objectionable. Should Sephiroth have responded in kind?

Not for the first time, Sephiroth wishes he’d received proper training in these matters, because whatever inborn talent some people seem to possess when it comes to human interactions must have passed him by—perhaps it’s the price he must pay for the many other talents he’s supposedly been gifted with. He had only attended a single social etiquette lesson taught by a pair of severe older women in tweed suits and thick-rimmed glasses, before Cloud showed up and put a definitive end to that chapter of his life. All he had gleaned from it pertained to formal events and professional interactions; there had been nothing on more personal, more intimate relationships. 

It is likely that he was never meant to form such relationships in the first place. Friendship and sentimentality had no place in Hojo’s plans for him. 

Hojo is dead, and his plans are therefore irrelevant. Sephiroth never did confirm with Cloud what exactly happened to Hojo. He tries not to think too hard about why. Instead of dwelling on the details of his many past misgivings, he simply endeavors to move on, drifting away as if he’s a new kind of existence wholly disconnected from his former life.

Around him, the jungle begins to glow bright. Fireflies have emerged in the twilight of the day, and Sephiroth slows his steps, distracted by the sight. Soon, thousands of them hover over the forest floor, like a floating, flickering carpet of light. 

“Wow, never seen this many in one place,” Cloud is careful to not step on the grounded bugs. “Must be breeding season or something. They only swarm like this when they’re out looking for mates.”

With deft hands, Sephiroth captures a firefly in the hollowed space between his fingers, raising it to his eyes. The tiny insect flutters its wings and bounces gently against his palms. “A rather impressive display of bioluminescence in a creature this small,” he whispers, then opens his palms to release it. “How would they go about finding mates, when there are so many gathered in one place? What makes one match better than the other? Or do they simply take the first option they come across?”

Cloud huffs out another one of his quiet laughs. “Dunno, but they manage somehow, or there wouldn’t be so many of them here.”

“Hm,” Sephiroth says. He considers capturing another insect, this time keeping it in his empty water bottle to study later, but in the end he decides against it. They’re on an important mission, after all, and as far as mating dances go, this one is rather striking.

They wade carefully through the sea of fireflies until they disperse under the first suggestion of sunrise. The jungle comes alive like wartime watchmen changing shifts. Daytime beasts large and small awaken from perilous dreams, yet none approach or bother them. Perhaps in these parts they understand that humans—or whatever he and Cloud are—are the most dangerous beasts of them all. 

They approach their destination late in the morning, and Sephiroth would not have realized there was anything to approach had Cloud not pointed out the rusted remnants of wire fencing that have now been all but completely overtaken by nature. It appears that their next hideout is what was once a small research station deep in the heart of the jungle, abandoned for decades and forgotten by civilization. Its surroundings are thoroughly hostile to human life, and the closest settlement is at least a hundred miles away. In other words, a perfect place for a pair of fugitives to disappear.

“It’s nothing like a R&D lab,” Cloud reassures Sephiroth when he fails to quite hide his look of distaste. “This was way before Shinra’s time. Just a bunch of hippie scientists studying birds or something. I think they only lasted a couple of years out here before their funds ran dry, but their place is still standing. Sort of.”

The place is indeed still standing, but only barely. Thick vegetation has swallowed the small building, creeping their thorny limbs through the cracks in the walls. What looks like a collapsed observation tower juts out of the ground before the building, and they quietly circle around it, cutting through vines, brambles, and tallgrass in their way.

The front door is rusted and jammed. After a few seconds of spamming the release button in vain, Cloud resolves the issue with a swift kick that dents the steel.

“Home sweet home,” Cloud says, and marches into the shaded interior with aplomb. 

The inside of the building is in somewhat better shape: the floor is only covered in a thin layer of dust, and no wildlife except for a few blue spiders have made nests here. Someone has clearly gone through the room in recent months to prepare it for human habitation. The large open space on the left hand side has been retrofitted into a living area of sorts, though a wall of metal cabinets and racks still remains from the building’s research station days. The cracks in the walls have been newly filled with plaster, creating a haphazard patchwork of bright white and faded gray. A large blanket covers the couch in the center of the room, hiding whatever blemish that may lie underneath. 

“Right, so,” Cloud drops his duffle bag on the couch and clears his throat. “I’ll need to figure out how to get the generator up and running, so there won’t be electricity or running water for a couple of days. But!” Cloud raises his hands as if to defend himself, even though Sephiroth has made no complaint. “The place is fully equipped to be self-sufficient, just gotta sort out a few things first. Food and water won’t be a problem, and it’s warm enough you probably wouldn’t want hot baths anyway.”

Cloud smiles at him, but it’s anxious and strained. Now that the light is good and there’s nothing else to capture his attention, Sephiroth can see the exhaustion clinging to every inch of Cloud’s skin. Their meager belongings are unpacked and put away, and Cloud runs around attempting to fill a bathtub with a metal bucket before Sephiroth insists that no, it really makes no difference to him whether he bathes directly in the stream.

Sephiroth does not tell Cloud that compared to the life he’s known, none of this is particularly noteworthy. He’s been kept awake for days on end, naked and huddling in a cold cell. He’s been driven to consume raw flesh and rancid blood, remembers the crunch of tiny vertebrae when he eventually broke into the medical lab and stole a lab rat. He’d been harshly reprimanded that time; those lab rats were important, and he’d also ruined the integrity of his endurance assessment, so they’d have to start it all over again—

The shallow stream is cool and welcoming, and Cloud darts into the bushes to give Sephiroth some privacy. An odd concept, physical privacy. It’s one part of his upbringing that he’s never given much thought to, the constant observation and scrutiny. It’s a simple fact of life, as natural as the sun warming his back. 

Would Cloud think less of him, if he knew the full extent of how Sephiroth was raised? It’s clear now that their upbringings are vastly different. There appears to be certain expectations that are unspoken, gaps in Sephiroth’s knowledge of the world caused by Hojo’s single-minded ambition to create the perfect specimen. How is he to fill them, when he can’t quite map out what he lacks?

Stepping out of the stream, he dries himself off with his old clothes and puts on comparatively fresh ones, his mind drifting to all the clothes he has left behind, then immediately recoiling from the thought as if removing his hand from an open flame. He hears Cloud splashing about somewhere downstream, and is about to go to him when he pauses mid-stride—Cloud seems to value his privacy. Perhaps he would consider it an intrusion, if Sephiroth were to interrupt his bath.

He returns to the shelter in a listless meander, his still-wet hand slippery around the handle of his sword. Even he can sense that there’s something abnormal about the sheer intensity of his attachment to Cloud. Hojo would flay him, both body and mind, had he ever detected such an aberration—

Sephiroth gives his head a vigorous shake. Frustration rises high in his chest, at the way a dead man can still haunt his thoughts. Hojo is unimportant, reduced to nothing. Thoughts concerning him serve no purpose whatsoever.

Sephiroth barely notices himself wandering through the house, memorizing its layout and cataloging its details. His feet carry him to what Cloud has pointed out to him as his room, where he blinks in the light, finally coming back to himself. 

A bed, smaller than the one before. A tall dresser, with a basket on top, perhaps for laundry. An empty wooden desk, also shorter and smaller than the one he had. If he unfocuses his eyes, he can still see the image of his old room superimposed on his new surroundings. The turquoise threads in his sheets. The white teacup next to his stack of books. The way sunlight gleams on the amber-like lacquer of his desk, which Cloud has admitted to repainting himself in preparation for Sephiroth’s arrival.

None of those things exist now, at least not in a form he would recognize. A thick lump has formed in his throat, and he hears himself exhale sharply, as if to rid himself of this senseless, illogical anguish. The only thing that matters is that he and Cloud are both alive, and that their mission—making it to their new hideout unscathed—has been a success.

“You settling in okay?” Cloud appears at the doorway scrubbing his wet hair with a towel. His loose shirt is stained by stream water. 

Sephiroth stands motionless in the center of the room. “Yes.”

“Right,” Cloud clears his throat. “I know this place looks kind of dingy right now, but I’ll fix it up in no time.”

“It does not look dingy. It’s perfectly serviceable as is.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatcha want for lunch, by the way? There’s fish in the stream, or I can hunt some small game.”

Sephiroth bites his lips. “I think we’ve both had enough grilled meats in the past few days.”

Cloud nods. “Fish it is then. Wanna take a nap or something, in the meantime? You could use the rest.”

Sephiroth’s steps to follow him falter. “Am I not coming with you?”

“Hm?” Cloud glances at him with some puzzlement. “Like, coming to fish with me? It won’t be the fun sort of fishing. I’m just going to cast a net.”

“Fun sort of fishing?”

“I dunno. Whatever fishing enthusiasts do.”

Sephiroth was not aware that fishing was something that one could be an enthusiast of, but he steps in closer. “I’d still like to come,

“Uh—sure, I guess. You sure you don’t want to take a break? You haven’t slept in a bed in days.”

“Neither have you.”

Cloud sighs. “Alright, suit yourself. I hope Vincent joins us soon. We made good time, he probably isn’t expecting us here so soon.”

Sephiroth follows Cloud out of the shelter silently, refusing to dwell on all the other possibilities that might have caused Vincent’s delay. The actual act of fishing turns out to be very brief—a massive, rather striking catfish with a colourfully striped body happens to pass through the stream immediately after they cast the net, and ends up meeting an unfortunate end on Cloud’s chopping board. 

And isn’t that just the nature of the world? All that beauty reduced to food and energy, because they simply must eat. Sephiroth cannot say whether this type of fish tastes particularly good, only that it’s a welcome reprieve from the protein bars and charred meats. Still, he’d very much like to find another one of its kind, if only to take a better look at it before it goes into the frying pan. 

“Oh no, it’s fine,” Cloud says when Sephiroth begins to stack their tableware after lunch. “I’ll take care of the dishes, you go ahead and do whatever. I’d suggest a nap, though.”

Sephiroth does not nap. He does not have any books to lose himself in, or even a television set to distract himself with. His sword is cool and reassuring by his side, but Cloud has warned him to not go out alone when he still doesn’t know the lay of the land.

What could possibly harm him, though? He is a trained killer, and he does not think it’s arrogance that has him believe that he’s capable of fending off a Shinra ambush, or at least slow them down enough to find Cloud.

Perhaps Cloud simply wants you close by, a small, tremulous voice croons in his ear. Maybe their proximity is reassuring to Cloud, as it is to him. Friendship, intimacy, attachment—all dangerous things, but titillating and addictive. He thinks he may lose himself to them, if he allows it, but what’s stopping him now? What’s stopping him from doing anything in the world? he could lie in bed and read books for the rest of his life. He could take his sword and level this jungle. It would expose their location and Cloud would likely be angry, but on a purely theoretical level, what rules really govern his actions, now that the ones who created his former rules are no longer present?

The window in his new bedroom only opens a few inches, and the air feels too thick and unfamiliar. There’s nothing to power the electric lights in the house, but for now he is unbothered by the darkness. He sits on the bed as he listens to beasts and birds grouse in the distance, his hand idly running across sheets that feel slightly damp.

“Cloud,” he calls.

“Yeah?” Came the faint reply 

“Where is your room?”

“Oh, Uh. It’s—right here?”

Sephiroth rises to his feet and heads towards Cloud’s presence. He finds Cloud curled up on the couch like some wild creature settling in its nest, his mako-stained eyes bright in the dark. 

“You’re sleeping on this couch?”

Cloud looks down at the floor, his expression oddly sheepish. “Well, this is the only other room in here, so,” he wraps his arms around himself and shrugs. “What’s up? Everything okay?”

“I—” Sephiroth frowns. “The sheets are damp.”

“Ah, shit. Like, moldy-damp? Humidity gets pretty bad here, but we’re still supposed to be in a dry season.”

“I am unsure if there is a mildew problem. But perhaps,” Sephiroth pauses. “Perhaps I could join you here, for the time being.” 

“Join me?” Cloud blinks at him. “Join me how?”

“On the couch,” Sephiroth soldiers on. “Or I could sleep on the floor. I’m used to hard sleeping surfaces.”

Cloud sits up. “What? No, the floor’s filthy! Let me take a look at that bed. If it hasn’t spread to the mattress, we can maybe just replace the sheets. Oh, but the linen closet would be just as bad, if not worse. I should have bought some baking soda, dammit.”

“Cloud,” Sephiroth exhales. “I would really prefer to sleep here, if you would permit it.”

Cloud looks around the room. “But how are we supposed to—”

“We’ve dealt with tighter quarters, back on the sailboat.”

“Yeah, but it just happens that we aren’t stuck in the middle of the ocean anymore. What’s this really about? Did something spook you?”

Sephiroth shakes his head, and when he speaks again his voice is small. “I’d prefer to stay here with you.” Sephiroth lowers his eyes, lets his head hang in a particularly miserable fashion. “Unless you find my presence objectionable.”

“Fucking hell, Sephiroth, I don’t find you ‘objectionable,’” Cloud sighs heavily. “Okay, fine. C’mere.”

Sephiroth quickly approaches the couch and lowers himself into the small space beside Cloud. Cloud’s skin is hot to the touch and slightly damp, and he gives a full-body shudder when that nameless resonance tremors through them.

“Ow,” Cloud says quietly when Sephiroth accidentally elbows him. Sephiroth stills his movements and lays his head carefully on Cloud’s chest, Cloud’s body solid and warm under him. 

“You’re going to fall off in your sleep,” Cloud mutters, each word a soft gust against Sephiroth’s scalp.

“I will not,” Sephiroth whispers. The strange heartbeat that once unnerved him is now a reassuring constant, its steady rhythm syncing with Sephiroth’s breaths. Cloud lies stiffly under him, and Sephiroth wonders if he does find this objectionable, after all. Why tolerate it, then? Sephiroth is incapable of forcing him to do anything.

Then slowly, Cloud’s body relaxes, his hand rubbing small circles on Sephiroth’s back. Sephiroth tries to keep his breathing slow and even, tries to not show how overwhelmed he is by this insignificant gesture. Would his mother have held him like this, if she had stayed? He knows that he is far too old for this neediness, that his feelings are atypical, perhaps exposing some kind of psychological flaw, but he wants, and he wants.

“ Inability to separate wants and needs ,” said a woman’s voice, mechanical. “Usually a symptom of neglect or denial.”

“Ha!” Hojo’s lips were pulled into a facsimile of a smile. “ Don’t concern yourself. Wants, needs; all human contrivances. He’ll get over it soon enough.”

Sephiroth jolts out the memory, unsure where it even comes from. Hojo again. He closes his eyes and buries his face in Cloud’s shirt, wishing Cloud could take him away somewhere even further into the wilderness of the night, where all his past can fade away, and memories no longer hold meaning. 

But it seems like not even Cloud has that kind of power. Cloud sighs, his breath ruffling Sephiroth’s hair, and Sephiroth allows himself to drift to sleep. 

*

Vincent turns up the next day with a shipment of supplies that’s almost bigger than him. Sephiroth’s heavy book and stuffed toy are returned to him, and Sephiroth accepts them solemnly, showing no hint of just how eager he is to feel their weight in his hands.

“Spot any trouble?” Cloud asks Vincent as he helps him unpack. 

“No. Things have been quiet, back at HQ. Their attention and resources are spread too thin, most of them held up by the war.”

“Huh. I wonder—” Cloud shakes his head as if to dislodge a thought. “Anyway, how’ve you been?”

“As well as one can be. There’s a major reactor town nearby. The people can be a bit nosy, but the prices are good and they’ve got all the essentials.”

“Oh, right,” a sudden wave of tension seems to take ahold of Cloud. “It’s called—something like Gongaga, right? Strange name.”

Vincent unloads a bag of flour and turns to consider him. “Hm. You’ve been there?”

Clouds fidgets. “I guess.”

Vincent looks at him with unblinking eyes, and Cloud stares back, some sort of silent communication passing between them outside of Sephiroth’s purview. Sephiroth puts down his book with a thump.

“I can help,” Sephiroth says.

Both men turn to him. Cloud pushes a strand of damp hair out of his eye, his face flushed in the early afternoon heat. “Help with what?”

“With unpacking and organizing the supplies.”

Cloud waves him away. “It’s fine. You sit, I’ll take care of it. ”

“But I can help.”

Vincent cuts off whatever Cloud has opened his mouth to say. “Here, help me put away the canned goods. We should stack them in such a way that’s easy to identify at a glance, like so. Do you know how to use a can opener?”

Sephiroth nods, even though he technically does not. He can easily open these tin cans with his bare hands. 

“That’s good. Canned goods don’t usually provide the most nutrition, but they’re easy to store and can come in handy in a pinch.”

A heavy fuel canister in his arms, Cloud shuffles off looking properly chastised, but Sephiroth suspects he’ll go right back to the coddling the moment they leave Vincent’s sight. Sephiroth cannot say if he finds it more endearing or frustrating. It’s a novel concept, somebody attempting to take burdens away instead of laying more on. How far would it go, if he simply allows it? Does Cloud really see him as a helpless child, or something damaged and twisted that must be handled with care?

The house is too warm when they sweep the floors and rearrange the rusted fans, with Cloud constantly looking over at the broomstick then mop in Sephrioth’s hands with mild anguish. Cloud has promised to get the generator back online soon, but Sephiroth is not entirely optimistic about Cloud’s proposed timeline. The shed that houses the generator is in a truly pitiful state—it would not have been identifiable as a manmade structure, had there not been pieces of rusted metal sticking out of the dirt and foliage.

“I have some basic knowledge in electrical engineering,” Sephiroth tells Cloud later that day. “I could test the fuse box.”

Cloud squints at him dubiously, and Sephiroth tries not to sigh or stomp his feet, like he’s seen normal children do. “All theoretical, of course, but the electrical network of such a small structure shouldn’t be that complicated.”

“Fine, fine,” Cloud acquiesces, perhaps detecting something in his tone. “Try not to get electrocuted, yeah?”

“The generator isn’t even online,” Sephiroth points out.

“This thing can still fry you,” Cloud passes him the multimeter, then his hand pauses around it. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

Sephiroth wrests it out of his grip, deciding to not remind him that he can easily endure ten times the voltage. That kind of talk seems to upset Cloud, even if he tries not to show it. 

A small portable generator is set up in the meantime to take care of essential functions, such as washing the shelter in pale fluorescent light when night falls. With Vincent around, Sephiroth is sent back to sleep in his private bedroom, a decision Sephiroth makes no attempt to fight. It feels… nonideal, to have Vincent witness his desperate need for closeness. Sephiroth does not want to appear weak, or childish, but with Cloud…

It’s different with Cloud. Sephiroth can’t quite explain it; he just knows that he’d feel utterly humiliated to ask Vincent to hold him, yet utterly shameless when it’s Cloud. The night is too hot and too cold without Cloud’s strange heartbeat thumping next to his, and he tosses and turns in damp sheets, listening to the quiet murmurs of a conversation he can’t make out in the next room, alone and excluded. 

When Vincent eventually takes his leave in two day’s time, Sephiroth promptly returns to Cloud’s couch, where Cloud moves aside to make room for him wordlessly, perplexed yet resigned.

“What’s so great about this ratty little couch?” Cloud pulls a blanket over Sephiroth. “You slept fine on your own back at the other house, didn’t you? What’s really bothering you?”

“Nothing,” Sephiroth says, then thinks better of it. “This place… It reminds me of the labs.”

It’s not quite a lie—the fluorescent lights, the white tiles and metal sheets in the entry hall, it all evokes a bitter feeling in him, just not enough to require constant physical consolation. 

Cloud tightens his arms around Sephiroth and runs a calloused hand through his hair. “It won’t look like this for much longer, promise. Soon you won’t even be able to tell this place used to be a research station—” Cloud’s hand pauses. “Do you get nightmares at all?”

Sephiroth considers this. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Oh, okay, good,” Cloud breathes out. “You know when I first got out of the labs… Ugh, never mind.”

“What happened when you first got out of the labs?”

“Oh you know. Nothing in particular.”

“Then why did you bring it up?”

“Dunno. Just trying to relate.”

“Relate to what?”

“To whatever it is you’re going through.”

“Were you also on the run?”

Cloud snorts, a wet, unhappy sound. “You could say that.”

“Are you still on the run?”

“Why do you think we’re hiding in a jungle?”

“I meant if you were always on the run, this whole time. Did they ever stop looking for you?”

Cloud sighs. “I don’t know, but that’s not important right now. They’re certainly looking for you, and me by extension.”

Sephiroth bites his lips. Did stealing him put Cloud back on Shinra’s radar? How had he managed to disappear all these years? What was it about Sephiroth that made it worthwhile to suddenly reveal himself?

Cloud’s eyes are closed, his face turned slightly to the side, clearly no longer interested in continuing this conversation. Questions swirl in Sephiroth’s mind, and he frowns in the dark. How could Cloud not know if he was being hunted or not? Why did he really risk it all to come back to Midgar? Something doesn’t add up, but every time the subject comes up, the more Sephiroth pushes, the more Cloud shuts him away. 

Vincent is no help, either. They both know something they’re not telling Sephiroth, and it’s disheartening, and a little maddening.

Chapter Text

Cloud toughs it out for about five weeks before finally coming to terms with the fact that he has to head into town at some point. The tedium and inherent messiness of living off the land aside, there are things they just can’t find in the middle of a jungle. Real soap, for one. Socks that don’t have holes in them. Their stock of salt and spices is also running low, though Sephiroth’s tolerance of bland food is downright superhuman.

Across a cluttered kitchen island, Sephiroth’s little face regards him with disapproval: “Excessive salt intake—”

“—causes water retention and negatively impacts performance,” Cloud recites around a mouthful of salt-laden chips, which he washes down with a can of sugary soda.

Sephiroth lets out a world-weary sigh, fixing Cloud with a glare that has no right to be this endearing. “Are we finally leaving today, or has something else come up?”

Cloud hums noncommittally, pleased to see that the boy’s pale cheeks, still baby soft and covered in fine peach fuzz, have begun to fill out. The jungle sun hasn’t done much for Sephiroth’s complexion, but something about his colouring seems to have brightened, and his eyes are vibrant and alert. The gloom that shadowed him when they first moved in has passed, and in its place is a muted restlessness.

The kid must be bored out of his mind. A new TV is probably in order, as strange as the idea of Sephiroth watching daytime soaps is. More books, maybe a portable e-reader, in case they have to abandon ship again in a hurry. Something for target practice, perhaps. But what can possibly serve as a functional target for Sephiroth, other than Cloud himself? 

“Cloud,” Sephiroth grouses, silver brows drawing into a tiny frown.“It’s almost noon. We should move out soon, if we want to make it to town before nightfall.”

The logistics of keeping up with Sephiroth’s combat training is only one half of the problem. Some part of Cloud—the part that still feels the phantom pain of a blade between his ribs, still dreams about a silent shadow descending upon a crumbling temple—wants to never see Sephiroth with a sword in his hand again, but the more rational part knows that the boy must grow strong to survive.

Unless something happens, and the threat is removed.

“Cloud?”

Cloud pushes away from the counter, grimacing when his stiff back gives an audible crack. “I don’t know. It might not be safe to show our faces yet. I wouldn’t call Gongaga Shinra-friendly, but there’s still a risk of being recognized.”

“We have been over this,” Sephiroth crosses his arms and leans back against a wall. Cloud blinks at an inexplicable wrongness of the image, until he realizes the boy’s mannerism is a carbon copy of his own. 

“We will be in disguise,” Sephiroth continues, “and besides, there are no public bounties on our heads. Vincent has already confirmed this.”

“Maybe we can get Vincent to go instea—”

“ Cloud .” A pair of green eyes are suddenly very close to him. Sephiroth’s gaze bores into Cloud, as if he’s trying to study the inside of his skull. “Why do you keep stalling? Is something wrong?”

Cloud forces a smile and ruffles Sephiroth’s soft hair, expecting the boy to bat his hand away. But Sephiroth leans into his touch, his eyes unblinking except for a slight tremor of his eyelashes. In the morning light, his slitted pupils are razor-thin and way too close. The sight should unnerve Cloud, yet he only feels silky-smooth warmth spread in his chest, as well as an overpowering urge to cup the too-young face of his mother’s killer and press a kiss between his brows, like he’d done with Marlene before she grew old enough to scrunch her nose and shove him away, laughing and mock-gagging. 

Sephiroth is right. He needs to get out of the house and get a handle on himself. 

“We’ll go tomorrow,” Cloud tells the boy. “Bright and early, so we have more time to explore.”

“Hm,” Sephiroth peers at him dubiously. “So yet another cause of delay can crop up, conveniently.”

Cloud gently boops the tip of Sephiroth’s nose, because he’s not known for his self-control, and chuckles when the boy goes a little cross-eyed as he follows the motion of his hand. “Don’t worry. We’re really going this time, promise.”

Sephiroth blinks and tilts his head. He reaches out and very lightly, places an answering finger on the tip of Cloud’s nose.

Cloud stares.

Before his mind can fully make sense of it, he’s choking out a sudden, bewildered laugh. Sephiroth jerks his hand away, taken aback.

“No, no, it’s okay,” Cloud tries in vain to stifle his laughter. “I was just startled. What did you do that for?”

Sephiroth is glaring at him again. “What did you do that for?”

“Dunno,” Cloud manages once he’s contained his laughter, but it only takes another look at Sephiroth’s face for the dam to burst open again. “Sorry, sorry, don’t mind me. I’m just—” Cloud inhales “—being a doof.”

Sephiroth, with his small shoulders squared, regards him imperiously and raises a single eyebrow. The sight sends another fit of laughter tearing through Cloud.

“I am going to go pack the bags,” Sephiroth informs him, sounding a bit miffed but mostly exasperated. “How much provision should we bring?”

“Not much,” Cloud finally calms down enough to say, though there are still latent giggles bubbling between his ribs. “Just a change of clothes. We’ll buy the rest.”

*

With heroic effort, Cloud manages to not chicken out when it comes time to actually head into town. His spine still aches faintly from lying on a misshapen couch all night. The weight of an overly clingy thirteen year old determined to use him as a pillow didn’t help—too bad Cloud isn’t enough of a heartless bastard to refuse those big pleading eyes.

The jungle is oppressively warm. Cloud does not let the desire to double back and take a long bath in the stream deter him from his path. You probably won’t even run into him , Cloud chides himself. Little kids all look the same, anyway. Get a hold of yourself. It’s just a shopping trip.

Not far ahead of him, Sephiroth’s fiddling with a compass in his hands, his back straight and his steps sure. His hair, already much longer, sways gently in the breeze, somehow unaffected by the humidity, 

Of course it’s resistant to the elements. To flames, for instance. 

Cloud shivers in the jungle heat. They —the two of them, the Firsts—were friends at one point, weren’t they? If there’s anyone who can understand what Cloud is trying to do, it would be—

“Finish him off ”, Zack gasps, his eyes wide and grey. “You’re the only one who can.”

“Cloud,” Sephiroth’s boyish voice calls out to him. “Is something wrong? You’re falling behind again.”

Cloud blinks. “Coming!”

His heart is beating too fast when he catches up with Sephiroth, who turns and considers him wordlessly. 

“I was just thinking,” Cloud says after an uncomfortably long stretch of silence. “Do you… want a haircut, by any chance?”

Sephiroth throws him another cautious glance. “Why do you ask?”

“Dunno, just figured… You kept your hair short before, right? Was just wondering if you preferred it that way.”

Sephiroth looks pensive. “I do not believe I have a preference. They used to shave it to the scalp regularly, but later decided to keep it shoulder length. I was not informed of the reasoning behind this change.”

“Oh,” Cloud swallows, suddenly regretting bringing up the subject at all. “So… That’s a no, then. On wanting a haircut.”

“I do wonder…” Sephiroth lowers his eyes, then peers at Cloud beneath thick lashes. “Do you think I will be able to put curls in my hair, now that it’s longer?”

“Curls?” Cloud says, dumbly.

“Yes, curls,” Sephiroth nods. “I’ve seen it done on television. I imagine it is easier with longer hair, though length is not a requirement.”

Cloud opens his mouth. Trying to picture Sephiroth with a full head of silver curls feels a bit like trying to whisk his own brain in a mixing bowl.

“I will need some basic equipment, and a setting solution,” Sephiroth continues his musing, “but the process does not look overly arduous. Have you ever done something like that before, Cloud?”

“Uh,” Cloud wills his tongue to work. “I can’t say I have, no. But how hard can it be, right? Unless…”

Green eyes turn back to him. “Unless?”

“Well, the curling iron…” Cloud clears his throat. “Isn’t your hair like, heat resistant, or something? Would it even work?”

“Hm,” Sephiroth frowns. “I have not considered that. Perhaps it would not be possible, then.”

Cloud nudges him with an elbow, feeling unreasonably distressed by the slight slump in Sephiroth’s shoulders. “Hey, we won’t know if we don’t try. We’ll add the curling iron to our shopping list. Who knows, maybe we can manage a slight wave.”

Sephiroth’s eyes dart to the tip of Cloud’s wild spikes—a brief, mischievous flick of green. “Hm. Perhaps we can test it on you first.”

“Gods no. The last thing my hair needs is more volume.”

“Oh? But where else can we find a willing test subject? Think of all the scientific discoveries we can make, Cloud. Our work will put Shinra’s to shame.”

Cloud can’t help but bark out a laugh, morbidly impressed that Sephiroth can even joke about this. “So what, I get to be your faithful lab rat?”

“Lab chocobo, perhaps.”

“Ha-ha, very original,” Cloud leans over and gently fluffs the boy’s hair. “What would that make you then? A lab cat?”

Sephiroth offers no response. There’s only a pleased narrowing of his eyes, and his face is ever so slightly flushed in the soft morning sun. Cloud has never cared much for cats before, but he’s maybe beginning to see the appeal.

*

Gongaga is much livelier than Cloud remembers. The sheer amount of human activity is a shock to the system after a month of crawling through a jungle, and the ball of anxiety in Cloud’s chest jitters with renewed urgency.

He stares at the rows of indistinguishable houses lining the cobblestone streets. Which one belonged to the Fairs again? Was it even in this part of town? To think, that he once dared walk these streets with the Buster Sword proudly strapped to his back, while Aerith—

There’s a gentle tug on his shirt. “Cloud?” 

Cloud lets out a shaky breath. Not-Reunion tremors through him from where the boy has placed a hand on his wrist. 

His body has long forgotten its impulse to flinch at the contact.

Cloud rakes a rough hand through his hair and gives Sephiroth an attempt at a smile. “Sorry, just got a bit turned around. How do you like the town? Anything catch your eye?”

Sephiroth cocks his head. A bit of his hair peeks out from under his grey hood, and his eyes glow faintly behind his dark shades. As far as disguises go, it isn’t a very good one. Cloud wonders if those silver strands are also resistant to dyes. 

“Perhaps we should find a place to rest and recover, if you are unwell,” Sephiroth’s carefully scanning Cloud’s face. “Then we can stop by the general store, like we had planned, then visit the—”

A flock of shrieking children barrel past them, and Cloud all but jumps out of his skin. 

Sephiroth steps in closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Cloud, are you certain you are operational? You have been acting… disoriented. Is something the matter?”

“I’m good,” Cloud shakes off his unease. “Fully operationally. Just—a bit jumpy, y’know? With all these people around. Gotta stay vigilant.”

Sephiroth does not seem to buy it, but he also does not argue. “I see. Shall we head to the inn?”

“Nah, I’m good, really. Let’s stick to the plan and hit the shops.”

Sephiroth eyes him carefully. “If you insist. Let’s mosey, then.”

A breath that sounds halfway like a laugh escapes Cloud. Sephiroth turns to face him fully, his little face so perfectly serious and businesslike: “What is it?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Cloud stifles another chortle. “Let’s mosey, eh?”

Sephiroth crosses his arms and regards him with an unimpressed look, but makes no further comment.

The general store, once they make it there after some bumbling about, is thankfully empty except for a cashier with her nose buried in a magazine. They locate hair curlers, hair brushes, and some sort of plastic-y hair ribbon that ends up in their shopping cart when Cloud catches Sephiroth’s eyes lingering on it for a moment too long. Amazing At-Home Hair Makeovers , reads the glossy surface of the nearby magazine rack. 6 Tips for Silky-Smooth Locks!   Dimly, Cloud’s fractured memories supply a similarly garish headline involving General Sephiroth’s 3-Step Hair Care Routine, which must have been a whole load of hogwash, because what kind of SOLDIER general would have time for that?

But just to be safe, Cloud raids the hair products aisle and grabs dainty-looking bottles he can’t even begin to comprehend the point of. Sephiroth is quiet behind him, too busy looking around and taking in the sights of tacky promotional posters and overflowing shelves, and Cloud feels a sudden pang of—wistfulness, perhaps. The faint throbbing of an ache in his ribs. Would the boy ever get to properly see the world, instead of catching tiny glimpses of it behind scratched-up shades?

Something has to be done about it, sooner rather than later. This—whatever is it they’re doing, hiding in the jungle like outlaws—is no life for a child. For anyone.

The sun is still out when they step back onto the cobblestone path, and Cloud decides to let Sephiroth take the lead. The boy stops to carefully examine every window display they happen across, like he’s systematically cataloguing each individual offering. 

It’s oddly endearing, and Cloud finds himself smiling at the sight. “You want anything at all? That’s a whole lot of window shopping.”

“It’s more advantageous to take stock of all available options before making a decision, is it not?” Sephiroth adjusts his shades. “In any case, what is our current budget? I was under the impression that we’re only here to acquire necessities.”

“Never mind the budget. Go ahead and pick out whatever you like.”

There’s a tiny furrowing of the boy’s silver brows. “That does not seem optimal, given our financial situation.”

Cloud huffs. “The financial situation is fine. It’s not something you should be worrying about, anyway. I’m not that useless. Anything you want, we’ll get.”

Sephiroth tilts his head. “Anything I want?”

“Well, I mean,” Cloud crosses his arms and shifts on his feet, “within reason.”

The boy studies him; the twin glows of his eyes are still behind the dark glass. “And what does that mean, exactly?”

“It means—Oof!” Cloud whirls around, his hand going automatically for his sword. “Watch where you’re going, kid!”

The young girl who has barreled into him runs off without a single backward glance. “Sorry, not sorry!”

Cloud sighs and turns back to Sephiroth, their previous conversation forgotten. The boy is staring at him with a strange look on his face.

“What?” Cloud says, self conscious.

Sephiroth cocks his head again. “Why did you let her take your wallet?”

“Why did I—she what ?” Cloud shoves a hand into his pocket. He checks the other side, then his back pockets. His heart begins a slow downward migration. “Oh for the love of—Why didn’t you say something?”

“I thought you were aware,” Sephiroth says, still infuriatingly cool and collected. “Shall we pursue her? Perhaps you have been the target of a theft. It’s curious, though, that a petty criminal would target someone so well-armed.”

“Gods dammit,” Cloud swears under his breath. “There goes keeping a low profile. You’d think, after years of dealing with Yuffie’s crap—” Cloud catches himself and sighs. “We have to track her down. Which way did she go again?”

“That way,” Sephiroth helpfully points out. “Was there anything… of special significance in that wallet?”

“Nah, it’s just gil,” Cloud starts marching towards the alleyway the girl has presumably disappeared into. “Town’s not that big, she couldn’t have gone far.”

She has indeed not gone very far at all. Two blocks down from where they have started, they find her in a small clearing behind an rundown recreational center. The girl—who can’t be much older than Sephiroth—grins at Cloud when she spots him, surrounded by an entourage of gangly boys in ratty clothing and closely-shaved hair. 

“Under five minutes,” the girl tuts, her eyes flashing and grin widening. “Not bad, mister ‘I’m such a badass with my big sword and a big gun so I don’t have to pay attention to my surroundings.’”

As if on command, the boys all laugh, though there’s a hint of nervousness in their posture as Cloud takes a step closer, his eyes hard and his brows furrowed. 

“Give it back,” Cloud says, “and I’ll forget this ever happened.”

“Give what back?“ The girl’s demeanor suddenly changes, now all wide-eyed innocence. She twirls her long dark hair and bats her eyelashes.

Cloud narrows his eyes. “This isn’t funny, and I’m not playing.”

“Aw, chill out, it’s just a prank,” the girl giggles behind her hand. “Here, catch!”

Cloud snatches the wallet out of the air, noting immediately that it’s much lighter than before. He takes another step forward. “And the rest of it.”

“Consider it tuition,” the girl drawls, giving him a big grin full of crooked teeth. “For teaching you a lesson on vigilance.”

Cloud closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. It’s just kids being dumb , he tells himself. Don’t lose your shit. Especially not in front of Sephiroth.

“A lesson implies that both parties are aware of its contents and associated costs,” Sephiroth’s cool voice rings out behind him. “I’m afraid we cannot be responsible for your ‘tuition.’”

“Ooooh, that’s so cute,” the girl eyes Sephiroth with glee. The boys behind her laugh nervously. “Your little girlfriend’s come to your rescue. I’m jealous !”

“I am not his girlfriend,” Sephiroth says with what sounds like genuine puzzlement. “I am a boy.”

Cloud resists the urge to sigh. “Stay out of it,” he mutters to Sephiroth, “I’ll handle this.”

“Ooooh,” the girl coos while her boys hoot and whistle. 

“Look,” Cloud grits out. “You can keep a fifty, but I need the rest.”

“Or what?” The girl smiles at him sweetly. “Are you gonna fuck me up with your big bad sword? Run to the mayor? Gang up on a helpless little girl?” She cackles. “Imagine what people would say! Strange men waltz into town and assault poor local girl , the nerve, the depravity!”

Cloud feels a headache forming behind his eyes. “I’m giving you one last chance to walk away from this with some extra pocket money. Don’t make me do anything I’ll regret.”

“Oooh, are we doing threats?” the girl laughs shrilly. “ Weirdos stalk young girl and shake her down in broad daylight ! Predator threatens innocent girl and tries to —”

“—Knock it off, Abby!” a new voice—a boy’s, much younger and wobbling a bit—cuts her off from a distance. “Stop bullying random people, it’s so mean and stupid!”

Soft footsteps bound towards them on short legs, and a young boy, implausibly tiny and with wild, jet-black hair, glares up at ‘Abby’ with his hands on his hips, his blue eyes gleaming.

Cloud stills. Something in his chest convulses violently. No. This can’t be—

“Fuck off, Fair,” ‘Abby’ snaps. “Be a good little nerd and run back to the arcade. The adults are talking.”

The boy presses his lips into a thin line. His round cheeks, flushed in the sun and bearing a streak of dirt, puff out ever so slightly. “No! You can’t keep doing this! Hand back their stuff!”

“Last warning, you nosy little brat,” Abby shoves one of her boys out of the way and stalks towards the small child, her thin face pulled into a snarl. “Get the fuck out of here, before something real bad happens to ya.”

The small boy stands up taller and puffs out his chest. “Nope!”

With a growl, Abby grabs the boy by the scruff of his shirt and begins to haul him off, nearly lifting him off the ground. “You have to stop playing your stupid games!” The boy yells as he struggles in her hold, without the slightest hint of fear in his voice. “I’m gonna go to Mr. Hutchins, I will! And Mr. Carr! And Mrs. Burch—”

“Let go of him,” Cloud says, without inflection.

The yard falls silent. There’s cold steel in Cloud’s hand, the hilt of his sword. Sephiroth’s presence is somewhere behind him, silent and watchful.

Something on Cloud’s face must have changed, because Abby’s entourage flinches, and Abby drops the young boy with a sneer. The boy stumbles a little before quickly finding his balance, looking up at Cloud with open awe.

“And the gil,” Cloud says.

The girl snorts and pulls a wad of cash out of her pocket, flinging it at Cloud with a mocking laugh. “Go choke on it, fancy-boy. Let’s head out,” she says to her wide-eyed friends. “Shit’s getting boring here, anyway. I need a fucking cig.”

The kids shuffle off, and Cloud lets out a shaky breath. The indignity of having to crawl around picking up bills scattered on the ground is dulled by the sensation of wide blue eyes fixed on him. Sighing, Cloud forces himself to finally face the small boy. 

“You okay?” Cloud says, his voice distressingly loud in the quiet clearing. 

Clearly interpreting that as an invitation, the boy bounds up to him and smiles wide. “Yep! Sorry about Abby! She’s not really a bad person, I swear!”

“Yeah?” Cloud can’t help but crack a smile. “She didn’t hurt you?”

“Nahhh, Abby never hurts me, we’re friends!” the boy’s wide grin falters slightly. “Well, I think we still are. Anyway! Did you get all your money back?”

“More or less,” Cloud grabs the last of the scattered bills and gets back on his feet. “Thanks for the help, kid.”

“No problem!” The boy straightens and gives a wonky salute. “Zack Fair at your service, Gongaga’s protector, errand boy, and fated hero!”

Cloud gives an answering salute, only faintly aware of how badly his hands are shaking. 

The boy—Zack, Zack —grins at him brightly, and Cloud notices that one of his front teeth is missing. Something frightful throbs against Cloud’s heart, and he swallows thickly, quickly turning away.

“Sooo, where are you guys from?” Zack’s chirps. “We don’t get that many visitors in town, and Abby keeps driving them off, ugh! She only goes after the really nice ones, because she thinks she can get away with it.”

“We’re from… up north,” Cloud says.

“Woah!” Zack circles in front of him, looking up at him with wonder. “Where there’s snow?” 

“Yes, where there’s snow,” Cloud smiles. We met in the snow. I think you would’ve liked it, if it weren’t for everything else that happened that day.

Zack is all but bouncing with excitement. “Are you guys adventurers? Warriors of fortune? Do you travel a lot?”

“Just monster hunters,” Cloud says, “and yeah, we’ve done some traveling.”

“So cool! I’ve never seen a sword so big! And so pretty! I wish I could travel, too! And have a gi- normous sword! Oh, oh! You should train me! All the coolest video game heroes main swords!”

There’s a terrible twisting sensation in Cloud’s gut. He continues to smile. “Aren’t you a little young to be playing around with swords? Maybe I can make you a wooden one.”

“Aww, everybody’s got a wooden sword already. It’s not the same. Come on , you gotta teach me the real thing! How long are you staying? I know the inn owner, I can get you a discount! I’ll pay you for lessons!”

Cloud huffs out a quiet laugh. “Yeah? With your errand boy income?”

Zack nods enthusiastically. “Yeah! And I can show you around town, I can get you the best prices on everything!”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Cloud says. “You gonna be okay heading home like this? I should be on my way.”

“Aw, already?” Zack whines, his tiny shoulders slumping, an utterly crestfallen look scrunching up his features. “But you didn’t even get to show me your awesome monster hunter moves! Or let me look at your cool sword!”

Cloud sighs. “Kay, hold on.” He unclasps his sword, holding back a snort at how the boy’s face immediately brightens. He’s only carrying the inner parts of the Fusion Sword, so he separates one of the smallest blades, smiling when Zack lets out a delighted gasp.

“Here,” Cloud offers him the hilt of the small blade. “Be very careful, it’s sharp enough to sever a dragon’s wing.”

“Woah, for real?” Zack whispers, eyes wide.

“Cloud,” Sephiroth’s voice, cool and toneless, interrupts them. Cloud blinks up at him from where he’s half-kneeling on the ground.

Sephiroth stands a few feet away, his face impassive. “We should go. It’s getting late.”

“Just one moment,” Cloud says, bending low again to make sure Zack doesn’t accidentally cut himself. The boy’s hands are impossibly small around the hilt of the sword, his fingertips leaving grimy little prints on the metal. Something painfully hot trembles in Cloud’s throat. He blinks away the sting in his eyes and gently wraps a hand around Zack’s smaller ones, guiding him into a battle pose.

“It’s so heavy,” Zack’s awed whisper is soft next to Cloud’s bare forearm. “This is the coolest thing ever.”

“ Cloud, ” Sephiroth says again. 

“Cloud?” Zack grins up at Sephiroth, then back at Cloud. “Is that your name? Cloud the awesome monster hunter!”

Cloud snorts. “That’s right.”

Zack peers curiously at Sephiroth while Cloud carefully removes the blade from his hands. “And what’s your name? Are you hunting partners?”

“My name does not concern you,” Sephiroth tells him tonelessly.

“Woah, okay!” Zack laughs, unphased.

“Don’t mind him,” Cloud tells Zack, “he gets cranky when he’s hungry. Speaking of, we really gotta be on our way. You should head home, too. It’s almost dark.”

“Ugh, fine,” Zack groans, then stares up at Cloud with big pleading eyes. “I’m gonna see you around, right? For more sword lessons?”

“Maybe,” Cloud smiles. “Now run back home, ‘kay? Don’t make your parents worry.”

“‘Kay, ‘kay, I know! Bye Cloud the awesome monster hunter! Bye Grumpy-Pants the mystery guy!”

Cloud watches the boy run off toward the street, his smile slowly fading from his face, his mind too scattered to form a coherent thought. What would he have to do, to keep this defenseless version of Zack safe? Who is he, to look into the boy’s smiling face, and pretend to be some kind of protector?

The shadow of the Gongaga reactor towers in the distance, and faint clouds of mako dust drift formlessly into the blood-red sunset. Beside him, Sephiroth steps in closer. Not-Reunion flares briefly from where their hands brush.

“We should go,” Sephiroth says, his voice unusually devoid of emotion.

Cloud breathes out and steals a glance at him. The boy’s posture is stiff, and his eyes are fixed on Cloud. 

“You okay?” Cloud nudges him lightly.

“I should ask you the same,” Sephiroth says.

“Hm? I’m fine. Why are you looking at me like that? Is it because I said too much to Zack? Don’t worry, he’s just a little kid. Nobody will take him seriously, even if he tattles.”

Sephiroth looks away. “We shouldn’t speak of this here. Let’s move.”

“Right,” Cloud says, still feeling off-kilter and numb. “Let’s grab something to eat. We’ll feel better after a hot meal.”

A hot meal, as it turns out, does not assuage whatever tension that’s brewing in Sephiroth. Cloud’s careful probing yields nothing, so he backs off, too distracted by his own jittery thoughts.

They rent a room at the inn without trouble, and their fake IDs remain unused at the bottom of their packs. Cloud lets out a sigh of relief as he shuts the door behind him and drops his bags on the floor, flexing his stiff shoulders as he rests his sword and rifle against the wall. 

“You want to use the shower first?” Cloud asks Sephiroth, who’s taking off his grey cloak with his back turned to Cloud. 

Sephiroth shrugs. The gesture bears such uncanny resemblance to Cloud’s own that Cloud simply stares. He clears his throat. “Come on, what’s eating you? We’re alone now, if you wanna talk.”

Sephiroth remains silent. Cloud sighs inwardly and turns away. He’s way out of his depths, anyway. With this whole… talking business. Communicating with people in a productive, non-violent way. 

He goes to grab one of the threadbare bathrobes hanging in the wardrobe, and he’s pulling off his boots when Sephiroth suddenly speaks: 

“You do not talk to me.”

“Huh?” Cloud straightens and turns to the boy.

Sephiroth whirls around, his eyes, no longer hidden behind those ridiculous shades, flash sharp and green in the dim light of the room.

“You do not talk to me,” Sephiroth’s face is closed-off and hidden in shadows. “You do not tell me anything. You speak in half-truths, and you evade when questioned.”

Cloud opens his mouth, but his tongue has grown thick and leaden.

Sephiroth stalks towards him, and his steps, woven in silence and lethal grace, are all Sephiroth . Cloud lets out a soft breath. The expected horror at the sight does not come. Cloud takes a tentative step towards the boy, wishing uselessly to calm his distress.

“You say you worry about getting recognized, yet go out of your way to interact with the townspeople,” Sephiroth inches ever closer, his eyes unblinking. “You indulge the whims of a nameless child, yet claim to care nothing for the town. Why, Cloud? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Sephiroth, I—” Cloud tries again. “I’m—” Cloud shakes his head, as if to clear it. He raises his hands slowly, so Sephiroth can easily track his movements, and gently places them on the boy’s shoulders. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have behaved like that. I just—”

Cloud sucks in a ragged breath, and carefully, with the gentlest tug, pulls the boy into his arms. Sephiroth goes without resistance, his body stiff and heavy, and Cloud presses his cheek into the boy’s soft hair, feeling the body in his arms slowly thaw. 

How long will he have, until Sephiroth’s too big to do this? 

“Your attempt to distract me with a hug is ineffective,” Sephiroth mumbles into his shoulder.

Cloud chokes out a wet-sounding laugh. “No, that’s not what I’m trying to do. It’s just… hard, for me to talk about some stuff, y’know? The whole thing with Zack—” Sephiroth twitches in his arms. “Gods, where do I even begin. He’s… related to someone I knew, once. Someone who was important to me. I figured I might run into him here—Zack, that is—and that’s why I was acting so strange. I just—I dunno. I wasn’t sure how I’d react to actually seeing him.”

Sephiroth is silent for a moment, and his thin arms come up to encircle Cloud. “Why did you feel the need to keep this from me?”

Cloud sighs. “I didn’t think I’d be able to talk about this, with anyone. I don’t think… I don’t think I ever have. I’ve always felt like it was my fault that he’s gone. If it weren’t for me…” Cloud swallows, trailing off. “And now I’m putting Zack and his family in danger all over again, just by being here.”

“Why would they be in danger? Shinra is only after us,” Sephiroth’s voice is muffled by Cloud’s shirt. “They would be in more danger, if you choose to associate with them.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I got carried away in the moment. Hard to refuse such a sweet kid, y’know?”

“No,” Sephiroth grumbles. “I know nothing of the sort.”

Cloud stills and looks down at the top of the silver head in his arms, a ludicrous thought suddenly hitting him. “You’re not—You’re not jealous , are you?”

The silver head burrows further into his shirt. “No.”

“You actually are, aren’t you?” Cloud gapes at him, too bewildered to consider the words coming out of his mouth. “Sephiroth, really? Of a little kid? Are you fucking serious?”

“I’m not jealous,” Sephiroth says, his arms digging into Cloud with bone-crushing force. 

“Ow, okay, okay,” Cloud ruffles his hair. “Not jealous at all.”

Sephiroth lets go of him and lifts his head to glare at Cloud morosely. “I am not.”

Cloud nods. “Yep, not at all jealous that I showed Zack my awesome monster hunting moves.” 

Sephiroth huffs and buries his face in Cloud’s shirt again. “Stop it.”

Cloud chuckles and squeezes him gently, softening his voice. “Y’know, I do wish I could show you some of my moves, so to speak, but I feel like there’s nothing I can really teach you when it comes to combat. Our approaches are too different, and you’re so advanced already.”

“Hm,” Sephiroth murmurs. “I suppose that’s true. I can still practice against you, though.”

“‘Course,” Cloud shoves away the frantic internal voice telling him why Sephiroth getting too good against him might be a bad idea. “You’ll be the awesomest monster hunter the world has ever seen.”

Sephiroth sighs. Cloud gives him a small pat on the back and releases him from his arms, checking one last time that the boy is really fine. “You wanna go take that shower now? The other guests will use up all the hot water, if we don’t beat them to it.”

“There are no other guests,” Sephiroth mutters, but heads off to the bathroom. 

The water is only lukewarm when Cloud finally makes it to the shower, and he stands there under its feeble spray, letting his mind go blank. There are silver strands stuck in the drain. Sighing, Cloud dutifully picks them out, sealing them in a plastic bag so he can later dispose of them somewhere safer. 

He finds Sephiroth reclining on one of the twin beds when he emerges from the bathroom, his half-lidded eyes fixed on the TV. 

“Find anything interesting on the news?” Cloud asks him, still toweling his hair.

Sephiroth shrugs. The news anchor drones on inaudibly in a blur of black and white pixels. Shinra’s new advances in military tech. The war in Wutai. The Shinra army is supposedly making good progress, and Cloud wonders how much of it is actually true.

“I’d have been there, had you not taken me away,” Sephiroth mutters softly. “They’d just lowered the enlistment age to fourteen.”

Cloud suppresses a grimace. He’d been the last of the wartime recruits. Less than a year after Cloud joined up, they’d raised the minimum age back to sixteen again, and he’d felt so lucky at the time.

“We won’t learn anything useful from cable news,” Cloud reaches for the remote. “C’mere. Didn’t you want to do something with your hair?”

Languid and cat-like, Sephiroth sits up from the bed. “Now?”

“Why not,” Cloud says. “We got time to kill.”

The curling iron takes a bit of wrangling to get to work, with Cloud reading and rereading the manual as he eyes the instrument with suspicion. Why would anyone go through such efforts just to mess with their hair? Sephiroth seems chipper enough, until he decides to reach out and put his hand directly on the red-hot metal.

“Oi, what the hell?” Cloud snatches his hand away in alarm. 

“I was merely testing the temperature,” Sephiroth informs him placidly. “I believe it has warmed sufficiently.”

Cloud frowns and examines the pale hand cradled in his rougher ones. The boy’s fingertip is slightly pink, but otherwise shows no sign of injury. There must be some kind of J-Cell quirk that never got passed on to Cloud—none of Cloud’s battle-worn calluses can be found on Sephiroth’s smooth palm. Were Sephiroth’s palms also this soft, when he wielded death swathed in black leather?

Cloud drops Sephiroth’s hand and grumbles: “What’s wrong with you? Getting burnt still hurts.”

“It did not; I barely felt it,” Sephiroth assures him. “Now, it says to spray on the setting solution and work in small sections.”

“Huh. Let’s get to it then.” Cloud rises to his knees and mists Sephiroth’s hair, then picks up the curling iron gingerly. Sephiroth’s silver locks are silky and pliant between Cloud’s fingers. Cloud bites his lips, feeling anxious about waving a burning metal rod so close to somebody’s face. 

“Um,” Cloud watches steam rise from where the silvery strands are wrapped around the wand. “I feel like I’m not doing this right. Hold still.” He adjusts his grip and works the wand closer to Sephiroth’s scalp. The boy lets out a tiny hum, his eyelids lowering with uncharacteristic contentment.

“At least you’re having fun,” Cloud mutters, “because I’m not sure this thing’s working. Is the heat all the way up?”

“I believe so.”

“Lemme try again,” Cloud grunts and shifts into a more comfortable position behind Sephiroth. He ends up with a hair clip between his teeth, since both his hands are occupied by the frankly insane task of curling Sephiroth’s hair, and he tries his best to create at least some suggestion of a wave.

The room is quiet but for the soft rustle of sliding hair. Sephiroth has closed his eyes, his face lax in the warm glow of incandescent lights. Cloud taps him on the shoulder. “You still awake?”

“Mm,” Sephiroth says.

“You sure?”

“I am,” Sephiroth’s eyes open reluctantly.

Cloud tucks a wayward tuft of silver hair behind his ear. “Go take a look. I did my best, but, well. I don’t think this curler was made for SOLDIER hair.”

Sephiroth does not look all that disappointed. “It’s still an interesting experiment. Perhaps I can try something else, some other time.”

“Hm, hold on.” Cloud leans forward and gathers the longest part of Sephiroth’s hair in his hand, deftly tying it together with the blue ribbon they bought earlier. “There is a tiny bit of curling at the ends. Not sure how long it’ll stick around, but it looks pretty nice. ”

Sephiroth gazes at him sleepily. “I’ll take your word for it.”

Cloud chuckles, thanking the gods that Sephiroth has forgotten about his threat to also do Cloud’s hair. “You ready to turn in? The light switch is next to your headboard. I’m gonna head down and ask for some extra pillows.”

An arm wraps around Cloud and tugs. They both tumble into the small bed, and Cloud lands beneath Sephiroth with a small oof . 

“We have enough pillows,” Sephiroth mutters into his hair.

Cloud gives him a half-hearted shove. “This again? We’ve got two beds now.”

Sephiroth’s eyes have already fallen shut. “We can push them together.”

Cloud sighs, feeling too relaxed and comfortable to properly protest. “How did you get so clingy? What happened to my stoic little soldier?”

There’s a soft hum that Cloud feels rather than hears, a gentle rumbling against his chest. Sephiroth’s breaths even, and within a few seconds he is fast asleep.

“Sephiroth?” Cloud whispers.

Sephiroth does not respond. 

Cloud stares up at the faded ceiling and lets his limbs go slack. The boy has become overly attached, he knows, but what does he expect, when he’s the only one who can offer him real comfort? When after a life of mistreatment and misery, his was the first friendly face he’s seen?

But all this will change, Cloud vows to himself. He doesn’t know how, yet, but he will find a way to give Sephiroth his freedom. The boy will have a real life, a real family. Shinra’s network may be vast, but it can’t pursue someone who’s already dead. With the stroke of a pen, the whole slate can be wiped clean.

The solution is so simple, yet so far out of his reach. What would it cost? Does it even matter anymore? 

He closes his eyes. Sephiroth’s heartbeat pulses against his own, strong and steady and unbearably human, and Cloud drifts off to uneasy sleep.