if my armor breaks

by robotmenace

Summary:

It's just a trick of the light.

It's what he tells himself, anyway.

Notes:

This is pretty clumsy. I haven't written anything in five years, but I needed to do something to endure the wait for the Remake, & this is what came out. Hope you enjoy it though!

Oh & it's not tagged, but there is a lot about past Zack/Cloud.

There's a slow breeze making its way down the street, enough to flutter Cloud's hair, cool some of the sweat on his forehead. He's holding up a wooden beam, keeping it steady while the children take turns hammering nails into it, patient while they drop things, fumble the hammer.

Tifa watches, pays more attention to Cloud than what she's supposed to be doing, and he notices, gives her a wide-eyed Send Help sort of look, and gets her laughing.

They're building a schoolhouse, a new street taking shape with a playground, a park, an educational center where they'll put labels on plants and teach children to recognize birdsong. So many birds now, so many flowers that none of them have ever seen. Cloud hopes it means the planet is happy, or at least, happier.

A gruff voice shouts in the background and Marlene takes off and the others take off after her, dropping more nails into the dust, but that's okay, they've got extra.

Cloud uses the moment of distraction to finish securing the beam, and he turns away from it then, shields his eyes against the sun and looks out at the ruins of Midgar.

It's a skeleton now, bones of a decaying creature, picked apart and reused the way the lifestream recycles souls. A slow but hopeful rebirth.

Sometimes Cloud misses the neon prism of the Midgar streets, but not enough to want it back.

His memories are still entombed in fog, but he's been recovering more, and he thinks of glowing yellow bulbs in the shape of a chocobo, glistening pastries in a display, Zack's grin smeared with sugar. Cloud can't remember what the cake tasted like, but he can remember the taste of frosting on Zack's lips, sweeter than anything.

The memory aches in him like a fresh wound, like something mortal, and there's a flash of light, silver like a bullet, and it rips him out of Zack's arms and into the sear of flame.

Moonbeams, flowing like water, like the flutter of wings, and Cloud sees him, silverpale and Masamune glinting shards of sunlight like glass, and then he's gone.

Cloud takes a few steps forward, still squinting upward at the empty space, where there is nothing but a crumbling highway being taken apart by ShinRa's reclamation team.

It's just a trick of the light. All that metal and shadow, summer sun playing devil's advocate, like a cruel joke.

Cloud makes himself breathe again, turning back to pick up the next beam, Tifa shouting for everyone to get back to work, the right amount of scold in her voice to get the kids squealing.

It's just a trick of the light.

It's what he tells himself, anyway.

+

The next day there are two walls in place and they're working on a third, setting sun casting gold light on tired faces, and it's mostly quiet save a group of teachers explaining things to the new hires. Everyone so fresh and optimistic, so excited.

Cloud smiles and wishes Zack could be there too.

He pushes those thoughts away, focuses on cutting boards to the needed length, gets into a sort of zone with the saw, then there's a voice behind him, sleek as velvet. "If you used your sword, it would go a lot faster."

Cloud laughs before he can stop it, just a light exhale, and he turns to see a troublemaker glint in Vincent's eyes. "Or you could just shoot them."

Vincent smirks, dangerous. "That would make a mess."

Cloud wants to say something else, wants to keep Vincent joking and teasing because it's so rare, a memory he will lock up tight in his heart, but the others are coming over, Tifa with some of the teachers that Cloud has started calling Vincent's Fan Club, and Vincent gets bustled away.

He refuses to acknowledge the frustration that knots in his chest, makes him feel like a child, immature and desperate for attention.

It's getting late, so Cloud distracts himself with cleaning up the tools, grateful when Barret joins him, and there are cotton candy pink ribbons tied in his hair, and Cloud barely makes a sound before Barret is saying, "Laugh and I will knock you into next week."

He laughs anyway, and he's too busy ducking Barret's halfhearted punches to notice that Vincent is watching him, that Vincent has his own rare memories to lock up tight in his heart.

+

He's aware that he's dreaming, because the sky is wrong, pure clear aquamarine sky over Midgar, summer sun fracturing on ShinRa tower in a way that can't be any sort of reality, or memory.

Cloud blinks, then it's back to normal, ruins upon ruins.

One fragment of light separates itself and becomes solid, becomes Masamune cutting through the air, and Zack's old sword is in his hand, raising in time to block.

It's a fight that feels so natural, so familiar, an old dance that they've practiced and made part of them. Cloud knows every move Sephiroth is going to make, liquid and deadly, and Cloud is a lightning bolt striking at his shadow.

Feathers brush his cheek and he smells them, ozone and blood and the salt of tears, and he reaches for them, gets a handful of soft down and pulls, drags Sephiroth back to the ground.

With a flick of his sword he slices the single wing from his back, opens himself up for Masamune to drive into his chest, fit itself right between his ribs like it belongs there and Cloud swears he feels his heart beating against the steel, wonders if Sephiroth can feel it too.

But it's a dream, and he's not afraid.

Weapons disappear, and it's a gloved hand resting there instead, palm over the closing wound. Sephiroth smiles, almost innocent, almost sweet, and pushes Cloud back against a crumbled remnant of a building. "You still haven't forgiven yourself, have you."

Cloud feels the protest in his mouth, I don't know what you're talking about, but Sephiroth is shaking his head, and his hair is made of light.

"I don't care what you tell everyone else. You can't lie to me. I'm part of you, I'll always be part of you."

And that's the worst thing, isn't it. Because he's right, those traitorous cells coiled tight inside them both, two parts of a whole, inseperable from the other, and Cloud wakes with a bitten-back scream, wakes in the safe dark of his bedroom.

Wakes with pupils narrowed into serpentine slits.

+

He skips breakfast, gets out to the building site early, finishes cutting the wood so it's all ready to go when everyone else gets there.

He thinks about leaving. Thinks maybe he just needs to get away from this cursed town, these vultures in the bones of Midgar, every sense of wrongness echoing off the narrow recycled streets. Concrete soaked in blood and ghosts and guilt and Sephiroth was right, all that death still holds itself over him like a guillotine, like a killing blade, waiting for his hand to slip.

Cloud curls a fist against his chest, against all the scars that aren't there, and he knows what the dream means, what it always means when he dreams about Sephiroth, and he doesn't know if he can do it again.

What if he can't, what if this time he can't fight, can't resist. That poisonous call to join him, brother. The relief of giving in, to let go....

But that's not an option for him, is it.

Cloud bites his lip until it hurts, thinks of Zack until it hurts worse than anything physical, and tries to forget about the dream. It doesn't really work, but he's good at pretending.

The wood-cutting task doesn't take long, and he's left with nothing to do with his hands so he sits on one of the chairs scattered around, watches the sun finish rising.

He's still itching for Fenrir when Vincent arrives, watches him gather another chair and plant it in the dust beside Cloud's. His cloak and gauntlet are missing, impractical for construction work, Cloud figures, and it leaves him looking almost normal, and Cloud wonders if that's the way he looks without his swords, just another regular guy.

Not that Vincent could ever look regular. But still.

"You're staring at me, Cloud. Something wrong?"

Cloud doesn't blush, doesn't fluster, and that's probably the best victory he's going to get today. "You look smaller, without all your..." his hand flutters in Vincent's direction, "your stuff."

"Smaller." Vincent laughs, it's quiet but it's warm, and he's close enough to nudge his elbow against Cloud's, and Cloud thinks, was he always this playful? Was I just not paying attention?

"How long are you staying this time?"

He wants to say, stay forever. He wants to say, when you leave, take me with you.

But he sees the look in Vincent's eyes, thinks of Sephiroth saying, you still haven't forgiven yourself, have you, and it isn't fair that Vincent always gets to run away, and Cloud doesn't.

He tells himself it's the reason he wants Vincent to stay, to make it even, for once.

Vincent is shrugging though, the shoulder not still so close to Cloud's, and his blood-dark eyes are distant and sad, and Cloud regrets asking. Thinking, Zack would know, Zack would know what to say to him, to make him stay.

"I'll stay as long as I can." And that really isn't an answer, but it's something, at least.

"I can take a look at your bike, while you're here. If it's still making that noise."

Vincent does that soft smile again, gives Cloud's elbow another nudge. "I'd appreciate that. Thank you. No one else has your touch with it, I don't think it likes anyone else."

Cloud laughs, and the compliment makes him brave, and he nudges Vincent back, leaves his arm resting against his. "They can be finicky. And stubborn."

"Like someone else I know."

"Hey!"

Vincent is smiling like the devil, and he looks so pretty it's like staring into the sun, like something Cloud feels he shouldn't be allowed to see, and it coils in him again, that tightening ache, like an unfulfilled wish.

Stay with me, stay.

"We should go for a ride later, I can hear it in action, make a better assessment that way. I mean, if you can keep up."

Vincent's eyebrows rise into the ribbonfall of his hair, and Cloud tries to make himself look away, tries. "Oh, now it's a challenge."

It isn't though, really. They both know Fenrir can run circles around anyone, with or without funny noises, but Vincent likes the taunt in Cloud's voice, the energy of competition that shimmers in the blue of his eyes, the way it reminds him he's alive.

They are both alive, no longer just tired ghosts, haunting an old mansion.

Which leads to another reminder. "Your birthday is next month, isn't it. I might have to stay for cake."

Normally Cloud would protest at the topic of his birthday, embarrassed by all the fuss everyone makes, even though it's just normal birthday party stuff, it's not something Cloud is used to. Cakes and presents and someone other than his mother caring about the moment he came into existence.

That's it, that's why they were there, the pastry shop with the Chocobo sign. Zack in the neon vibrance saying, happy birthday, Cloud, and kissing him there on the busy street, their first kiss and Cloud in his civvies and Zack in his shiny brand new First Class uniform.

With his eyes closed, he can smell the vanilla of the little cakes, the spark of sword and gun oils on both their hands, and something sunlit and particularly Zack.

Cloud comes back to the present with an ache in that hole in his heart, that missing piece, and Vincent is looking at him with understanding, with comfort but not pity, and Cloud wants to say, I wish you could have known him, he would have made you laugh until you thought you were dying. Wants to say, Zack would have lost his mind over you, you're so pretty.

"Sorry, found an old memory." And he can't say everything he wants to say, but at least he can be honest with Vincent, doesn't have to pretend he isn't still piecing himself back together.

"Good. Hold on to it." He smiles and it's gentle, and the touch he lays against Cloud's gloved hand is gentle too, and Cloud can feel the warmth through it, through all the layers of leather between them.

It's foolish but he thinks, I want to hold on to you, too. Thinks again, stay.

"It never gets easier, does it."

"What, recovering memories?"

Cloud shakes his head, a small motion that Vincent would have missed if he wasn't watching so carefully, always so carefully. "Being alive."

Vincent's breath catches, another secret for the two of them, and he's quiet for a moment, birdsong filling in the space. "No, it doesn't."

There's nothing really to say to that, and the sun keeps rising, and everyone joins them with morning chatter and thermoses of coffee, and the smell of new flowers drifts on the soft morning breeze.

+

The next day is a Saturday, and everyone agrees they need some time off, rest their bones and their minds, and Cloud doesn't hesitate, slants a smirk of mischief at Vincent, says "Let's go for a drive."

They head into the mountains, side by side so Cloud can listen to Vincent's engine, and he hears the way it clicks and clanks when he shifts gears high enough to make the climb, knows exactly what needs to be fixed. He brought tools along, as many as he thought he might need, and he stops them at a lookout point, where there's room to spread out, and a faded old picnic table that he can use.

The view is of the ocean, crystalline and rolling slow waves like it has all the time in the world, and Cloud wonders again how the planet is feeling now, if it will ever forgive them.

So many scars.

Vincent's sitting on the table, boots on the bench, facing Cloud and the motorcycles instead of the soaring view, and the ocean wind is fluttering through his hair, and Cloud sets his toolbox beside him, takes a moment to pick through it.

He's still overwhelmingly charmed by this side of Cloud, this mechanical brilliance he wasn't expecting. The way he builds things out of nothing, out of air and dreams and whatever plays out behind his closed eyes, how none of these things are exactly what they seem to be, what they should be.

With Cloud, a motorcycle is never just a motorcycle, a sword is never just a sword, and Vincent wonders if that's because Cloud knows what that feels like, to be nothing like he seems.

Watching, as Cloud twists a screwdriver into a part that Vincent can't even put a name to, wouldn't recognize if his life depended on it, gentle fingers coaxing it into place, adjusting, and when he starts the engine, it absolutely purrs, and Vincent isn't surprised, not one bit.

Just proud, maybe a little enthralled.

"Is that it?"

"Yeah, that's it." Cloud gives the bike a light smile, confident and satisfied.

Vincent's smile is almost a mirror of it. "Thank you."

Cloud blushes then, fidgets a shoulder up like he's trying to hide behind it, that shy part of him he can't get rid of. "Any time. And I mean that, I... I love working on these things, it's... good."

It's something he can fix, a problem he can solve, and he doesn't have to worry about anyone dying, or what it means for the state of the world. It's just engines. It's a simplicity he finds comforting.

Vincent gets it.

"I guess it evens out. I do your taxes, you fix my bike."

Cloud smirks at that, nods a few times in relieved agreement. He doesn't mind numbers, measurements and calculations, height, length, weight, but taxes make his head feel worse than motion sickness, worse than that time he fell in the lifestream. "It's fair."

Vincent hums a content sound, and Cloud picks a rag from his toolbox, wipes away all the handprints he left behind, polishes the black paint. When he's satisfied with the shine, he packs it all back into Fenrir's storage compartment, sits next to Vincent on the picnic table and closes his eyes against the sun.

For a moment, one strike of light on chrome, like a blade slicing through the air.

It isn't what he wants to think about.

"Do you have any plans for today, or, want to stay out here for a while?" He almost regrets the question, makes him feel like a child again, begging for attention from an adult who has better things to do.

But Vincent's smile is not the tolerant smile of an adult indulging a child, it's the soft companionship of a friend, the reassurance that there is nothing he'd rather be doing than this, exactly this.

It isn't often they have time alone together, and Vincent is beginning to realize it's the thing he's been wanting most, the reason he keeps coming back to Edge, when there's enough elsewhere in the world to keep him busy. Working with Reeve, restoring order, restoring power, feeling a bit like an unofficial Turk again, having made peace with Rufus and his fresh, sane way of leadership.

But it hasn't really occurred to him, what it is he actually wants.

"No plans for today." He watches Cloud relax, watches him hide away a smile that flashes bright and sudden, and Vincent thinks, maybe he's not the only one who wants this. A friendship, time spent together that isn't the obligation of war, and duty. Time spent without weapons in their hands, nothing to grasp but the open air, wherever it wants to take them.

Warmth blossoms in him sweet and unexpected, and he doesn't have any excuse this time when he rests his arm against Cloud's, bare of armor, only a smudge of engine grease on the bone of his wrist. "We could ride out to Junon, if you want. There's a new restaurant you might like. Spicy barbecue, you can smell the smoke all the way down the street."

"Oh that sounds so good." Cloud laughs silent, just a rumble against Vincent's arm, and he forgets why he was ever worried, why he's been wasting so much time being shy and restrained, when he should have just dragged Vincent out for lunch months ago, years ago.

Something in him settles, unaware that Vincent is feeling the same thing, the lowering of defenses and battle-ready tension, something like comfort taking its place. Something they haven't realized they've been waiting for.

A few minutes pass, quiet and easy, then Cloud is off the bench, fingertips trailing over the gloss of Fenrir's side, and he looks at Vincent like he's contemplating, making a decision. Finally saying, "Let's mosey," and Vincent's laugh is pure surprise, leaves Cloud feeling like victory.

+

On Monday, the structure is almost complete, and there's a table off to the side with paint cans, swatches splashed out on torn pieces of cardboard boxes, arranged in some kind of order that Cloud can't figure out. He thinks it might be, the ones people like are on the right, the ones they don't are on the left.

It makes the most sense, because there's a terrible shade of orange on the left, and he hopes his fellow citizens have better taste than that.

But there's a nice sort of eggshell blue on the right, and he moves it to the front, counts it as his vote for the day, and if he knocks the orange paper onto the ground in the process, it's purely a mistake.

Vincent is across the street with his fan club, trying to load bricks into a wheelbarrow while they flit around him like butterflies, pulling his focus from one to the other, and he looks so overwhelmed by it, all this attention.

It's hopelessly adorable, and Cloud feels himself smile, swears he hears a teasing echo of a voice saying, you sure know how to pick 'em. His eyes close and there's a fading hint of laughter, the softest breeze against his cheek, a familiar touch he'd know anywhere, and he whispers, Zack, Zack, before it's gone.

It leaves him with a hollow ache, but somehow a relief, that Zack wouldn't be angry at this, this whatever it is, that he's starting to feel about Vincent. This something that maybe he's felt all along and only now able to see it, that probably Zack has known all along because he was always better at these kinds of things than Cloud.

Cloud just blames all the Jenova crap scrambling his brain and leaves it at that.

Vincent has finally made it over with his bricks, and he passes the paint table, gives Cloud a brief little smile, one of the teachers tugging at his arm, Vinnie did you hear me, and Cloud has to look away so Vincent won't see him laughing. And he isn't even jealous anymore, now that he knows he can spend time with Vincent whenever he wants, that all he has to do is say hey, let's get out of here, and Vincent will follow.

It feels like genuine friendship, the kind Zack taught him about, warm and generous and bright, the kind that fills him up completely, no room for doubts or insecurities. The kind of friendship that could perhaps blossom into something more, if Cloud's honest. Not that it's something he's ready to try for, or even hope for, but it isn't something he's pushing away, either, and that's new.

Cloud's not used to leaving himself open for anything optimistic, or good.

He's spent so long with his emotions at a distance, adamantly insisting he deserves nothing but guilt, punishment. War scars. It's a difficult habit to break.

He looks over to where Tifa and Barret are helping some of the kids put a chalkboard together, and he thinks, it might be difficult, but he has some good role models.

Maybe it won't be so difficult after all.

+

His sleep that night is broken by the flicker of light coalescing, dreaming again, Sephiroth in the ruins of Nibelheim, smoke and shadow and ash, death and despair.

They fight like they always do, too fast for rational waking sanity, faster than thought, but Cloud keeps losing his focus, losing his grip on his sword. He feels the slice of Masamune through his skin like a burning curse, over and over, until the slick of blood slips his hand loose from the hilt, and his sword flies, crashes into the dirt.

Sephiroth pauses, just for a moment, long enough to smile like an elegant threat.

Cloud watches him, exhausted, tired, and he says, "Just get it over with," but the killing blow never comes.

He doesn't want to know what this means, that he keeps losing, that he doesn't want to fight anymore. He doesn't understand the frustration when Sephiroth drops his sword, moves forward unarmed, vulnerable, and Cloud thinks, this is not the way it's supposed to go.

"Pick it up, finish it!" His lip curls like he's angry, like he's disappointed, and Sephiroth laughs like he's made some kind of point, I told you so.

"Wouldn't it just break Zack's heart, how desperate you are for death." He smiles again and Cloud snarls, blood on his teeth, and Sephiroth takes the last step forward, crashes his mouth against Cloud's, blood against blood.

Cloud makes some kind of sound, a muted protest, it's not supposed to happen like this, he's supposed to die and wake up. But Sephiroth is kissing him, demanding and insistent, like a new kind of war, and Cloud leans into it, raises his battle flag and licks into Sephiroth's bloodslick mouth.

Sephiroth laughs silent and tangles his hands in the tatters of Cloud's shirt, rips it away. Then somehow Cloud is on his back in the rubble and dust, and Sephiroth's hands are bare, sliding through the blood drying on Cloud's stomach, and Cloud twists his fingers into the soft moonlight of Sephiroth's hair, pulls until they're kissing again.

Sephiroth fucks him right there on the ground, on the embers of his childhood home, and Cloud burns along with it, burns away until there is nothing left of him beneath Sephiroth's vicious hands.

He wakes fast, nerves still singing, the pleasure of it still lightning-sharp and trembling, gasping out in the dark room, "What the fuck was that?"

Thinking, as his body calms, returning to sleep, that wasn't one of his usual omen dreams. That had to be something else, it can't mean anything at all.

+

Three nights later, it happens again.

On the ruins of a Midgar highway, stars overhead, Masamune driven into his ribs like an old friend, and Sephiroth inside him like symbolism, like it should have been obvious they would end up this way.

And Cloud wakes with his vision flickering, those terrible alien cells rejoicing, some beautiful sensation of having finally been complete, and now he's left feeling Sephiroth's absence like a black hole, a massive, gaping emptiness.

His room is all summer heat, but he's freezing, curls into himself under his blanket, and he tries to think of Zack, Vincent, anything but Sephiroth and the way his skin burns at the memory, makes him shiver with coiled want. Tries to think of warmth, Zack smiling like sunlight, the brief slip of Vincent's hair through his fingers, laughter, and love, and friendship, and not this desperate cry for reunion that rips through him like a comet, like he's called down Meteor again.

It takes a while, but it fades.

He lays there until the sun rises, until his eyes return to blue.

+

Cloud spends the day finishing the roof, while beneath him the walls are laid with brick, everything blending into a soothing rhythm of sound, every clank and thunk and thump.

He refuses to look at anything shiny, anything that might reflect sunlight into the shape of a blade, though it still happens in the edges of his vision, sets his hands shaking against the warmed tiles. He can't deny that he's worried now, looking for signs, waiting, listening.

The world feels normal, but then he's not sure he knows what normal is, anymore.

Someone is climbing the ladder, moving across the slanted roof with a steady ease, and Cloud isn't surprised when it's Vincent who crouches beside him, expression tight with something like worry, a visible concern. "Is everything okay?"

The automatic reaction is to say of course, everything's fine, like he always does. But something in the dark of Vincent's eyes makes him pause, and he thinks of this new friendship building between them, woven light and delicate like spider webs, like angeldust, and he doesn't want to ruin it with his usual protests and lies.

There's an honesty between them now, an openness, and Cloud surrenders to it, exhales and all the tension drops from him, leaves him slumped back on the heels of his boots, hands on his knees.

"I'm okay, really. Just having some dreams, that's all. I'll get over it."

Vincent's expression relaxes, the relief of getting an actual answer instead of the expected, dreaded, dismissal of I'm fine, and he chances a bit more in that moment, lets himself reach over to Cloud's resting hands, covers them with one of his own. "I can only imagine the kinds of horrors that lie in your dreams, but if you ever want to talk about it, or anything else, I'm here."

Cloud's breath stutters, like there's something he wants to say but can't find the shape of it, and Vincent shakes his head, like he knows. "You don't have to go through it alone, this time."

This time. Of course Vincent gets it. They're alike in that way, locking everything tight inside themselves, revealing only the barest minimum, and Cloud understands how much it means, this offer that Vincent has laid out for him. It's a gift that, if rejected, would never be given again.

One hand turns beneath Vincent's, shifts enough to slide gloved palms together, and Cloud has to speak carefully, like it might carry away on the wind. "Every time I dream of him, he comes back." His other hand moves, presses against the space where the scars should be, against the memory of Sephiroth's mouth on his bloodied skin. "I can't do this again."

There's a flash of heat in Vincent's eyes, something of the monsters inside him, responding to the idea of a threat, and it shouldn't be lovely but it is, it really is. "He can't come back. You know, every bit of Jenova is contained, locked away safe."

"Except me. There's as much in me as there is in him, and my cells are stable, healthy...."

"That's exactly why he can't use you to come back. The cells you carry are not susceptible to mutation, he can't use them." Vincent looks somehow satisfied then, as if it's actual fact and not speculation, not a hastily-voiced hope, but it's catching enough, and Cloud relaxes again.

Whether it's true or not, he wants to believe it.

They sit quiet for a moment, then Cloud is reaching for his nail gun, reluctant and slow. "I should probably finish this roof before Tifa starts yelling."

Vincent snorts, and Cloud feels the amusement vibrate through his fingers, makes him smile a little in response, and Vincent pulls away just as reluctant and slow, leaves him to finish his work. "Too late. I see her at the bottom of the ladder."

The smirk he gives Cloud is bratty, and Cloud wants to say, let's give them all something to really complain about, but Vincent is already descending, saying something to Tifa about delivering a box of nails.

Cloud waits for their voices to fade, then turns back to his tiles, repeating the echo in his mind of Vincent saying, he can't come back, he can't.

+

They decided to paint the schoolhouse a light buttery yellow, and Cloud thinks of sunlight in the morning, thinks it's a great choice. He's off to the side, watching, staying out of everyone's way, but there's an itch in his vision, something that keeps distracting him, and he doesn't want to look.

He doesn't want to look, but he does, and light fractures under the old highway and there he is.

Cloud clenches his fists and his teeth and he isn't carrying anything that could be considered a weapon, but he slips off after him anyway, casual into the shadows.

He isn't very concerned about being noticed. Everyone comes and goes and anyone who sees Cloud leave will probably figure he's gone for supplies, or a bathroom break. It isn't like someone is going to say, there goes Cloud, losing his mind again.

Still he walks calm until he's out of sight, then he runs, following a flash of leather, a flash of silver, the flutter of white feathers against the dark.

There's one in the dirt, still swaying a little in the breeze, and Cloud stops to look at it, feels the flick of air like a breath before the point of a blade at his throat. "Nice trick."

The feather is gone, and Cloud's not surprised.

Masamune twirls, nudges at Cloud's shoulder, almost playful, and Cloud feels like he's losing his patience, he's not in the mood for this today. The blade point nudges again, again, and Cloud sighs, turns and gives Sephiroth his attention. "What do you want?"

"You say that like I can't just take it, whatever it may be that I want." Sephiroth curls a smile, and without any effort, twists his sword into Cloud's shoulder, pushes back until Cloud is pinned to a cracked slab of concrete.

Cloud snarls, shifts with the discomfort. "I'm not in the mood."

Sephiroth hesitates a moment, then he laughs, low and quiet. "That's not what I'm here for, you filthy boy." He shoves Masamune upward, makes Cloud gasp. "Maybe there's someone else you're in the mood for now. Do you think he can give you what you want? Do you think he'll be rough enough, make it hurt the way you need it? Let loose his demons and make you bleed?"

"Shut up, just shut up." It's an immature response, but Cloud doesn't care, because it works, and it gives him time to push at the blade, a slow drag out of his bones.

This has to be a dream, not one of his omens, not one of his new weird ones, but a regular stupid kind of dream, and any minute now Cloud will wake up....

He gets Masamune halfway out, only for Sephiroth to push it back in. "Fuck."

"Language, Cloud." Then something else stabs into his other shoulder, Cloud can't tell if it's metal or wood, it's just pain, and he thinks, wake up already.

Sephiroth is saying his name, but he refuses to open his eyes, refuses to play along. "Cloud?" No, the voice is too soft, and there's a gentle hand against the side of his face, the scent of gunpowder and paint and Cloud startles, disoriented.

He's still beneath the bridge, but there's nothing pinning him to the concrete, only Vincent hovering over him with concern, with actual care. "I wasn't dreaming that time? It doesn't make any sense."

The rush of shock washes over him like the sensation of falling, and Cloud's legs give out. Vincent catches him easy, like Cloud weighs nothing at all, and his hands clench into the front of Vincent's shirt, a grounding point.

"I don't know what's real anymore."

Vincent's fingers thread through the soft hair at the back of his neck, trying to provide some sort of comfort, and Cloud relaxes into the touch, takes a steadier breath. "You're real, I'm real. He's not."

He wants to say, how do you know? And if he's not, then what does it mean? Dreams he could explain away, but this?

Maybe he really is losing his mind.

"I'm sorry, Vincent. I don't mean to burden you with all of this." He pushes himself away, and for a moment it seems like Vincent isn't going to let him go, a hesitant tightening of the warm arms around him, then Vincent steps back, just enough to leave Cloud to stand on his own.

"It's not a burden. You're not a burden." Touching Cloud's arm to make him look at him, to catch his attention before it drifts away on another vision, or dream. "It will be okay."

And Cloud wants to believe him, because if anyone can relate to the mad scramble for sanity, it's Vincent, and Vincent wouldn't lie. He wouldn't lie.

Thinking of Vincent saying, he can't come back.

Cloud shuts his eyes a moment, and holds the words to him as a mantra, he can't come back, it will be okay.

Then Sephiroth's voice echoing, you still haven't forgiven yourself, have you, and Cloud's eyes snap open, green as venom.

He doesn't see Vincent at first, hears him distant, faded, "Cloud, don't do that. Come back. Cloud listen to me...."

And he feels the wing unfurl from some inner depth, the splinter of bones and muscles, Sephiroth purring yes, yes, but it's Vincent's hands on his face, Vincent saying his name and slowly, slowly, Cloud returns to himself.

"Fuck." Three panicked steps away from Vincent, looking behind him, reaching, feeling the undamaged fabric of his shirt, and he doesn't know what to do, he doesn't know how to handle this. "Vincent?"

"I'm here."

Cloud stills then, watches the flow of shadows and light over the concrete beside them, making patterns he doesn't want to acknowledge. "Are we really?"

"Yes." He waits, patient, while Cloud fights for stability, a loose distance in his gaze that finally begins to clear.

He moves forward to touch Vincent's hand, knuckles against knuckles, and he nods, says firm and resolved, "Okay," and leads the way back into the sunlight.

+

He doesn't see Sephiroth the next day, or the next, and he's feeling almost normal again, except that Vincent's gone too, on a supply run with Barret.

There's an empty sort of bubble around him, like something important is missing, and Cloud isn't expecting that, isn't sure what to do about it. Sometimes he catches himself looking over, ready to make some comment to Vincent, and the absence makes him feel hollow and melancholy.

It's weird. Really.

He's on the roof again, installing solar panels, and Tifa's up there helping, wide-brimmed hat casting a shadow over both of them, and he's starting to think if he gets tired of his delivery service, he could always go into construction. There's a solid peace about hammering things together that he's beginning to enjoy.

Tifa however, not having the best time. She fumbles another screw, catches it before it rolls over the edge, and sits back to wipe sweat from her nose. "Seriously. I miss the mountains."

Cloud huffs out a quiet laugh. "It did not get this hot there, that's for sure." He takes the screw from her hand, puts it in place, and that's the last of it, they're done. "Snack break?"

"Gods yes." She's first down the ladder, adjusting her hat while waiting for Cloud to pack up and make his way down, his movements seeming to lack the tension they've had lately, like he's been crouched and ready to pounce. "You look like you're feeling better today."

The statement catches him by surprise, but it really shouldn't. "I guess."

Tifa smiles, and maybe it's the light, maybe Cloud's sun-blind, but he misses the warning expression, the little spark of mischief. "I'm glad to hear that. Seems Vincent's been good for you." There it is.

Cloud actually trips, stumbles on the flat, clean ground, nothing to blame but himself, and Tifa has the nerve to giggle. He exhales, rights himself. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't you?" She leans in, and now he sees it, bright and focused as a laser beam. "You've been spending a lot of time together. He makes you laugh, I mean really laugh."

Cloud knows he's blushing, can feel the embarrassing heat of it spreading over his face. "Barret makes me laugh too."

"Yeah, but that's different. The way you and Vincent look at each other --"

"How do you know the way me and Vincent look at each other?" He stops then, spins to face her, and she at least looks somewhat guilty, caught.

"Okay so I pay attention. I just, I care about you, Cloud, and Vincent... he's good for you, would be good for you." Her expression shifts from guilty to honest, a genuine kindness, and Cloud knows there's never been anything but care and love for all of them, that she isn't saying this just to tease him.

Sometimes she reminds him of his mother, and he knows she'd punch his lights out if he told her, but it warms him just the same.

"I'm not sure how I feel, about him, yet." That's as much as he's admitted out loud, and her face goes all soft as she leans in close again.

"He likes you, too." And that's all she's going to say. She leaves Cloud standing there, making her way toward the snack tent, and if she's smiling a little too much, that's just fine.

+

It's late in the evening and Cloud is counting the days -- five without Sephiroth, one until Vincent gets back. He's distracted by the lazy drifting thoughts that come with exhaustion, and maybe he's feeling too good, too confident, because there's the flutter of pale hair in the corner of his vision, and somehow he's wandered into the old church, instead of home.

Cloud wavers with the vertigo, the loss of stability, and before he can turn to leave, he's pinned to the wall.

It's just a hand this time, leathered and solid, fingers tensing in the front of Cloud's shirt. Sephiroth's eyes shimmer in the growing dark.

"I thought you were gone."

Sephiroth laughs, mostly silent, a vibration in the air, and Cloud thinks of him saying, I'm part of you. Thinks, of course he can never truly be gone.

There's a resignation in the way he slacks against Sephiroth's hold. He's too tired to fight tonight, this endless repeating cycle, and he feels the warmth of the hand curled against him, feels every cell of his body reach toward it, like he's dying and Sephiroth is life.

Cloud's breath catches, stutters, and his pupils flash into narrow slits, and Sephiroth smiles like he's finally been given what he's been waiting for, and bends down to kiss him.

He feels it like a brush of feathers, the tips of wings, too soft to be one of his violent dreams. It feels like reality, nothing flickering or shifting, just the honest press of Sephiroth's mouth, warm and alive, the slide of his tongue against Cloud's creating a heated spark down his spine.

It feels like a kiss, a real kiss.

Sephiroth pulls away and Cloud sighs, watches as he drops his jacket and gloves to the floor, hears the clatter of heavy leather and armor, then bare fingers rest against the side of his face, brush down his neck, and his eyes close.

The next kiss comes more slowly, a coaxing, taking Cloud apart with each confident lick, like Sephiroth has no hesitance about what he is doing, no doubt that Cloud doesn't want it just as much.

And he does, like nothing else exists, and he knows it's merely that cellular need for reunion, but that doesn't stop his hands from working at Sephiroth's belt, fingertips sliding beneath the loosened fabric over skin like silk and marble. He feels like nothing Cloud has ever touched before, and he strokes him slow, until there's a low, unfurling sound in Sephiroth's throat, and his hands are pushed away.

That time when Sephiroth breaks the kiss, it's Cloud's shirt that comes off, and he waits while Sephiroth sheds away the rest of their clothes, leads him to the nearest intact pew and shoves him roughly down.

There's no preparation, no concern for the fact that Cloud hasn't done this in years, the dreams don't actually count, and the sharp pain of it makes Cloud gasp, makes him pull tightly at Sephiroth's hair. Then Sephiroth's teeth are sinking into the side of his throat as he presses in deeper, maybe as punishment for the hair pulling, maybe because he knows Cloud likes it, but it works as a distraction, the bliss of it ripping through hot and satisfying while his body relaxes and adjusts and heals itself.

There's a distant sound of blood dripping onto the rotted floor, and Sephiroth's mouth is slick and burning with it when he kisses him again, and Cloud curls around him, moves with him, fighting toward pleasure.

Neither of them remember how to be gentle, but the bruises heal as fast as they're wrought, and Sephiroth bites open the same wound over and over until Cloud knows nothing but the electric burn through his veins, wild as a supernova.

He's faintly aware of the growl Sephiroth makes when he comes, and if it doesn't sound entirely human, entirely earthly, maybe that's fitting. Cloud doesn't feel entirely human in that moment either.

Sephiroth kisses him one last time before he stands, and there's a smile on his face that's almost kind, gentle, like maybe he really is human after all, and Cloud aches with a strange sort of sorrow, like there's something he needs to say, but there's no language that can express it.

He breathes out, trembling and unsteady, and Sephiroth is putting all his leather back in place, and Cloud watches, feeling a disorienting sense of time moving in reverse, creating a sense of loss that he understands can never be filled.

There's a wide, expanding comprehension, like some quantum lucidity, to see and know everything at once, that this is something that can only have happened in a lifetime alongside his own, that he can't have actually done this.

It's just an illusion, some chicanery of a waking dream.

But Sephiroth is still there, he isn't disappearing like he should, he's snapping the buckles of his armor and lifting his sword from the ground, and why isn't he disappearing?

Cloud's vision flutters then, and he feels a pain like a thread being snapped, and Sephiroth is walking out the door, locks of hair twisting in the warm night breeze as he turns a corner into the street.

Left in the silence, Cloud is suddenly aware of many things. He's alone in the church, naked, the muted discomfort of bites and bruises healing themselves away, blood and come drying in various patches on his skin. And there's a panic forming inside him that feels like a gear knocked out of place, a grating sparking grinding, like a contained scream, and he can't breathe from it.

A repeating curse in his mind, this was real, this was real.

Cloud makes a quiet, startled little gasp, and rushes to get up, throw his clothes back on, brush away any dirt or blood or obvious signs that he's been doing this abominable thing.

He walks home as calmly as he can manage, trying not to think about the residual feeling of Sephiroth's skin beneath his hands, the rough heat of him between his thighs, all the fading bruises that he knows he'll always be able to feel, scars on the very fabric of him.

The bite on his throat isn't visible anymore, but it still throbs with his pulse, makes his knees weak.

He sneaks in the back way, when he reaches the bar, still open and rowdy with patrons, and goes straight to the shower. Those broken gears of panic are buzzing loud in his ears, making him shake, and he doesn't know, doesn't know how to know, what's actually happening to him.

Thinking, if Sephiroth were truly back, it wouldn't be like this. It would be monstrous, it would be fighting, it would be the usual tirade of mother mother mother and Sephiroth wouldn't just walk out the door.

That's the thing, right there, driving Cloud crazy. That image of Sephiroth leaving, into the night, like a normal person. That inscrutable ordinariness.

It's still in his mind as he leaves the bathroom, enters his bedroom.

And as he drops his clothes onto the laundry pile by his closet, he still doesn't have any answers, but there's a long silver hair coiled around the sleeve of his shirt.

+

The next day, Barret and Vincent come back, and the relief it strikes in Cloud is unexpected, embarrassing, in a way. He's spent the morning assembling a table some distance from the others, letting his thoughts trample over him unimpeded, and Vincent's approaching footsteps are a welcome distraction, the smile he gives Cloud even more so.

He feels it like a grounding, a stability, like waking up. That's the only way he can describe it.

"Hey. Did you miss me?"

Cloud laughs, manages a crooked smile. "What, you were gone?"

Vincent laughs too, leans beside Cloud on the finished table, tilts so their shoulders bump. "We didn't really mean to be gone that long, but Reeve called and needed a favor, so...." He shrugs about it, so it goes.

"Duty calls. I know what that's like." They all do, these days.

"Yeah. Anything happen while I was gone?" It's a casual question, and it shocks him when Cloud tenses beside him, flinches almost, and he sees the way his eyes go haunted, or maybe they were like that all along. He's smart though, doesn't ask again, just leads Cloud away, down the road where there's nothing but warehouses and junk heaps waiting for ShinRa's bulldozers.

In the shade, Cloud drops onto a stack of tires, none of his usual grace, and Vincent can't sit, he's tense and angry and he doesn't even know what to be angry about yet, who he needs to shoot.

"Okay, tell me."

"I don't --" Cloud exhales, tries again. "I might be insane, but he was really here, last night. I wasn't dreaming, I wasn't hallucinating." He can't help it, his voice shakes, and Vincent does sit down then.

It's a heavy collapse, none of his usual grace either.

"Did you fight again?"

Cloud laughs, and it's a sad, miserable sound. "No, that's the worst part. We... No it can't have been real. I don't, I don't know anymore. But I want to know if you can see this."

Vincent starts to ask, but Cloud is reaching into his pocket, pulling out a rumpled little sandwich bag. He opens it, and inside is the silver hair, bright as blades, and he lifts it by one end, has to hold it ridiculously high in the air to keep it from touching the ground. Vincent's eyes get wide and there's his answer, there's his proof.

He makes a little sound, a quiet hhh like he's about to say how?, but then his rationality kicks in. It's probably left over from any of their previous encounters, it could have been there for years, just lurking around in Cloud's belongings waiting for the right time to cause the most trouble. Instead he just says, "I can see it. Put it away."

Cloud does, and strangely Vincent is grateful, like it's some kind of cursed object instead of an ordinary hair.

Except it isn't ordinary, that's the problem.

"So you're saying, you found that, which confirms that he has returned."

"No, I saw him again, I was awake. He was solid. And he just..." There's that broken laugh again. "He just walked out the door."

"He w-- Where did he go?" He's sure he's missing something, some important part of the story, but Cloud only shrugs.

"I have no idea." He shrugs again, and pats his pocket. "Then I found this on my shirt, and if you can see it, it's real."

"It's real, but it doesn't mean it came from him, or from last night. It could have been there a while."

Cloud snorts. "You think I wouldn't have noticed a mile-long hair on my shirt all this time?"

"Well no, it could have been somewhere else, and just fell on your shirt last night." Then Cloud is laughing again, but at least it's his usual laugh, soft and light, and Vincent gives up. "I don't know, I'm trying."

It's such a normal thing, Vincent with his common sense, his logic, and Cloud feels some of the tension recede, like maybe it will all be okay. "Vincent, never change."

Vincent just sighs at that, nothing he can say to defend himself. Cloud still looks amused, so he settles for jabbing him with an elbow, and Cloud jabs back, and for the moment they can go on pretending it's a regular day.

But Vincent spends the rest of it thinking about that silver strand in Cloud's pocket, and he doesn't want to know what it means, what might be coming.

+

The morning rain kept them all working inside, painting and wallpapering rooms, laying floors, counting the number of chairs they're going to need. There's still a lot to be done, but it's coming along, and Cloud feels an absolute satisfaction with every new part that they finish.

He's never done anything like this before. It's nothing like battle, or saving the world.

Too bad it's been tarnished somehow, with whatever it is that's happening to him, like he can't just enjoy doing something nice and useful, like he can't catch a break. Maybe that's the worst thing about it, that he should be having a good time with everyone, but instead he's on edge, watching, waiting.

Every flicker of light, and Cloud's heart skips.

He's bringing in a load of stuff from outside when it happens again, sunlight glistening on a raindrop like the downward thrust of a sword and he dodges. The box slips, slices open his arm, and he curses, has to wait by the door while it heals, has to wipe away the blood before he goes inside so nobody will see. The last thing he needs is questions.

The last thing he wants is another reminder of how different he is.

Still he's thinking about it, as he sets down the box, moves out of the way for everyone to get what they need out of it, nodding his usual shy, humble nod at all the thanks.

Thinking, how deep would he have to be cut, for it to stay open a while? He's been run straight through more times than he wants to count, and always the immediate pulling sensation of the wound mending itself. Thinking, can anything actually kill him?

What if he were gutted, ripped open, everything inside him spilling out, would it pull itself in as he heals, or would he have to frantically shove it all back into place before his flesh closed up? What if he wasn't fast enough?

Some terrible part of him wants to find out, to know how far this goes, find his limits, if there are any.

He wants to know how much he can survive, as if he hasn't survived enough.

He leaves again to get the next box, rubbing at the smooth unbroken skin on his arm, and he thinks about biting it, thinks, if he tears himself apart, there will be nothing left for Sephiroth to sink his bloody teeth into.

Vincent is waiting by the truck, and Cloud thinks of finding him in the basement, thinks of thirty years of sleep. "Do you ever think about dying?"

The question hits Vincent like a blunt object, like a solid pain. "Cloud...."

"I mean, you can't either, can you?" He refuses to acknowledge the worried expression on Vincent's face, reaches into the back of the truck for another oversized box. "Do you ever wonder, do you ever think what it's going to be like, when the world ends? Do you think we'll end with it?"

"Cloud." It's a command that time, and Cloud finally looks at him, that haunted distance in his eyes again, like he's too far away for Vincent to reach. He sighs and takes the box out of his hands, puts it back with the rest, and Cloud turns away, leans against the truck.

"I see him everywhere. I don't know... I don't know when it's real, or a trick of the light. I'm afraid he's going to find this place, and I don't know how to protect everyone if I can't tell what's real."

Vincent leans beside him, folds his arms. "You're not the only one who would be here to protect them. And if you can't trust yourself to know what's real, you can trust me."

Cloud's eyes close, and he allows himself a childish moment of turning toward Vincent, leaning into the warm stability of his shoulder, forehead to the rough fabric of his shirt. "I do trust you. You'll tell me, right? Or maybe I'm dreaming you too. Maybe none of this is real."

It feels like his heart is breaking, seeing him like this, and he slides one hand into Cloud's hair, always trying to provide some kind of comfort, the only thing he can do. "I'm real, I promise you. This is real, everything you're working to build, to rebuild, it's all real." His gloved fingers catch on Cloud's cheek, and Cloud tilts into it, and it's trusting and sweet and Vincent doesn't know what to do with this all-consuming need to keep him safe, protect him from something he can't actually grasp.

He's never liked problems he can't just solve with a bullet.

"You're awake, you're real, and whatever threats may come, we'll handle it, all of us together."

Cloud nods, just enough, against Vincent's palm, and makes himself move away. "You're right. I'm sorry, I keep dumping all this on you."

Vincent makes an amused snort, turns around to take one of the boxes from the truck. "It's what friends are for, Cloud. And for the record, I can't think of anyone else I'd rather spend the end of the world with."

He leaves on that remark, and Cloud is hit with such warmth, thinking, that's probably the nicest thing anyone's ever said to him. Thinking, maybe it won't be so bad.

+

Cloud doesn't remember ever packing a picnic basket in his life, so of course he has a lot of help, which consists of him standing daintily out of the way while Marlene makes an absolute pile of sandwiches and Tifa makes sure he has enough napkins to supply an army.

Who do they think he's having lunch with, Reno?

Tifa sneaks in a few beers, only a few because they're both driving, and it's that Cosmo Canyon brewery that Cloud and Vincent have both expressed an undying love for, so he reaches past her, sticks in a few more. They can always walk the bikes home.

Tifa's expression is solemn and determined, and she shoves the laden, overflowing basket into Cloud's hands. "You can do this, Cloud."

His eyebrows go right up. "It's a picnic, not the Martian Invasion."

"I know, but I know you." What she doesn't say is, she knows Cloud will inevitably panic, worry, fret himself into a mess, when what he needs to do is relax and enjoy a peaceful lunch with a wonderful man and for once, have a good time.

"I'm okay. It's going to be fine." And he means it, there's none of that accused panic, only a jubilant rush of anticipation, and he hurries out a goodbye, carries the basket out the door to where Fenrir sits waiting.

Vincent is there too, resting on his bike with the most adorably amused smile on his face. "That looks like a lot."

"Yeah. We're prepared for war." Cloud moves to strap the basket to the back of the seat while Vincent laughs, and he's aware of how good this feels, and that he hasn't thought of Sephiroth once, all day.

He slides easy onto Fenrir, and they're gone in a vicious tearing roar, like Bahamut in all his fury, leaving a twin pair of inky lines on the concrete, and they don't slow down until the sea opens up before them, that scenic overlook they found the first time.

Heavy machines still in a plume of dust, and the first thing Cloud pulls out of the basket is the Cosmo beer, passing one to Vincent before taking the few steps over to the picnic table. That time he sits facing the ocean, backward on the bench so he can lean against the table, and Vincent sits beside him, popping open his beer and holding it away from himself while the foam rushes out.

Cloud does the same with his own, and for a while it's peaceful, the scent of honeyed stout on the air, their elbows angled just enough to touch, enough to count.

The bottles are half empty when Vincent breaks the quiet. "I hate to ask, because I don't want to ruin this nice day, but I need to know... how are you doing?"

It isn't such a terrible question, because Cloud knows it comes from genuine concern, and he gets that warmth stirring inside him then, feels it echoed in a softening smile. "I'm doing okay. I haven't seen him again. Part of me thinks I should be worried about that, maybe he's somewhere biding his time, planning his attack. I don't know what he's doing. There hasn't been any sign of him since that night."

Vincent nods, a little thoughtful. "I've been looking for him. Going the usual places, checking for any disturbance in the planet, any warning. Everything is normal."

"Well that is kind of worrisome." Cloud sighs, picks at the label on his beer, one corner coming loose. "What do you think he's doing?"

"Sightseeing?" That gets a chuckle out of Cloud, and Vincent smiles, satisfied. "I don't know. I've been thinking about it a lot, and the only idea I've had is that he's looking for the last of Jenova. But it's still secure, there's been no breach of containment, no sign of anyone messing around who doesn't belong. Tseng's the last name on the security log, and I asked him, he said he hasn't noticed anything. And you know Tseng, nothing gets past him."

"Maybe he just doesn't know where to look yet. If he remembers last time... we should make sure security is tight around Rufus."

"Already done. Tseng's suspicious, I told him it's probably a false alarm, but I would tell him more if I learned anything relevant."

"Maybe it is a false alarm." Cloud swallows the last of his beer, sets down the bottle and goes to untie the picnic basket, bringing it back to the table. "Maybe you're right about that hair, it could have been from last time, it might not even be his. Maybe it's some animal hair, maybe someone's still out there from Sephiroth's old fan club with one of the crazy wigs they used to wear. I could have been dreaming that night."

Vincent almost wants to ask about the fan club, but he's a little afraid. Instead, "Do you really, actually believe it was a dream? Because you were very sure before that it was not."

The memory of it rushes back, without permission, the very real sensation of that night, the feel and the smell and the taste of him, and Cloud's hands begin to shake, and he has to whisper, because he doesn't trust his voice not to shake too. "I don't know anymore."

He turns then, faces Vincent on the bench, still quiet when he says, "Tell me again, tell me this is real."

Vincent reaches over with a hand not gloved for once, brushes a windblown slash of hair out of Cloud's eyes, and Cloud leans into it like before, that tenderness that makes Vincent ache, sweet and longing. "This is real, Cloud."

But it's different this time without the leather between them. He can feel the flutter of Cloud's lashes as his eyes close, the soft catch of his lips against his palm, and Vincent isn't entirely aware that he's moving, not so sure of his intentions, the extent of his bravery, until his own lips find the warmth of Cloud's and there isn't any way to deny anymore that this is what he's wanted to do from that first moment, down in the darkest parts of hell.

Cloud makes a sound, a shiver of a breath, and Vincent licks across his bottom lip, and it rips over him like wildfire when Cloud presses closer, curls his tongue against Vincent's, one hand coming up to tangle in the shadows of his hair.

Telling himself, this is real, he is awake, this isn't a dream. And maybe it's enough, some new weapon to hold when the moonlight coalesces memory into reality, when the light fractures and splits open old wounds, the scars that never heal. Maybe it's enough that Vincent is soft and alive and warm, a shield against that which should remain dead and gone.

If Sephiroth returns, they will stop him, and as desperately as the cells within him crave it, Cloud won't touch him again.

But maybe it was just a dream. Maybe none of it will matter.

Vincent pulls away much too soon, waits for Cloud to look at him, the mako in his eyes shining like starlight when he's this close, and all he wants is to kiss him again, never stop. "I hope it's okay that I did that."

Cloud laughs, breathless and soft. "Yeah. You can do that any time you want."

"Duly noted." He smiles his crooked mischief smile, and Cloud mirrors it, just for a moment, before turning around to open the basket, taking out the bundle of sandwiches.

Then he halts, hands on the table, a determined clench tightening his jaw. "As for what we will do about Sephiroth? We will continue to take precautions, keep watch. If it was a dream, nothing will happen, and if it was real, if he is here, we will deal with it like we always do. Until then... I can't let him interrupt one more moment of my life." He breathes, and feels entirely awake for once. "He's taken so much from me already. I can't give him anything more."

Vincent's steady nod is an approval, and he rests his hand over Cloud's, and he knows that anything he could say doesn't need to be said, so he reaches for the basket, finds two more beers and tasks himself to opening them while Cloud unwraps the sandwiches.

There's way too much for the two of them to eat, but they figure the kids will enjoy the leftovers. The beers they finish though, and they talk about their old lives with ShinRa, pranks in the barracks, shenanigans with the Turks, and they walk their bikes home not because of any intoxication but to extend their evening as much as they can.

And when they stop in front of the bar, clattering sounds and amber light spilling from inside, Cloud kisses him there where anyone can see. It's the best feeling he's had in a long, long time.

+

The dream shifts unexpectedly. He'd been delivering packages to Reno, who had nowhere to put them in his apartment so they were making plans to build him a house, but now Cloud is standing in a forest, beside a small flowing stream. The clarity of it feels like reality, so much that Cloud thinks he must be awake, that he's sleepwalked himself to this unfamiliar place.

But he's wearing his old stolen SOLDIER uniform. He has to be dreaming.

The old armor is a comforting weight on his shoulder, and out of instinct, habit, he reaches up for the hilt of a sword, not sure which one he's going to find, but nothing is there. He's a little disappointed, yet relieved, maybe that's not the point of this dream. After this past month, Cloud is tired of fighting.

"Hey. Fancy meeting you here."

The voice rushes through him, makes him dizzy, lightheaded, and Cloud turns fast, gasps reverent and disbelieving, "Zack."

"Yeah." Zack grins, and he's the same as he always is, like no time has passed at all, except for the fact that he's faintly translucent, shimmering with the energy of the planet. "I thought maybe, we need to talk."

It hits him then, the obvious realization, and Cloud's never been so mortified, so ashamed, and he breathes out a quiet laugh, because there's nothing else he can do. "You've seen everything."

"I have." But there's a tease in Zack's voice, nothing accusatory or disappointed, just the typical bratty intention of drawing out Cloud's misery, the act of a true friend.

Cloud makes a hopeless sound, shakes his head. "It's been a weird month."

Zack laughs, absolute and bright. "Dude, you fucked Sephiroth's brains out. Weird is an understatement."

"Oh gods." Cloud covers his face, but Zack is still laughing, outright giggling.

"It was pretty hot though...."

"Please stop." He groans, muffled, and Zack relents, slings an arm over Cloud's shoulder, or at least imitates the action, as he's not entirely solid enough to actually rest his arm there.

Cloud feels him like the weight of a breeze, and it's enough to make that ache rise in him again, a desperate, bleeding wound, and he trails shivering fingertips through the glow of Zack's hand. "I still miss you."

Zack stops giggling and sighs, brushes through Cloud's hair like wind, and Cloud knows, he always knew, every time he felt that exact touch. "I miss you too. I'll always miss you, and I know that my being here... I know you're holding yourself back. That's why I needed to talk to you, one last time."

"What?" Cloud turns around, stumbles halfway into Zack, has to take an awkward step backward. "What does that mean?"

Zack looks overwhelmingly sad, as if he already regrets everything, and maybe he does. "It's time to let go, Cloud. I've decided to go into the lifestream, let myself be reborn. I stayed here this long because I wanted to make sure you were okay, and Cloud listen to me, you don't need me anymore."

"Like shit I don't!" He tries to reach for Zack, but his hands fade through staticky air, and he's not sure what he would do if he could touch him anyway, if he'd want to kiss him or knock some sense into him. "Haven't you been paying attention?"

"Oh sure, Sephiroth's messing with your head again, what's new. But you can handle it. Whatever he does, you can stop him." Cloud opens his mouth, like he wants to protest, but Zack shakes his head, interrupts. "You need to have faith in yourself. And your friends. Your living friends."

He wants to say, I can't do this without you, but he's aware of how selfish it is, that if Zack is ready to move on, Cloud has no right to insist he stay.

Every part of him aches with the decision, the knot forming in his throat and blur to his vision and the way his hands have gone completely numb, but he's done so many things wrong in his life, this is the one thing he can finally do right.

Cloud steadies himself, gives Zack the faintest nod. "I will be fine. If this is what you're ready to do, you should do it."

Zack steps close again, lays his hands against Cloud's face, relishing the warmth of him. "I have always loved you, so much."

And that's all he can take. Cloud shatters then, drops to his knees, tears falling hot and unrestrained, and Zack drops with him, wishing for nothing but to touch him just one more time.

"Remember your promise. Live, be happy."

Cloud barely whispers, "I remember."

But all he can think is, I don't know how to be happy, the last time I was happy was with you.

Maybe Zack hears him, maybe he says it without realizing, because Zack breathes out shaky, and his voice wavers, "Please, Cloud. Try. For me. Promise me."

"I promise, Zack, Zack, I promise."

And that has to be enough, for the both of them, this heartbroken vow.

Zack makes himself stand, pets through Cloud's hair again, and he's fading, walking away, calling over his shoulder, "I'll see you again someday," then he's gone, and Cloud doesn't know how he's supposed to live with this. It's like losing him all over again.

He reminds himself, he's not alone this time though, and maybe Zack's got the right idea, maybe it's time to stop living in the past.

Maybe it's time to start living.

+

It's a ridiculously hot evening, and Cloud pulls into the parking lot, rusty old truck groaning and stuttering, and he thinks it smells like it might be overheating again, makes a mental note to check on it. He's been on a supply run, his turn, and the poor truck is laden with wood and boxes of necessities, and the best part, brand new textbooks. There's no doubt now they'll have the school ready by autumn, for the start of the school year.

It's strange but he thinks, maybe Zack will be reborn here, maybe he'll show up one day in the classroom, and Cloud might have the chance to be the mentor this time, repay some of the kindness and heroic virtue that Zack imparted into his life.

Maybe someday Zack can hold his sword again, and Cloud can teach him how to use it.

"Well, you're smiling, you must have heat stroke." Vincent sounds unusually tired, and Cloud laughs quiet, reaches out the open window to touch his face. He's flushed, possibly sunburnt, and Cloud finds it charming.

"Not as bad as you, you vampire." He smirks, and Vincent mockingly bites at Cloud's wrist, and he is really too cute.

It's only been one day, but Cloud missed him.

"You're the one who spends five minutes outside and turns into a living freckle."

Cloud gasps, wounded. "Oh, the war is on!" Vincent laughs, and Cloud shuts off the straining engine, exits the truck, and he barely gets the door closed before he's pressed into it, Vincent's heated, smiling mouth against his own. Hands on Vincent's shirt and he pulls him in tight, kisses him deep and unhurried, a relaxed yet meaningful contentment in the way his heart swells warm and full.

It makes him think of what Zack said, about living, about being happy, and he thinks maybe it feels a little like happiness when he's with Vincent, an optimistic hopefulness for the future that comes to him so rarely, to look at the years ahead and see that things could be good, for everyone.

Cloud's vaguely aware of the heat of the door burning into his spine, and he breaks the kiss with a last gentle touch to Vincent's arm. "We should unload this, before we burst into flames."

Vincent hums a sort of agreement, keeps quiet about the scatter of new freckles he can already see developing across Cloud's nose, and moves to start untying the ropes holding everything in place.

Cloud works beside him, and it's hard not to get distracted by things like a curl of Vincent's hair brushing against his arm, or the way his fingers loosen the knots so easily, and maybe that's why he doesn't notice at first, the snap and flutter of a wing, heavy rumble of leather in the burning air.

It's when he feels the sensation of being watched that he looks up, and the only warning he gives is a tense snarl before he's running, snatching a warped, twisted piece of metal from the ground along the way because he isn't going in unarmed this time, he isn't going to let him win again.

Vincent watches as Cloud leaps easily to the roof of the warehouse, and there, like a heat mirage, he sees, and it isn't a dream, it isn't a hallucination, and Vincent is running, fast as the rushing clash of metal throbbing in his ears.

He's there in time to see Cloud's metal beam split, and Cloud is jumping from the roof to find a replacement, Sephiroth behind him like a shadow. Vincent's fingers itch for a gun, and he feels the howl of Chaos swelling in his throat, his skin aching to burn with transformation, but Cloud turns around then and Vincent stops.

He isn't sure at first what he's seeing. Something about Cloud that isn't quite right, something that makes Chaos flare up in response to a new threat, and Vincent gets it, remembers the first time Cloud saw Sephiroth while he was awake.

Remembers the way Cloud went distant, his eyes alien and wrong and terribly familiar.

He's found something else to fight with, and it's almost beautiful to watch, but Vincent is caught in the sinking quicksand of realization, agony to the very core of him, because he knows now, and he doesn't want to know.

Cloud's improvised weapon is gone, and he's bleeding, blood dark across his throat and his chest and down one arm, and maybe it's Chaos that gets Vincent moving, protective, slipping in between Cloud and the next swing of Masamune.

The sword stills beneath his chin, and Sephiroth smiles like delicious menace, Cloud with a worried gasp behind him, but Vincent turns away from Sephiroth and gets his hands in the blood splashed across Cloud's face. His eyes are painfully green. "Cloud, you trust me, right?"

"What?" He isn't looking at Vincent, pupils tight and sharp like fangs and focused entirely on Sephiroth. "You see him, don't you?"

"I see him, but I need you to look at me. Look at me." Something of a growl vibrates beneath Vincent's normally silken voice, and it's enough to get Cloud's attention, shifting barely away from Sephiroth, and Vincent moves to block his view.

Sephiroth behind him, amused and casually patient.

"Listen, you need to relax. Relax, and let him go."

"Let him -- What?" He's trying to fidget away from Vincent, doesn't he understand the danger they're in? But Vincent holds tight to his face, refuses to let him turn his head.

"Let him go. Cloud, I think... I think you're the reason he's here, the cells you share, they've brought him here. Your eyes, Cloud, it means you're using them, using the connection. I'm not entirely sure yet what's happening, but you need to let go."

Awareness spreads through Cloud's expression, and he moves to take a step back, and Vincent cautiously allows it, trusting that Cloud won't just leap back into action, into battle. But Cloud stays in place, his eyes drifting closed, and Vincent feels a strange hollowness behind him, turns to find nothing but bootprints in the dirt, sunlight flashing on the metal sides of the building.

Sephiroth is gone now, but he was there, Vincent has no doubt anymore.

Cloud's eyes are blue when he opens them, but he looks so drained, so worn out, and Vincent guides him to sit in the shade, runs fingers through his hair in his usual attempt to soothe. He's still tense with nerves, wasted adrenaline, and the weight of comprehension leaves him unfocused. "You really think I... I did this?"

Vincent inhales a slow breath, rubs the space on his neck where Masamune touched him, still wet with Cloud's blood. "We both know what these cells are capable of, it doesn't seem an impossibility. The question is why, not how."

Why. He thinks of Sephiroth saying, you still haven't forgiven yourself, and he wonders if that's all this is, some overdramatic subconscious need for punishment.

The entire thing makes him feel sick, nauseous and disgusted with himself.

"I thought I was getting better, not worse."

Vincent hums. "You're saying it's about guilt."

"Yeah." Cloud sighs out heavy, leans back against the wall and picks at one of the slash marks in his shirt, the skin beneath already healed. "You know how it is. It never really goes away, but it gets easier to carry. I can think of Zack and Aerith without feeling like I've let them down. And Zack's moving on...."

"But it's still affecting you, otherwise this wouldn't be happening." He watches Cloud continue to mangle his shirt, then reaches to steal his hand away, fingertips dirty with blood and rust. "Something in you wants this. It isn't the cells causing this on their own, you're using them to make it happen, to manifest Sephiroth in physical form."

It sounds ridiculous, and Cloud can't really grasp an acceptance of it, that he is doing this, but he thinks of Sephiroth doing the exact same thing before, and the surreal existence of the Remnants, those sad lost boys no different from himself, and maybe it's not so strange. Maybe this is just a thing that can happen. "So how do I stop?"

Vincent shrugs, and there's a hint of frustration in the motion. "I wish I knew, but this is new to me, too." A terrible thought, Hojo would know. Hojo would find this the most fascinating thing in the world. Thinking, you called him a failure, but look at him now.

"Well, at least we don't have to worry about Sephiroth out there causing trouble." Cloud smiles weakly at that, and Vincent snorts, amused.

"I'll keep Tseng on alert still, in case he breaks free of his leash."

"Yeah. Good idea." Because maybe they're wrong, maybe Cloud isn't so much in control as he seems to be, or at least, Vincent assumes and Cloud wants to believe him. "Whatever this is though, I'll figure it out. I'll find a way to stop it."

Vincent's arm slides around Cloud's shoulders, pulls him close, feels him relax against him. "I know you will." He has no doubt.

+

He spends the entire day thinking about it, laying the pieces together like an unfamiliar puzzle, a map without sign of a proper destination. By the morning he's made some decisions, some options that feel steady enough in his grasp that he thinks he might have this all figured out.

He slips away from the school again, into the warehouse still smudged with the remains of battle, drops of Cloud's blood staining the roof, closing the door behind him so there's some measure of privacy. It's not something he's been concerned about up to this point, but feels he might need it today.

Things are different now. He's awake, and he's not afraid.

His eyes close and he tries to focus, reaches for the sensation like being thrust into a void, a dark limitless expansion like looking into the night sky, knowing there's no end to it. Then a footfall breaks through the quiet, and his eyes open, green as life, and Sephiroth is standing there with a gentle, curious tilt to his head.

Cloud's breath catches, and any doubt that might have remained is gone, and the relief that moves in to take its place calms him, allows him to walk confidently toward Sephiroth. "Is it really you in there, or is this just a projection? Do you know?"

Sephiroth tilts his head a little more, genuinely thoughtful. "I feel like myself, I understand the question you're asking. But I feel as if I'm only a fragment, that the rest of me is left behind. I don't feel complete. Each time, you've extracted a different part of me."

That would explain it, how each time his encounter with Sephiroth has been subtly different, and Cloud's eyebrows rise for a moment, while the understanding settles in. "Which part are you now?"

Sephiroth shrugs, and long hair rustles silken over armor. "Whichever part you need."

Of course. Cloud thinks of punishment, forgiveness, the moment when he thought he could begin to be happy and there was Sephiroth, ready to draw blood. "So this is the part of you who can have a normal conversation?"

Sephiroth actually laughs, but it's silent, just a shiver in the air. "I believe you've found the sanest part of me, for whatever comfort that brings."

It means they can talk without fighting, that Cloud can say what he needs to say without the distraction of lightning-quick assaults and parries, and it also confirms what Cloud has always wondered, if there actually is some part of Sephiroth still coherent, still human and sane.

It makes Cloud ache, not for the first time, for the loss of the man Sephiroth could have been, the man Cloud briefly knew before. The man who smiled tender and patient at Zack's terrible jokes, who would rest a comforting hand on the shiver of Cloud's back as his motion sickness became too much to bear. The man who formed the entirety of Cloud's childhood identity, the desire to be a hero, to be brave, to help and save and comfort.

It's the man that Cloud sees standing there now, wrapped in ethereal inhuman beauty, solemn and gorgeous beyond words, no sort of monster in any definition of the word. Cloud sees a victim of an alien parasite, someone whose life was torn apart and ruined the same as Cloud's life, Zack's, Aerith's. All of them sacrifices of a selfish entity.

Cloud hums, a broken little sound, and he steps forward to lay a hand on Sephiroth's face, to catch the focus of his eyes, like a mirror. "I'm sorry, Sephiroth. I'm sorry this happened to you, I'm sorry for all that I have done, the hatred, the blame." He breathes unsteady, and Sephiroth looks away, and there's a sadness, something that Cloud thinks might be regret. "I won't hate you anymore. I forgive you, for all of it."

Sephiroth startles then, disbelief slicing across his expression, and Cloud raises on his toes to lay the softest kiss on his cheek, an equally soft touch of Sephiroth's gloved fingers curling over his jaw.

And when he moves back, Sephiroth's smile is amused, a shadow of the smile he remembers from so long ago. "I'm not the one you need to forgive."

"Yes you are. You deserve it too." There's a stubborn tinge to his voice that makes Sephiroth's little smile widen briefly, and he nods once, as if it's a compromise he's willing to make.

The air begins to shimmer then, and Cloud feels that pulling from the center of him, and he wants to say, don't go, not yet, but Sephiroth is gone, and the faintest glimmer of energy fades into the dark.

Cloud scuffs his boot into the marks left where Sephiroth had been standing, the last proof of a solid, living person, not a dream, or a memory.

Cloud decides, that's what he'll hold on to.

+

What bothers him is, Sephiroth's right.

Cloud thinks of it over the following days, while the finishing touches are put on the school, chalkboards hung on brightly painted walls, desks arranged with absolute care, and there's a lingering excitement turning the air warm and enveloping. All this energy, it inevitably makes him think of Zack, sends that longing heaviness through him again, like a slow blade. Perhaps more of a finality now, with Zack truly gone.

Before, Cloud would wait for the touch of a breeze, the echo of bright laughter, where now there is nothing.

Cloud breathes, and decides it's okay, or at least will be okay, in the definite future. For now it is still a raw wound, and might stay that way for a long time, but Cloud knows it's a wound that will heal. The one scar that won't fade.

He delivers the last chair, and finds Vincent outside in the shade, stacking unused paint cans in a box, a smudge of dirt on his cheek that Cloud has to wipe away, lets his touch linger there longer than necessary.

Vincent gives him a smile, steals his hand away and holds it, and they don't really need any excuses, smudges or otherwise. "Hard to believe we're finished."

"Yeah." He looks from Vincent to the building, shining like a flower in the sun, a new breath of life. It may not be a big deal, but it's one more way of reclaiming the world, rebuilding something of what had been taken away from them. One piece of normality.

An unexpected concern settles in, a realization, and his hand tightens some around Vincent's. "So... are you leaving, now that it's done?"

Vincent's hand tightens in response, and the expression on his face is gentle, content. "I was thinking I might stay a while longer. If that's okay with you."

Cloud makes a sound, thinking, how could it not be okay, when that's all I've wished for, all I've wanted. "You can't keep staying in that wretched motel though. We've got room. And you have to let me take another look at your bike, it keeps pulling to the left, it's driving me crazy."

Vincent laughs quiet, bumps his shoulder against Cloud's. "Oh is that all?"

"Maybe. For now." But Cloud is smiling, a hint of true happiness beginning to shine through, and he thinks of promises, and forgiveness, and a future crafted of opportunities instead of regrets. He thinks in terms of possibilities, in all the ways the world can unfold before them, if they are open to it.

He wants to say, everything's going to be fine, but he knows he doesn't need to.

Notes:

There's a sequel in progress, but it might take a while. It's going to be a big long mess. Like Sephiroth's hair on a windy day.

I'm also on tumblr, if anyone wants to complain with me about videogame woes.

Thank you so much for reading!