Chapter 1: Prologue
Chapter Text
The Lifestream is cloying—far less an acidic, virulent substance like it is close to Gaia’s surface and more like a metaphysical weight. With every inch of resistance, the soul splinters; with every gasp of air, lungs seize.
It is a sharp and unyielding pain, but one that, in time, fades into background noise.
Sephiroth’s consciousness has had nothing but time. His body, too, has become fortified against the planet's offensives in the years following his initial contact with Mother. Memories of his old life can no longer drag him beneath the current, trying to poison him with the last vestiges of his forsaken humanity.
After suffering a third defeat at the hands of his cherished puppet—and oh, how the word 'cherished' withers in the back of his mind—resurfacing becomes easier. It is begrudging muscle memory, something he wishes he was not intimately acquainted with, but every time his soul plunges into the planet's depths, his rage compounds. For this, at least, his transient deaths have long-term value.
Time flows differently in the Lifestream—neither backwards nor forwards, but more akin to a swirling pool—and he is not sure where or when exactly he will emerge. If his internal clock is correct based on prior experiences, it has been about a year since his and Cloud's battle above the ruins of Shinra Tower.
More than enough time for his puppet to regain his strength. He is looking forward to an actual challenge this time rather than the typical luck-and-speed-based maneuvers Cloud relies on so heavily.
The veil between himself and the planet’s surface hovers close. With determination, he rises toward it.
The hiss of water from a nozzle is the first thing to greet him. His surroundings are over-bright and the water flowing from above is scalding. He blinks a few times, taking in his surroundings.
He is standing on black and white herringbone tilework. His hair is a neck-cramping weight at his back, not yet wrung out. To his left is a frosted glass door, and when he presses a hand against it, it pops open, its hinges rattling.
Magnetized. Easily-dirtied as well, he muses. It already bears his fingerprints.
The water smells faintly of rotten eggs, and in sharp contrast, the runoff swirling around his feet has a strong floral scent. His eyes rove over a number of bottles that sit on a ledge to his right. Nearly all of them are the size of his forearm, but the one that shows signs of use has some sort of small, neon paper adhered over its brand name. ‘20 gil’ is scrawled beside a number that has been struck from the paper in a tangled web of innumerable pen marks.
Curious. Violent as well, though Sephiroth supposes neon orange is a rather offensive color.
A loud wham! shakes the building’s foundation. Raucous laughter follows a moment later, accompanied by a voice.
“Sorry, Seph!” The voice is gratingly jovial. Does he know the poor creature it belongs to? It continues, “Just a little mishap with the remote! Nobody broke anything, I swear!”
The apparent proximity of humans in this space makes his skin crawl. He locates the temperature dial above the faucet and turns it to the far left, bristling when the nozzle begins spitting ice, before slamming his fist against it.
The water abruptly finishes its punishingly cold descent. Once again, the entire building seems to shake from the force of a minor blow.
Bypassing the carefully-folded clothes on the counter, Sephiroth slings a towel around his waist and throws the door open. There is no door jamb, so the handle leaves a dent in the wall. Sephiroth wonders if at any point throughout the course of his life, he would have cared.
The only sound in the room is the steady stream of water dripping from his improperly-dried hair onto the carpet. Two sets of eyes stare at him, their owners stunned into silence.
“Seph, are you actually—?” comes the same grating voice from before. The creature’s sleek black hair and wide, unassuming eyes strike him as vaguely familiar. The other creature in his presence is smaller, having climbed halfway up the black-haired one’s body, legs locked around the small of its back and still unable to reach the object in its opponent’s hand.
Blond hair. Blue eyes, untouched by mako.
“You…!” My nemesis. My everything.
The towel falls from Sephiroth's hips. Cloud Strife lasts five seconds longer, crashing to the ground in a sprawl of willowy limbs and plexiglass.
Chapter 2
Summary:
In which Sephiroth discovers Cloud has a gag reflex.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“C’moooon, Spike…!” Zack groans five hours prior to Cloud’s unfortunate accident in Sephiroth's apartment. He’s stretched across their usual table in the mess hall like an overly large cat. “I know you know he doesn’t get free time like this, and I also know you really wanna go with me. So what’s the holdup?”
Cloud is staring down at some unrecognizable mash of meat and potatoes on the tray in front of him. He has no idea why he grabbed peas. He doesn’t even like them.
Zack continues in a slightly more hushed and serious tone, “What, do you think he’s gonna bite you?”
The mental image is swatted away before it makes it to the more desperate and hormonal parts of Cloud’s brain. There are a lot of reasons why the idea of having what Zack keeps trying to simplify as a ‘boy’s night’ isn't ideal. If the ever-present fear of making himself look like an ass doesn't become a self-fulfilling prophecy by the end of the day, cool disinterest from his childhood hero will break his heart in its place.
“Listen, I—” He shoves his plastic fork into the mountain of peas to buy himself time. “It’s easy for you. You know the guy, and you’ve known him through a lot of serious shit, right?”
A shadow passes through his friend’s eyes. “Mm.”
Zack has never been able to disclose much, but it's difficult to keep a lid on Shinra’s dirtiest secrets. When there's a major ripple or massive company-wide development at the top, it always finds a way to trickle down the chain of command.
Cloud presses on, “I’m not like you. I’m just another dumb kid who came to Midgar. I don’t know what you guys have gone through and I definitely don’t know how to talk to someone like—a war hero like—”
“... Your crush,” Zack finishes for him, smirking.
Cloud sees red; then he sees green as his pre-loaded forkful of peas shoots across the table. Zack laughs as he dodges most of them.
“It’s not like that!” he hisses, sounding a little pathetic to his own ears. It’s a lie and they both know it, but Cloud would sooner fight a levikron with his bare hands than admit it. “I told you I read some articles and stuff, growing up. That’s all. He’s just…” He shakes his head. “I dunno, intimidating for one.”
Zack nods. “It’s the height, isn’t it?”
"I have a lot more peas," he retorts threateningly.
"Like you said, I survived the war."
Cloud chews a piece of spongy meat that tastes like plastic, ignoring him.
"Really though, man. He's just a guy." Zack tears a chunk out of his own piece of bread and begins gesticulating with it. "He's honestly kinda awkward. You guys'll get on fine, and even if it’s weird, what’s the worst that could happen?”
A million grueling drills at the ass crack of dawn weren’t enough to prepare him for falling through a table later that night.
Above him, Zack is doing damage control. “Holy shit, Cloud. Are you okay? Do you need me to hold up fingers?” Then, after Cloud gives an affirmative groan from the floor—moving is hard—he rounds on Sephiroth. “And what the hell, dude? Cover up!”
Pain is the only thing keeping all the blood in Cloud’s body from pooling in his cheeks. When Zack crouches down, he hesitates before taking the hand offered to him. Is he even awake right now? Shouldn’t he just stay down here, where he’s out of sight and it’s far more comfortable?
And where he wouldn’t have to look at—at that?
What the fuck.
“Modesty had not occurred to me,” comes a smooth, even voice from somewhere behind the couch.
The part of Cloud’s brain that’s still in fight-or-flight mode has to resist the impulse to start giggling. He dusts himself off instead.
What the fuck.
“Shit, I just—look, listen. I’m sorry about the table,” Zack says like he only partially means it. “You can tell Lazard to bill it to me, whatever you need to do, but… I dunno man, did we freak you out or something? There was no reason you had to gun it out here. You nearly gave Cloud a heart attack and we were only messing around. You gotta know that.”
Shit, shit, shit, it’s all my fault—
He chances a look at Sephiroth in his periphery. The towel has been replaced. His eyes slide up, unbidden, and when they make contact with Sephiroth’s—
—kill him—
He bristles. The Demon of Wutai’s gaze cuts through him like a hot knife. The intensity of it is enough to make Cloud’s hair stand on end, and Zack’s voice becomes muffled in his ears as his focus narrows to a point somewhere between Sephiroth’s eyebrows.
He should run; his instincts are telling him he’s in danger, but…is he? Has Sephiroth given him any indication of that thus far? Wouldn’t Zack know if something was wrong?
Do not think about his dick!
Cloud takes a shallow breath and exhales. He needs to interject before Zack talks so much that he steals all the words from his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he offers, trying to sound sincere rather than terrified. “About all the noise. Zack was teasing me, and I was already kind of nervous about…stuff, so I played into it more than usual to distract myself.” He squares his jaw in a passive attempt to seem bigger than he is. “It got really out of hand, and if you want us to leave—”
Was it an out? Probably. The look Zack was giving him said it was.
“No,” Sephiroth cuts in quietly. His eyes flit to Zack, then back to Cloud in the space of a nanosecond. “I will have Lazard take care of it. Stay.”
It almost sounds like an order.
“Get dressed first, at least.” Zack pushes a hand through his bangs, sounding exhausted. “I’ll grab your dustpan and…do what I can.”
As Zack sets to work finding a broom, Sephiroth continues to stare at Cloud, seemingly assessing him. Now that he’s upright and there aren’t hundreds of glass shards at his back, Cloud can feel the heat rising in his neck. The only time Sephiroth tears his gaze away from him is when he goes to adjust his towel, at which point both pairs of eyes dip surreptitiously down. When Cloud glances back up and notices the other man’s smirk, his stomach falls out of his ass.
Sephiroth had done that on purpose. Maybe not the first time—that seemed like an honest mistake—but the second time for sure. Was this some sort of test?
After tracing the curve of his mouth for far longer than is acceptable, Cloud twists around, seeking out Zack as he rummages around in the coat closet. “You should, uh—let me help?” he says, and it comes out sounding like a question. The bathroom door clicks shut a moment later, and Cloud can’t help but bore holes into it over his shoulder.
Zack straightens up a bit when they hear the telltale signs of Sephiroth getting dressed on the other side.
‘He wouldn’t stop looking at you,’ he mouths over at Cloud, then says out loud, “Weird.”
“Yeah,” Cloud agrees distantly. He catches the dustpan Zack tosses his way. “... Weird.”
His puppet does not remember him.
It takes him a moment to acclimate to the situation at hand, but the black-haired one—Zack, he amends, remembering what his puppet had called him—gives him enough context to parrot back.
“No. I will have Lazard take care of it,” he replies with cool confidence. Mimicry has always been Mother’s strong suit; he likes to think it is a skill of his by extension. “Stay.”
In response, his puppet’s eyes dilate. There is an accompanying euphoria that originates somewhere beneath Sephiroth’s breastbone as his superiority is reinforced, but the feeling is brief. What he finds strange about his puppet’s reaction is the already-noted lack of mako in his eyes. When Sephiroth casts out his tether, it comes drifting back mere moments later, empty and unperturbed.
As he thought: His puppet does not yet carry Mother’s cells. Why, then, did he react?
Briefly, memories of the Northern Cave niggle him. He remembers drawing his puppet into the maelstrom of his own delusions, weaving together lies upon lies to create a tapestry of despair that he might girdle himself with; he remembers sifting through his puppet’s memories to isolate any pertinent details about his childhood—things he would not want him knowing, much less making flagrant use of.
One detail in particular—one that he had previously dismissed, unable and unwilling to indulge before his third death—stands out.
Studying him carefully out of the corner of his eye, Sephiroth moves to adjust his towel around his waist. He loosens the spot where it is twisted and bunched above his thigh, shifts it approximately an inch to his right, and re-ties it.
His puppet watches every motion with rapt attention—with the sort of recklessness and wanton desire unbefitting of a future Cloud Strife. This version of his puppet is merely a boy; moreover, he is a boy with myriad inhibitions and absolutely zero propriety. Sephiroth can use this to his advantage. Unable to keep the elation from his face, he smirks.
…
Casual clothes do not suit him, he thinks.
‘Cotton’ is a deceptively versatile material in that it can be soft and pliant one moment and ceaselessly itchy the next. His shirt is form-fitting and gentle against his stomach and pectorals. His pants, on the other hand, chafe every inch of available skin.
It is agonizing. In the mirror, he looks visibly uncomfortable. Even worse, he looks almost human.
He cannot recall the last time he registered that he was wearing clothes, and it occurs to him that after his first death, anything he wore must have been constructed from memory. The soul, in its purest and most distilled form, has no need of underwear.
There is a cautious knock at the door.
“You good in there?” comes the more irritating voice of the two men currently trespassing in his apartment. “Cloud and I got what we could off the floor, so whenever you’re ready—”
He does not immediately reply. His puppet’s voice floats through the door in the wake of Zack’s, difficult to parse, but the shape of his vowels makes whatever he is saying sound like a question. There is a chuckle from a far closer distance, followed by, “Yeah, he likes to primp sometimes. Totally par for the course.”
Sephiroth’s nostrils flare slightly. He does not, and has never once in his life, ‘primped.’ Discarded memories be damned; he knows he is correct about this.
“Bullshit,” his puppet says, and for a single blissful, fleeting moment, Sephiroth relishes the knowledge that Cloud was crafted in his own image. They understood each other on a metaphysical level, their bond far beyond the ken of a simpleton like Zack—
“A team probably does this stuff for him,” his puppet continues. “It’s not like he isn’t in magazines—obviously.”
Sephiroth stops listening.
When he emerges from the bathroom, Zack wolf-whistles and punches him lightly on the arm. It takes every ounce of mental fortitude Sephiroth has not to gore him on the Masamune where he stands.
At the witless oaf’s side, his puppet’s expression is soft. Lax. Open. His eyes continue to map out every crevice of Sephiroth’s body when he thinks he is not paying attention, and Sephiroth finds that he enjoys it. He has always wanted his puppet’s submission, he thinks—and here he is, ignorant and doe-eyed, offering himself up on a silver platter.
Sephiroth is going to ruin him.
“Considering the current state of my table, we may want to consider taking our meals elsewhere,” he remarks mechanically. “Alternatively, I could…call Lazard…” He hesitates, unsure of whether this ‘Lazard’ is a co-conspirator, enemy, or janitor. “—and have this cleaned up.” Then, probing, “No harm, no foul, I imagine.”
Unfortunately, it is Zack who answers. “Eh, he’s stressed as it is. Plus, it’s after hours. S’not a big deal.” He thinks for a moment, which Sephiroth recognizes must be exceedingly difficult for him. “Actually, we could always go to my place instead? I keep a bunch of takeout menus in my drawer, so we can probably find something and order it in.”
“And, of course, your coffee table is perfectly intact,” Sephiroth supplements coolly. Hopefully Zack has one, he realizes in retrospect. He assumes their lodgings are similar based on what few remaining memories of Shinra and the SOLDIER program he has. “... And you, Cloud? Is this plan amenable to you?”
His puppet looks taken aback. Something about the sight is endearing. “Y–Yeah, sure. I’m good with whatever.”
Sephiroth smiles thinly at him. “Excellent. If you would, Zack?” he prompts him, indicating the door.
They file out, and when Sephiroth steps to the side, allowing his puppet to pass him, he makes sure that their fingers brush. To his immense pleasure, Cloud turns scarlet.
Cloud has had a lot of Wutaian food since moving to Midgar, but this little local joint Zack suggested? Holy shit.
“Holy shit,” Zack says in poetic tandem with his own thoughts. He scoops up a spoonful of chicken and vegetables and…something else, brandishing it in Cloud’s face. “Open wide, Spike! S’crazy good!”
Cloud blinks, unsure of what to do for a moment until he remembers that this is supposed to be a normal hangout. And when he and Zack ‘hang out’, well…he takes the damn food and eats it with gusto.
So, despite turning bright red in the presence of his childhood hero for a fourth time, that’s exactly what he does.
“It’s good,” he agrees, glancing over at Sephiroth’s portion of what appears to be rice noodles. He’s pushing it around its container, head tilted in bemusement. Catching his gaze, Cloud looks down at his food, then back to Sephiroth’s face. “Not a big fan of yours?”
Sephiroth seems to digest his words slowly. He answers Cloud’s question with a question of his own. “Are you hungry?”
“I’ve got plenty still,” he replies truthfully.
“But your meal does not have the same textures or flavor profile as mine.” Sephiroth stares at the disposable utensil in his hand as if it offends him. “Are you not even the slightest bit curious? That is why I have foregone eating thus far—so I would have ample food for you, should you ask.”
“Uh…” Cloud says stupidly. It’s so obviously a lie that he isn’t sure what to say, implications aside. Zack only just now offered him his food, yet Sephiroth is acting like this has been some premeditated thing for the past fifteen minutes.
But wait, wait, wait—did Sephiroth just offer to feed him?
For the third time: What the fuck.
Sephiroth believed Zack’s offer to be some sort of custom. Evidently, it is not.
Social cues and expectations are difficult when you are an immortal being.
“I did not want it to seem as if I was excluding you from a unique experience. Zack was quick to share his meal. I thought it only fair to do the same.”
His puppet is pale. In an effort to quash the strange silence underfoot, Sephiroth scrapes together a messy forkful of his noodles, leaning forward. Agape and seemingly nonplussed, his puppet simply stares at him. Then, with a minute little shake of his head, he braces himself on the table below and meets him halfway, opening his mouth.
What a strangely thrilling sight: His puppet, his enemy, the very core of his being offering a part of himself to him.
If only the Cloud Strife of the future had been so accommodating. Perhaps Wutaian cuisine could be his undoing there—then?—too.
In his triumph, Sephiroth slides the fork too deeply into his puppet’s waiting mouth. He gags.
The strange silence from before returns. “Uh…” Zack starts across from them, eyes darting back and forth as he echoes his puppet’s earlier uncertainty. “Should I like…leave?”
Sephiroth has been waiting for this since the moment he got out of the Steam Box only to find a stranger in his living room.
“Yes.”
“No!” his puppet almost shouts.
Notes:
The summary will (probably) be relevant next time.