Chapter Text
Cloud only has a short window of time before Sephiroth comes back. He intends to make the most of it.
The bathroom is his best bet, since he still doesn’t know where his Sephiroth keeps the sharps, though not for lack of trying. There, he’ll find what he’s looking for. Something dangerous, ideally. Something useful. Nail scissors, maybe, or a razor blade, if he’s lucky. Sephiroth is the one who keeps track of all of those things, but there are only so many places they could be stored. Cloud will find it, he’s sure: something that will force an answer, not another empty excuse.
When he stumbles into the bathroom, he smacks his hand against the cold tile wall, searching for the light switch. Though the lights above the mirror are soft, his eyes sting, and the familiar ache radiating through his lower abdomen has him gasping.
He hisses and grinds the heels of his palms against his eyes, unused to the brightness, but he’s too unsteady on his feet to sacrifice his vision for long.
There’s not enough time to stop and figure out the series of switches and dials to adjust the lights to something more comfortable, and he can see from the windows that it’s already dark outside. Or maybe it’s still dark; he can’t be sure. Sephiroth doesn’t keep any clocks in the bedroom, after all.
Each limping twist of his hips sends another burst of pain through his core, and when he sways, the toe of his slipper gets caught under the curled edge of the bathmat.
Before he falls, he manages to catch himself on the edge of the veined-marble countertop, heaving for breath and swallowing his nausea as he gulps down the ice-cold water from the steel tap. He’s okay. He’s fine. He can breathe, if only just, and he looks up from his manicured, scarred fingertips where they grip the edge of the sink and sees the blurred, frightful vision.
There, he sees what can only be described as a stranger standing in the dark marble bathroom, blinking back at him in the enormous mirror and flanked by lilies. The sight is . . . well, unexpected. He doesn’t spend much time looking at himself lately, but he finds a beautiful, ugly young thing, all hollowed out, with his bruised collarbones casting cool shadows, though his cheeks are still full and round. His hair is longer than he remembers, partly tied back by an elastic.
He runs his fingers over the wrinkles of the oversized white dress shirt, half-slipped off his shoulder and buttoned to just below his sternum. The hem barely covers the tops of his thin, marked thighs. When he looks up and raises his eyebrows, so does that pale face, somehow his own and yet totally foreign.
His hand wanders further down, trying to smooth out the rumpled fabric and give himself some dignity.
Huh?
Those are not boxers, like he used to wear, but—
Cotton-and-lace panties; cornflower blue, tied low on his hips with loose silk bows. Lifting the shirt up, he can see that the fabric is a little damp, darkened on one side. Despite the fear clutching onto his heart, his cock stirs; his knees knock together.
“Cloud?” Sephiroth’s voice rises up from the hallway.
Shit. He’ll be back soon. And Cloud knows that Sephiroth will bring an explanation, but it’s not one he wants. If only he could be brave—better than he was all those years ago, when he ran instead of fucking doing something. Now, he can’t run, but at least he might be able to fight. At least he’ll get to the bottom of this.
There’s no time. There’s no telling how long he’s been standing here, let alone how long he’s been trapped in this house. His clothes are a problem for later. Right now, he’s on a mission. He’d managed to cheek some of his pills last night and hide them under the bed—not enough to stay awake past the usual time, but enough to keep him a little more alert by morning.
He needs to run.
But first, he needs to arm himself.
He yanks open the drawers, finding all their ordinary things—a tortoiseshell comb, a few tubes of glittery lip gloss, foreign-labeled shampoo, orange-blossom soap wrapped in wax paper. Nothing sharp, nothing useful.
With trembling hands, he tosses it all onto the floor and continues his search. The cabinet on the wall is similarly useless, without even a razor, though he’s sure he used it yesterday. Or the day before. Or—wait. Sephiroth did it for him, quickly getting rid of the stubble on his chin, and his legs, and his stomach, and there between his legs, too.
Shit.
“Cloud?” Sephiroth calls again. “Are you all right up there?”
Gripping the edge of the marble vanity with his white knuckles, he swallows hard and takes a deep breath before responding.
“I’m fine!” His voice comes out hoarse and unfamiliar, and the scent of the lilies on the countertop between the two sinks is too much. They’re too sweet, about to die, and he closes his eyes in a vain attempt to reduce his sensory overload.
When he stops for a moment and looks down at his shaking hands where they rest on the drawer, he sees the bloom of color: looping bruises around his wrists, and medical tape blisters and gauze on the back of his scarred hands. Some marks are dark and new, others thin and yellowed. The baby-pink nail varnish is fresh, definitely Sephiroth’s handiwork. Out of habit, he wants to set his diamond ring in the little glass dish Sephiroth placed in the bathroom for that very purpose, but he resists. He needs to keep looking.
Maybe over here, he thinks, on Sephiroth’s side of the sink, but he quickly finds it’s more of the same: bulk packages of toothpaste and almond lotion, plus neatly-folded face towels. Hasn’t he done this before? Where would the razors be? Or a nail file, even. There has to be something. By now, his breaths are coming in rattled gasps; he knows this isn’t going to work.
And yet he can’t stop. When he tries to bend down to open the cabinet under the sink, his knee buckles, and something solid inside of him shifts, grazing against the spot he has come to loathe. He bites back a whine and tries to keep himself upright, bracing his hand on the counter.
What the Hel . . . ?
There’s something there, solid and foreign. How could he not have noticed it, this intrusion into his body?
Biting his lip, he spreads his legs a little and reaches behind with one hand before tugging his panties down so the elastic rests below his ass. Shit, there it is, cool between his cheeks, slippery between his numb fingers, and he hisses through his teeth as he pulls it out in one horrible motion. It sends a violent shock through his body, straight to his dick, despite the clench of fear in his gut.
For a moment, all is dark and light, like stars behind his eyes, far prettier than the streaks of mixed clear-and-white fluid on his fingers, which he idly wipes on his borrowed shirt. He can hear the soft thud of the plug as it lands on the bathmat as he fights the desire. Where the fuck did that come from? How long has it been in there?
He has to get out, he knows. A weapon isn’t enough. He has to leave for one very simple reason: he doesn’t know how he got here. He knows Sephiroth has explained it before, and it still doesn’t make any sense.
But if Sephiroth is right, if he really is losing touch with reality, and this is all just some trick of his mind—no. No. He has to call Zack. Or Aerith, or Tifa, if he can remember their numbers. Anyone. He doesn’t know where he put his PHS, and although his heartbeat echoes in his ears, it’s frightfully slow.
The entire world is slow—even the measured footsteps on the carpeted stairs, a sound he knows well.
The meds aren’t really out of his system.
It’s too late.
He wants that sticky mess gone, but when he brushes his fingers against his hole, trying to wipe it away, he can’t help his reaction to insensate scar tissue over the sensitive gape of his hole. He only touches back there when Sephiroth tells him to, and now, when he does it himself and allows just one moment to let it calm him, he relishes the feeling—the slick slide against his twitching entrance, still sore from the plug, and maybe from something else.
It stings just like the tears starting to form at the corners of his eyes. He quickly blinks them away, though he takes in his surroundings like a series of pictures as he straightens his spine and tries to gather his wits. All around him, he sees the evidence of whatever it is he has gotten himself into: the glistening curve of the glass next to his bare feet; his little cock, flushed and pink and half-hard as he pulls his panties back up around his hips; the pile of imported toiletries scattered around him on the floor.
How did he make such a mess? How does he still have nothing to show for it?
He reaches back down to finally open the cabinet, but he freezes. There, in the corner of his eye, a silver shadow—
“There you are, Cloud. What are you doing out of bed?”
Cloud nearly jumps out of his skin, and the sound of Sephiroth’s voice compels him to look up.
Behind him in the mirror, Sephiroth stands in the doorway, wearing only low-slung sweatpants that leave very little to Cloud’s imagination. There is no other way out of here except past this wall of flawless porcelain muscle and sinew, and he rests his hands on the doorframe, glancing briefly at the toy at Cloud’s feet. Under the warm lights ringing the mirror, his eyes appear to glow, a corona of gold on jade.
Cloud’s throat goes dry. “I . . .”
When Sephiroth smiles, the cold fear in him melts. Alongside the consuming dread in his veins, he finds its inevitable companion: instinctual affection, almost magnetic. He swallows hard, thinking about the two things he wants most: to choke the life out of Sephiroth and watch the light fade from his eyes—or to run into his arms and forget all about this stupid tantrum he’s having.
Cloud closes his eyes.
He already knows what’s going to happen.
This has happened before.
It’s happening again.
“It’s past your bedtime, you know,” Sephiroth purrs, suddenly behind Cloud. His breath is warm on the back of Cloud’s neck, and his chest is flush against Cloud’s back. He wraps his arms around Cloud’s waist, a prison of muscle, and against his solid body, Cloud can feel himself trembling. “I was just making some tea, since I couldn’t sleep. Perhaps I should make you some too.”
Sephiroth’s hand drifts lower; something warm flares in Cloud’s core.
“Were you looking for something? You’ve made quite the mess in here.”
“Yeah,” he says, his teeth chattering, “I was looking for, um. . . for . . .”
Distracted by Sephiroth’s plush lips on his shoulder, he can’t think of a lie. Sephiroth’s hands quickly turn firm, slipping under the wrinkled shirt, settling over the old finger-shaped bruises, and he shoves Cloud’s panties down as he bites gently at the thin skin of his neck.
“The lube is in the top drawer on the right, Cloud. All you had to do was ask. I told you to stay in bed and that I’d be back.”
Cloud thrashes against him, clawing at the marble counter, his ring clicking against the surface. “That’s not—”
“You’ll feel better once I put it back in. I promise.”
Instead of the sharpness he was searching for, all is soft—long, cool fingers play in the mess leaking out of his hole, and warm muscle surrounds him. All he can smell is Sephiroth’s shampoo and the musk of sex, heady and sweet; he bites the inside of his cheek as he stiffens in Sephiroth’s embrace.
“Oh? I’m not sure you even needed the lube. Look how wet you are.” Or maybe you want something else. Is that it? You are . . .” Sephiroth chuckles darkly against his spine, where he leaves a trail of kisses before settling again at Cloud’s bruise-mottled neck. “Insatiable.”
Cloud’s body seizes, his breath no more than a broken hiss, as Sephiroth’s hand reaches around to his front. With his finger coated in come and lube, he strokes Cloud once from root to tip. In an instant, he’s hard and can’t help but thrust into Sephiroth’s touch, despite the terror, despite the smears of black in the corners of his narrowing vision.
“Dr. Crescent, what are you . . . ?” he slurs. “Let go of me!”
“Oh, Cloud,” Sephiroth sighs, suddenly going still. “We have made so much progress. You must have forgotten to take your medication. That’s my responsibility. I’m sorry for neglecting my duties.”
“No,” he babbles, “I don’t want it, I can’t, please, stop—”
“And you were doing so well.” Sephiroth clicks his tongue. “You are doing well. But don’t worry. I’ll always be here to help you, just like we promised: in sickness and in health.”
With one hand still circling Cloud’s cock, the other reaches into his pocket, and Cloud bucks in his arms, trying to get away. Above him, Sephiroth uncaps the syringe with his teeth.
“Hold still, puppet.”
Cloud doesn’t listen, but Sephiroth’s arm is so tight around him that it doesn’t even matter. Sephiroth is a professional when it comes to making Cloud relax, and there’s a quick flash of silver. That’s his chance, he thinks, the one he’s been waiting for all this time! If only he could—
He reaches for it, twisting in Sephiroth’s arms, but it’s no use. He is surrounded, propelled by puppet-strings as Sephiroth’s hips roll against his ass and he grips Cloud’s cock so hard it hurts, cotton lace and watery pre grinding against tender flesh.
Before Cloud can figure out a better plan, there is a moment’s burn in his exposed shoulder, seeping into the muscle, and then—oh, yes—limp-limbed, gooey bliss, spreading through him like butter melting on a hot skillet.
There it is, in his mind as it is in his body, the blank calm, as gorgeous as he remembered. How could he have forgotten to take his medication? Why did he try to fight it? That was so silly. Sephiroth does say he can be quite silly.
In slow-motion, Cloud watches the needle withdraw from his upper arm, and a strangled noise escapes his throat.
Sharp . . . I was looking for something sharp.
“Shh.” Sephiroth wipes away the little drop of blood beading on his pale skin and kisses his shoulder as the sedative begins to work its magic.
In a matter of seconds, Cloud’s limbs turn to jelly, and he wobbles in place before he slumps over the counter, resting his cheek on the marble while Sephiroth nudges his legs apart with his thigh.
Bent over, standing on his tiptoes, he soon feels Sephiroth’s thick fingers teasing at his sloppy, well-used entrance. He cries out, a wet lump in his throat, but he can’t deny how much he loves this—the cottony embrace of the drug, the relentless touch of his captor.
“There,” Sephiroth murmurs. “Let daddy help, hm?”
The bruises on his chest and hips ache as Cloud uses the last bit of his waning strength to jolt against the marble, and his shoulders knock a bottle of face serum from the countertop. It shatters somewhere beside them, but he can’t focus on that. Instead, he whines at the feeling of three of Sephiroth’s pushing swiftly in, all the way to the knuckle, deep, full and thick, the squelching sound echoing against the green tile.
For a moment, he scissors his fingers apart, white-hot fullness, before he feels the muscles of Sephiroth’s body tense up and his fingers begin to drive into him at a brutal pace.
The top of Cloud’s hair brushes against the mirror as the force of Sephiroth’s hand shoves him forward. He groans, trying to get some leverage to push himself up, but his arms don’t respond, and the sound turns to a wet, hiccuping sob, soon evened out by the narcotic.
“That’s right. Let it out. You do get like this sometimes.”
He tries again and again to escape, but his arms just twitch a little and go limp again, and with each stroke, Sephiroth’s firm fingers brush against that most sensitive place inside him, sending a shiver up his spine. When his legs begin to tremble, Sephiroth easily lifts his hips and shoves his back down, splaying one hand over his shoulder-blades. The marble is like ice on his skin; his bruised nipples stiffen and chafe against the surface.
Sephiroth yanks him back by his hair, forcing him to look up as his feet dangle above the floor.
In the mirror, through his tears, he sees Sephiroth first, not himself. That makes sense; he doesn’t like to look at himself for too long anyway. This is the way it should be.
Looming above, his hair wild, he stares deep into the reflection of Cloud’s gaze. His voice is low and sweet in Cloud’s ear as he pushes the fourth finger in. To Cloud’s horror, there is no resistance at all, and Sephiroth hums, seemingly satisfied.
“It won’t hurt anymore, Cloud.” His mouth turns sharp; his hand teases at Cloud’s most sensitive place, all while he lines himself up. Four fingers are quickly replaced by something far thicker and blazing hot, pulsing against his hole. The shudder of his breath shakes Cloud’s entire body as he begins to push in, slow and steady. “I’ll take such good care of you. I always do.”
Six months earlier.
“I’m worried about you, Cloud,” Tifa says, poking at his half-eaten lunch tray.
“Well, you shouldn’t be. I’m doing better.”
Her sigh, though soft, is grating in his ears, and he turns away, chewing the inside of his cheek as he stares out the fogged window overlooking the quad. This isn’t a new conversation, but he’s been lucky to avoid it for the last few weeks.
“Zack says you barely ever come out of your suite, except to go to class.” She shifts in her seat; he feels the anger flaring under his skin and he savors the tang of blood under his tongue. “And even then—”
“Even then, what? I’m here, right? I don’t know why you’re bringing this up now,” he grumbles. “Besides, I’m seeing the new shrink today after class. I thought you’d be happy about that.”
“Oh?” Her face brightens and she pulls her hand away from his tray. “That’s great. I didn’t know.”
The bright tone in her voice is hollow, a performance, and he traces the tip of his finger over the rim of his empty water glass, even as the cold burns his skin. No matter how many years it’s been, he’s sure he can still feel the burning handle of the door in his hands.
When he had first mentioned it during one of his appointments, Dr. Gast had just shaken his head with that sad, pitiful little smile. There’s no reason to think that the new psychiatrist will be any different. As far as Cloud is concerned, they’re all the same: weirdos studying even more pathetic weirdos, like bugs in a glass jar. Maybe they should study each other instead.
But at least Tifa is happy. When he feels her gaze lingering on his hands for too long, he grabs his fork and pushes the salad around his plate.
“Yeah. I asked, but Shinra wouldn’t give me a pass. As long as I take my medication and go to class, who cares?”
“They’re right, though. It’s important.”
“Easy for you to say,” he grumbles. “You’re not the one who has to go and spill your guts about all your issues so they don’t take away your scholarship.”
She bites her lip; she’s not on scholarship, with her parents paying her tuition. She manages everything else with her twice-a-week bartending job and her side-gigs playing at the piano bar. Cloud’s pocket money comes from his cushy work-study, editing a textbook for a few hours a week, so he knows she works hard. But she doesn’t owe her parents the same way he’ll owe Shinra.
Their conditions for Cloud are clear, and the scholarship committee’s kind voices are just as infuriating as Tifa’s today. Too nice, too friendly, Cloud knows, just the way the guys in the suits had been when they had come to tell him what he already knew, three years ago in the hospital.
You did your best.
I’m so sorry, Mr. Strife—may I call you Cloud?—but . . . well . . .
“Why don’t you come out with us this weekend, hm? Zack said you didn’t text him back on Friday, but we all would’ve loved to see you.”
He speaks, even though he knows better. He really should just stop, finish this tasteless salad, and book it to his lecture. But he doesn’t. He chooses the worst option, and he twists his other hand into a fist inside his pocket as he does it. “You could’ve texted me. But you didn’t.”
Her eyebrows raise and her breath comes in a little huff. He knows he’s testing her patience, but he finds he doesn’t care, and the last of his appetite is gone. The anticipation of the appointment has settled under his skin, and the afternoon is shattered before it has barely just started.
“Cloud, I—”
“Forget it. I have to go. Sorry.”
Before he can snatch his tray and escape, Tifa grabs him by the sleeve. Her eyes are shiny, and his throat closes up when he looks at her. She lets go quickly enough, but he hates that forced smile. Back in the day, she used to smile a lot—but never at him. And it had always been real.
“Good luck, okay?” she says, all false cheer. “We’re trying to help.”
He doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing at all, just nods and turns on his heel. She’s trying, obviously, but whatever lives beneath his skin won’t allow him to accept it. On Friday, he saw the text message from Zack right away: an invitation to the suite down the hall, to play video games and have a few drinks and snacks before checking out some of the campus parties. Zack even mentioned they had bought cactuar soda, Cloud’s favorite, and he eventually knocked on Cloud’s door.
“Spike?” he said, and Cloud heard him loud and clear. “You there? No pressure, but if you are, let me know. Won’t be the same without you.”
He had opened his mouth, but the words didn’t come. Instead, he stayed in bed, clutching his PHS in the darkness, mindlessly scrolling through his email and staring at the little Mt. Nibel snow globe on his bedside table.
There was no reason not to go; he had nothing else better to do, and he had been in his bed since coming back from his Friday lab. From his little window facing the dorm’s bicycle parking, he he watched the sun set, and when he plugged in his PHS to charge the battery, his muscles screamed at him. But inertia was more powerful than any desire, and he stayed there until Zack left, clenching his jaw and scratching at his palms, his body both sweaty and cold.
The dreams came anyway. They always do, whether his eyes are closed or open, and the only reprieve comes in the form of his favorite of his pills, which Dr. Gast told him to use only sparingly.
Besides, rejecting Tifa and Zack is a choice. Shinra had chosen his path after the fire—top-notch medical care, life insurance payout, boarding school, and then university in Midgar—but this is his decision, and his only. To look at Tifa and know she’s the same girl she was in Nibelheim. To ignore Zack and think, next time. When I’m better.
It’s something he can cling to, to have all to himself, and the fuzz of his brain and the morning count of his pills and the taste of iron in his mouth and cotton in his eyes all recede, replaced by the chill in his nerves when he wonders if Tifa will forgive him.
He’s early for his next lecture, and he sits in the back of the hall and tugs his sleeves down, hoping against hope that nobody will sit next to him. Some cheery-faced junior arrives and offers him some of her gum; he politely declines.
The next two hours pass in a blur.
Today, with his backpack perched between his knees, with his notes nearly illegible, he finds his attention is split between something about mako-analog reactions and the hangnail on his thumb, so fucking loud in his nervous system—not to mention, of course, the way the person at the end of the row swivels in their chair, allowing the flip-top desk to wiggle with every kick of his legs. He wants to slam it back down, just to see what they would do. He wants to rip his skin off and run out of here.
To distract himself, he studies the transit route to the doctor’s office on his PHS. He had just assumed that the new psychiatrist would work near Dr. Gast, in one of the fake turn-of-the-century buildings where all the medical school professors keep their offices. But this address, which Dr. Gast’s receptionist provided at the end of their last session, is in a residential area in the next quarter over. As best as he can tell from Moogle Maps, there aren’t many other offices nearby.
Maybe he’s not part of the Shinra deal, Cloud realizes, swallowing thickly. Dr. Gast had submitted quarterly updates on Cloud’s treatment to the scholarship committee, which Cloud had reviewed once during the first year—and which he had quickly regretted. The diagnoses and the list of medications, along with the list of missed appointments, had looked terrible in writing: he’s fucked, the report seemed to say, but I’m trying.
Dr. Gast’s position at the university was also thanks to Shinra’s endowment, and Cloud hadn’t wanted to do anything to disrupt the balance between keeping Shinra happy and saying his real thoughts. He knows better than to believe they care about his mental health, anyway. A quiet, controlled patient is one who won’t spread rumors about the safety of buildings in company towns.
He’s not stupid.
He’s just fucking tired.
Maybe this new guy is different, unbound by Cloud’s corporate masters. The address doesn’t show anything interesting on Moogle Maps, and there isn’t even a picture of the house when he types it in. He clicks on the satellite view, studying the property, then searches the doctor’s name, finding nothing connected to Shinra, before closing the tab and erasing his browser history. He only really needed to know how to get there from the train station.
He hasn’t even met this person, and there’s no need to be snooping. Dr. Gast had recommended him but had said little else, had just looked at Cloud with that sad, weak smile.
“You’ll be okay.”
Don’t be a creep, he thinks to himself, ensuring that all traces of his digital stalking have been erased. Shoving his PHS back into his pocket, he tugs down his sleeves to hide the scars on his knuckles and grabs his pencil. He’s lost by now, but he copies what he sees on the chalkboard and vows to take a closer look later.
The train ride from campus to the residential sector is too short to settle his nerves, just a few stops away. On a clear afternoon, he would ordinarily enjoy the view of the upper plate and the safe, mako-powered logic of its streets. The green-tinged vapor soothes his nerves, a world away from wood stoves and snowy peaks.
Today, however, he can’t stop the spiral. He freezes outside the train station, grinding his teeth and glaring at the passing cars. The route is simple enough, just a few turns, but each step feels heavier and heavier.
What if the reports are supposed to be submitted after every appointment? What if he thinks Cloud isn’t worth treating and just ends up kicking him over to someone else?
What if he insists that Cloud see a talk therapist, too? Dr. Gast had folded eventually, limiting their visits to twice a month—and Cloud had missed at least a quarter of those, anyway—but this guy . . . there’s no telling who he is, or how he’ll approach Cloud’s case.
Dr. Gast’s daughter is a friend of Zack and Tifa’s, and though Cloud had never spoken of his appointments to her, he had long suspected that Dr. Gast had a soft spot for people his daughter’s age. It really had been the best-case scenario, and now it’s over.
The new shrink is basically a ghost, according to Cloud’s searches; all he can find is that he graduated from medical school the year Cloud was born, and there are some pharmacology publications in his name, which Cloud doesn’t bother to read. There’s no telling whether Dr. Crescent, like so many others in Midgar, dislikes people from Nibelheim, or whether he will change Cloud’s medications and leave him frazzled and useless.
Fuck.
He bites the inside of his cheek, his enthusiasm long gone. Every step feels like walking into the lion’s den, past real grass and neat rows of transplanted flowers and lush trees beginning to change color. Though autumn’s chill hasn’t quite arrived, he shivers and jams his hands in his pockets, barely glancing up from his feet.
The mako-fueled street lamps hum, rattling in his skull, but when Cloud rounds the corner onto Dr. Crescent’s street, he finds it quieter than the rest: framed by red-tinged maples, the houses are huge and modern, mirror-like glass and metal and marble, with high fences and security cameras pointing at every angle.
He doesn’t belong here. The dorm is one thing, full of bright laughter and excited, wild-eyed optimism, and in another life, he could have belonged there. But it’s too clean, too calm, too perfect here on the sidewalk in front of Dr. Crescent’s building. Just one hour and he can go.
In front of the steel gate, he finds a small, burnished metal plate next to the mail slot, etched in script:
Sephiroth Crescent, M.D.
Psychiatrist
No Solicitors.
Taking a deep breath, he rings the buzzer with his scarred, pale finger before instinctively wiping it with the hem of his sleeve. In the tiny reflection of the bubble camera, he can see the circles under his eyes, but it’s too late to leave. He told Tifa he’d go, and he’s here. If he runs now, the doctor will know.
“Hello?” comes the soft, disembodied voice.
“It’s, um, it’s Cloud Strife, here for my 3pm appointment.”
Silence and static; he scuffs the toe of his sneaker against the marble step underneath the gate, waiting. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
He should have counted his medication this morning. How many refills did Dr. Gast leave him? How could he have been so stupid?
“Please come in. The lower door is open.”
Past the steel gate, he finds a small manicured lawn and driveway, punctuated by a few yellow leaves drifting down from the trees. Up the steps is a massive double door, framed by enormous mirrored windows and another floor above, but when he enters on the ground floor, there is a small waiting area, just two chairs and a glass table, with shadowy stairs leading up to what must be the rest of the house.
To one side, the door is ajar, and he can see the warm afternoon light trickling in. This is no ordinary office, he realizes; the two additional floors upstairs must be Dr. Crescent’s home, or else there would be a second buzzer and another name. He feels like a freak for having looked it up and peeped at the property. Like a stalker.
Cloud doesn’t want to know how much this house cost, but he’s sure he’ll take a closer look tonight, now that he has already crossed the line. It’s the size of one of the huge co-op houses on campus, but it probably isn’t crammed full of sweaty, sleep-deprived kids like him.
It’s too late not to go in, so he takes a deep breath, shifts his backpack on his shoulders, and reaches for the doorknob.
Before he does, it pushes open, and he jumps back.
“Hello, Cloud. You’re right on time.”
Instead of reaching to shake his hand, as Cloud had feared, Dr. Crescent simply holds the door open and extends his arm, indicating that Cloud should enter.
Pictures wouldn’t have done him justice, Cloud realizes; despite his age, he is remarkably handsome, and so tall that Cloud has to crane his neck to look at his soft smile. Although he is dressed much like Dr. Gast, in a dark cashmere sweater and half-rimmed bifocals, everything about him is far more polished and precise.
His long, silver hair is tied with a ribbon at the nape of his neck, and when Cloud hurries past him to find his place on the couch, he catches a whiff of a citrusy, smoky cologne, far more sophisticated than what Cloud would ever choose for himself. Even his skin is airbrushed and smooth, except for a few creases around his eyes as he smiles.
When he sits in the leather armchair across from Cloud, crossing his legs, slender ankles poke out from his creased-front wool trousers, and just the right amount of his shirt-cuff pulls back to show off the silver-and-nacre watch on his wrist.
For a moment, Cloud studies him, and he doesn’t remember how to start this. Isn’t that Dr. Crescent’s job? To deal with the pleasantries and get this show on the road?
Besides, he’s distracted: the office itself matches, too. Cloud is no expert, but whoever decorated this place had both taste and means, from the dark, patterned rug beneath their feet—probably priceless, definitely not from this continent—to the jewel-toned throw blanket carefully folded next to him on the couch, which Cloud is afraid to touch. Everything is smooth, dark-varnished wood, unlike the metal-and-white exterior of the house, and it’s gentle on his eyes, even cozy, unlike the hard, rubbery mass-produced university furniture cluttering Dr. Gast’s office.
Even better, there’s no computer in sight. The entire back wall is made of floor-to-ceiling windows, overlooking the hedges in the garden and lit by the golden glow of September. The lamps are turned low, and the groan of the mako engines is almost completely silent from here.
Unlike any place he’s ever seen in Midgar, this is an oasis, fashioned from deep cerulean and dark jade and burnished brass, except for the flowers on the side table, creamy white, with what must be a thousand petals each. The vase is probably some exotic antique, with a backstory to match.
He can’t believe Dr. Crescent takes his insurance. Shinra is good for something, he supposes.
“Where would you like to begin, Cloud?”
When the doctor reaches for a pad and pen, Cloud notes it’s a fountain pen. Anything more conventional wouldn’t suit him, it seems.
It won’t work, he knows, but he has nothing to lose. Not anymore. “I . . . guess I’m here for a refill of my meds.”
“Is that so?”
No, asshole. I’m here because Shinra made me.
Biting his lip, he shoves his hands into the pocket of his hoodie and leans back, though the couch is so deep he nearly slips off the edge, barely catching himself and stretching his shoulders in an attempt to make it look intentional. Dr. Crescent, however, hardly moves, except for the long tendrils of hair framing his face, which shift when he takes a deep breath. Another therapist’s trick—letting the tension go, seemingly with the aim that Cloud will mirror him and do it too.
He’s not that stupid. The couch is comfortable, like they usually are, but he never allows himself to lie down during these sessions. It’s too old-school. Too desperate. He’s tired, and his sleep has gone to shit lately, tainted by useless medicine and racing thoughts of fire and guilt.
The fatigue is clearer now than ever before, as he studies this middle-aged doctor with a supermodel’s face and an office out of a luxury magazine, all while fighting the urge to yawn.
“Yeah. Just refill my meds. You read the file from Dr. Gast. I’m doing fine. Way better than last year.”
Dr. Crescent brushes some invisible dust from his notepad and tilts his head to one side. “That’s good to hear, and I’ll be happy to write your prescriptions for you. But first I’d like to get to know you a little, too.”
“Well, I don’t really want to know you.”
Dr. Crescent hums, but that smile hasn’t left his face. That seems to pass for an answer, and now it’s Cloud’s turn.
Cloud sits upright, though he doesn’t withdraw his hands. He wants to lean forward, to show he’s serious, but it’s warm in this room, and thanks to the powdery scent of the flowers and Dr. Crescent’s perfume, he’s already sleepy. He pinches the skin between his thumb and forefinger, where the nerves are almost alive, and tries to steel himself.
“I know how it goes,” he starts. “Let me guess. You’re going to write down whatever messed-up stuff I tell you about myself? About my mom? Put it in your little file? No thanks. You already have what you need.”
“Is that what you think I want to hear? About the ‘messed-up stuff’ about you and your family?” He tilts his head to one side; his bangs shift, and he raises an eyebrow. “We don’t have to talk about that. I’m sure there’s more to you than the worst day of your life.”
For whatever reason, he’s still smiling. It’s softer now, but it’s almost inappropriate. Brazen. Despite Cloud’s anger, and the itch of his clothes against his body and the scream of his mind, he knows that this smile comes without any mockery or pity. He really does want Cloud to speak—though Cloud can’t imagine why. What could he possibly have to say that isn’t in that file?
Why does it matter?
Doesn’t the doctor get paid whether he talks or not?
Receiving no response, Dr. Crescent sets the pad on the side table and leans back, crossing his arms. This is, as Cloud knows, a standoff of sorts, and it’s a familiar one.
The intake appointment is always the most agonizing of all: the beginning of the end, an inevitable crash-and-burn. In these past few years, he’s done it countless times, and until Dr. Gast, it had been a mess.
One therapist moved away from the boarding school, muttering about Shinra’s crazies. Another psychiatrist had quit to move to a smaller city with less madness than Midgar.
The next one stopped taking his insurance, which worked out fine because she had insisted on talking about Cloud’s lack of interest in dating, and he then went on to lie through his teeth to the latest therapist at the student health center, who announced that he was stable and had no need of therapy. Of course, she knew nothing, but that was by design.
Dr. Gast, who had put him on a combination of little white and yellow pills—a few at night and a few in the morning, dry and foul in his mouth—had sniffed out the lies with ease. He had tried for a while to get Cloud to talk to another psychotherapist—two periodic appointments rather than one, and although he had bullshitted his way out of that, he was met with Dr. Gast trying to hug him. It’s okay to not be okay, Cloud, he had said, his perfect rehearsed line, and Cloud had never hated him more. Two detectives to catch him in his lies, to make him relive those nightmares every two weeks? No way.
And now, onto the next. Effectively, Cloud had been fired. He’s sure of it, no matter what Dr. Gast had said about scaling down the scope of his practice, and no matter what the student health center had said.
“We have plenty of time, Cloud. I’m in no hurry.”
Cloud glares at Sephiroth.
“Well, we have fifty minutes.” He glances at his watch. “Dr. Gast mentioned that you hadn’t been actively participating in any form of talk therapy. My personal view is that a combination of therapeutic modalities—”
“That’s your personal view?” he snaps, trying his hardest not to look over at the clock and failing. Well, forty-five minutes now.
Dr. Crescent shrugs. “My opinion is based on my years in this profession, treating patients much like yourself.”
“I’m sure we’re all the same to you.”
“Of course not.” Sephiroth shakes his head, smiling in that infuriating way. “You are special. And I’m quite selective with my patients, if you must know. The more you talk, the more I can tailor your treatment: both medication and therapy, in the appropriate form for you.”
More of the same, a guy who spent too much time in a white coat and feels like he has the right to muck around inside Cloud’s head. Dr. Gast hid it well enough, but Cloud still can’t stand this feeling of being dissected while conscious. Dr. Crescent, obviously, is just another asshole like the rest. He just hides it better.
But the ensuing silence is agonizing, more than it ever has been before, and something about the way this man is looking at him leaves him unable to keep his mouth shut. With Dr. Gast, Cloud had enjoyed their standoffs, had enjoyed watching the clock tick down the minutes until he could go stew in the darkness of his room or dissociate in the library.
Dr. Crescent is looking at him like he’s the most interesting person in the world, and his skin crawls.
You are special, he had said, and Cloud begins to wonder just what is in that file.
“Look, Dr. Crescent, I don’t mean to be rude, but—”
“Please, call me Sephiroth.”
“Okay. Sephiroth,” he huffs, trying out the name in his mouth. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t really want to do this therapy thing. I’m just here because I have to be.”
Sephiroth tilts his head down, peering at him over his silver wire-rimmed glasses. “You are referring to your arrangement with Shinra, correct?”
“More like Shinra’s arrangement with the university,” Cloud mutters darkly, glancing at his shoes to avoid that curious stare. “Not like I had any choice about it.”
“I see. I know very little about it. And I have no interest in giving them more than the bare minimum.”
For a moment, Cloud looks up. Hope isn’t a luxury he can afford, but he can’t quite suppress that fluttery, odd feeling in his chest.
“I will, of course, prepare quarterly reports, attesting to your ability to continue your studies, regardless of what we discuss here. I have no interest in allowing them to gatekeep your education—or in allowing them to invade your medical privacy. You can, of course, review my reports prior to submission.”
His breath is shaky. If what Sephiroth is saying is true, maybe it could be useful. Not that he wants to be here, of course, but there are things he’d never wanted to have written on paper. More than he can name, right now. More than he wants to remember.
“Does that sound fair to you?”
“Sure. I mean, Shinra might not like it.”
Sephiroth leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, suddenly casual. Although he’s slouching, he’s still far taller than Cloud, and across the ocean of imported carpet separating them, he speaks quietly, as if sharing a secret. “Shinra doesn’t have to know.”
After a moment, Cloud manages a soft “okay,” but he still doesn’t know how to navigate the rest.
Fortunately for him, Sephiroth has no reservations about taking the lead.
“I’ve seen the notes from Dr. Gast,” he begins, leaning back and flipping open his notepad, “and he faxed me the list of your medications. But since we are to work together, it would be helpful to hear your story from you.”
“You sure you can’t just give me a refill and let me go?” he laughs weakly. “I’ll be the easiest patient ever. You don’t even have to do anything.”
“I’m not interested in an ‘easy patient,’ whatever that means. I have an ethical duty to take care of you, Cloud. I respect Dr. Gast enormously, but I find that sometimes when a patient has plateaued, a new treatment modality can be beneficial.”
“Plateaued? What are you talking about?”
“Let’s start from the beginning.”
Cloud scoffs. “You know what’s wrong with me, what diagnoses they gave me. PTSD. Depression. Anxiety. Can’t sleep, a function of all three. All that crap is in the notes. You know what happened to my mom.” He swallows. “It really is going better.” His voice breaks on the last few words, and in the calm of Sephiroth’s study, he knows it didn’t go unnoticed.
“So I don’t see the point in talking about it with you. No offense.”
His whole life is summarized in Dr. Gast’s meticulously typed notes, including the ones he hadn’t dared to read, from the talk therapist he’d hated and refused to see after two sessions. He’d stopped going there, and he half-suspects that his refusal to talk had been the reason for being dumped by Dr. Gast’s practice, despite all those excuses about “retirement.” Dr. Gast isn’t that old. He had referred to a need for a “specialized practice” and a more comprehensive approach for his unique challenges, and he had said that Dr. Crescent would be a good fit.
That’s shit from a chocobo’s ass, as far as he’s concerned. Dr. Gast hadn’t wanted to bother, now that he’s trying to work less. He’s just the same as Tifa, with her happy new life in Midgar. Maybe the same as Zack, whose unflappable happiness is so at odds with the vortex of Cloud’s mind that he sometimes can’t even bear to look at him. He’s just too damn happy. But he’d never say that. Instead, he trails along, hoping to absorb some of it.
It doesn’t work if he just stays in bed.
And now there’s this fucker. Perfectly dressed, without a single hair out of place. He probably doesn’t have a single scar on his body. Probably never suffered a day in his life, if the fancy antique maps on the wall and curated library are anything to go by. Even his pen has a monogram on it, now that Cloud is studying him more closely. The worst thing that’s ever happened to him is probably slamming his head into a doorframe, since he’s so freakishly tall.
It’s not worth it to open up his soul. Even if he seems nice enough, Sephiroth is just another creep, studying sad, fucked up people for his amusement. He’ll withhold the stuff that actually works under the guise of avoiding chemical dependency, and in no time at all, he’ll send Cloud along to the next doctor, no matter what nice promises he makes about the reports to the scholarship committee.
Now, he knows it’s coming: the usual litany of questions. Where are you from? What brings you here, as though it isn’t written in the notes. Why can’t you just pull your head out of your ass? Why can’t you just get over the terrible thing that happened and join the rest of us as a productive member of society? Why do you want to feel nothing at all?
”Cloud? Did you want to talk about something in particular with me?”
He shakes his head, chewing the inside of his lip, tasting blood. On a glorious Monday afternoon, this approach has left him trapped in his jumble of thoughts, and he’s not sure what to say.
Thirty-five minutes.
Gods-damn-it.
“Let’s start with an easy one. How are you doing today?
“Fine.”
“Just fine?”
“Yeah. Could be better, could be worse. Can I go now? It doesn’t really matter if I stay the whole time, does it?”
“I’m curious. How is it that you came to Midgar?”
“I took an airship, like most people.”
“Ha, ha.” He covers his mouth when he laughs, his shoulders shaking silently. “Fair enough. I know you’re from Nibelheim. Why don’t you tell me about it? Why did you leave?”
“My mother,” he chokes out, glancing out over the garden instead of meeting Sephiroth’s eyes. He can see the shapes of patio furniture under fitted waterproof covers, dusted in yellow pollen, and rows of dying pink-orange flowers in their neat little boxes. It’s hard to imagine Dr. Crescent—Sephiroth—with a green thumb, and he wonders if patients are ever allowed to have their appointments outside. Maybe in summer. Maybe if he participates a bit more. Maybe if he tries, he’ll be allowed to enjoy what might be the loveliest place in this city of steel.
The wind picks up, and the sunlight filters suddenly through the leaves, searing him across the eyes.
How could he forget? It had been so bright, then, too.
“You know what happened to her.”
Sephiroth’s chair squeaks a little as he leans back, resting his chin in his hand; Cloud lets the sunlight blind him.
“I’m more interested in what happened to you.”
“Alright. Alright. Fine. You really want to know? Even though you already know? Let’s do it,” he snarls. “There was a fire. Dr. Gast probably told you that. It was the night of the solstice, which is the first day of the winter holidays in Nibelheim. It’s different here, but there, we celebrate for more than just one day. It was just the two of us, ever since I was little, and we always made sure to—y’know, to respect our traditions. We stuck with it, even though it’s old-fashioned now, even in Nibelheim.”
This was meant to be the practiced version, the one-paragraph elevator pitch of the series of circumstances that led him here. But he’s off track before the story has even begun.
“Your traditions? I have to confess, I don’t know Nibelheim very well.”
“Eating, drinking, making promises for the new year to come. A lot like Yule, but with real snow, and some prayers. More gods, fewer gift cards. We had these candles. So, so many candles. And I was . . . I was responsible. For . . .”
For . . .
Sephiroth nods. “I’m curious, if you would like to tell me. We’re in no hurry at all.”
Squeezing his eyes shut, he’s powerless to stop himself as the words tumble out.
To this day, he can’t be sure what started it. He can’t quite remember if he left the space heater on or whether the candles hadn’t been fully extinguished. Or perhaps it was a spark from the wood stove, which he’s sure he had closed, or the new electrical wiring that Shinra had installed in the company-owned houses.
The fire department and Shinra’s engineering team investigated, and he has the reports stashed in his closet, in the fireproof lockbox that also contains the few things they had saved from his mother’s house. They provided him with pages and pages of tiny print that seem to provide nothing obvious. To be fair, he hasn’t read them in full; who knows what else it might say beyond that final determination, inconclusive? A tipping of the scales, some buried fact—he couldn’t bear it.
He swallows, rubbing his eyes. This isn’t the point of the story, and whether inconclusive means they think it was his fault or Shinra’s, he’d rather not know. Their philanthropy in Cloud’s case was a much-needed PR win, given the environmental damage to the region.
He, on the other hand, simply needs to breathe, which is impossible.
The point is the fucking fire.
The point is what he did or didn’t do.
The point is that he doesn’t know and won’t ever know if he can’t read the report and even then might not, and if it was him, if it was his fault, because she’d let him have schnapps for the first time and he had fallen asleep on the sofa, and when he had woken up, the flames had—
“Breathe, Cloud.”
For a moment, he glances down at his hands, which he tucks into the long sleeves of his sweater. He always buys them a size larger to hide the scars, but thankfully, Sephiroth watches his face. Tifa says nobody minds, but he’s had enough incidents where people do seem to care: the girl at the coffee shop, hesitating to take money directly from his hand; the guy at the library, blanching a little when Cloud had taken the books from him.
He thinks of Tifa, her gaze lingering on his hands as he twirls a pencil, and of her too-soft touch on his upper sleeve, worse than the friendship she’d never given him when they were young.
Concern or pity—what’s the difference?
It’s better to hide than to be perceived.
It’s better to be seen than to hide.
Better to be loved than to hate himself, he knows, but that’s not possible.
Although he expects them, the tears don’t come. The story spills out of him, and Sephiroth doesn’t take a single note: he escaped, pushing out of the living room into the village square, where he had screamed and screamed, or he had tried, but his lungs had been full of smoke. Helpless, alone, freezing in the snow, he had tried to open the front door again, but the frame had warped. They eventually dragged him away from his iron grip on the door latch, just seconds before the final explosion, and he had watched as the flames burned away the skin on his hands.
In the aftermath, when he woke up in the hospital, the company-mandated insurance had set him up well, and after two more surgeries, endless burn treatments, and several more opiate-dulled months, they had moved him to the Shinra boarding school, where his tuition was paid and his silence assured, as thanks for his mother’s service.
Bullshit, all of it—she was an hourly worker at the company store, and she had mentioned to Cloud on more than one occasion that Shinra had nearly destroyed all that was special about Nibelheim.
How can he live with himself, taking their money?
They paid for everything, and even now, even if Sephiroth means that he will prioritize Cloud over his sponsors, he’s torn: every failure proves he’s another backwater kid who couldn’t hack it. Every success has an asterisk next to it, crediting Shinra. He has managed to maintain a respectable grade-point average, thanks to his self-loathing, and, as he explains to Sephiroth, he’s settled into a routine he can live with.
“It’s not so bad. I think I’ll have a place in the chemistry department or engineering, if I want, when I’m ready to declare my major. Shinra will find me a job in corporate R&D when I graduate. And I even have some friends. Kind of.”
Friends I don’t text back. Friends I get mad at for no reason at all.
“You must have studied hard to get into Midgar University.”
“Less than you might think.”
Sephiroth laughs, low and rich, but Cloud didn’t mean to be funny. It hadn’t been hard to be better than the idiots with the silver spoons in their mouths. He earned it.
He did.
“Why are you laughing? You think Shinra arranged it or something? You think I didn’t earn it? I’m fucking tired of this—”
“Of course not. I admire your confidence and your anger. I’m sure there’s much more to you than meets the eye.”
“I guess.”
“It’s fascinating,” Sephiroth says, though he doesn’t elaborate right away on what exactly has captured his interest. His words hang in the air for a moment—five minutes to go—and he watches Cloud squirm before he resumes speaking. “You know you’re better than your peers, but you don’t want anyone else to recognize it. In fact, you’re afraid of it.”
That can’t be right. He can’t play music like Tifa, and he knows nothing of the planet, or foreign languages other than Nibel; he’d earned his place, sure, but the boarding school had prepared him well. They had practically given him a how-to book on college applications, just like his mother had always wanted.
Mom . . .
“I don’t know about that.”
“We have a lot to explore together. You dreaded coming here today, I can tell. But I don’t bite, do I?”
Cloud can’t argue with that, although he’d feel a lot more comfortable with the prescription in hand and some sunshine on his face. Maybe he can focus on discussing petty academia here and string him along until the inevitable end of their therapeutic relationship.
Glancing at his watch, Sephiroth flips through his notepad and pulls out another piece of paper. “We’re almost out of time.”
“Oh?” Cloud says, as though he hasn’t been watching the clock the entire time. “Too bad.”
Sephiroth ignores him. “You’ll find that I do things a little differently from Dr. Gast. In other fields of medicine, we ask you where it hurts and then we treat it. But it isn’t so simple here, and asking someone else to ask you that question while I merely dispense medication would do you a disservice. My practice encompasses both psychoanalysis and psychiatry: we talk as much as necessary, and we work together on helping you develop the appropriate coping strategies. To support, I also prescribe medication.”
Even if it’s not what he wanted, Cloud can’t find any fault in this. He’s still trying to figure out a way to push back without sounding crazy when Sephiroth continues, “You’re more than any of your diagnoses. In fact, I am not particularly inclined to analyze you through the lens of any of those conditions you mentioned earlier.”
“Why not?”
“You’re special, like I said. Every patient I meet is unique. To put you in a box and treat you according to some checklist would, I believe, lead to a less satisfying outcome.”
Four minutes. Get me out of here.
His long fingers play with the staple at the corner of whatever it is he’s holding. Cloud mirrors him, picking at the hangnail on his thumb, before running his hand over the seam of the leather cushion. It’s cool to the touch, satisfying. His mother had always wanted a couch like this, where you could sprawl out, but they had never been able to afford it. Their little couch, patched too many times to count—it’s ash now, anyway.
“Maybe in our last few minutes, you can tell me what your goals are. Now that you know what I expect: that we will work together, with me as both your physician and your therapist.”
Despite himself, Cloud had gotten the story out, in a jumble. He’d hoped that this would be it, and he could get away with med checks and the occasional game of Queen’s Blood, as he had with Dr. Gast (a truly hopeless player). It’s always like this: the tearing out of his heart, presenting it on a silver platter, only to be met with sad, baby-chocobo eyes. That must have been difficult, they always say. You’re a survivor. Shinra asked me to . . .
Do the bare minimum, and shuffle you off to another colleague. That’s his mandate, Cloud is certain.
He opens his mouth, trying to formulate the thought. Dr. Crescent—no, Sephiroth—is different. He acknowledges it all. And with the nonsense about Shinra out of the way, his only interest is in Cloud.
“I don’t know. You want me to tell you my goals, like in therapy? Or in life?”
“Sure,” he replies smoothly, flicking his ponytail over his shoulder. “Whatever comes to mind. Tell me what it is that you want.”
“I . . . want to get my degree. There aren’t a ton of good schools in the Nibel area, so . . . I’m here. It’s what she would have wanted. My mom, I mean.”
I want you to be happy, she had said.
“And what is that you want, Cloud?”
In all this time, nobody’s asked him that. Not since his mother.
I want to take care of you, Mom, so you don’t have to work so hard anymore. I want to show everyone what we Strifes are made of!
Shinra told him the boarding school would have a space for him after he left the burn unit, and the university will want him to declare a major soon, but what he wants? Tifa always asks for what she wants, or what she thinks Cloud needs. Zack says he knows what Cloud wants. Aerith isn’t his friend yet, not in the way that they are, and she doesn’t say much of anything about Cloud’s wants. She just drags him along, passing him snacks or tucking a flower into his hair while everyone else reeks of alcohol, reassuring him he’s doing just fine. Dr. Gast asked him what he hoped therapy could do.
But to be asked about his desire . . .
To have the answer matter? And not go in some stupid file?
He doesn’t know what to say. It’s not even clear that Sephiroth is asking the question he has longed to hear. To protect the softest part of himself, he goes on the defensive.
“What do you mean? Like, what do I want . . . right now? Or what do I want for dinner? You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“Anything. All of the above, and more.” This time, he leans forward again, perching his chin on his hand. “Tell me, what do you want most? It’s as good a place to start as any.”
“I don’t know. I want . . . my refills.” Cloud eyes the papers in Sephiroth’s hand. Only a few more minutes, and he’ll be out of here.
There it is again, that low, rich laugh. Cloud has choked back his emotions for the entire session, but Sephiroth’s laugh is like a balm on his wounded heart. Despite everything, he can still have a conversation and still be funny.
“I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”
“Yep.” He rubs at his eyes again, hoping to waste more time and avoid more questions.
“Is it bright in here? I can bring the shades down, if you prefer.”
“No. It’s almost time for me to go, isn’t it?”
Not that Sephiroth could stop him, of course. Cloud makes a show of eyeing the door and pokes at his backpack. In all, it hasn’t been an easy conversation, but it hasn’t been the worst. He had successfully steered quickly away from his mother, after only a half hour of the practiced offering, and if every session could just be like this, chitchat about his schedule and his plans for the upcoming week—all bullshit, a cover for studying and rotting in his dark bedroom—then he could do it. Until Sephiroth wises up and fires him, like the others had.
“Almost. I’ve written everything out here.”
“You don’t even know how much I have left,” he grumbles. “Thanks.”
Sephiroth shrugs, pushing his bangs behind his ear before reaching across the gap and handing the papers to Cloud. “I don’t, though Dr. Gast sent me the list of medications. I’m hoping you might talk to me about that. But I suspect you want to tell me the truth. And you aren’t going to do anything irresponsible with your medication.”
“Just like that?”
Cloud reaches out with his fingertips, careful to keep most of his hand hidden inside his sleeve, but Sephiroth doesn’t let go right away. His hand is just an inch away, and his grip on the paper is loose. Only when Cloud looks up at him, struck by the light of his smile, does he finally let go.
“Just like that.”
“How do you know I’m going to come back?”
“I think you’re curious to see what happens. And it won’t happen if you stay home. I would, of course, continue to write the reports to Shinra, if that’s your concern.”
Before he tucks the papers in his backpack, he quickly skims Sephiroth’s orders—surprisingly neat, for a doctor—and notes that the fills have been written for a few months, with some adjustments to his current regimen. More than Dr. Gast would have filled at a time, and without even a discussion about side effects, benefits, or anything.
More than enough to kill himself, if he really wanted to.
He slumps back against the leather-padded chair.
3:50pm. Just a few more pleasantries, and then he can get the Hel out of here.
“Yeah, right. Dr. Gast’s secretary arranged today’s appointment, and I can usually do Monday afternoons, so maybe . . .” He pauses, trying to figure out a reasonable interval, though he wants to pass it off as casual conversation. The worst part is over. “Second or third week of October?”
“I’ve already pencilled you in for the same time next Monday.”
“Wait—”
“In the meantime, please follow the new dosages and instructions written on the second page, as I’ve made some adjustments in line with current recommendations in the literature. Dr. Gast is an excellent physician, but I do think we can find something better for you.”
“You didn’t even ask me how I feel about your plan.”
“Well, Cloud,” Sephiroth says, standing and pacing towards his desk, where he straightens the ink-blotter—already perfectly aligned with the rest of his stationery set—and taps his fingers on the wood, “we’ve been talking for the better part of fifty minutes. And while I know you aren’t keen on engaging in a therapeutic conversation, perhaps that question will give us something to discuss next week.”
He scrambles to his feet, grabbing nervously at the strap of his backpack. “If you’re gonna ask, I’ll tell you right now—I feel annoyed.”
“And why is that?”
“I’m just here for my meds, like I told you.” He’s a little dizzy after standing so quickly, but he focuses on Sephiroth, allowing his blood pressure to regulate itself. “Once a week seems . . .”
“Would you like to meet more frequently?” Sephiroth blinks, eyes wide and green, lit by the afternoon sun. “I understand that your insurance covers up to two sessions per week, and I offer a sliding scale for more intensive treatment, which some may find beneficial. My job is to explore exactly what it is that you want—”
“What I want is to not have to drag my ass halfway across the plate for you to tell me stuff I already know.”
Pushing his glasses up his nose, Sephiroth glances at the clock. “Then that’s what we should discuss next week.”
“Ugh. I mean . . . thanks. For the prescription.”
He’ll figure out a way out of this weekly session bullshit. Maybe it will be temporary.
“Of course,” chirps Sephiroth, leading the way to the door, as if Cloud doesn’t know exactly where it is. “Next Monday, then. Take good care of yourself, Cloud.”
“Yeah. We’ll see.”
Although it’s tempting, he resists the urge to slam the good doctor’s door shut when he leaves. On the train back to the university sector, he studies the new prescription, with Sephiroth’s elegant handwriting in dark blue ink. It gives him hope to look at the prescription in his hand, and although Shinra has complained a few times about his refusal to participate meaningfully in his therapy, he finds himself calmer than he had been before meeting Sephiroth.
The biannual spilling-of-the-guts is over, and if he can skip a few appointments here and there without Sephiroth escalating too much, then maybe he can finally put everything behind him.
He’d left out so much (maybe I’m responsible for—), and he hadn’t wanted to say it, but as soon as he’s back on the street, he kicks himself a little for holding back.
There are still things he can’t say. Never said. Won’t ever say.
Promises to his mother, both broken (I’ll take care of you) and unbroken (I’ll always love you).
Now that it’s over, he knows he doesn’t want to do it again with Sephiroth. Surface-level will be his plan: a good night’s sleep and some exercise? Thank you, doctor, he’ll say, before numbing himself to the gills at 9:30pm as he always does.
What he wanted was to make it all stop. To confess it all and disappear into thin air—as though the guilt might consume him. If Zack or Tifa were to know, they wouldn’t care about what he wants or what they want. They would want him out of their lives. He missed his shot with Sephiroth, no matter what he says about wanting to know all about Cloud. Either it’s true—which he finds hard to believe—or he’d done a good job pretending.
Another fifty minutes in there next week and Cloud fears he will either fall asleep or tear his heart from his chest and offer it up as a sacrifice, just to make it stop. That’s what psychiatrists want, right? To see his weakness, to probe at it until it reveals its mysteries.
He promises himself that he won’t give Sephiroth the satisfaction. He takes a deep breath and begins the walk back to his dorm, keeping his head down so he doesn’t have to say hello to anyone on the way. A few snacks from his mini-fridge are all he can stomach for dinner, and he studies the new prescription before taking a double dose of his usual sedative, just enough to numb the chatter of his mind, not enough to do any real damage.
Not enough to actually help.
If Sephiroth insists on getting to know Cloud, then it shouldn’t be a problem to look up his house’s old real estate listing. After all, it’s public information. Anyone can find it, so if he does, then what’s the problem?
A few quick clicks on Moogle Search give him exactly what he wants, though he’s strangely disappointed to see so few photos. The property was last sold fifteen years ago for an undisclosed price, and the façade looks different in the photographs. The lower level, now Sephiroth’s office, was unfinished when the pictures were taken, and the garden was overgrown, full of wildflowers and weeds; it’s clear that Sephiroth has tailored his home exactly to his liking.
The estimated value leaves him sick to his stomach, so he wipes his browser history and turns to trying to make sense of his lecture notes. It’s fruitless, with the drugs finally kicking in, so it’s time for his backup routine.
Lately, it’s been a complete failure, so he drags himself to the shower, where he leaves the lights off and scrubs at his hair with his nails. He washes his body once and his hands again three times before trying to jerk off, hoping it will calm him down. It rarely does, and thanks to Dr. Gast’s cocktail of mood stabilizers and antidepressants, it’s impossible to feel much of anything beyond bitterness, pressure, and the circular nature of his own thoughts, dull in the corners of his mind.
Pleasure, a rare commodity, is out of his reach tonight, and he rests his head against the tile and lets the water run until it begins to cool. Even in the dark, he can’t stand his hands, no matter what Tifa says about how much better it looks, and how it’s hardly noticeable, so don’t worry about it. He notices, and they notice when he wears gloves when it’s out of season.
His hands on his own body, distant and numb across his collarbone, the jut of his hips, his nipples—it seems all wrong. Under the lukewarm water, he closes his eyes, shutting out even the possibility of looking at himself, and along the numbness of the dead and poorly healed nerves, he tries to imagine it’s someone else’s hand, touching him, coaxing him to shameful, useless hardness.
When the water turns to ice, he gives up, slapping his face to stay alert. He brushes his teeth and considers his underwear drawer for a moment, studying the scraps of fabric carefully hidden behind his socks.
He hasn’t looked at this secret stash in ages, and after his unsatisfying shower, he’s not sure why he even bothers. The lace isn’t exciting tonight, and his lungs feel tight when he looks for the pair with the tags still on, purchased just a few weeks ago. Why even bother, when he can barely get it up?
To answer Sephiroth’s question, he wants to want.
But he feels nothing.
Chewing on his lip, he slips on an old pair of boxers and slams the drawer shut. Besides, he wouldn’t be surprised if Zack barged in to wake him in the morning, given his non-response to his text messages. Just the idea that someone could find him like that—well, he’s had enough stress for one day.
In bed, with the blankets drawn tight, he sets the alarm on his PHS, although he knows he’ll wake up long before it goes off, and he finds himself pulling out his eyelashes one by one and curling his toes under the wrinkled sheet until the familiar pharmaceutical sleep claims him.
Notes:
It’s been a while, and life has been a lot, but I’m excited to finally start sharing this story with you. This fic is mostly pre-written (except for editing and the last two chapters) and will contain ten chapters, with updates every two weeks or so. Please subscribe if you would like to stay up to date. 🤍
Chapter 2: countertransference
Summary:
Cloud makes a new friend.
Chapter Text
The next morning, Cloud dutifully fills the new prescriptions and portions them out into his twice-daily pillboxes. The changes, he knows, will be subtle, right until they aren’t, zooming like lightning into his brain until the planet cracks beneath his feet.
Or not. There’s no way to know.
Sephiroth’s instructions are excruciatingly detailed, but Cloud gets the gist of it: he is supposed to stick with most of his current medications in the morning and night, with an additional anxiolytic as needed, in case what Dr. Gast gave him doesn’t do the trick. Thank Odin.
There’s a new sedative for the rougher nights, one he doesn’t recognize, and some other crap he can’t be bothered to read. It’s not a surprise: Sephiroth has served him the usual cocktail of “we have no idea what to do with you,” with an added garnish of “maybe this is the silver bullet.”
Perhaps Sephiroth isn’t useless if he’s trying something new. This is, Cloud knows, a small and welcome change, if his Moogle Med searches are anything to go by, so he promptly swallows his new morning regimen and studies the plum-dark circles under his eyes in the mirror before heading off to the lab.
When faced with his evening routine, however, he almost wants to ignore it. The sedative calls to him, but the rest, lined up in their plastic squares? Not so much. Sephiroth won’t know unless he confesses to the deception, but maybe he will; the way Sephiroth had looked at Cloud, or through him, still looms in his mind’s eye, and he shivers a little, hunched over his desk.
Unlike Dr. Gast, who had sought Cloud’s acceptance of his conditions, Sephiroth seems interested only in the truth. Another few weeks of that curious look, and Cloud knows he might crack, and their deal about the Shinra reports might be off the table. If this is the price to pay, then so be it.
Besides, maybe it will work better. All of it—his sleep, his jumpiness, his inability to have so much as a measly single orgasm. Every morning, he wakes up soaked in sweat, faced with the dark blue pre-dawn, and the flames burn, even though he can’t see them.
By the weekend, he decides to force himself to do something. Anything. They hadn’t discussed his routines very much during his appointment, but suddenly, he can’t bear the idea of going back on Monday and telling Sephiroth how he usually spends his weekends: hiding under the covers, avoiding eye contact, living off of packaged snacks and canned coffee, taking a mildly unreasonable amount of sedatives, then finishing his problem sets at the last possible moment.
To stave off an explanation of his loserdom, he sends a long-delayed reply to Zack’s latest message, agreeing to stop by his suite on Saturday evening, though he won’t commit to going to a campus party. Zack’s response is near-instantaneous, a low-resolution picture of a cat giving what looks like a thumbs-up. Cloud frowns; cats don’t have thumbs. Tifa, he comes to learn, has a gig tonight below the plate, but when he arrives, Aerith and Jessie are there, along with some of Zack’s other friends.
No matter how sincere they seem, he can’t shake the uneasy feeling that Aerith and Zack are her proxies. But they don’t push, or at least not too hard, and he finds it easy to let the conversation flow right past him as he listens and nods: Aerith’s new art project, Zack’s costume for Hallow’s Eve, some prank from their rival school.
Instead of the party, they end up at a bar just off campus, playing pinball and darts, and although he wins a few rounds and smiles and sips his soda (no alcohol, per Dr. Gast’s instructions and the warning labels on what Sephiroth has given him), he finds himself antsy to leave. For what alternative, he doesn’t know, but he still bristles when they lean in close or brush past his shoulders. Before coming out, the new sedative had tempted him in its orange bottle, and the tentative calm had sunk in within minutes, thanks to his empty stomach.
At home, the endless wait for the fire is all he has. When he watches Zack flirt with the bartender and Aerith’s ears turn red from the cider, it’s as though he’s in someone else’s body, observing from afar. The only thing that’s real is the creeping, cold dread that pools in the sweat on the back of his neck. The rest passes him by, and he can’t quite remember the journey home in his sober, miserable haze.
On Sunday, he awakens well-rested, way past his usual wake-up time, and the sun is streaming directly into his eyes. He swallows his medication without water, putters around with a lump in his throat, and eats a granola bar alone in his room, blasting through his assignments before scrolling through his friends’ social media feeds.
Usually, he sees things he has missed, and he never posts anything himself. But today is different: Zack has posted a selfie of three of them at the bar, all sweaty-faced and grinning from ear to ear, though Cloud almost doesn’t recognize himself. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t quite remember Zack taking the picture, even though he apparently stared right at Zack’s PHS, and as he studies it, he tries to manipulate his face into that same smile. Too many teeth, and it strains the muscles in his jaw, so he massages away the ache below his ear and tosses his PHS back onto his bed.
The night, those most constrained and endless hours, passes without real incident, although starting from 2pm on Sunday, his mind is completely preoccupied with the upcoming second appointment.
During his second shower of the day, he tries to jerk off—unsuccessfully. Next, he looks at pictures of Nibelheim on Moogle Maps for hours, idly thumbing at a scab on his cuticle from washing too much.
The satellite image hasn’t yet been updated with the new house he understands was built on the old property, but he still has a habit of checking multiple times a week. The website only shows the empty space, cleared of the charred foundations he imagines must have been there. He has never been back to see the site, and now, half a world away, biting the dry skin off his cracked lip, he doubts he ever will. Tifa has told him enough to know he couldn’t stand it; the empty space is bad enough, but seeing some new family’s house, whole and happy and safe like nothing ever happened, would be wrong.
On Monday morning, the sun is shining a little too brightly, but the clouds floating on the horizon are dark.
Sleep was nearly impossible, and he’s wrapped in an extra layer and already on his second cup of coffee by the time he seals himself away in a cubby in the library stacks to avoid another awkward lunch with Tifa. She will surely ask; he has successfully dodged all her questions so far.
He pauses outside the hall when he leaves his afternoon lecture. His dorm is just a short walk away, full of snacks and close enough that it would be all too easy to hide under the covers and shut this out. Sure, Sephiroth might call, and Tifa might scold, but what would really happen? He could make it up next week, after all. Sephiroth doesn’t have any enforcement mechanism.
If he stays in his room, he knows what will happen: picking at the skin on his hands, a pounding headache, fruitless studies, and searches he’d rather delete. If he goes to his appointment, anything could happen. He could magically be cured! Or he could inch ever so slightly towards a better, clearer life.
Or the flames could rise again and swallow him whole.
So he goes, sprinting to the station, where he leaps inside the train car right before the doors slam shut.
On the train, he usually stares out the window and tunes out the inscrutable voice of the conductor and the chatter of the people around him. But today, just as the train pulls out of the station, he hears it: the downpour, hammering against the metal roof. In the few minutes since he left campus, he hadn’t noticed that the morning’s storm-clouds rolled in thick and fast, and he realizes he’s only wearing a thin canvas jacket: perfect for a crisp fall day, but less perfect for a rainstorm.
At the station before Sephiroth’s neighborhood, the elevated train suddenly screeches to a halt. The other passengers look around, blinking, and Cloud doesn’t want to meet their eyes. He knows just as little as they do, but the lights turn off and the doors slide open. This, apparently, is the end of the line, though he can’t catch much of the conductor’s staticky babble beyond track conditions and delay.
How can a train not run in the rain? It’s water. Sweet Shiva, he mutters under his breath in Nibel.
A quick search on his PHS shows him that it’s more than a twenty-minute walk to Sephiroth’s house from here. He was already going to be a few minutes late, and because he can’t catch a fucking break today, there are no buses leaving in that direction for the next half hour.
Plus, as Aerith had once explained about the various sectors of the upper plate, neighborhoods like Sephiroth’s are full of people who drive or take the train, rather than mingling with the type of people who take the bus. In fact, Aerith told him that years ago, one of the sectors had lobbied against increased bus coverage.
Cloud wonders if it was Sephiroth’s neighborhood, or whether he’s too busy to bother with things like the city council and the business of ordinary people.
There is no train going back to campus for at least an hour—though he doesn’t seriously entertain skipping the appointment, not at this point—so he takes a deep breath before committing to his only option. He zips up his jacket and studies the map for a moment, as though he hasn’t memorized everything within two miles of Sephiroth’s house, just to be sure.
Clutching his backpack over his head, he sprints down the first two blocks before he remembers it isn’t waterproof either.
He pauses under a building awning to find that his notebook is already soaked, with the ink running to the edge of the pages.
Kill me.
With every step, he sloshes through puddles, no matter how hard he tries to avoid them, and by the time he turns onto Sephiroth’s street, he’s soaked to the bone.
His jeans are wet almost to his calves, and he can barely feel his toes by the time he presses Sephiroth’s doorbell, gasping for breath. Today’s mission of convincing Sephiroth that he is doing just fine is definitely at risk: he barely slept last night, and he’s sure he looks like a drowned wererat. A few careful sentences about his efforts to be social and normal and completely fine are not going to do the trick.
The gate opens promptly, and Cloud splashes inside, wiping his shoes on the mat. In the waiting area—a mudroom, made fancy, he realizes—he’s unsure of what to do as his clothes and hair drip onto the carpet. Everything is exactly as it was last time.
Only Cloud doesn’t belong.
Naturally, Sephiroth is cozy in cashmere and doesn’t have a single hair out of place when he opens the office door, looking down at Cloud over his glasses.
“Oh, my!” His face breaks into a radiant smile. “It’s good to see you, Cloud. I was starting to think that you might not come back after last week.”
“No, I really meant to. Sorry, the train stopped, and—”
“Please, please, do come in,” Sephiroth says, gesturing at the door to his office and stepping out of the way. “You must be freezing.”
He hadn’t been aware of it, but when the silence settles, he realizes his teeth are chattering and his shoulders are shaking. His body is warm from the effort of running all the way from the other station, and his socks squelch inside his shoes with every step.
There’s no way Sephiroth can expect him to sit on that leather couch like this, let alone step on that priceless imported carpet in the center of the room. Cloud hovers at the edge of it, unsure of what to do.
“Here you go.”
He hadn’t realized it, but he spins and suddenly Sephiroth is right behind him, all citrus and smoke, and in his arms is a stack of the fluffiest towels Cloud has ever seen in his life.
“Why don’t I take your coat and put it in the dryer upstairs? You can dry off your hair, too.”
When Cloud begins to peel his jacket off like a snake shedding its skin, the canvas sticks to his sweatshirt, and Sephiroth gestures at him to hand it over. “I’m already running the machine. And it won’t do you much good to sit there in wet clothes, will it?”
He has a point. In fact, in the back of his mind, Cloud can hear his mother shouting at him to come inside and put on another layer; he had so loved to play in the snow, making angels and snow-friends and talking to the marmots and the rabbits.
“Cloud?”
“Oh.” Sephiroth takes his soaking-wet jacket and gestures at the office. “Uh, thanks.”
“Of course. I’ll be right back.”
Sephiroth disappears upstairs; Cloud can hear his careful, slow footsteps above, and he slips off his shoes and socks, leaving them by the door, before stepping over to the carpet. After placing one towel on the couch and wrapping another around his shoulders, he slumps into his seat and feels the anger drain from his body, as quick as it had come on.
The emotion doesn’t even have a source; instead, it’s just a flurry of violent irritation, like an itch he can’t reach, and through bleary eyes, he examines the office, letting the dark colors soothe him. Unlike Dr. Gast, Sephiroth doesn’t have his diplomas on the wall. The room, with its elegant décor and enormous windows overlooking the rain-drenched garden, speaks for itself.
Sephiroth knocks before he re-enters, holding a wooden tray. “Your things should be all dry by the time you go.” Before he approaches, he stares down at Cloud’s wet sneakers. “Shall I throw in your socks as well?”
Cloud feels the heat rise up his neck. “No. It’s fine. They’ll dry out.”
“Alright,” Sephiroth says, gliding over in just a few steps. “For today’s conversation—and given the abysmal weather—I brought you something to drink. You must be absolutely freezing.”
He leans down next to Cloud, like a waiter, and Cloud gathers that he is supposed to take one of the two cups on the tray. Instead of the fine china he expected, both have a cheery (albeit fading) chocobo print, belying the tart, green scent of the liquid inside.
“What is it?”
“Herbal tea with a touch of honey. I personally find that caffeine after lunch is a mistake, so this is a nice compromise for a sweet treat, isn’t it?” He chuckles a little, though Cloud doesn’t really see the humor, and he wouldn’t exactly consider this a “sweet treat.”
He takes a polite sip; the tisane is better than he expected, though not the best thing he’s ever tried. Still, he savors the warmth of the ceramic under his fingertips. The doctors had warned him to be careful with hot objects, given the decreased sensation in his hands from all the scar tissue, but it seems fine. Besides, Sephiroth mirrors him, clutching his own matching mug as he sits opposite Cloud.
The familiar, tetchy silence sets in, and Cloud finds himself compelled to break it again.
“Looks like we only have twenty minutes left,” he says, glancing at the clock on the wall. “Sorry.”
“Ordinarily, I would ask that we stick to our time limit, but I’d say these are . . . extenuating circumstances.” There’s that gods-awful indulgent smile again behind the steam, as though this is the best part of Sephiroth’s day. (As though it isn’t the worst part of Cloud’s.) “Would you like to stay longer, to ensure that we can make use of the full time to which you are entitled? I don’t have any other patients this afternoon.”
This is not going according to plan.
“No, it’s fine, I mean—”
“If you have something in particular you’d like to discuss, it’s not a problem. I recall that last time we were talking about how to figure out what it is that you want. You did make it here, after all.” He takes a slow sip and closes his eyes as he swallows, his throat bobbing. “You could have just stayed home.”
“Yeah.”
Kind of wishing I did, asshole.
“Such a simple question, I know,” he sighs, shrugging his shoulders like he’s trying to get Cloud to relax too. “But it’s as good a place to start as any. Or we can sit and see where the conversation takes us.”
The fingers of one hand splay over the arms of his wing-back chair, while the other curls delicately around his chocobo mug; Cloud almost wishes he would pick up the blank notepad and write something, just so he wouldn’t have to bear the entire weight of Sephiroth’s expectant focus. He suddenly feels stupid for having taken off his shoes, and he rubs his feet together like a cicada, chasing the fleeting warmth. At least he’s not trailing mud all over the rug.
“Right now, I want to make it so this day never even happened.”
“Is that so? Was there nothing redeemable about it?”
“You didn’t say I had to tell you I wanted something realistic.”
“That’s not my question, Cloud. Did something go irreversibly wrong today?”
“Seriously?” Cloud levels his best glare at Sephiroth, whose only response is an arched eyebrow.
Want to talk about it? That look seems to say, all good cheer. This man is beyond infuriating. Condescending, talks in circles, lives in a neighborhood reserved for elitist jerks. Good-looking, wealthy, educated, flawless, and a total bastard—in control of Cloud’s future, no matter his assurances.
“Gee, let me think,” Cloud grumbles, setting the tea down on the table next to him, which is adorned with fragrant white flowers. “I feel like an idiot. First, I was late for the appointment. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to come and deal with you. And I probably ruined all my notes from class. And your towels.”
“Setting aside the towels, which will probably survive, why is it that you didn’t want to come today? You certainly looked like you made an effort to get here, running through all that rain.”
Before he speaks again, Cloud chews on his lip, gathering his thoughts. He has a million things to say, but he wants to say it right. He doesn’t want to offend, but for once, he doesn’t want to lie. The truth won’t bury him. Not today.
“It’s . . . y’know, it’s not easy, talking to you. Talking to shrinks and therapists. Even you have to recognize that.”
Sephiroth nods, but the agreement doesn’t calm Cloud’s irritation just yet. “I do appreciate that it isn’t as simple as just opening your mouth and saying the first thing that comes to mind. We have our work cut out for us, don’t we?”
“Is this going anywhere?” Cloud crosses his arms and tucks his hands under his biceps, holding them close to his body. It’s finally comfortable here, but it isn’t, not really, not with so much of himself exposed.
His arms feel so bare without his sweatshirt and jacket. The short-sleeve t-shirt was a mistake, but how was he supposed to know this would happen? Why did he just comply when Sephiroth asked him to hand over his jacket? Why didn’t he check the weather report on his PHS? Or put an umbrella in his backpack, like his mother always reminded him? She would have fixed this.
Why didn’t he listen?
Why did he never fucking listen?
Why did he leave the stove on, or maybe he didn’t, and—
Fuck fuck fuck.
As he adjusts his hands, he can see exactly where the flames had licked over his wrists, too, curling around the slender bone. Why the fuck didn’t he listen to her?
Why can’t he remember? Shouldn’t it be burned into his memory like a scar?
“You don’t want to show me your hands, do you?”
“C’mon,” Cloud snorts, trying to avoid looking at him. “That’s low-hanging fruit, don’t you think?”
“It’s my job to observe. And I’m observing.”
“You’re trying to do some stupid exposure therapy thing. PTSD, make me show you all my problems, force me to get over it, blah blah blah. It’s bullshit.”
“Oh, is that what I’m doing?” Sephiroth echoes. “‘Bullshit’?”
“Yup.”
“Cloud,” Sephiroth says quietly before taking off his glasses as the smile vanishes from his face. His expression is still soft, but he’s serious now.
There’s no trace of pity, but Cloud braces himself all the same.
This is it, he thinks. The truth of how unfixable I am.
“PTSD is a diagnosis. I’m not particularly interested in labels, though I would imagine that you feel as though they’ve been following you around for years. You’re not a diagnosis, or even a set of diagnoses. You’re a person. A soul.”
Cloud wants to leap to his feet and say yes. He wants to say you’re right and thank you. But it comes out all wrong, and he can’t help it. “And what if I don’t want to talk to you about all that? Hmm? Least you could do is tell me something I don’t already know.”
“Then we’ll sit together in silence, for as long as you like,” Sephiroth replies coolly, leaning back in his chair. “You are, of course, allowed to leave at any time.”
Thanks to Dr. Gast and his colleagues, Cloud knows very well that the unspoken unless I determine that you are a danger to yourself or others is necessarily tacked on to that last sentence. He eyes the door, but it’s not like he can just run out of here. Not without his jacket. Not with Sephiroth looking at him like any of this matters, like he actually wants to help.
Like Cloud could still be helped.
“But I don’t think you want to leave, do you? I think you might have something to tell me.”
Cloud responds quickly. “No.”
“I’ll always respect your boundaries, Cloud. I’m not here to punish you, or to make you feel bad. But part of therapy is testing those boundaries, and I can’t exactly say I’ve done my job if I refrain from pushing a little. You’ll know when you’re ready, though I might not, so maybe if you tell me what you’re feeling, I can help you get there. It might even take a little bit of ‘bullshit,’ as you so eloquently put it.”
“Okay,” Cloud huffs.
At least half of what he had hoped would be a truncated appointment is spent in quiet, tense silence. Cloud breaks it more often than not, eliciting the twitch of an eyebrow each time, and he sticks to easy, meaningless topics: his night out with Zack and Aerith, his class schedule for the semester, the unpredictability of weather in Midgar.
Sephiroth has little to say, and like last Monday, he takes no notes. He listens—intently, it seems—to the minutiae of Cloud’s life, only chiming in with responses to his complaints about his night out, a murmured I see, and yes, it can be quite loud in bars, and did you win?
The final lingering silence is Sephiroth’s to break.
“Pardon my asking, but I do want to make sure we’re on the right path. Have you been taking your medication?”
“Yeah.”
“Have you noticed any changes since I changed your prescription?”
“No. I only filled the prescription the day after the last appointment, so it’s been less than a week. And you didn’t change that much. Why are you asking?”
The casual shrug is anything but. Sephiroth’s posture is too intentional for that. “I’m curious. You seem nervous, so if we talk about how you feel with the medication, we can figure out if it’s the right dosage.”
“I’m not nervous. I mean, not more than I usually am.”
“A-ha. What does that feel like? Your ‘usual’ level of anxiety.”
Cloud laughs a little, in spite of himself. Sephiroth let him chase his tail with useless anecdata, and now, here he is, cutting to the heart of it. If he weren’t so uncomfortable in his wet jeans, he might appreciate the direct approach. Hasn’t it been fifty minutes yet? He looks up at the clock before returning his gaze to Sephiroth.
“Just . . . everything. A movie reel in my head. Choking me. All the things I didn’t do yet. All the people I hate. All the things I’ve done and shouldn’t have.”
“The people you hate?”
“‘Hate’ is maybe a strong word,” Cloud says, apologetic. “It’s like everything that bothers me is bigger, somehow. Dr. Gast said that my reaction to everything is . . . off. Like I get mad at the wrong things. And I can’t stop thinking.”
“How often do you experience that, when you can’t stop thinking?” He still doesn’t take any notes, but Cloud feels as though he can see the gears turning in his head—probably calculating how many pills it would take to make him normal, if Cloud had to guess.
“It’s hard to say.” Pausing, Cloud shifts his hands from under his arms and goes to sit on them. They’re already numb, tingling from the weight of his biceps and taut scar tissue, but the sensation is distracting. He doesn’t really want to talk about this. That’s what the fucking pills are for. Is Sephiroth really that stupid? “I don’t think I know what it’s like not to be anxious.”
“Even with what Dr. Gast was giving you?”
“Or I feel nothing at all when I’m not anxious. Or less anxious. I’m not sure I know the difference. It’s . . . empty. He said that might happen.”
“Help me understand,” Sephiroth says, though Cloud doesn’t know how he could possibly fail to get something so obvious. “What’s ‘empty’?”
He snatches the mug, ignoring the weight of Sephiroth’s eyes on him. His throat feels dry as he realizes that this is as much talking as he’s done with anyone in the last week.
Maybe more.
With Zack, he listens. With Tifa, he protests. With Sephiroth, however, he talks.
He fights back.
“Me. I’m empty. Like everything about me is just . . . gone. I go to class. I even go to parties. Or at least I went to the bar last weekend.” Mission accomplished. See? I’m normal. “But I don’t even remember what I like. Doesn’t that sound crazy?”
Sephiroth’s eyebrows fly up; they’re awfully pale, Cloud realizes. Sephiroth is old, but he isn’t that old, so it’s striking how all his hair has turned silver.
Wonder if the rest of it is silver too.
Wait, what?
He splutters around a mouthful of tea. It actually tastes awful, but he won’t be rude. Half a cup is enough to show appreciation, isn’t it?
Fortunately for him, Sephiroth seems to ignore his inability to drink liquids normally, and he continues on. “Surely you remember something that you like.”
“Okay, sure, maybe I’m exaggerating. But it’s still all empty. The world. Me. I feel like I only get up to do things because I’m worried that if I don’t, Shinra will kick me out of school.”
Sephiroth’s head tilts to the side, a curious cat. “I understand your academic record is exemplary. Is fear of discipline really your only motivator? There must be something more. There must be something else you want.” His voice drops at the end of the sentence, as though he knows he’s clever, laying his psychiatrist’s trap.
How has it not been fifty minutes already?
“This crap again?”
“In so many words, yes.” He grins, the cat that got the cream.
Cloud almost has to commend him for it. He knew Sephiroth was going there, but it’s hard to hate him, not with those ridiculously soft towels wrapped around him.
“Yeah. It figures you’d bring that up. I still don’t know what it means, though. What I want? What I want . . . ?” He exhales, trying to be conscious about it, the way Tifa told him she learned from her martial arts lessons, and he hates that it actually helps a little. “I want my life as it was. I want . . . to not think about it every day. To not spend every day trying so hard not to think about it. So much that it’s empty because the alternative is worse.”
Across the sea of carpet dividing them, Sephiroth leans forward, his mouth hovering over his tea. “Do you believe it’s possible?”
“What, to not think about Nibelheim all the time?”
“Mm.” He takes a sip, then licks his lips, watching Cloud.
For a moment, Cloud tries to think—to really think about the question. Not to give him some snarky response. In reality, everything in the world is a fire that has not yet been started: his dead heart, the butts of cigarettes not yet extinguished but sending him into a panic, every old electrical wire and telephone pole. Everything. Everything. Even Sephiroth’s neatly organized bookshelves are nothing more than fuel for a hungry fire.
“No,” he says, more definitively than intended. But he means it.
“You say you feel nothing. That you’re empty. Yet when I look at you,” says Sephiroth, shaking his head so his hair shimmers around him, “I don’t see a man who feels nothing.”
Cloud sits up straighter. The towel falls from his shoulders, and he reaches for it, suddenly exposed. “What are you talking about? You think you know how I feel, just by looking at me?”
“Tell me, Cloud,” Sephiroth murmurs, “what do you feel, right now?”
“Cold,” he snaps, though it isn’t really true anymore. “But it’s improving. Thanks for the tea.” He wiggles his toes against the carpet before taking another gulp, his last attempt at politeness.
“And other than feeling cold?”
“Anger,” he blurts out. “I was angry that I couldn’t do more. That I’m not . . . more. That it’ll never get better.” The tremor in his voice threatens to burst free, and he forces himself to stop, in case the dam breaks.
Angry at you for poking me like this. Like a specimen in a jar.
“Anger. All the people you hate. Empty. To answer your question,” Sephiroth explains, “I can’t tell precisely how you feel just by looking at you, but by talking to you, I’m starting to get a clearer picture.”
“Good for you.” Asshole.
“And on that note, we’re almost out of time. We should pick up here next week.” Sephiroth’s voice is way too cheerful, and Cloud watches him get up, almost unable to move from the force of his dissipating fury. “Let me get your things from the dryer. I’ll be right back.”
Cloud’s shoes, he finds, aren’t much better than they were at the start of the appointment, but at least his socks aren’t totally soaked through. Even better, when Sephiroth returns, the sweatshirt and jacket are deliciously warm, and when Cloud puts them on, he’s cloaked with the scent of this magnificent house: icy white flowers, leather and yellowed books, fancy laundry soap. Sensation is rare in the tips of his fingers, but he swears (hopes, at least) that Sephiroth doesn’t flinch when he hands him his clothes and their hands accidentally touch.
He’d be the first in a long time.
Tifa says he’s overthinking it when he mentions his hands. C’mon, Cloud, you’re still worried about that?
He’s pretty sure thinks he’s crazy, even if she won’t admit it. Even if she’s maybe right about this one thing.
Cloud studies the backs of his hands before the chill of his damp socks reaches him, sending a shiver up his spine. He follows Sephiroth into the hall.
“I’m glad you made it today, Cloud, despite the inclement weather. Please, take this.” When he turns from the closet, he pulls out an enormous black umbrella.
“Don’t you need that?” Cloud asks, raising an eyebrow.
“No. I have another one upstairs.”
Of course you do.
“Please,” Sephiroth repeats, pressing it into Cloud’s hands. There it is again, that uneasy static, the almost-touching of their fingers.
Cloud doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like how much he likes it.
Holding the umbrella close, he backs away, staring at his feet. He has definitely overstayed his welcome, and when he turns towards the door, he realizes he’s fallen into another one of these obvious traps.
“Now I guess I have to bring it back, don’t I?” Cloud glances at Sephiroth over his shoulder, taking in the broad slope of his shoulders and the way his long bangs settle over his sweater.
The shrug he gives in response is so measured, so precise, that Cloud wonders if he planned it all along. He’d really thought about skipping today.
“Yes, that would be the polite thing to do. But you don’t have to be polite with me.” The waspish, lilting tone in his voice is too much, like he thinks Cloud is going to come back and finally open up. “I’m sure we will have plenty to discuss next week, whether it’s polite or not.”
Until just now, until he’d taken the umbrella, he’d already planned to skip their next session. His stomach swoops. He wants to scream. He wants to shove Sephiroth into the wall and watch him bleed, scholarship be damned. He doesn’t want to talk about these things, or about what he does in the dark. He wants to stop existing entirely, to end the rage that wells within him.
But this evening, the fire is gone from his bones.
“By the way, before you go, I’m going to make one additional change to your medication, but you won’t need to pick anything else up. Here.” From seemingly nowhere, he produces a new sheaf of papers adorned with his signature.
Cloud takes the prescription with the tips of his fingers, scanning it briefly. Another change? They hadn’t even discussed much of his symptoms beyond the vast chemical emptiness—and that seems to be a tolerable one, according to Dr. Gast.
“It says here I don’t need one of them? The antidepressant. Well, one of them.”
“You’ll taper off slowly, according to the schedule I attached here. And then you will taper up on the other one, which I already prescribed last week. I believe this will work better for you, and although the changes may be subtle, you might find it a little easier to feel.”
“Okay, thanks,” Cloud says, swallowing his irritation.
It’s absurd, the idea that just one little tweak will fix it all—as if he knows what this lack of feeling is. As if someone like him, so perfect and so calm, could ever understand. As if there’s any cure for the sickness. As if talking and taking some stupid pills will erase everything that came before and make him happy.
“And if you run out of any of your other medications, please don’t hesitate to give me a call.”
“Yeah. Dr. Gast’s secretary gave me your number.”
It is, of course, saved in his PHS as Dr. Asshole.
“Oh!” Sephiroth reaches into his pocket and pulls out yet another party favor for Cloud: a cream-colored business card, on which he scrawls another number. “The number I share with my colleagues goes to my answering service, but here is my direct line, in case anything urgent comes up.”
Cloud tucks the prescription and the card into his jacket, where they will stay safe and dry.
“See you next week, Cloud.”
“We’ll see,” he says, wrinkling his nose before he slips out the front door and pops the umbrella open.
Although it’s still gloomy, with the dark clouds hanging low over the plate, the rain has drained from the sidewalks, so he’s able to avoid the worst of the puddles, and the umbrella is so large he takes up most of the path. Best of all, the train station closest to Sephiroth’s house is open again, and he rests his head against the glass window on the way back, studying the glow of the reactors.
Back at the dorm, he kicks off his rain-soaked shoes, tosses his wet lecture notes onto his desk, and flops straight onto his bed. If he rolls onto his side, he can see right out the window. His suite is on the first floor, facing the bicycle parking and the path to the gym. It’s quieter here than on the other side, where shuttle buses and cars pass on their way to the other side of campus, but he can still hear people chatting and laughing every night while he lies awake.
Thanks to the shadows of the transplanted trees fluttering on his window and the sound of their happy voices, it almost reminds him of home, where he would watch the other kids play. But it’s better now. People say hi and invite him to their events and toss him beers at parties, even if he’s not supposed to drink. He’s still the problem, but he does try. He is trying.
A few hours later, after scrolling mindlessly on his PHS and trying to find a comfortable position for his bony, aching body, he manages to rouse himself to scarf down half a cup of instant noodles and place two tablets of the new anxiolytic under his tongue. It dissolves bitter and grainy around his teeth, but it kicks in fast as he stares up at the empty ceiling, his stomach still hollow.
Before he can manage to force himself to get up and shower, or even swallow the rest of his evening meds, he falls asleep on top of the covers in his sweatshirt, which still smells of leather and imported flowers.
Around 4am, when the campus is still quiet, Cloud startles awake, dripping in cold sweat. He can’t remember the flames, but he peels off his clothes and tosses the covers to the foot of his narrow bed. With every twitch of his body, even the sheets cling to him, and he wipes his face and neck, gasping for air. The air feels charged, like a Nibel afternoon before the thunderstorm arrives, low pressure tight over his still-living nerves as he wills his wild mind towards blankness.
Despite the impression of his dream, as soon as he tries to wriggle out of his boxers, he can feel the hardness there, pulsing under his hand. Waking up like this is so odd, so wrong. His body doesn’t have this impulse anymore. He has Dr. Gast to thank for that, or maybe the fire, or both, but today is different.
He wants.
He needs.
When he touches himself, his fingers cold and clinical and his mind blank except for the thought of lace, he’s on the brink of coming within seconds. He doesn’t imagine anyone or anything, but the presence of something foreign and new here, untainted by his own mind, unrestrained by his chemistry, draws him to pleasure.
It’s not really satisfying, not in the way he wants it to be, but he buries his face in his sweat-soaked pullover and inhales the still-lingering traces of expensive soap, stroking himself until he feels a distant release unfurling in his core, unsatisfying and sick.
There isn’t much of a mess, and he’s grateful for that, but he stumbles to the shower to rinse away the prickling shame, and as soon as he gets back into bed, he finds that he is wide awake, his heart rattling wildly in his chest. There’s no chance he can go back to sleep, not like this, and he uses his sweatshirt as a pillow, counting the seconds in his head until it’s too bright to stay in bed.
————————
Of course, he brings the umbrella back the following Monday, though he feels like an idiot carrying it to his lecture on a perfectly sunny day. In an expert maneuver, he evades Tifa and manages to grab a sandwich from the math building café, which he eats on a bench at the end of the train platform, away from prying eyes.
He hesitates on the doorstep, and far above, he can hear the chirp of birds as they fly above, beginning their migration. They are a rare sight, even above the plate, and it must be a good omen for Sephiroth’s place that the traces of the planet aren’t yet gone like they are in the rest of the city.
Sephiroth is just as pleased to see him as last time, and Cloud allows himself to sit a little further back on the enormous leather sofa, rather than perching on the edge like he might need to run away at any moment.
Sephiroth doesn’t push. He doesn’t write a single word.
They just talk. It should be easy, and it is.
And Cloud begins to dissolve.
Over the following weeks, he carefully follows Sephiroth’s prescribed schedule, tapering off of one antidepressant and onto the new one, which he says will work better with his other medications. The difference is negligible, if any exists. However, the extra “as needed” pills are a more regular occurrence than he’d expected, allowing the evenings to begin to swirl in a way he hasn’t felt since the hospital. There, they had kept him fuzzy, distant from grief and the pain of the skin grafts.
The pain isn’t here anymore. The grief, on the other hand, never left—and it was never invited in.
He likes it better this way, bumbling softly through his week before it’s somehow Friday evening again, with Zack knocking while he slips in and out of a dream.
Dr. Gast has told him that it’s not good to take too much medication, or to be so disoriented, even if it means losing out on some sleep, but Sephiroth doesn’t seem to agree, and Cloud couldn’t be more thankful. It’s a welcome change from the usual tossing and turning while listening for any sign of an electrical short or a spark or the hungry roar of a fire.
He doesn’t really need to call Dr. Asshole (Office), let alone Dr. Asshole (Mobile).
With his new regimen, dreams are quickly forgotten, along with the hours that precede them, and he awakens with only the taste of smoke in his mouth, bringing tears to his eyes. His coursework is picking up, with midterms and lab and his part-time job, late nights in solitude at his shitty little desk. The evenings blur into one as his pants start to slip around his hips.
Zack offers him a protein shake here and there, but he can’t stand the taste. The mornings come quicker, painful sunlight across his eyes, well past his usual wake-up time, and he realizes he hadn’t even set an alarm.
One morning, he can’t find his favorite shirt from Costa del Sol, and he spends the better part of half an hour yanking open every drawer except for the one containing his secret. He hasn’t even been to Costa for more than a layover from the Western Continent, but it’s soft and it’s part of his routine and he takes another “emergency” pill to tamp down the panic. Over a shirt. “Where are you?” he mutters to himself, scratching at his cuticles.
He’s been doing better. He is. Even Sephiroth seems pleased.
But his skin doesn’t feel right in this other shirt. It wasn’t his plan, and he scratches idly at his wrists all throughout lecture, counting down the days until he can sink into Sephiroth’s leather couch and let the world melt away, keeping him safe from the fire outside.
Otherwise, he keeps his head down: enough socializing to keep Tifa at bay, enough solitude to push his thoughts to the brink, because of—or perhaps in spite of—his long hours in bed, scrolling mindlessly and trying not to irritate some scab or other.
What if I’d been faster!
What if it was all my fault!
Trying to wash away the ash one morning, he brushes his teeth until he gags, though when Sephiroth asks him how he’s sleeping a few weeks later, he reverts to his automatic response, the chemical calm suddenly broken.
“Fine.” He can feel the sweat prickling his scalp. The seams of his clothes are suddenly too scratchy. He can feel right where he cut out the tag on his t-shirt, slicing into his neck.
“Just fine?” Sephiroth is wearing a racing green sweater-vest today, with a bright white shirt and a knit tie underneath. He looks like the most irritating kind of professor, bulletproof thanks to tenure, yet still retaining some residual joie de vivre and desire to impart his wisdom onto the hormonal masses in the lecture hall. Cloud hates him right until he rolls up his sleeves, exposing surprisingly thick forearms. The doctor is human, though his skin is so pale it’s like he hasn’t been exposed to sunshine in twenty years. Just like a boring old professor, then.
Except . . . he’s actually not ugly. Not exactly.
“Cloud?”
“Huh? Yep. Fine. Like I said.”
“You mentioned to me the other day—”
“I said, I’m fine.”
“You said you’ve been sleeping ‘fine,’ though I would appreciate some clarity on what, exactly, that means. I understand you’ve been taking the sleeping pills I prescribed as needed, which is good. But—”
“‘Fine’ means it’s fine and we can move on. You don’t need a dictionary, do you? All these books in here and I bet you probably have one.” He takes a deep breath and shrinks against the couch. “I just want to get through this week.”
“Is there something particularly challenging ahead for you this week? Any deadlines for your classes?”
“No. Nothing like that. It’s more . . . .” He stutters on the intake of breath, knowing this isn’t really the point. The point is much simpler: the hollow space inside him, the scars on his heart, the unending dreams he can’t remember. The nuances of human socialization? Well—that’s his problem to deal with, not Sephiroth’s.
He doesn’t need a psychiatrist to tell him he’s an awkward loser.
But he doesn’t stop himself.
“I promised to hang out with some new friends. Or one new friend, to be exact. She won’t be happy if I don’t go, but . . . I don’t know. Plus, she’s friends with my other two friends.”
It sounds like I only have three friends.
I do only have three friends.
“I see,” says Sephiroth, tapping his fingers on his cheek, looking younger than he really is. “What kind of friendship do you envision with this person?”
He thinks of Aerith. It’s hard to say, considering his inexperience with friendship that isn’t forced on him. But he wants it all the same.
“Do you feel that she would judge you if you were not feeling up to socializing?”
“I don’t know, it’s . . . I don’t want to be a flake. Nibelheim was hard, if you know what I mean. Boarding school was harder. I thought college was going to be the same, but people are pretty nice. Maybe I’m just not made for socializing.”
“I’m not sure that’s true. We find a way to fill this hour, don’t we?”
Today, they do take the better part of an hour, and neither of them brings up the fire. They talk about Cloud’s sleep and the dreams he doesn’t remember and only feels. When he closes his eyes, trying to retrace his thoughts, he sees nothing, and when he opens them, he sees only Sephiroth: smooth-faced, curious, his lips slightly parted.
But when he leaves, as soon as he crosses the threshold from that luxurious room lit by the autumn sun and out into the cool breeze, he hates himself a little more. Another seven days (minus fifty minutes) until he’s back on that couch, glaring at the middle-aged stranger, and maybe in the next session, he can finally say what he wanted to say: that he knows exactly who Aerith’s father is, and he hasn’t told her, and he doesn’t think that streak of pity is inside of her too, but it’s too late to admit he’s known it all along.
He swallows one of his “emergency” pills dry before he even makes it around the corner on his way back from Sephiroth’s house.
Fortunately, Aerith doesn’t ask for much. They find a quiet table in the library, studying separately and coexisting in the quiet. Her notebook is a bit of a mess, full of loose sheets of paper and print-outs, but she has a pen in every possible color, and she pushes a tin of cookies across the table and holds her finger in front of her mouth.
“Shh, don’t tell anyone!” she whispers. Of course, eating is forbidden in the library, but there’s nobody around, and she eats hers with a smile on her face before he even takes one.
He watches her while she reads and re-organizes her notes, crumbs on the corner of her mouth. As far as he can tell, the chances seem low that Tifa actually put her up to this.
She buys him a cup of coffee from the truck outside the library when she gets restless and decides to call it a night. Her dorm is just down the row from his, he knows, so there’s no reason not to walk together, even though she insists he can stay if he wants.
It isn’t going to be a good night once he’s alone. Their time together has been too pleasant, and the guilt is eating away at him, churning alongside the coffee and the oversweet cookies.
“C’mon, I’ll walk back with you. You never know what kind of creeps might be around,” he says, as if he isn’t one himself.
She walks surprisingly quickly, and she even walks backwards in front of him, grinning and swinging her arms before throwing a mock punch to her side. “I grew up in the city, you know. I’m tougher than you think.”
“Yeah, and I can afford my own coffee, and you still insisted on paying.”
“I’m a year ahead of you. I’m supposed to look out for underclassmen.” She shrugs, sipping her cappuccino before skipping ahead.
Cloud already drank his, and he wonders why she even wanted coffee. It’s not like she needs it, with all this energy.
“Besides, isn’t it nice to just . . . do something nice sometimes?” She pauses under the streetlamp, her hair like a halo around her head. “Tifa said—”
“Wait, Tifa put you up to this?”
She shakes her head. “No, but she said you weren’t feeling very social, so I shouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t want to hang out with me. But here you are. I’m really happy.”
“Yeah. Here I am.” He glances down at his feet, studying their shadows under the streetlight, but before they turn to go, she loops her arm through his and pulls him along. His back goes stiff, but he has no choice but to follow. Tifa doesn’t usually dare to touch him, and Zack—well, Cloud treasures those hugs more than he can say, but they’re doled out to just about anybody close enough to get into his orbit.
He isn’t special.
“It’s okay if you don’t feel like talking. Sometimes it’s nice to just stop and smell the roses.”
“Roses?” he grumbles, matching her pace. “Roses don’t grow in Midgar.” He hasn’t seen any except in the windows of the florist’s shop, near campus, all wilted and pale. Sephiroth tends more towards fluffy, impossibly large flowers, all clearly imported.
“It’s just a saying. And there aren’t any here, not around campus. But you’d be surprised to see what Midgar has to offer. I know a few spots!”
His sleeve rides up his wrist when the fabric of his jacket catches against her sweater. With his other hand, he nervously tugs at the hem, and he hides his fingers inside the sleeve, making a loose fist. Pretty soon he’ll be grateful for what passes for winter here, when he can wear gloves without getting too many weird looks. It’s not much of a winter, all pissing rain, rather than ice, and it’s somehow worse.
But he shouldn’t think about that. Right now, heading back to his dorm, it’s perfectly pleasant, and Aerith chatters away about her thesis proposal, which is all about the study of agriculture restorative practices in antiquity and their applicability to modern environmental conservation. The topic is a bit beyond him, but she’s happy, and he’s happy to listen, and she isn’t even looking at him weird as he nods along.
She points out all the funny places she knows on campus—where Zack split a hole in the seam of his pants trying to do a particular flip on his skateboard, where Tifa first set up her electric keyboard and took requests when her concert was canceled, and the fountain where Aerith always tosses in a coin, even though she’s never seen anybody else do it.
She’s just . . . looking. Smiling. Like everything bad that happened in the world just rolls right off her. Tifa, on the other hand, wants to undo it all. Aerith doesn’t mind the hurt. Cloud knows enough of her story to know it’s a tough one, just her and her dad. He shouldn’t really know that, since it may or may not have come from a late-night Moogle search about Dr. Gast, and he realizes she’s still talking, but he doesn’t mind it.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter how many friends you have,” she continues, as Cloud’s thoughts continue to unravel. “I didn’t grow up with a lot of friends, but it doesn’t bother me at all. What matters is how much you care about them and how much they care about you. And if you can be yourself. Having a huge crew is overrated, I think. What about you?”
She stops short; they’re in front of his dorm, and he should really go inside. He can see hers, just a few houses down, but here they are. “Huh?”
“What do you think?”
“I think . . . I agree?”
She giggles, pulling her arm from the crook of his elbow. Suddenly, the wind feels that much colder.
“You weren’t listening, were you? I’m not going to report back to Tifa on everything you do, or how you act.”
“How am I supposed to be sure about that?”
“What would I gain, silly? I just wanted to see how you’re doing. And maybe I actually do want to be your friend. Or maybe I’m a super-secret super-spy! Guess you’ll just have to find out by hanging out with me again.”
Before he can open his mouth to say anything, she points down the road and adjusts her backpack on her shoulder, gesturing for him to stay.
“Anyway, it’s time for me to get going. I’ll fight off any creeps I see, just like I did on our way back here. And Cloud?” She turns, wagging her finger. “Make sure to take care of yourself. I heard the chemistry department is tough.”
It’s not the chemistry department that’s the problem. I don’t even want to do chem. I want to do physics, but Shinra wants more chemistry graduates for that mako energy crap.
It’s my fucking brain.
She glances down at the empty cup in her hand and smiles a little.“Guess I shouldn’t have bought you all that coffee, if you need to rest, huh?”
“What, no! It’s fine,” he reassures her. “It’s not a problem. It was really good.”
Of course, it’s not a problem—not with the pills. He watches her skip down the street and enter her dorm before he slips inside and drags himself to his suite, where he numbs himself with three and a half little pills. As he falls asleep, he wonders what it is that she wants from him, and if it could really be so simple as nothing.
Maybe I actually do want to be your friend.
He’s still thinking about what Aerith said during his next appointment with Sephiroth a few days later.
Today, Sephiroth has decided to forge ahead with his mysterious questioning, probing Cloud about his dreams, the ones that leave him breathless and wrung out. All the while, Cloud is hunched over his knees, staring at the floor and still thinking about how he hadn’t even known what to say. How Aerith doesn’t really know him, not really, doesn’t know what he knows and what he did or didn’t do in Nibelheim.
What he could have done.
What kind of friend he is.
It doesn’t matter how many friends you have.
The ceiling seems so close, bearing down on him, and he doesn’t like today’s flowers, all spiky and pointy and too sweet-smelling to be pleasant. When did this room become so small?
It matters how much you care about them. If you can really be yourself.
That’s when he realizes he’s in the middle of a conversation that’s about to swallow him whole.
She doesn’t know the first thing about me.
“Cloud?” Sephiroth asks, his voice like a quiet wave breaking on the sand. He hears it, but he doesn’t know what to do with it. “What’s going on?”
“I . . .” The carpet below him looks different today. There’s some kind of stain on it, right between his feet, between the swirls of cream and dark jade and blue. He rubs at it with the toe of his sneaker, and to his horror, he smudges it into the tufted fabric, a vivid smear of red. “What is that?”
When he glances up, Sephiroth is out of his chair like a lightning bolt, and he kneels at Cloud’s side, clamping a tissue over his nose with a startling amount of pressure and helping him sit upright.
The reality of the situation brings him out of the panic. He has a real problem in front of him: the damage to Sephiroth’s carpet and the disruption of their session. Dreams are important, apparently. Not that he knows how to tell the truth about them, about plunging his hands into the flames and hoping that this time he won’t let go. He’s not sure he knows how to tell the truth about anything else, for that matter.
“Shit, your carpet,” he says, his voice muffled and nasally.
“You have a nosebleed. Lean forward and hold the pressure here.” He guides Cloud’s hand up to his face, unflinching and firm, and directs him to pinch his nose shut. The feeling of his enormous fingers taking hold of Cloud’s hand, circling around his palm, where no one ever dares to touch, is dizzying.
He can’t quite make out the precise texture of Sephiroth’s skin, not under the burned nerves, but the weight of it is surprising.
He can’t remember the last time he touched another person like this, skin-to-skin.
He never wants it to end; he could drink it in forever, this simple touch and fresh flowers and the brush of Sephiroth’s ponytail on his sleeve as he leans in.
“Thank you,” he says, voice thick as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “Sorry for the mess. I can fix it, I—”
“Oh, that?” Sephiroth glances down, then returns his too-bright gaze to Cloud’s face. “Don’t worry about it.” Up close, he smells faintly smoky and sweet, like some kind of cocktail with ingredients he can’t pronounce, like a real man and not some pitiful little college student.
Tifa likes to dream up drinks for her friends, though the non-alcoholic ones she offers Cloud don’t quite taste the same. Sephiroth is full-proof, however, luxurious and unfamiliar, and he does not hesitate to wipe the smears of blood from Cloud’s upper lip and his fingertips. He is so close and so flawless that the room feels a little cooler when he steps away to fetch some gauze pads.
He is a doctor, of course, but he’s a psychiatrist, far removed from the viscera and fluids of other specialties. Cloud is surprised to see how confidently he moves, every step perfectly economical, but maybe he shouldn’t be.
Besides, it’s just a nosebleed—hardly an operating room or a real emergency. He soaks through the first few tissues quickly, though if Sephiroth minds the mess in the apparently decorative trash can next to his desk, he doesn’t make it obvious. The bleeding stops quickly enough, and Cloud dabs some moisturizing ointment from Sephiroth’s first aid kit into his nose with a cotton swab, turning away so it isn’t so embarrassing. Sephiroth offers to do it for him, but Cloud declines, staring up at the crown molding.
Despite all his gentleness and care, despite all the softness in his voice, he isn’t as friendly when he sits back down. The clock says there are only five minutes left in this session, but he begins a new line of attack.
“Where were we? Talking about your dreams. You say you don’t have dreams very often.” He takes off his glasses, and Cloud watches him spread his fingers over the arms of his chair. Today, his hair is down, falling like the sunlit edge of a glacier over his shoulder, and Cloud is admiring it when he realizes that Sephiroth is still talking to him. “I don’t think you’re being honest with me, Cloud. You want to be tough, and I understand that, but I can’t help if you don’t talk to me.”
“I do talk to you,” he says a little too quickly.
And sometimes I say things so that we can change the subject.
“You talk, but for some reason, you don’t want me to hear what you really have to say.”
“I tell you exactly what I have to say. Maybe I’m just not that interesting. Or maybe you aren’t asking the right questions. Ever thought about that?”
This earns him a low laugh, but it’s too friendly given the venom in Cloud’s tone. “I ask the right questions, but you don’t want to show anyone what’s in there, regardless of what I ask or don’t ask. You don’t want to be vulnerable. But that’s how it works here.”
“How it works is I answer the questions and you give me the medication. Or I don’t answer them. I don’t have to be here. I don’t have to talk.”
“Then why are you here?” It’s not a question for Cloud to answer, he knows. Sephiroth’s long fingers tap on the cushioned arm, quiet but still audible over the pounding of Cloud’s heart in his ears. “I think you want to try. I think you’re hoping for at least one person to see you for who you really are. Whether it’s with your new friend, Aeris—”
“Aerith,” Cloud interjects, thinking of how they’d walked home together. How she hadn’t judged him. How she still had crumbs on the corner of her lips at the coffee truck and how he’d said nothing at all about it because she had been too happy to ruin it.
“Or with anyone. And hopefully with me. You want it, whether you realize it or not, but you’re afraid it will hurt more. I wonder if you’ve ever shown anyone in your life just what you’re capable of. How angry you are.” The leather creaks as he shifts forward, uncrossing his legs.
There’s a shift in the air, even across the now-dirtied carpet, and Cloud feels as though he can’t move. Low pressure before the storm, sweat pooling in the hollows of his collarbones. He needs his pill. More than one. He needs to just come back another day when he feels more participatory and capable of putting up with this cryptic shit.
He wants to run.
“You’re afraid it will hurt more to show me than it does to hold it in. And it very well might, Cloud. But you might be able to forgive yourself, too. And you’ll never know if you don’t try.”
“With all due respect,” he grits out, “what the Hel does that mean?”
“It means you need to learn to feel again. To be angry, to be happy. To feel pleasure. To hate. To tell me what you feel, without all that artifice.”
“I already do that every week.”
He knows he dreams of flame. The evidence is there, in the raw half moons of nails carved into his palms and the tiny crumbles of blood under his nails, drying and flaking and scattering like so much ash.
It’s in the frantic way he finds himself throwing out come-stained panties yet again, a bad habit that has returned now that his hands have started to wander at night and he’s just relaxed enough to have the urge—yet not relaxed enough to enjoy it.
It’s there in the shiny, tight arcs of his scars, from scrubbing his hands over and over again like he’ll never be clean. He can still remember every second of the endless, windowless time in the hospital, the bandages peeling from his hands, each inch of fabric its own eternal punishment.
What he doesn’t want to admit is that he hopes, deep down, that the dream ends differently. He can still remember the firefighters pulling him away as he had held fast to the melting latch and smelled the burning of his flesh.
But when he wakes, unable to recall it, he wonders if he will ever know what it would have felt like to open the door, step through, and finally be consumed by the flame.
He hasn’t even started to tell Sephiroth who he is, let alone what he wants.
“Do you?” he asks, cocking his head to one side. “ Or do you just hate yourself?”
“Shut up,” Cloud mutters, dabbing at his nose.
Sephiroth opens his mouth, but before he can speak—
“I said, shut up!” Cloud leaps to his feet and looks down at Sephiroth, seated and calm, before he stumbles backwards onto the sofa, a little dizzy for a moment. He’s out of breath already, the anger drained from his veins, but his hands shake as he tries to sit back up.
“Excellent,” he says, his voice all warm and honeyed. “You won’t tell me what you see in your dreams, but I think that’s the first sincere thing you’ve said to me all day.”
It hangs there, the echo of his voice. Sephiroth hadn’t even spoken that second time, and yet Cloud had shouted at him.
“I’m sorry,” Cloud says in a tone that implies he is very much not sorry, “it’s just—you tell me all this crap I should do, or what I’m feeling, or that talking about my dreams is going to fix me, but you don’t tell me how to do it or how to fix it.”
“That’s why we talk: to figure it out.”
“So you’re saying you don’t have any answers. More bullshit,” he spits out.
“No. I have a place where you can bring your problems, to organize them and store them away so you can clear your mind as you go about the rest of your life. I have medications that can help you survive. And I can tell you that it’s possible. But it doesn’t work if you shut me out.”
He looks down at the spot on the carpet, between his feet.
“I want to believe that you want to get better, Cloud. I want you to trust me.”
He wants that too. He just can’t bring himself to admit that he isn’t sure whether it’s true or not.
Each week he dreads it. Not the appointment itself, but the idea that every new appointment is one closer to the inevitable end. Eventually, he’ll say something worse than shut up. Plus, Sephiroth will eventually realize he’s taking too much, including from what Dr. Gast gave him, and his stash from the doctor before that. At some point, Sephiroth will grow tired of fighting with him.
Everyone else does. They all do, eventually.
He counts the remaining medicine, and he follows the little checklist Sephiroth gave him. He takes more than he should, on the days he knows the panic will come, relishing the quiet of the city when his mind is too far gone to take it in. The sounds of the dorm—pounding feet, loud music, the plumbing—all fade to a low static crackle, unable to reach him.
But every morning, he awakens well before sunrise with a lump of dread in his throat, unsure if he has even slept or if he has just forgotten the endless hours of staring at the acoustic ceiling, replaying the memory until it’s brighter than any fire could have been. With the quiet comes a deeper emptiness, and in the void comes the despair.
I should have saved her.
I could have saved her.
I can’t tell Sephiroth.
Each Sunday night, he looks at the pictures of Sephiroth’s house on the real estate website. It’s different, thanks to what must be some renovations and a lot of paint, but the shape of it is still there—the reflective windows, the floating staircase, the sun-filled atrium on the floor above the office, overlooking the garden.
But the ugly grey dawn returns, ever the same, later and later, and he forces himself to go, almost (but not quite) against his will.
He has a choice, but it doesn’t feel as though he’s made one at all.
Once again, they talk about friendship—his envy of Zack’s ease in life, his frustration with Tifa’s care, his curiosity about Aerith. It’s on the tip of his tongue, this connection with Aerith, and his shame for not saying anything. For not just admitting it. Would she have cared? Would it have ever mattered?
It’s not like Sephiroth would ever tell anyone. For as strange as his treatment methods are, provoking Cloud’s irritation and praising him for it, he seems to take his job as a physician very seriously. In particular, he takes Cloud seriously. He has the latest psychopharmacological and psychoanalytic journals on his desk, as Cloud can see, and he hasn’t heard a single word of complaint from the Shinra scholarship committee all semester.
Why doesn’t he just say it? Why doesn’t he just say that as soon as he met her, he knew who she was, and he’s not sure if he’s curious because of that or because she is so sincere. He recognized her from the photographs on Dr. Gast’s desk, a little younger but still with that gleam in her eyes.
Even though he’s in Sephiroth’s home, there isn’t much to glean about him. Dr. Gast’s office had been full of certificates and pictures with his colleagues and Aerith. But Sephiroth is an enigma. He obviously has expensive tastes, and he must be successful, given the size of the house, yet the rest is inaccessible.
He has nothing to lose. Other psychiatrists have chastised him for prying, but this one-way conversation is exposing, and Sephiroth wants him to be honest. So he’ll be honest.
“It’s weird,” he says, ending the lull in their conversation, “I don’t know anything about you. I know this is your house, because of course it is, but I only come in the lower entrance to your office. I know you have a garden, but only because I can see it. You own a lot of books, but I don’t even know if you’ve read them. It feels strange to tell you all about my friends and everything that happened.”
“Does it now?” Sephiroth blinks at him, raising his eyebrows.
“Yeah. It’s awkward. I know you can’t say much, obviously. Dr. Gast was like that too.”
For a moment, Cloud thinks the uneasy silence is back. But Sephiroth never fails to surprise him.
“Would it help you in your therapy to know more about me?”
“I mean . . . it would feel less like I’m talking to a brick wall. A brick wall with a really nice house.”
He sits up a little straighter, examining Sephiroth’s face. Eye contact in these sessions has always been so exposing, but if he saw Sephiroth on the street, he would stop and stare. How could anyone not?
Despite his age, he’s still youthful, with the obvious strength of his body, and there is something feminine and delicate in his face. Even though this is his office, he’s still a little too tall for his chair, and it should be awkward, but his long limbs stretch out elegantly.
Look at me, he seems to say. When he moves, he is quiet and fluid. A contradiction. A living, breathing human, just a few feet away, and yet so far that Cloud couldn’t touch him if he tried. His only confirmation that Sephiroth is a real flesh-and-blood person and not some kind of psychiatric robot was the time he held the tissue for his nosebleed.
No, that’s not right.
What about the little movements of his face? The way his eyes flick back and forth, like Cloud is some kind of book he’s reading; the way he tucks his bangs behind his ears, only to have them almost immediately fall in front of his face again; the light tap of his fingers on the leather chair.
“Then let me take down the wall. Where do I start? Well, I’m from Midgar, and I’ve lived here my entire life. I studied medicine at the University of Midgar, and then I did my residency at the hospital there. I was adopted, so I don’t know what my real birthday is.”
Cloud bites the inside of his cheek. He’d assumed that Sephiroth was untouchable, born into privilege. The house seems to suggest as much. An orphan is one thing, but what could be the circumstances where his birthday is unknown? It’s hard to imagine.
Sephiroth holds up a hand and lowers a finger with each sentence, as if he’s counting the facts about himself. “My favorite color is blue, if this room didn’t give you a hint. I like to cook, though I don’t do it as often as I would like, given how busy I am. I can read and understand the Wutai language, but don’t ask me to speak it beyond asking about the weather or telling you my name.”
“Dogs or cats?” Cloud asks.
“Neither,” Sephiroth replies, tapping the mug on the table next to him. “Chocobos.”
“Me too,” he mumbles.
It doesn’t really help. But it feels . . . normal. Like making a new friend—how he’d felt when he’d met Aerith the first time. There is no expectation like with Tifa. There is no pressure to smile like with Zack, even if Zack always says they’re just happy to see him join them.
When Sephiroth speaks, he doesn’t ooze pity. Maybe he feels it, Cloud wonders, but he’s a good actor, listing off his personal trivia.
“Any other questions for me?”
What happened to your parents? Cloud wants to ask. Aren’t you lonely? It isn’t his place, and someone like Sephiroth must have a circle of educated, sophisticated friends. Or a girlfriend. A wife. A boyfriend, maybe, since Midgar is mostly pretty accepting of these things, setting aside that jackass in the dorm last year.
He hasn’t thought about that in a long time. Today isn’t the time for that, though this might be the place, and he doesn’t want to dig open a wound, whether it’s Sephiroth’s or his own. That would almost certainly be the beginning of the end. So, he decides: simple questions only.
“What’s your favorite food?”
“Hmm . . .” He taps his pen against his lips, almost childish. “I’d have to say pumpkin soup.”
“Seriously? I’d imagined something . . . I dunno . . . fancier, I guess.” Cloud covers the bloodstain on the carpet with his shoe, then looks up at Sephiroth, who looks surprised by the reaction.
“What could be better than soup on a cold day?”
His stomach grumbles. He skipped lunch again today, to avoid Tifa. It’s become a bad habit on Mondays.
“Guess I should have had soup for lunch,” Cloud grumbles.
“Perhaps so.”
That smile. That’s the most human part of him: the smile when Cloud says what he thinks must be the right answer—when he describes how his medication makes him feel, and when he admits his lowest points. When he tries to be funny, even when he’s not. Is this part of Sephiroth’s oath to do no harm to his patient? Probably not, but he can’t say he minds. The professors scowl and demand more, and the scholarship committee wants him to stay in line. But Sephiroth doesn’t mind him as he is: a disaster in need of a friendly ear.
He tries to imagine Sephiroth eating pumpkin soup, with a spoon that’s too small for his hand. Would he wipe the bowl with a piece of rye bread, the way they do in Nibelheim? Probably not—it’s hard to find here in any condition fit for human consumption.
“It’s not even that cold in Midgar,” he says, still stuck on the image of Sephiroth with rye crumbs in his teeth. “It doesn’t snow here.”
“What about you?”
“Hm?”
One of his bangs is threatening to come loose from behind his ear. Cloud gives it all of five minutes. “What’s your favorite food? I told you mine, so it’s only fair if you tell me yours. We don’t have to always sit here and talk about depressing things.”
“I don’t know. When people ask, I used to say Nibel food. It’s a cliché answer, but that’s what most anyone from Nibelheim would say. Dumplings with farmer’s cheese, wolf stew, berries and custard tartelettes with cinnamon fluff. But I don’t think it’s so good anymore.”
“What, you got spoiled by the big city?” Sephiroth’s eyes shimmer with something unknown. “Midgar does have that effect on people.”
He shakes his head.
It all tastes like ash now, like everything about Nibelheim. But he doesn’t say it. There will be no old wounds in today’s session. No new ones, either.
He lets his hands wander over the blanket at his side, which is somehow both scratchy and soft at the same time. They go past the usual time and talk about the latest blitzball transfer rumors, which Cloud follows closely, and about Cloud’s courses for the next semester.
It isn’t a waste, Sephiroth tells him, when Cloud says at the end it felt like they didn’t talk about anything at all, after he got angry the week before.
“You don’t have to pretend here. Sometimes you just need a place to be yourself. And that’s an excellent use of an hour. In fact, I would be honored if you felt you could do that here with me.”
On his way out, Sephiroth hands him an updated prescription.
“You mentioned you weren’t sleeping well.” Cloud opens his mouth, but Sephiroth cuts him off. “Ah, ah—before you complain, ‘fine’ isn’t enough for me. I can see the circles under your eyes. Take an extra pill in the evening after dinner if you’re feeling jittery or you think it’s going to be a tough night. It might help, and if it doesn’t, let me know, and we’ll see what we can do about that.”
“Um, thanks,” he mutters.
Sephiroth squeezes his shoulder just once, his hand firm and warm through Cloud’s canvas jacket.
“Take care of yourself, Cloud.”
I heard the chemistry department is tough! Aerith had said.
Alone, Cloud stands on the doorstep for a moment, staring at the high gate leading to the street. It cuts across the sky, and the calm he feels on Sephiroth’s property will be broken as soon as he opens it and passes into the outside world.
Then, the calm will become a perfect rage—now, for himself, that he had spent half a session talking about silly things, rather than being honest.
You don’t have to pretend here.
Is he really pretending? And if so, is it with Sephiroth, or is it every other moment of the day? Is it really so obvious, what a mess he is? He still hides his hands on the train ride home, leery of the other passengers, even if they are more interested in staring at their PHSs than at him.
At the dorm, when he passes through the lounge, he lies through his teeth when Zack asks where he was (“biochem lab, then the science library”), even though Tifa probably told him all about the psychiatrist. The fact that it’s a pointless lie doesn’t stop him from saying it.
He fills this new prescription at the campus pharmacy that night, unwilling to wait until morning, and he takes two blue pills before jerking off while thinking about the things he doesn’t want to wear.
After a scalding shower, he slips under the covers and lies on his side, scrolling through pumpkin soup recipes as his eyelids grow heavy. The dorm has a little kitchen, but he hasn’t used it all semester, and he’s not sure he would even want soup. It’ll never taste like his mother made it, will it? Besides, the stove has gas burners, with real flames, and when he remembers this, he immediately closes the web browser on his PHS and concentrates on steadying his breathing while the pills finally kick in.
But a foreign hunger stirs inside of him. Sephiroth had said it so calmly, so honestly, as if it were a real conversation and not some battle of wills. Tifa always wants something, and Zack is always pushing. But Sephiroth? He just likes pumpkin soup: a simple dish for a man who won’t let anything in Cloud’s brain be simple.
Before he falls asleep, he wipes his search history, hating himself all over again. Sephiroth isn’t his friend any more than Dr. Gast was, and a handsome exterior won’t change that, Cloud knows. But it can’t hurt to pretend that Sephiroth might actually care.
He can have that, at least.
Nobody else needs to know.
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