Title: Cat's Eyes
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Rating: G
Length: 6.5k
Summary: There was something, a feeling in the air, that made him slow his steps and tighten his hold around First Tsurugi's handle.
Cloud stuffed his bags in a nearby barrel, mentally crossing his fingers, hoping they would still be there at his return, then climbed the church's front stairs, ready to use the Fusion Sword. He took a couple of steps inside and stopped, breath caught in his chest.
"Hello," Sephiroth said.

-



AO3 link

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The old church looked... Lonely, Cloud decided, as he stared up at the building. It was a lot less damaged than he was used to, though. The future almost-ten-years would take their toll on the building, apparently.

Or it would have, in Cloud’s universe, anyway. Here, there was no telling.

This new universe was mostly the same as Cloud’s birth universe. Except for one specific detail. There was no Strife left here. His ‘mother’ died as she attempted to deal with an incident in the reactor. Half a scientific team lost their lives that day, prompting ShinRa to convert the reactor to full remote control and pull all human engineers off-site. It made Cloud wonder if it would have been his own mother’s fate too if she hadn’t gotten sick from mako exposure earlier, her regular body tremors and the way she sometimes lost track of reality rendering her inept at working with the reactor’s delicate equipment.

Cloud shook himself out of his thoughts and stepped up to the church. It might seem callous, but he’d lost so much that... Well, there came a time when losing more was just routine. Lose something, fight, rebuild, rinse and repeat.

Cloud might just start the rebuilding before the fighting this time, he mused as he explored the dilapidated church.

-

Aerith’s flower patch wasn’t a thing yet. Cloud stared down at the broken flooring, wondering if cleaning it up made any sense.

Probably not. It wasn’t like he had any gardening talent and Aerith was... something like three or four years old? Still living in Icicle Inn too. He had checked on her, as he’d done for his mother, sometimes after finding his feet in this world. Apparently, the Hojo of this world couldn’t care less about Ifalna or Gast Faremis, which allowed the little family to grow happy and quiet in their home on the Northern Continent.

Nobody would care about what Cloud did to the church, here.

Still, he wasn’t a half-Cetra. There was no way that Cloud could get flowers to grow under the plate. He shook his head at himself, kicking at a loose board, then turned away. Priorities, he thought. First, repair the doors and check for entrance points. Watch his own back. Next, repair the floor, clear the obstacles in the way, benches and fallen stonework.

With a goal in mind, Cloud pushed the memory of his Aerith standing other him as he laid on his back in the middle of the flower, and set to work.

-

Living in the Slums wasn’t particularly expensive, but Cloud still needed money for food at a minimum. The church’s repairs also had a cost.

Shaking his wet hair, Cloud grabbed his sword and headed over to Sector 7. The monsters living in the train graveyard were rather pathetic, for someone of Cloud’s level, but they gave him enough loot and stolen gil to make a living. It helped that his weeding of the monsters had repercussions in all Sectors. People knew his name these days, the man with glowing eyes who kept the local monsters population at a low(ish) level. Apparently, SOLDIERs weren’t quite a thing yet and Cloud’s eyes were nothing more than a curiosity. But many shopkeepers gave him discounts for his work, as it also helped the population travel between Sectors with less danger, which raised sales.

Barely a few weeks after moving to Midgar, Cloud already had a schedule. Get up, shower, ignore the pull of the Jenova cells, go kill some monsters and vent his pent-up frustration. Trek back to Sector 6, sell his loot, buy lunch, buy the supplies he needed for his current rebuilding effort, go ‘home’ and exhaust himself with said rebuilding work.

It was... surprisingly satisfying, to watch his shelter transform from hovel back to an actual building-which-might-become-a-home.

The sharp pull of close J cells, however, wasn’t something that Cloud had expected. He juggled with the bags full of supplies he had just bought, holding all the straps in one hand, the other free to grab his sword. The movement reminded him of Zack again, but right now Zack was young too, too young and Cloud shied away from the thought.

The church was the same as ever, when Cloud came in sight, and yet...

There was something, a feeling in the air, that made him slow his steps and tighten his hold around First Tsurugi’s handle.

Cloud stuffed his bags in a nearby barrel, mentally crossing his fingers, hoping they would still be there at his return, then climbed the church’s front stairs, ready to use the Fusion Sword. He took a couple of steps inside and stopped, breath caught in his chest.

“Hello,” Sephiroth said.

The man leaned against the altar, relaxed but focused on Cloud.

There was a rapier strapped on Sephiroth’s back and Cloud abruptly realized that Wutai wasn’t at war with the Eastern Continent, yet. It shocked him out of his pre-battle concentration and Cloud noticed how young Sephiroth looked. The man already looked like his older self, albeit shorter and softer around the edges. Cloud did some quick calculation in his head and realized that the man had to be something around sixteen, maybe seventeen years old. Sephiroth wasn’t a war veteran, he wasn’t a symbol of ShinRa’s victory, he wasn’t even the General of SOLDIER yet. If SOLDIER was even a thing. As far as Cloud could tell, if the program had started, it was recent enough that no one had noticed.

-

Cloud looked at the rapier again, then at Sephiroth, then mentally gave in. “Yes?”

Sephiroth shifted on his spot and looked at the stained windows miraculously still in one piece, then back at Cloud.

Cloud’s jaw dropped. 

Sephiroth wasn’t being rude. He was being awkward. He’d seen the remnant of baby fat and missing growth spur but he hadn’t realized.

Sephiroth, in this time and place, was just past his teenage years.

As in, an ‘I’ve been raised in a lab’ teenager. An ‘I don’t have any friends’ teenager. An ‘I’ve been feeling a weird pull and this is freaking me out because I have no idea what’s going on’ teenager.

His extended swim in the Lifestream and subsequent surfacing in Mideel had given Cloud most of his memories back, but some things had never come back. He didn’t remember a time when he didn’t feel Sephiroth and the Jenova cells move around the planet, even after they’d defeated Sephiroth. Actually, his post-defeat Sephiroth radar was even creepier, as he’d felt the cells move around in the Lifestream at a speed that no human could match. One morning would give him the sense that ‘Sephiroth’ was somewhere in the Northern Continent but by noon he’d been fucking around the Mythril Mines on the Eastern Continent.

None of this had happened here. All this Sephiroth would know was that one day everything was the same as ever and the day after something ‘this way’ would have been tugging at his attention constantly.

Poor guy must have freaked out.

Cloud sighed, shoulders drooping. What the hell was he supposed to do? He wasn’t exactly good at making decisions. He’d always hated responsibilities, had run from them every time he could. He was self-aware enough to know that he shouldn’t be in charge of anyone, no matter what everyone else thought. And here was a Sephiroth, having barely reached adulthood, fresh out of the labs and its horrors, but not yet irrevocably shattered by war and ShinRa’s manipulations.

“My name is Sephiroth,” the guy said, bringing his chin back up in an obvious attempt at looking confident. “I wish to... talk with you, please.” His lips stretched in a fleeting grimace as his original assertiveness just—fizzled away.

“All right.” What the hell. It wasn’t like Cloud was trying to keep the timeline on track. There were already important changes not of his doing, anyway. “I’m Cloud Strife. Just. Sit there a moment, I’m going to get my groceries before they get stolen.”

Cloud didn’t wait for Sephiroth’s answer. He strode out, jumping over the church’s front steps and headed straight for the barrel.

The bags were still there, he discovered, eyebrows rising to his hairline. He hadn’t expected it. Things that cost actual money, especially fresh-ish food, were worth a lot in the slums.

Then again, everyone knew that Cloud was a fighter competent enough to attack train graveyard monsters and come out without a scratch. The fun thing was that, with the level of mako in his blood, even if those monsters were the slightest danger to him, by the time he walked to the market all wounds would have healed, anyway. Still, the civilians were smart enough not to poke the sleeping dragon, as it was.

Sephiroth was gingerly sitting on a rescued bench at the table that Cloud had built using recuperation wood.

Cloud put his bags on the table and emptied them right there, sorting automatically by cupboard.

He pressed his lips together, calculating the odds of playing innocent. Did he even want to play dumb? “You followed the pull,” he said eventually.

Sephiroth’s eyes jerked up. He’d been staring at Cloud’s hands working on unpacking the food. “I—Yes, I did.” He shook himself. “What is this? It started a few months ago, it’s like—a buzzing in my ear, like it’s telling me to go somewhere and find something. It makes no sense, I checked.”

Gaia, poor guy. So out of sync with regular people he had to check if suddenly feeling another presence was something normal or not. Actually, it made a terrible kind of sense. What were the odds that older!Sephiroth would approach someone and risk being ridiculed by asking a question like this, when most of the people around him were ShinRa management or his own subordinates. Did he even realize that hearing his ‘mother’ wasn’t normal?

Cloud grabbed a knife and sat. “Everything about this is complicated and none of it would make sense to random people, so you’re not mad and they weren’t fucking with you,” he explained as he peeled an orange. “I know some things, from another... timeline, which sounds crazy, but you believe it or not. I have no proof, beyond some knowledge of events which might or might not happen. Some things are already different from what I’m used to.”

“... You’re a dimension traveler.”

Cloud huffed, holding out half of the orange at Sephiroth with a smile. “Yep, I am.”

“This is science fiction.”

“Hell, Sephiroth, most of the ShinRa technology currently on the market was science fiction three decades ago.”

“There’s a difference between exploiting a new source of energy and traveling between universes.”

Cloud barked out a laugh before he could think twice. “You’re right, you know. It’s crazy, everything about me, about us is crazy. But it’s what it is.”

“And what is it, this thing between us?”

Cloud sucked on a piece of orange. He hadn’t been expecting Sephiroth to come to find him, which in hindsight he should have, so he hadn’t thought about how to present things. “On my world, Hojo was a mad motherfucker,” he said eventually.

Sephiroth jerked on his seat, the rickety wood cracking under his grip. “You know about Hojo.”

“Do I ever.”

“You... he created you too.”

“Okay, this is bullshit,” Cloud burst out, smacking his palm on the table before he could think twice. He winced and glared at the outline he’d left in the wood, then looked back at Sephiroth. “So, the basis of all this mess is, Hojo hasn’t created anything.”

Sephiroth frowned. “He made—”

“Nope! He didn’t make you,” Cloud talked over his guest. “What he did, was find an unknown organism in the Northern Crater, realize that experimenting on it would be expensive and ShinRa would never go with it, and consequently slapped a ‘Here Be Cetra’ label on it and dazzled the President with fairy tales of infinite mako and mountains of money. Because they might have eliminated all the scientists who would say otherwise and suppressed the rumors with prejudice, but ShinRa did get the results. The reactor uses up the mako, the Lifestream, which is the actual ‘stream of life’, the Planet’s Blood. The more mako they consume, the less living beings are born, so less energy goes back to the Lifestream and therefore there’s less mako available for pumping. It’s a vicious circle and the consequences are already made obvious by the wasteland zone slowly spreading around Midgar.”

Sephiroth stared, wide-eyed, looking like Cloud had just killed his puppy. With the remains of baby fat around his face and bright eyes, it made a convincing ‘you-made-me-sad’ face. Cloud hardened his heart and did not coo at the man. Babyface or not, Sephiroth was both an adult and a skilled warrior.

“Do you have any proof of this?”

“Remind me again, when was the last time you looked at the window, from ShinRa’s penis extension masquerading as a Tower?”

“I—What?”

Cloud sighed. “All right, remind me later to explain to you ‘fragile masculinity’.”

“I can infer the meaning, you know, you don’t need to explain every single thing to me.”

“I know you’re smart. But you’re also missing a lot of basic facts that everyone knows because of schooling and pop culture. So I’d rather explain all the steps and then you can make your mind.”

Sephiroth nodded slowly, hands fluttering between his lap and the table. He grabbed a piece of orange, turning it over between his fingers. “What does Hojo’s lies about mako have to do with me?” he asked.

“Okay, everything about this is convoluted, messed up, and way too long to explain in details, so I’ll try to give you the condensed version. Maybe.” Cloud wrinkled his nose. “I’m not good at summing up things. I tend to...” he waved a hand at nothing, “jump from one topic to the next and get caught up details. Or skip things that seem obvious to me. So,” he pointed at Sephiroth, staring at his eyes, “tell me if you’re lost.”

“I will.”

“So, where did I stop earlier?”

“Hojo found... something and played ShinRa to get funds to study it. And pumping and condensing mako is bad for the Planet which everyone with eyes and lungs living next to a reactor can see.”

“Right, the basics.”

“What did Hojo find? Cetras were people-shaped, basically our ancestors. What did he find if not a Cetra?”

“A frozen extraterrestrial virus, having infected a Cetra, which the other Cetras had spent a hell of a time trying to destroy and eventually buried in the Northern Continent.”

“... An alien. Okay, you’re having me on. Hojo found an alien and you’re a time-traveler. What the hell?”

Cloud snorted. “Yeah, it’s a lot to believe. But if you can get into Hojo’s notes, by which I mean the real ones, not the doctored ones he writes for ShinRa’s spy Turks to find, you’ll get the truth.”

Sephiroth nodded, apparently already aware of Hojo’s habit of hiding the real content. Which made sense, since Sephiroth had been raised in the labs, he was bound to have seen the man’s sleights of hand with his notes. What made less sense was that he’d have taken anything in the Nibelheim underground hidden lab at face value then. Though Cloud almost remembered something related to Genesis showing up in Nibelheim too? He knew he was missing some information from that time, his memory still wasn’t complete and never would be.

Sephiroth grabbed another orange and the knife, taking a turn at peeling it. “So, imagine I believe you. I expect that you mean that the SOLDIER program is based on whatever Hojo found while studying the alien organism.”

“Yep. That and mako, of course.”

Cloud took the parts of orange Sephiroth offered him. He left it on his napkin and got up, filling up the kettle and grabbed a couple tins of tea while the water heated. “Here, choose one.”

Sephiroth took the tins delicately, the little metal boxes dwarfed in his long-fingered hands. “I didn’t take you for a tea aficionados.”

“Eh. An old friend of mine was crazy about it and he infected us. Alcohol doesn’t do anything for us,” Cloud gestured at Sephiroth and himself, “and I don’t like the taste. It reminds me of the mako experiments.”

“Burning your mouth and the fumes making your eyes water.”

“Yes.”

They shared a companionable moment of silence between two lab rats. Then the kettle whistled and Cloud put the water in two mugs, leaving Sephiroth to doctor his own.

He waited until Sephiroth had put his mug back down on the table. “Hojo called the alien organism ‘Jenova’.”

“What!”

Mug down or not, the whole table almost flew as Sephiroth jumped to his feet.

“Sit down, Sephiroth.”

“Jenova is my mother!”

“She’s not! Hojo lies! He lies all the time, you know that. Sit down and listen to me!”

“Stop beating around the bush. You said that she’s an alien and now you tell me she isn’t my mother? I don’t even look human! I know that, everyone knows that. No one has my hair, no one has my eyes! I thought I was a freak crossed with monsters, but it turns out I’m just an alien,” Sephiroth spat, his mouth twisted in a bitter grimace.

Cloud closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re not the only one, you know,” he murmured.

“What.”

“Didn’t you wonder why you can feel my presence as if you had a built-in radar?”

“Hojo experimented on you.”

“Yup. In my world, you had a psychotic break, years from now, because of some specific events and really fucked up manipulations. You know your own strength, you know how dangerous you could be, with the right incentive.”

Sephiroth sagged in his seat. “I hurt people.”

“Yes, many of them. And I managed to kill you by a fluke after another SOLDIER had worn you down for a while. Hojo wasn’t happy.”

“He took revenge on you.”

“The SOLDIER was half dead, and I wasn’t much better. Hojo grabbed us and brought us in one of his hidden labs. He experimented on us for years. We spent over four years floating in mako tanks.” Cloud breathed in. “His main goal was to attempt to modify me and recreate you. When that failed he pumped me full of Jenova cells. He had a theory that they could... communicate, maybe. They would try to find each other. He called it the Jenova Reunion Theory. I think he meant to use me to find you. He lost interest at some point, when I fell comatose because of the mako addiction, and went back to Midgar. My friend, the SOLDIER, was more resistant to the mako and stuff, probably because he’d already had the injections. He got out at some point and got us away from the labs and ShinRa.”

“He called the alien Jenova.”

“Yes.”

“He told me it was my mother’s name.” Sephiroth... looked almost ready to cry.

Cloud took a shuddering breath, shocked by the difference between this younger Sephiroth and the cold, harsh psychopath he knew. Then again, ‘his’ Sephiroth had gone through a bloody, years-long devastating war. Battle did things to people, even the enhanced one. Zack had been... different too, after.

“You were born from a woman. A human woman. Both of you were swimming with mako and Jenova cells obviously, but you did have a human mother. There was a Turk, assigned to guarding Hojo’s lab at the time. He had a crush on your mother and tried to interfere when Hojo’s experiments hurt her. Hojo shot him and then experimented on him, because that’s what Hojo does to everyone and everything,” Cloud snarled. He took another breath and stretched his neck, eyes closed. “The Turk’s name was Vincent Valentine. Whatever they did to him, he doesn’t age anymore. He sleeps away the years, even now. They did... a lot of things to him. He’s the one who told me about your mother, in my timeline.”

“I had a mother, a real mother?”

“Yes, Sephiroth. Her name was Lucrecia Crescent. She was a scientist too.”

“And my father? He said...”

“I know what he said. I also know that he lies as easily as he breathes. Vincent didn’t know if Hojo was really your sperm donor or if...”

Sephiroth sipped his tea in silence for a moment, staring down at the table.

“Sperm donor?” he repeated, eventually.

Cloud gave him a wry smile. “Well, he wasn’t exactly much of a father, was he?”

“No, he wasn’t. What happened to... my mother?”

“I don’t know for sure. I know the birth was hard for her. Which isn’t exactly surprising. They were far from the city and I doubt that Hojo had any midwife in his staff. I think she fell in a coma, but that’s about all I know, I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” Sephiroth whispered.

Cloud got up and stepped around the table. He hesitated, then put his hand on Sephiroth’s nape, gently petting his hair for a moment. Then he stepped away again, grabbing some food to make dinner for both of them.

Sephiroth swallowed down a sob and sat there in silence, eyes closed.

-

Sephiroth brought the empty plates to the makeshift sink, while Cloud put away the remnants of food. There wasn’t much left anyway, after feeding two men with enhanced metabolism.

“So, what now?” he asked, leaning against the wall as he watched Cloud wash the dishes.

“Now you know the truth about mako, about the J cells, and about your mother. What do you think will happen?”

Sephiroth shrugged, toying with a strand of his waist-length hair. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do with this information.”

“Check it out, first. Well, as much as you can. I don’t even know where you’d find some of that information. But all that is just the past. You need to find out what you want for yourself.”

“Like you did?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you said that you traveled sideways through time and space. This universe runs late compared to yours.”

“By a decade or two, yes.”

“So you’re... alone. And you’ve found refuge in a place you used to know.”

Cloud sighed. He dried his hands on a repurposed scrap of towel and leaned against the wall next to Sephiroth, looking out at the church he’s spent the last few weeks trying to make livable. “Yes. I have no one left. I don’t even know this place. It’s just an old building full of ghosts that haven’t even lived here.”

Sephiroth slid toward him until their shoulders touched. They both relaxed as one as the constant buzzing sharply dropped to a low hum. “You could come with me.”

“To ShinRa?” The ‘are you mad’ left unsaid.

“Do you truly believe you’ll manage to avoid their eyes for long?”

“... No, I won’t.”

“Then come with me. I... You know me, you know what I can do, but you’re still here and you’re still helping me. You aren’t afraid of me and you’re strong enough to stop me if something goes wrong again, aren’t you? And there’s the pull, you know it’s driving us both crazy, to be so far apart, anyway.”

“And how do you think that’ll work out? ‘Hi, my name’s Cloud and I’m stronger than a SOLDIER. Oh, and I’m full of the same special cells you’re using on them but I wasn’t cooked in your lab, I bet that burns, doesn’t it?’ We both know how Hojo would react to that.”

“I’m going to kill him.”

“Sephiroth?”

Sephiroth took a shuddering breath and turned toward Cloud. He leaned forward again and rested his forehead against Cloud’s. “I can’t stand knowing he’s just there. I hate him. I’ve always hated him, so much. But I used to think maybe I deserved it because I obviously wasn’t human and it didn’t matter if he didn’t treat me like a person. But if he did... those things, to my—to my mother, and to you and the Turk, and your friend... I can’t stand the thought of him touching me again. I have... I don’t know, I barely know them, but there are two of the new SOLDIERs who are almost nice to me? What if he decides to use them for experiments too?”

Gaia, Sephiroth was young. Old enough to be an adult in theory, but still so new to his own life.

Cloud realized that he couldn’t stand the thought of this almost gentle Sephiroth to become the man that Cloud used to know again.

“ShinRa isn’t going to just let you kill him. And what about the SOLDIER program? They have several men now but nowhere near the army that ShinRa wants. Could they even keep the program going without Hojo?”

“I don’t care. There are about thirty of us since the last recruitment drive. If they can’t make more SOLDIERs, then we’ll just be ShinRa’s elite squadron, instead of his own private army. It might be just as well. You haven’t said, but the way you speak of ShinRa... They’ve done terrible things, haven’t they? I have done terrible things for them?”

Cloud closed his eyes and rested his weight fully against Sephiroth. At this age, there wasn’t much size difference. Cloud grew up a bit since his body had burned through the excess of mako stored up during his soak under the ShinRa Mansion. Just a few centimeters, but Sephiroth was also lacking the last few centimeters of his own full height, so they were almost eye to eye.

Equal with Sephiroth. Cloud couldn’t even tell what he was feeling right now. There were so many thoughts running through his mind...

Like the fact that if ShinRa didn’t have a SOLDIER army of a couple hundred men strong, then maybe he wouldn’t feel so confident to start a war with Wutai and kill all those people.

“What about Hojo?” Cloud asked at last.

“I can kill him without anyone knowing. I know the labs and I know his habits. It would be easy to organize the release of some monsters or make it look like he poisoned himself by mistake with some chemical product. And while everyone’s focused on his ‘accidental’ death, I hack the system and have you ‘transferred’ in.”

“That’s—dangerous, at best. And the Turks will know.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I have Hojo’s codes. Hell,” Sephiroth laughed dryly, “I have the codes of over half of the people working in ShinRa. I have a goddamn eidetic memory, everyone knows that, the public relation corps touts it often enough. They should know better than to write anything of importance in my presence. Half of them can’t even remember that I can read their notes from one building to the other across the windows.”

“They never do, do they?” Cloud said wistfully. The things he’d heard while traveling with Avalanche... They knew about his enhanced senses, but they didn’t know. No one really did, except for other enhanced people. Civilians and mundanes knew intellectually, but it didn’t seem to register to them, because they didn’t have the frame of reference, probably.

“They really don’t.” Sephiroth fidgeted with a strand of hair again, still leaning against Cloud. “The other SOLDIERs don’t either,” he whispered after a pause.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think we’re made the same. Which makes sense, if I’m the prototype. But no one has the same range as me, none of them is as strong as me. Already, in the new batch one of them, a red-head, I don’t remember his name, is growing irritated at me. He keeps trying to fight me, keeps attempting to best me. I enjoy fighting, but...”

“But the hostility wears on you, especially when they’re supposed to be your friends but half of the time they can’t keep from growing annoyed at stuff you can’t do anything about,” Cloud finished.

“Yes. Yes, exactly that. And,” Sephiroth sighed, “half of the time, I can’t even tell what I did that vexed them.”

Cloud nodded. “Still, killing Hojo. Okay, I can see that. But hacking and adding me to the system?” He frowned.

Sephiroth kept silent a moment, then, “a transfer.”

“What?”

“Think about it. You know it, everyone knows it that Hojo has secret experiments stashed everywhere. And he does bring some of those back to Midgar from time to time when he wants to continue one old experiment. I hack the system, add an exchange. ‘Get rid of ‘those monsters and bring back the other SOLDIER prototype’. I leave the provenance blank, you say that you were under Sleep during the transfer and that they never mentioned the lab’s location. They’ll be too busy wondering what else Hojo lied about and trying to find the original lab, to wonder about you. We’ll integrate you to the SOLDIER corps while they’re busy.”

“And we both know that once they start really looking, they’re going to unearth a ton of non-regulated experiments.” Cloud looked up at Sephiroth, wide-eyed. “Hell, I do know of some unauthorized labs, there’s even one deep under the ShinRa tower. They’d never believe me if I said that I didn’t know where we were, but I could say that I heard them drop location names, but I don’t know if that’s where I was.”

-

“I think we got it,” Cloud announced, fighting a yawn. He stretched and winced. Wooden benches weren’t kind on anyone’s ass, no even enhanced SOLDIERs.

Sephiroth nodded slowly. “Yes, probably.” He blinked as he raised his head away from the candle they’d lit up to add to the low light of the church.

“Oh!”

“What?”

“Sorry,” Cloud ducked his head, “I just never noticed.”

“Noticed what?”

Cloud shrugged, squirming in his seat. “You have cat’s eyes, you know.”

Sephiroth scowled. “A monster’s eyes, you mean.”

Cloud rolled his eyes. “Look, I know this is disturbing and fucked up and overall a bad surprise, but... You always knew that you were different. And so am I. I didn’t mean that I just noticed your eye shape, you know. Obviously, I did. But I never realized that you didn’t just have vertical pupils. They expand when there isn’t much light,” he explained with a smile. “It’s cute. Makes me want to pet you like a cat.”

Sephiroth stared, mouth hanging opened,  which was full on gaping for him. “I- ‘pet me’?”

“Well, yes. I mean, I can’t be the only one. You have gorgeous green eyes like a cat and long, fluffy hair! You’d make the perfect cat.”

“... You’re insane.”

“Watch your mouth, kiddo,” Cloud said with an uncontrollable grin, “I know your weaknesses, you wouldn’t want to start a prank war, would you?”

“Definitely insane.”

Cloud laughed, head thrown back. His laughter petered off naturally after a moment, leaving him breathless with wonder. If anyone had told him he’d one day end up sitting in Aerith’s church with Sephiroth and laughing with the man... He’d have wondered if they’d gone crazy or if he’d lose control of his ability to resist the Jenova cells again.

He brushed his hand over his face, smiling at Sephiroth. “So, what about this evening? I doubt that you told anyone where you were going, did you? Do you have a place to stay?”

Sephiroth shook his head. “No, I meant to go back to the Tower after.”

“Definitely not, not at this time, especially not with what we’ve planned.”

“I can take care of myself!”

Cloud rolled his eyes. “Of course. But if you go out at this hour in the slums, you’ll be assaulted. Especially with your hair, it’s too visible. It’s like waving a banner saying ‘hey, sucker to steal from here!’ And I do know that you can defend yourself,” he said, raising a hand against Sephiroth’s protests. “But if you do, it will cause a commotion and the news will spread out because it always does. We don’t want ShinRa to look too closely at you now, do we?”

“You’re right. And yes, I did sneak out, but as you said, I don’t like them looking over my shoulder. I grabbed a mission to clear some monsters and left afterward. I do that sometimes, to take a break from the tower. I sleep in an inn or outside and go back the day after. Lazard won’t say anything.”

“Good to know. I was wondering how we’d explain away your absence of tonight.”

Cloud sighed, stretching his neck slowly. They’d been talking for hours, hashing out their plans to get rid of Hojo and how to insert Cloud believably in the roster without raising attention. He was tired and his body ached from keeping himself tense and ready for hours on end, just in case Sephiroth turned out to be less honest than he looked.

“Come on,” he said as the silence grew. At least, it was a comfortable silence. “Let’s go to bed. I’m exhausted.”

Sephiroth stood up slowly from his bench, shifting on his feet then taking a few steps toward Cloud. He stopped within reach. “How are we doing this?”

“I’ve only got one bed. Well, for a value of ‘bed’.” Cloud shrugged. “More like a sheet spread out over some padding. But at least, it’s large enough for both of us. I don’t get cold anyway,” he said, raising an eyebrow at Sephiroth.

Sephiroth shook his head. “Me neither.”

“Good. Come on.”

Getting ready for bed with Sephiroth. How things changed, Cloud thought as he left his sword next to their bedding. He shook off his jacket and shoes and looked down at himself. Sleeveless tank top and his loose pants were good enough for bed. He wasn’t relaxed enough to leave himself in that much of a position of weakness next to Sephiroth. He probably wouldn’t even be able to fall asleep, anyway.

Sephiroth followed his lead, shrugging off his coat. It wasn’t his usual leather trench coat which made sense. Sephiroth wasn’t quite old enough to pull off the leather and straps and buckles look. But apparently, he had preferences. Heavy wool First Class SOLDIER sleeveless uniform with a leather coat that reached just under his ass. Probably as protection for flying monster bits. And maybe to keep his hair from tangling in his buckles, Cloud thought with a smile.

Cloud lied down and stared at the ceiling, giving some time for Sephiroth to join him without being stared at. He squirmed in place, butterflies weirdly dancing in his stomach, then turned on his side to face Sephiroth.

They look at each other in silence.

Eventually, Sephiroth turned his head and hid his face in his arm, his hair sliding slowly to cover his mouth and nose. “This is weird, isn’t it?”

Cloud snorted. “Yes, it is. I mean, usually when people get in bed together, it’s because they’re lovers. I thought that it made sense to share my bedding, like for a mission, and yet, it feels...”

‘Charged’, Cloud thought to himself. Like they were both waiting for something more to happen.

But there had been more than enough revelations today, he wasn’t about to start anything now. Sephiroth was off balance, this wasn’t the time to add physical attraction over everything. Even if the man’s surprising vulnerability gave Cloud the urge to pack him up in soft fabrics and pet his hair until the worst of the news were forgotten.

Cloud mentally smacked himself for his own crazy thoughts and focused on Sephiroth again.

“Hey,” he said, “you know that I’m not going to attack you, right. Or touch you or anything weird, while you sleep. I promise.”

Sephiroth looked up but kept silent, his body highlighted by his pale hair and glowing eyes in the night's gloom. Under the plaque wasn’t ever truly dark because of the large light spots aimed at the Sectors, but they dimmed the lights during the night.

“I can’t believe that I never noticed that your pupil expand when there isn’t enough light,” Cloud murmured, fascinated. “This is really amazing.”

“I have a good night vision.”

“Makes sense,” Cloud said, reaching out slowly to give Sephiroth time to avoid him. He gently stroke his thumb over Sephiroth’s cheekbone.

“Oh!”

“Sephiroth?” Cloud let go immediately.

Sephiroth shook his head. “It’s fine, I don’t mind you touching me.”

“Then why—?”

“Your eyes... When you touched me, your eyes became like mine.”

‘Reunion’, Cloud thought with a jolt. He took a deep breath to keep himself from jumping to his feet and running far away. “How much like yours?”

“The same. Green and with a vertical pupil.” Sephiroth hesitated, staring at Cloud. “You know what this means. Is it the ‘Reunion Theory’ again? It scares you.”

Cloud sighed and rolled on his back. “Yes, it is. Things happened the ‘last time’ and it got pretty bad. The Sephiroth we fought put two and two together quickly and somehow took control of me through the J cells.”

“I wouldn’t do that, I swear.”

Cloud looked back at Sephiroth, still lying on his side next to him. The man was tense, one hand gripped on the bundle of fabric that Cloud had repurposed as a pillow.

He believed Sephiroth, Cloud realized then. He trusted this Sephiroth to have Cloud’s back, for some insane reason.

“I know,” he said. He held out his hand.

Sephiroth watched it like it might bite, then threaded their fingers together, looking back up at Cloud immediately after.

They held their breath together, staring at each other, then Cloud let out a tremendous sigh, relaxing into the bedding until he felt like he would turn into a puddle of relief.

“It doesn’t feel the same anymore,” he said. “I can feel you, I feel your presence sort of hovering just next to me, but it’s not overwhelming and dangerous like it used to be.”

“I can feel you too,” Sephiroth confessed, staring at their hands, then back at Cloud’s eyes. “I’ve never seen anyone with eyes like mine before. It’s... kind of creepy.”

Cloud snorted. “Yeah, maybe. I can’t even tell anymore. You’re you, cat’s eyes and long silver hair and everything. It’s all you. I don’t know how I’d react if I saw someone with your eyes though,” he mused.

“It’s interesting. But I prefer your original eye color,” Sephiroth murmured.

Heart thundering in his chest, Cloud ducked his head, hiding his suddenly burning cheeks. He cleared his throat, ignoring his embarrassment and the swarm of butterflies having set up residence in his stomach, and nudged Sephiroth. “Time to sleep,” he said. “We have a lot of work tomorrow and no margin of error. We need to be well rested to avoid detection from the Turks.”

“All right. Goodnight, Cloud.”

“Goodnight.”

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