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shatteredsilverwing · 2 months

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Different Stages of Life AU - The Frog Prince

Words: 1,652 Characters: 9,112

Ms. Finnley, Sephiroth’s nursery school teacher, decided to go on an excursion to the nearest children’s playground. His excitement was limited, since it had been pouring unceasingly the whole morning. He loved the rain, but not if he was forced to play outside, so the only option that was left for him was to sit on a wooden bench while he watched the other children play. If one looked at him, he came across like a sad, little boy who helplessly clung on the handle of his umbrella. Thanks to its efforts to shield him from the raindrops, his clothes and his hair stayed dry, but that didn’t make him less trembling like a leaf.

He tucked up his knees in a hopeless attempt to keep himself warm, but it didn’t really help that much. Instead, his current position made him look even smaller than he already was.

Sephiroth was seething: Why in the world would the nursery school teacher dare to visit the nearby children’s playground today of all days?! Couldn’t they have just stayed inside like the other groups?! He could’ve found more than one interesting activity at least, but being outside during a weather like this, all he could do was to freeze on the spot.

After sitting and grumbling for a solid fifteen minutes, he eventually concluded that complaining wouldn’t help either, so he gave in and stood up slowly.

Since he wasn’t very fond of playing in the sand in general, and especially NOT when it was raining, he decided to take a stroll through the bushes and smaller trees. The bushes and trees were formed like a tiny wood which also made it a perfect hiding place from the other annoying, screaming children. As soon as he walked into it, his surroundings immediately got silent and the only thing he could hear were the raindrops pattering down on his umbrella.

Sephiroth closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths to calm his mind. However, a weird noise suddenly caught his attention. “Ribbit!” Was that… A croak?! Of course he already surmised that this noise could only match with one certain type of animal: a frog. Obviously!

He opened his eyes and hastily looked around, but couldn’t see the source of the croaking. “Where are you hiding…?”, he quietly mumbled to himself as he squatted down to the ground and thoroughly peeked through the bushes.

That tricky little rascal seemed to be hidden well, as it was nowhere to be seen, yet that only fueled Sephiroth’s determination to find this frog even more.

He has never found a real one out in the wild before, so he especially showed great interest in this fine specimen.

“Are you looking for Billy~?” Normally, Sephiroth hated being interrupted in his schemes and would simply dismiss the voices of others around him who dared to disturb him. But this particular voice he heard was an exception. As soon as he realised who that sweet, cheeky voice belonged to, he felt many tiny butterflies tickling inside his tummy. When he decided to turn around, he spotted how Angel stood next to him, greeting him with a mischievous smile and her arms folded behind her back. “Billy?”, he asked confusingly and straightened himself up so he could be on Angel’s eye height. “Yes, Billy! The Frog Prince! Have you ever heard about The Frog Prince?” Much to his embarrassment, he shaked his head slowly, which only earned a dramatic gasp from his dear friend. “You don’t know the Frog Prince?!”,she shouted back at him while her eyes widened.

Not because she was horrified that, out of all people, Sephiroth, who read one book after another, never heard about the Frog Prince before.

On the contrary, she got very excited to share one of her favourite fairy tales with him! “Okay, let me tell you about it: It’s a fairy tale for children, where a frog helps a princess to get her golden ball back. She loved to play with that ball, but unfortunately, it fell into a well while she threw it high into the air. The ball dropped on a frog’s head and he jumped out and gave it back to her. In exchange for his help, the frog demanded a kiss from her. Of course, the princess declined at first, saying how disgusting it would be to kiss a frog. Ew! Then the frog told her that he was actually a prince that was enchanted by an evil witch, and if she kissed him, she would break the spell and he’d turn back. And after she kissed him this time, they lived happily together ever after.”

Even though Sephiroth wasn’t much into fairy tales, he listened with careful attention to every word she spoke to him. This story didn’t make any sense to him in retrospect: How could a human turn another human into a frog just like that? “But… A human can’t turn another human into a frog just like that”, he repeated his last thought out loud as he looked at Angel in disbelief. “Well”, she replied while she crossed her arms, “it’s called magic! With the power of magic, people can turn everything into anything!” “Magic doesn’t exist. It’s humbug.” Angel almost stumbled backwards when she heard Sephiroth’s blunt remark on her belief in magic. How could he be so mean and tell her that straight into her face?! She was appalled! To vent her displeasure, she stomped closer to Sephiroth, hands on her hips and her face blazed with anger. “Oh yeah? I’m going to prove to you that magic DOES exist! If we find Billy, then I’ll give him a kiss, and then he’ll turn into a lovely prince, just like in the fairy tale!” Sephiroth’s hair stood on end when Angel told him about her plan to kiss a frog. He shook his head and shuddered with disgust. “That’s disgusting…”, he mumbled quietly and turned away from Angel, only to be greeted by the frog he was looking for the whole time.

Billy was sitting on a thick branch of a tree he was standing just in front of him and didn’t seem bothered by anything at all.

Their eyes met for a moment and then, without any prior warning, Billy took the risk of a huge jump and successfully landed on Sephiroth’s head. While he screamed in terror, Angel laughed herself to tears. “Get that thing off of me!”, he squealed in panic and his grip on the handle of his umbrella got even tighter and his whole body tensed up. The sheer thought of having a slimy frog touching his body sent a very uncomfortable shiver down his spine, which almost made him cry. Ordinarily, he was also set against the idea of touching such a creature altogether, so he desperately pleaded for Angel to free him from this unpleasantness. Angel in the meanwhile was shaking with laughter, yet she couldn’t bear seeing her dear friend suffering that badly, so she quickly obliged to his plea and picked up Billy onto the palm of her hands. “You stupid creature!”,he yelled at him angrily, “I’m going to dissect you for that insolence!” “He’s a prince! You cannot dissect him!” “That abomination is not a prince! It’s a crime against nature!” Poor Billy looked down ashamed and a sad croak escaped his throat. Apparently, it was able to understand his harsh words and they made him feel ashamed for being a frog…

“Now you made him sad, Sephy… How can you be so cruel…”, she talked back to him while gently petting the frog’s head, “but don’t you worry, Billy! I’m going to give you a kiss and then everything will be fine again, my little prince~” Before she leaned in to kiss him, she gave him a little nudge with her nose to cheer Billy up a little. Then, she closed her eyes and gave him a quick smoochie right on his lips. Sephiroth felt like he could faint any minute from utter disgust, while Angel was on the edge of her seat, hoping for the frog to turn into a prince. 5 Seconds… 10 Seconds… 15 Seconds… But nothing happened. Even after waiting for a whole minute, the frog didn’t seem to give any impressions of turning into anything. Angel was heartbroken and though Sephiroth felt good to be in the right with his view on magic, he couldn’t stand seeing her like this.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work, Angel…”, she spoke softly to her; looking just as heartbroken as she did. Angel sighed sadly; her eyes still fixed on Billy. She was still secretly hoping that he would turn into a prince. It must have been a very powerful spell! Perhaps that’s the reason why it took so long! And besides, hope dies last after all, right? But unfortunately, she hoped in vain.

“Don’t be sorry”, she finally replied to Sephiroth, “maybe it just wasn’t the right prince for me… I will keep him though. He may not be a prince, but he can be my pet!” Her face brightened up within a second at her idea as she tapped Billy’s head carefully with her fingers. Sephiroth admired her optimism after experiencing such a great disappointment and even though she didn’t get her prince, he was genuinely happy for her that she at least got a new pet!He shyly moved closer to her and covered her with his umbrella; his cheeks slightly blushing as he realised how close he was standing in front of her.

“W-We should do back, otherwise Ms. Finnley will be worried about us!”, he stuttered, trying to change the subject to hide his nervousness.

And so they both went back to the playground, while Angel happily carried Billy within her arms and Sephiroth enjoyed the rest of the day outside with his beloved friend Angel and his new won "friend", Billy.

#sephiroth #ff7 sephiroth #ff7 #final fantasy 7 #final fantasy #different stages of life au #shatteredsilverwing #frog prince

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holly-fixation · 2 years

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Ink Clouds: Chapter 13

Summary so far: Cloud is sent back in time by the calamity, who permanently damaged his brain. He is now half squid, and constantly spewing ink that carries Geostigma. After Sephiroth nearly lost it as memories of the future invaded his mind, he and Zack hid back at his apartment. But while there, they both heard a cosmic voice: Come to me. Immediately, the other firsts messaged the group chat for an answer.

Based on the prompt by @im-totally-not-an-alien

Please enjoy!

Chapter 13: Ripple

"Wait," Sephiroth pleaded before Zack could respond to the message. "Don't tell them anything. Ask them what happened."

They felt their phones buzz, and Genesis answered Angeal's initial text.

'Did you hear it too?'

'What did you hear?' Zack finally responded before looking to Sephiroth. "We should tell them."

"Absolutely not."

"This is clearly affecting them too-"

"Please don't give me reason not to trust you."

That was a plea, and Zack nearly put his phone down despite the buzz.

"We can only tell them about your mother," He suggested softly. "I won't-"

Sephiroth glared at him before his headache suddenly spiked. He grasped his head with both of his hands and leaned onto his knees to try to stay seated.

Zack rushed over immediately and held his shoulders. "What can I do? How can I help?"

"I don't know." He knows how to deal with external pain, every manner of physical pain. He doesn't know how to deal with this: growing agony from inside his mind and moving to his heart.

"Here." Zack jumped up and grabbed something out of the freezer before returning. "Hold this to your head."

He glanced at the offering. "Is that a bag of peas?"

"I have no idea where your ice packs are," Zack admitted quickly. "Just put this on your head."

Sephiroth did not argue further. He grabbed the bag and held it against his forehead. He almost instantly relaxed, the pain in his head subsiding but the ache in his heart grew. Despite this, the cold felt comforting, inviting, familiar, like he was wrapped in a cocoon and surrounded by chilling protection.

Then his eyes opened in alarm. What if he gets another message? What if he attacks Zack as a result? Why did this cold feel so familiar?

Come to my reunion, my son.

They instantly looked at each other.

"What did you hear?" Sephiroth asked first.

"'Come to my reunion'," Zack answered without hesitation.

"Nothing else?"

"Did you hear more?"

His blue, inhuman eyes turned away immediately.

"No secrets, Sephiroth. At least not with me."

They both paused.

"...my son," Sephiroth finally admitted, his voice barely sounding like his own. "Come to my reunion, my son."

Now they're both worried. And before they speak again, they acknowledged their phones that had started buzzing again in their conversation. They both looked at the chat.

'We probably shouldn't talk about it here,' Genesis sent.

'Understandable. But we need to meet immediately.'

'It shouldn't be an issue when we meet after 4.'

Then there was a minute time gap between the messages.

'You heard that. Is it an emergency now?' Angeal was being rhetorical? That wasn't good.

'I'm canceling my appointments,' Genesis finally caved.

'Where should we meet?'

'My apartment,' Sephoroth finally sent a message. 'Can you be there in 30 minutes?'

'I can't get out of my next appointment, I'll be there in an hour.'

'Then I'll see you all in one hour.'

'Agreed.'

'Understood.'

'Got it.' Zack sent the final message before the chat went silent so Angeal and Genesis wouldn't know he was already in said apartment. He then looked to the silver haired man on the couch. "'My son'?"

His apprentice's clarification drew a sad breath out of him. "...yes."

"Did that voice seem motherly to you?" He didn't mean for the question to come off as harsh as it did, and the glare he got in response affirmed that mistake.

"No," He answered honestly and immediately gripped his heart in sharp pain. Then he asked, because he knew he would have to answer it himself eventually, "Did that 'message' give you any 'feelings'?"

“... a pull,” Zack finally answered. “A soft one but a pull. Definitely not what it’s doing to you.”

Sephiroth glanced back at his phone, but there were no new messages to distract them with. “It’s less of a feeling beyond the pain. This headache started before that.”

“I don’t mean these…for lack of a better word, ‘artificial’ feelings. What did you feel after hearing that?”

Another long pause. Another look away.

“...hope,” Sephiroth mumbled in disbelief and disappointment in himself. “Childlike hope.” His internal pain suddenly vanished and he sighed in relief as he removed his hands and his ‘ice pack’ from his head.

Neither one of them spoke again until the other Firsts arrived. Neither one of them were ready to dive into what this unknown scenario meant yet. They waited, trying to distract themselves in silence, until someone could finally knock on the door.

* * *

When all four of them were present, there was no time for small talk. They needed to start somewhere. Even with the messages, they decided the beginning of the day was the best decision.

“I met a recruit that looks almost exactly like the creature,” Angeal began as he showed them the contact he had in his phone. “Cloud Strife.”

“You can’t be serious,” Genesis mumbled as they all analyzed the image.

“From Nibelhiem.” He wasn’t kidding. “I have no idea what this means for the creature or this kid. He doesn’t seem involved with anyone or anything outside his job. I’m keeping an eye on him from now on.” They all shared confused or logical glances as he continued. “This is just so we all have the information I have." Then he turned to his old apprentice. "Now, what did you two do with the creature today?”

Zack explained, to the best of his ability, the bare minimum that happened in that lab. He did not mention Sephiroth losing control or the headache that resulted, only what the creature said and did.

“‘Forgive’, ‘cherish’, and ‘future’,” Angeal repeated to himself.

“When we left, we tried to figure out what Cloud was talking about, and then we heard something. At the same time you did,” Zack finally finished. “Now we’re here.”

"What did you hear?" Sephiroth asked, his first contribution since they started.

"Laughter," Genesis spoke without hesitation. "Only laughter."

"I heard 'come'." Angeal added. "Then laughter."

The mentor and apprentice glanced at each other before looking back.

"We heard 'Come to me'," Zack answered for them. "No laughter."

Sephiroth shook his head in affirmation. "We got your message a minute after."

"What did you hear the second time?" Genesis directly asked the silver general.

"The same thing," He told a half truth. "'Come to me'."

Zack nodded in affirmation, allowing Sephiroth's lie. "What about you guys?"

"The same as you," Angeal answered.

"Laughter," Genesis repeated as he thought, "but mocking laughter. Blatantly mocking laughter."

"But that voice," Angeal added. "That voice had weight to it."

"I couldn’t tell if it was male or female," the red head added.

Zack nodded, feeling the same, but the silver general did not respond and gained the eyes of the rest of the table.

"What did you think?" Genesis questioned.

"...It was a specific weight," He answered after a short pause. "The only word coming to mind," He took a breath in, "is 'cosmic'."

"'Cosmic'?"

He shook his head. "I have no explanation. That's what I felt." He turned to them with his inhuman eyes. "A better question, what do we all have in common to share this phenomenon?"

They all looked at Zack. He got self conscious under the gazes.

“What? I don’t have any ideas beyond SOLDIER.”

“We’ve been friends for years,” Angeal explained. “So we have a lot of things in common. You’re the exception to that.”

“And somehow,” Genesis chimed, “You’re getting the same messages as Sephiroth.”

Zack scratched his head. “Maybe because we’ve had more direct contact with the creature than you have? You only saw it when we fished it out.”

“I’ve seen slightly more from giving cure donations in the lab, which could be why you only heard laughter and we got messages,” Angeal mentioned to Genesis.

He brought his index finger to his lip in thought, “It’s possible.”

Then phones buzzed. Zack and Sephiroth were the only two to grab theirs.

“R&D?” Angeal asked.

Sephiroth nodded. “They need us back for cure development.” He looked to the other Firsts. “I apologize. We have to go.”

Angeal and Genesis nodded in understanding.

“I’ll keep an eye on ‘Recruit Cloud’ until we know more about what’s going on.”

“And I’ll ask the Seconds if anyone heard anything odd today, to narrow down the source of this shared hallucination.”

Sephiroth felt a pang in his heart as Genesis spoke but did not show any physical reaction. “Thank you both.”

They nodded, then they all left the First Class apartment.

Thanks for reading!

#cloud strife #ff7 #sephiroth #final fantasy vii #zack fair #ffvii #jenova #first attempt at a fan fiction #thanks for reading!! hope you enjoy!!#final fantasy 7 #there wasn't supposed to be another group meet up #yet here we are #ooooo what she plannin?#find out next time maybe!!#sorry its a little short #im a slow reader and a slow typer #but good lord do i try to write #if you read all the tags thanks for reading the tags!#ink clouds

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tiifalockhart · 3 years

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Reunion

Pairing: Zack x Aerith

Warnings: mentions of death, alludes to depression and grief

Word Count: 1k

A/N: Zerith is one of my all time favorite ships, and I really wanted to write something emotional for them. I hope you enjoy the angst hehe, feedback is always appreciated!

Ao3 || Masterlist

It had been years since his death. The moment she felt a shift in the lifestream, Aerith knew that Zack was gone. Her heart broke, nothing would ever be the same again. All those letters she had sent... All those prayers she prayed... It had done no good in the end.

The emotional burden of loss was terrible to deal with, especially when the locals of Sector 5 questioned her about it. She avoided the conversation, responding with "I'm okay" in her usual bubbly voice. Elmyra knew that she hadn't been feeling the same, she even offered to help Aerith fix the wheel on her flower cart... But Zack was supposed to help her... It hurt too much to even think about, so she declined the offer with a sad smile, saying that she'll manage.

Aerith's heart had grown heavier and heavier with each passing day. Every day, she woke up expecting a letter or call from Zack, anything letting her know that she was wrong, that maybe he was okay. But nothing ever came. It was... Really hard to let go.

But then, she met a new boy. He looked similar to Zack, he wore the same clothes, had the same sword, he even had spikey hair. It was... So familiar, yet so vague at the same time. She learned that his name was Cloud, and offered him Zack's favorite flower, before parting ways with him in Sector 8. She didn't know if she was ever going to see that boy again, but the feeling of familiarity hung in her heart.

She didn't see him for another couple days until there was a loud crash in the morning after the Sector 5 reactor blew. Aerith leaned over the boy, calling out to him to wake him up. He was so familiar... So much like Zack. He even fell through the roof like Zack... What a coincidence.

So, Aerith stuck with Cloud, hanging onto that vague familiarity that she associated with Cloud. She went with him everywhere. They went to the orphanage, her house, even to Sector 6 (which she avoided like the plague). Suddenly, she heard her heart calling out to her, it told her that he was the one. She felt herself falling for Cloud, and she knew that was wrong.

She was still waiting for Zack, after all.

Eventually, she was taken away by Shinra, finding it a worthy sacrifice to keep Marlene out of danger. She knew that Sector 7 was going to fall that day. She prayed that Cloud, Tifa and Barret had made it out okay. When there was no disturbance in the lifestream, she knew that it worked, and they were just fine.

Eventually, she found the energy to come visit Cloud in his dreams, waiting for him as she tended to the flowers in their dreamscape. Even in this mystified world, they were still beautiful.

Finally, she heard Cloud's footsteps approaching. She stood slowly and turned towards him, offering him a sad smile. After discussing his next plans, she let out a heavy sigh.

"Whatever you do, you can't fall in love with me."

Those words held a heavy tone to them, as if she wasn't sure if she meant it. Aerith swore that she was serious, that she was still waiting for Zack. She didn't want Cloud to fall for her, just as she did for Zack.

After their meeting, Aerith awoke to find that disgusting scientist staring at her, his sickening, obsessive glare watching over her. She was safe behind the glass with no evident route of escape. Once again, she was trapped by Shinra.

She didn't worry, though. She knew Cloud was on his way, along with Tifa and Barret. There was nothing to worry about, Shinra couldn't hurt her no matter how badly they wanted to. Aerith simply stayed silent behind that glass, refusing to acknowledge any of Hojo's questions or threats.

Eventually, Cloud showed up, along with Tifa and Barret. They had come to rescue her, she felt so grateful. After a long and tedious process of escaping Hojo's lab, they made a run for it from Shinra, with the help of the Whispers.

Those Whispers were Arbiters of Fate... They were always with her. Maybe now, she could change what had happened. As she turned back on the road and looked up at the Shinra building being engulfed by thousands of Whispers, she silently hoped that this change made some kind of impact on their future, or past.

Everything went semi smoothly (if you ignore the whole Shinra army being sent after them). Aerith knew that they would make it... until she felt his presence. The suffocating evil sent chills down her spine as she turned to face the dead war hero. His wicked smirk, his hand clasped around the sword that had slain many beasts and humans, the way his cat-like eyes flicked between the five of them, holding a distinctive look of... Disgust, perhaps? It sickened her.

By now, she could hear the planet screaming out. It suffered because of him and Shinra, it wouldn't stop screaming as the giant beam of light blinded them. Sephiroth disappeared into it, silently inviting them to face whatever was beyond it.

This could very well be their last battle. This single battle determined the fate of many. Aerith was terrified to face it, but maybe... Even if this was where her story ended... She could save everyone.

She turned to face the other four members of the team, offering them a confident smile even if her eyes betrayed her. "We can beat him." Aerith stated, clutching her staff.

She didn't really know how wrong that statement would be until they entered the void. This was when it became clear. Everything would change after this battle.

And she was right. After fighting for their lives and risking everything, they ended the battle, defeating Sephiroth and Arbiter of Fate. Everything from now on would be different.

What she had not realized was that their past had changed as well. Unbeknownst to them, they now lived in a different world.

Aerith hadn't realized it until they returned to the church for extra preparations for the next step. What came next was unknown, and the team suggested that they take some time to prepare before setting off.

She returned to take care of the flowers one last time, her fingers brushing over them carefully as she smiled to herself. Suddenly, the doors flung open, causing Aerith to jump from her spot and turn quickly.

It was an unbelievable sight.

At the door, a tall figure stood, leaving against the door frame. He struggled to stand on his own, clearly beaten and injured. Confusion was evident on her features as she took a hesitant step towards the figure, before freezing. The world around her stopped completely, just as her heart stopped when realization hit her. A shaky breath left her lips as her eyes widened, a hand coming up to cover her mouth as tears welled in her eyes.

"A...Aerith..."

His voice... So familiar yet so unfamiliar.

He reached out to her, his hand shaking as it pulled her closer. He embraced her tightly, ignoring how she hesitated, still unsure if she were dreaming or not. Tears ran down his face as he gripped onto her, holding her tightly against his body as he cradled her.

"It's been so long..." He whispered, his voice rough, as if he'd been screaming for hours.

Aerith pulled away to stare up at him, cupping his dirty cheeks and feeling tears of happiness and relief fall down her cheeks. "You're home." She whispered, wrapping her arms around his shoulders tightly and crying into his neck. "I-I've missed you so much, I... How?" She asked, pulling away and looking over his body.

Zack smiled down at her, his expression softening significantly. "Thought you could get rid of me that easy?" He joked, which only made Aerith cry more. "Wait no- I-I was joking!" He stated, a look of panic forming in his eyes.

"I know." She whispered, wiping her face. "I'm just glad you're home." Aerith murmured, pulling him into another embrace.

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im-totally-not-an-alien · 4 years

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He was riding out from Midgar after just dropping off a package to a worker there. His next stop was to the W.R.O. to drop off a rather large parcel, though, why they needed so much of these things so quickly was anyone's guess.

He hadn't been riding long before the ground shook beneath him, pulling him from his thoughts. He wasn't concerned though, the entire Midgar area had been having earthquakes often lately, though no one can seem to figure out why. They've all been pretty small and haven't done any significant damage so most people choose to ignore it. Another earthquake hit, jarring him slightly, but he paid it no mind.

Suddenly the ground gave out beneath him, abruptly dropping him into the green depths below. Cloud groaned, holding onto Fenrir for dear life, "...not again."

********************************************

"Cloud is so dead." The trooper deadpanned, eyes wide with shock.

"Oh gods! What do we do?!" The second trooper freaked out beside him, He clutched his head, panicking as swarms of other troopers ran around the Midgar wastes, frantic. The recent monster attack still had everyone agitated.

They stood there for a few moments just staring at the green pool of mako. The same one they were told to 'watch out' for so they wouldn't 'fall in'.

"Hey guys! What'cha staring at?" A voice asked from behind them.

The two troopers whirled around to face a SOLDIER 2nd class, "Hey what's the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost!"

The second trooper went hysterical, begging for forgiveness, "I swear we didnt mean to! I got distracted and bumped into him! And! And..." he looked forward the green pool.

The spiky haired 2nd followed thier gaze and just stared for a few moments before something clicked and a flash of realization lit up his eyes.

"Shit!" He jumped in, startling everyone around them into a new frenzy. A few calling out to "Get commander Hewley!"

After a few moments Zack resurfaced with a little blond trooper in his arms.

"Zack!" A tall muscular man raced towards him.

Zack paid him no mind as he quickly crawled out of the mako pool and laid Cloud on the dusty ground of the Midgar wasteland, before immediately turning around and walking back torwards the pool.

Commander Hewley grabbed Zacks wrist, "Zack! What the hell do you think you're doing?" He bellowed, eyes wide with concern.

"There's someone else down there Angeal! I saw them!" Zack struggled to get out of his grip, "We have to help him!"

Before he could make a counter argument, however, the mako pool started bubbling. The bubbles growing into a mound and growing more ferocious by the second. People were standing stock still staring at it in wonder before something large and black blasted out of the pool. The object flew over thier heads effortlessly, landing several meters away from them.

"What the hell?" Angeal could only stare, as the dust settled and the shock wore off.

"Oh Gaia! Is that a motorcycle?!" Zack yelled enthusiastically, running over to the now idled bike, whose rider was slumped over clutching thier head.

Angeal took a few minutes to process the scene. The man didn't seem to be armed, despite the mess of sword harnesses on his back, but how long was he in that pool and why? Did he fall in? When? What's in the crate strapped to his bike? He figured he might as well walk over and save the man before his student drives him insane. When he got there however the man was staring at Zack as though he hung the moon and stars. Zack didnt seem to notice and kept babbling on about how cool motorcycles are and that Shinra was there for a training exercise with the troopers.

"Am I dead?" The man suddenly asked, causing Zacks mouth to click shut in bafflement.

"No? Why would you think that?" Zack asked, tilting his head.

"You just...look like someone I used to know." The blond sheepishly replied.

"Oh, guess I should introduce myself then! I'm Zack Fair, SOLDIER 2nd Class!" He flashed the blond a mock salute.

The man's face paled and Angeal's eyes narrowed in response. This man was hiding something. "Strife. Just...Strife." Strife introduced. Yeah, definitely hiding something.

"Well, Strife," he spoke up, grabbing the blondes attention, "You mind answering a few questions?" Strife's face went blank, but he nodded all the same.

"Good. Come with me." Angeal turned towards camp, not bothering to see if they were following.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

"So. You were suddenly attacked by a monster and drove into the mako pool on accident?" Angeal asked, incredulous.

"That's what I just said." The blond huffed. He shifted in the metal fold-up chair in the commander's tent.

"Why didnt you drive out? You've already shone you could have." He questioned.

"I hit my head on the landing. I woke up when I heard yelling."

"Oh, that makes sense!" Zack helpfully replied, "We must have woke you up when we were yelling about that trooper." He smiled. "Wait! You said your name was Strife right?" Strife shifted in his seat again but reluctantly nodded. "You wouldn't happen to be related to Cloud Strife would you? You look so much like him!" Angeal stared at him, his interest peaked.

"Mabey. I don't really know if I have any living relatives." Strife shrugged. Angeal begrudgingly accepted this.

"Cool! I'll take you to him when he wakes up!" Zack excitedly exclaimed, "Spike is gonna freak when he sees his cool biker cousin!"

Angeal gave him a look. "Cousin?"

Zack shrugged, "Figured it was as close as were gonna get untill we know for sure."

"Spike?" Strife asked.

"Yeah! You should see his hair! He would totally poke an eye out!" Zack boasted merrily, earning a soft smile from the blond.

"You're one to talk, you have an entire arsenal. " Zacks jaw dropped and Angeal turned his face away, his gloved hand covering his smirk, "He's got you there, Zack."

"Hey! Angeal! Who's side are you on?!"

Angeal crossed his arms, "I wasnt aware there were sides."

Strife just sat there smirking.

"So Strife," Angeal started, "Where are you from?"

Strife's smirk dropped, "Up north."

"Like near the icicle area?" Zack asked.

"Yeah. But I mostly travel around with Fenrir. I deliver packages sometimes, and I'm trying to make it into a legitimate business." Strife pulled out a black business card from seemingly nowhere and handed it to Angeal. On it was a motorcycle that looked similar to the one outside the tent. And below it in gold letters read: Strife delivery service.

"Huh." Was Angeal's only reply.

"My number is on the back." Angeal flipped it over and, sure enough, it was there. "Would you mind if I kept this?" He asked.

Strife raised an eyebrow, "That is what business cards are for."

Angeal shook his head, but before he could respond the tent flap was opened, revealing a trooper with a red scarf in salute "Excuse me commander, sir."

Angeal sighed, whatever he was about to say slipped his mind as he addressed the trooper. "At ease." Angeal waited for him to get into parade rest before asking, "What do you need?"

"I've come to inform you that the drills have been completed and that Cloud Strife has awakened, as per your request." Angeal nodded, "Thank you, you are dismissed."

The trooper nodded and gave a quick "Sir!" before he left.

Before Angeal could react, Zack had grabbed Strife's arm and all but dragged the startled man out of the tent. Angeal chuckled, then went to follow them.

Angeal soon found them in the infirmary tent, the smaller Strife was sitting on a cot while the men stood on either side, both blonds looked uncomfortable while the pup chattered on. "Zack." He warned.

"Angeal!" Zack shouted excitedly. Angeal absently wondered if he could see a wagging tail if he looked hard enough, "See how similar they look? These two chocobos could have hatched from the same egg!" He proudly proclaimed.

"Hey!" Both blonds shouted at the same time, "Err-um. Sorry sir." The smaller one said, suddenly more nervous than before.

Zack just waved him off, "Naw, it's my fault for insulting you in the first place."

Cloud looked taken aback, as though no one had ever apologized for wronging him before. Angeal suddenly felt protective of the boy. By the looks of it, Strife was feeling the same way.

Strife suddenly popped out one of his business cards and handed it to the smaller blond. "I heard that it was thanks to you and your friend here that I was saved. I owe you both. Seriously."

"W-What? He's not my-!" Cloud began only to be stopped by Zacks dramatic gasp, "I save your life and this is how you repay me? By denying our friendship?" He placed his hand over his chest in a mock expression of hurt.

Cloud looked horrified, "Wait. No- that's not what I-"

"Zack, that's enough," Angeal cut in. "You're going to give him a panic attack."

Zack frowned and scratched the back of his head, "Sorry, I was just playing, I didnt mean to scare you."

"It's fine." The small blond murmered into his scarf.

Angeal looked over to Strife, who had been quiet this whole time. Strife sat silently, with only the smallest upturn of his lips to show his amusement. Angeal was struck by how much Strife resembled Sephiroth in that moment and decided to file that information away for later.

Strife noticed Angeal staring at him and took that as his que to cut off Zacks attempts of consolation. "So, as I was saying, if you ever need anything. Just call." He flicked another card torwards Zack, who caught it easily. Strife pat Cloud on the head, much to the others dismay. "Stay safe."

Cloud blinked owlishly at him before nodding once, full of fire and determination.

Strife got up and pulled something from his pocket. "Hold out your hands."

Both Zack and Cloud looked confused, but complied anyway, which earned them a little red marble in their hands.

"What? No way! I love you man!" Zack glomped the poor man, sending him staggering back a step.

Angeal noted that this man was able to take the full force of one of Zacks infamous tackle hugs and not be knocked onto his back. He had noticed a mako glow in his eyes before, but had wrote it off as a side effect from his time in the spring. Now he wasn't so sure.

"What is it?" The younger blond asked.

"It's a summon materia." Angeal answered, "If you feed MP into it, it will summon a monster to fight for you. They tend to be very rare."

The little blond looked surprised, "And you're just giving it to me? Why?"

Strife shook his head. "I want you to be safe. I've never..." he cut himself off, "you're my cute little cousin now. I need to look out for you."

The trooper turned an impressive shade of read and sputtered as Strife fled the tent. "Their names are Alexander and Knights of the Round, by the way."

Angeal groaned. Genesis had been looking for Knights of the Round for quite some time. He was going to have one hell of a time keeping Gen away from the kid. Not to mention he needed to fill out the paperwork for the kid to use it in combat.

The roar of a motorcycle cut through his thoughts.

Zack turned to the smaller blond. "Let's get you a bracer chickabo!"

The resulting squak made him laugh.

#cloud strife #zack fair #angeal hewley #final fantasy 7 #ff7 #Fanfiction #time travel

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sahbibabe · 4 years

Text

Golden Ribbons

Soulmate AU

Sephiroth/Reader

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

The continuation of 'A Little String'.You meet Cloud and Tifa. An assassin enters your shop. Sephiroth appears. Nothing is what it seems.

YOU KEPT THE FEATHER, for no other reason than pure sentimentality. It wasn't often that people left such an impression on you, much less one so strongly and embedded in your mind. Most of the reason was that that man, Sephiroth, had allowed you for a very brief, minuscule moment, to see through your own eyes again instead of seeing the vast expanse of black you had been experiencing for the past decade or more.

You strung it up on pretty beads that Aerith had sorted for you and attached it to a small leather cord that you kept at your waist to hold your small pouch of potions and money, a sort of good luck charm. It felt like a primary flight feather, judging by the length and thickness of it, but you couldn't be too sure without consulting a textbook, which was a rare find even in normal text, much less braille.

The odd thing you noticed as you went on about your life, a few weeks after that odd meeting with Sephiroth the SOLDIER, was that you could see again--only a little bit, in flashes or small glances out of your peripheral vision that grew more vivid by the day. Your rational mind told you that Sephiroth had done something to you, had fixed something while he meddled with your sight; the more hopeful side of you, the one that wasn't necessarily logical and fueled by the heart, wanted you to believe that maybe your disease was getting better, becoming less aggressive.

But it was only a fool's hope and an idiot's dream. Your disease, or, perhaps, you should refer to it as an accident more often, was not something that went away by itself, if at all. It was aggressive, tearing through the neural pathways in your eyes faster than your body could even attempt to replace it, forcing your body to wall off the connections of your brain and eyes. At least, that was the scientific explanation of what was going on with you; Aerith thought of it more as a blockage of the spirit, a dam holding in negative thoughts.

Whatever it was that had made you this way, by the hand of the scientist or sheer dumb luck, you were stuck with it. Other than the small glimpses of sight that you cherished whenever they popped up, even if it was when you were sitting on a toilet, you would never see completely ever again. You had made peace with that fact, had known for a long time that it was an inevitability.

It still never stung less when people regarded you as inferior or weaker the moment they realized you were blind. You could knock a man flat out just as well as the next guy, but no one would ever think that; all they saw was a girl without muscle, running a tea shop in the nicer part of the slums, and bumbling her way through life.

So when Aerith finally caved and decided to introduce you to Cloud and Tifa, you were excited. She had told you that Cloud was a bit closed off and reserved, Tifa somewhat guarded but friendly, however she assured you that she told them you were nothing but a nice woman who needed friends.

In no simple terms, Aerith was insinuating you were a lonely, single woman who needed more contacts in her life in case she needed help.

Even if it was true, you had no time for dilly dallying. The three of them would be visiting the shop after it had closed and you had little over an hour to get it presentable and somewhat clean before then. It was already halfway there, but it needed a little sprucing up in some areas, so you attempted to dust everything to the best of your capabilities.

You heard the door open behind you and instinctively turned around, mouth open to greet the person walking through the doorway, but all you saw was white. Flashes of blonde hair. Mako green eyes. A sword longer than you were tall. A stern grimace to his mouth, as if permanent. SOLDIER.

"Uh, [Name]? Is that right? Aerith sent me ahead to help you pack up the tables for the evening."

Your brain stuttered unhelpfully for a moment, immediately drawing parallels to who you knew now was Cloud, and Sephiroth. He was a SOLDIER. What in Gaia's name was Aerith doing, being friends with a SOLDIER, knowing that it attracted scrutiny that she didn't need?

"Thank you," you said instead, holding back the floodwaters of incredulity brimming within your head. "Can you start with the corner tables and work outwards, please? I need to sweep up the crumbs and dust from today."

"Sure."

As the male moved past you to get to the corner tables, you subtly sussed out his aura, shuddering at the icy feel of it. While the resemblances were there, the Mako just barely brushing the surface, it ended at just that, the surface. Cloud's aura was rife with turmoil and indecision, almost to the point where you would have preferred Sephiroth's stifling presence to his any day.

You continued sweeping, mumbling a thank you every time he moved out of your way to allow you to sweep under his feet.

This dance continued until Tifa and Aerith arrived some thirty minutes later, relieving you of the stress of Cloud's aura somewhat. You could have cried; theirs were so soft and pliant that you could have just lied on the floor and fell asleep even with Cloud looming over you like a thunderstorm.

You spoke with them well into the night, far longer than you should have, and by the time Aerith was forcing them to leave and let you sleep, it was nearly two in the morning. And yet, for some reason, you were energized, completely awake even as you yawned yourself to tears and felt your body respond sluggishly to your commands.

As a last resort, you headed downstairs, intent on making chamomile tea to ease your energetic mind, when you felt it; the barest sensation of an aura brushing against yours, so close that you could taste the malice radiating off of them.

Of all the people you could have been expecting, Sephiroth jumped to the forefront of your mind; but this aura, this malice, was not his. It wasn't even remotely familiar to you. Not even the voice, when it spoke, had the same cadence to it.

"[Name] [Surname]." You recognized the voice as that of an assassin, cleverly disguised as that of a man's. "By the order of--"

There was a hard grunt, the sound of metal sliding through flesh and bone, and the assassin falling to the floor. You were frozen to the spot, unable to move, eyes trained on your feet where you felt blood starting to pool and stick between your toes. You had felt their dying breath against your hair, ruffling it slightly.

While you had caused death many times, this, for some reason, made you feel sick to your stomach.

When your legs have out and your feet slipped in slick, warm blood, hands reached out and caught you, devoid of a weapon. They wrapped around your shoulders tightly, propping you up against a body coated in leather and what felt like hard metal or plastic. But you knew the aura, felt it as keenly as night or day.

Sephiroth.

"Are you alright?" His tone was surprisingly concerned, laced with a heavy dose of irritation. None of the neutrality from weeks before was there.

"I'm… fine." You swallowed the gasp of fear that might have made its way out. "Just… I need to sit… sit down."

Sephiroth carefully guided you to one of the chairs Cloud hadn't put up, lifting you over what you assumed was the body in your way. He stayed quiet for several moments, allowing you to regain your bearings, and for the entirety of that time, lingered just outside your sensing field, never quite touching you.

When you recovered enough to manage complete sentences, you slumped back in your chair and tried to will away that uncomfortable twist in your gut that something wasn't right.

"It's almost two in the morning," you said tiredly, that burst of energy and adrenaline fading as quickly as nightfall. "How did you even know?"

"I was almost certain I didn't make it in time." Sephiroth made no move towards her. "I didn't know. It was a hunch. I'm glad I was correct."

You rubbed your forehead, bringing your face down into your palms. "This doesn't make any sense."

"Not much does, these days."

The blood between your toes felt sticky under the socks. You wiggled them slightly to dislodge the coagulated material, sighing when that ill feeling finally receded and you could breathe again.

"So." You looked in his general direction, hoping you at least were looking at his face. It was hard to tell. "I'm not going to ask about this hunch of yours. I won't. I don't think I could stomach it."

"Perhaps not."

"And… I… Why are you here? There's no reason for you to have saved me. None at all."

The tea shop fell silent. All you heard outside was the faint tinkling of windchimes and the occasional dog barking down the road.

"There are plenty of reasons," Sephiroth said, his tone impossibly gentle,"but only one truly matters."

You were growing drowsy, but pushed forward. "What do you mean? Tell me."

"A piece of knowledge for another day, I think." Sephiroth watched as your eyes fluttered shut, watched as the red threads tangled around your fingers and heart began turning a steady golden orange. Just a little bit more. "Sweet dreams."

When you woke up in your own bed, forehead tingling as if someone had kissed it, another feather in your palm and the light of dawn filtering through the window, you realized: you could see.

Your sight was back.

#sephiroth x reader #soulmate au #soulmate #final fantasy 7 remake #final fantasy

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flowersoldier · 4 years

Text

A Second Chance

Chapter 1: A weird dream

Even a year after saving the planet and defeating Sephiroth, Cloud is still thinking of Aerith. His guilt is nagging at him and the new desease called 'Geostigma' didn't help things either. He just wished he could make things different. Make things right...

For Clerith Week 2020; Day 4: Rewrite the Stars

AO3 ff.net

Cloud stared at the ceiling of Aerith's church. He's actually living there for a while already. Aerith's death, Geostigma, even his friends were big problems that were nagging at him. Geostigma was relatively new. No one really knew what to think of that, except that it was a deadly decease. And Cloud had it, too. Not that he minded. Dying was the best way to meet Aerith again. And there was no cure, he searched the whole planet for it.

His friends wanted him to 'do something'. To stop 'moping around'. To 'get over it'. How was anyone supposed to get over the death of someone you loved? It was impossible. He was researching about a lot of things till then. Many of these things had to do with Aerith. But the thing is, not even the Cosmo Canyon's have enough info's about the Cetra. Cloud was pretty sure she still existed in the lifestream. She had to be as a Cetra. Right? But then again, he had no idea how the lifestream worked with souls...Was there a way to bring Aerith back?

At some point in his research he had the absurd idea that maybe the time Materia could do something. Actually this was a weird Materia. It can slow down someone's time, speed up or stop it. But at some desperate point he wondered if it could turn back time. Of course this was not possible. He tried it multiple times, even maxed out the Materia. Everyone would surely think he's crazy...Not that he cared what people thought of him...Maybe he was crazy, but then everyone was who lost someone they loved.

Again, he took the Materia and held it up, looking how the moonlight shined through the orb. Why wasn't it doing what he wanted? Didn't the Cetra want to turn back time at some point in their lives? They helped creating Materia but there was none that could do this. The blonde glared at the orb and sat up. It's not like he'd get any sleep now anyway. Stupid time Materia...All the time he spent to awake the full potential of it...he'll never get this wasted time back. Cloud stood up, playing with the Materia in his hands absentmindedly. He walked around the patch of flowers in the middle of the church. There was nothing else he did recently. Just staring at her flowers —of course making sure they stayed alive— and thinking about how he should've saved her. And if there's something he could do now.

But there was nothing. Dying was the best option to see her again. There's no Promised Land without her there. Cloud tightened his grip on the Materia, before smashing it to the ground. To his surprise, it broke. And not even that, parts of the lifestream gushed out and then a bright light was blinding him.

---------------------

He must've been unconscious, because when he woke up again he was lying on the ground. But it wasn't made out of wood...He was lying on stone. And mud. When he sat up he saw himself wearing his old gloves. The metal bracelets he used to wear. As he finally got into a sitting position he noticed the old SOLDIER uniform on him. His old Buster Sword lying right next to him. It wasn't as rusty as before, it was clean and polished like the first day.

He leaned against a stone wall and looked around. It looked like he's on a train station, but how did he get here? Then he looked up and saw a metal plate covering the sky, which...should be impossible. Midgar was completely destroyed...But it looked just like two years ago. Everything was there, people walk around as if nothing bad happened.

This must be a dream. A memory of how things used to be when Shinra still existed. But then a random cat jumped on him and its claws on his lap felt too real to be a dream. The blonde pushed the cat off of him and the cat scratched his arm. Yep, that's very real and hurt like hell. “Stupid cat...“ He grumbled as the fur ball ran away. And the scratch marks stayed. If that was a dream, shouldn't he wake up by now?

“Cloud?“ The blonde looked up, when he heard a certain voice calling his name. It was Tifa, wearing her old clothes. The old white shirt, the old short skirt. Things she didn't wear for years anymore.

“Tifa?“ He mumbled, frowning up at her. This felt familiar. Only now was his head clearer...

“Cloud, what are you doing here?“ She asked him worried and knelled down next to him. The blonde thought of something he could answer. Asking her what she did here and why Midgar was still intact could sound weird in case this was real. Still, his answer was different than the last time they first met in Midgar.

“I uh...was attacked. Barely got away.“ Yep, that's what happened when he arrived in Midgar. Zack died because of him, gave him his sword and with his hazy mind he walked the rest of the way back to Midgar, only to collapse in the Sector 7 Slums.

Tifa's eyes widened at that looked him up and down. “Oh my god! Are you okay?“ She asked panicked, but he shrugged it off.

“I'm fine. Don't worry.“ And he really was. He felt better than back then. Of course if he didn't count Aerith's death...Which made him actually realize that if it was real...he still had all the memories of what happened. This whole thing just had to be a dream.

“Come with me. I'll bring you to a save place, okay?“ Yeah, she brought him to the 7th Heaven and then he went to that mission with Barret, Jessie, Biggs and Wedge. And then he met her...Cloud nodded. He could just follow the dreams course. He definitely wouldn't mind seeing Aerith again one last time before he woke up.

Tifa helped him, when he tried to get on his wobbly feet. Two years ago he'd have snapped at everyone trying to help to maintain his manly pride, but he was more experienced now. Once he stood, he grabbed his sword and attached it to the magnet at his back. “So...you became a SOLDIER after all, huh?“ Asked Tifa, as she led him to her bar.

“No...not really.“ He mumbled, thinking of his time in Shinra and what it brought him in the end. “I don't wann be involved with Shinra anymore.“

The black haired girl looked at him with big, curious eyes. “Why? Did something happen?“

“A lot happened there...“ Cloud ignored his friend's gaze resting on him, asking him if he wanted to talk about it. But he didn't. This was just some stupid dream, no need to talk about feelings there.

“If you wanna talk about it...I'm here.“ The blonde only nodded and then they were silent for the rest of the way. “There it is.“ Tifa pointed at the building that said 'Seventh Heaven' in big letters. “I'll introduce you to my friends.“ Again, Cloud only hummed and followed her inside. The whole gang was there.

“Hey!“ Exclaimed an all to familiar voice and then a big guy invaded his vision. “You brought a Shinra dog here, Tifa?!“

“No! Barret, this is my friend. Cloud.“ Explained the girl, who stood between him and the bear of a man.

“Once a Shinra dog, always a Shinra dog.“ Growled Barret, reminding Cloud why he hated him at first. The blonde rolled his eyes at him.

“At least I had a real job.“ He mumbled more to himself, but the big man heard him.

“What did you just say?“ He yelled and grabbed his collar. Cloud looked at Barret unimpressed, which made him more angry. “You Shinra scum!“ And with that he practically threw Cloud halfway through the bar. The blonde hit a table and fell right off it again.

And when he came to, he realized he was still in the bar. People usually woke up when getting hurt or when they fell...And it did really hurt, too...“Barret!“ Yelled Tifa with a scolding tone in her voice, before running to his side. “Cloud, are you okay?“

“Yeah.“ He mumbled, rubbing the back of his head. After letting Tifa help him up again, the girl glared at the Avalanche leader.

“Barret, I told you he's my friend! And he's no SOLDIER, he-“

“Ex-SOLDIER.“ He interrupted her, earning a confused look from her. “I'm working as a mercenary now.“ When he noticed Tifa's look, he shrugged and whispered. “That's an easier story.“ The black haired girl nodded in understanding.

Meanwhile the rest of the group where whispering behind everyone's back and Cloud knew exactly what they talked about. They wanted to recruit him for their mission. Then Barret noticed it, too and walked over to them. “Hey, what are you whispering around there?“ He asked the trio and went to them. Then they told Barret their plan and he didn't look pleased about it.

“We don't have a guestroom...“ Began Tifa and looked at him apologetically. “But you can sleep in our secret layer.“ Cloud just nodded he was okay with anything and he did already sleep down there. He followed her to the gaming machine and after pushing some certain buttons, they were brought down to their secret room.

Barret jumped down as well and scolded Tifa for showing him their secret layer. Having heard everything before, Cloud ignored both of them and just sat down on a chair. While the yelling continued, Cloud thought about his situation. Was he really back in time now? Was he able to save Aerith this time? Or was it really just some weird dream he's not waking up from? Maybe he'll find out when he'll go to bed...

Cloud's silentness made Barret angrier, but there was nothing he had to say right now. If Barret will actually throw him out then he'll just find another place for the night. But he knew he won't. Tifa will convince him. And after another few minutes of yelling Barret went back up, letting Cloud sleep there. “Sorry about Barret...“ Said Tifa then. “He's a really nice guy when you know him better though.“

The blonde hummed, knowing that already. Tifa stood there awkwardly for a moment, before going to the gaming machine. “Okay then...Good night, Cloud.“

“Night.“ And with that Tifa went back upstairs and Cloud's been left alone. There was nothing left for him to do, so he decided to get to the couch and take a nap. And then he'll hopefully find out what's going on here.

--------------------

When Cloud woke up, he expected to be in Aerith's church but as he looked around...He was still in the secret layer of the old Seventh Heaven. So it wasn't a dream, huh...Rubbing his hurting temple, he let the gaming machine bring him upstairs. There, the whole gang was already there, eating breakfast. “Good morning, Cloud.“ Greeted Tifa him, which he's only waving off. “Want some breakfast?“

“Nah, not necessary.“ He replied, but Tifa pouted and glared at him.

“Sit!“ Rolling his eyes, he sat down by the counter and let Tifa feed him. “Listen, we want to ask you something.“ Began Tifa, as Cloud ate his breakfast. “You're working as a mercenary now, right?“ He nodded. “We want to hire you. We wanna blow up a Mako reactor.“

“3000 Gil.“ Was all he said, reacting just like back then.

“3000?! Are ya kidding me?!“ Yelled Barret, but Cloud didn't react to it. He knew they needed him. Barret was grumbling around and went up and down the room. “Okay! But you better be worth the money!!“ He yelled into his ears again.

---------------

As far as he knew nothing significant changed during the mission. Everything played out just as he remembered it. Though this time his heart couldn't help but beat faster in anticipation once they left the destroyed reactor. Because he knew all to well who he's gonna meet very soon. He walked through the partially destroyed sector, dodging debris and SOLDIERs until he saw her. The cute little flower girl, trying to sell flowers to the people.

Cloud swallowed a big lump in his throat, his heart beating so fast it could break through his ribcage, as he saw her there, alive and well. He felt the need to run to her, hug her and tell her all the things he never could. But it would be weird. They didn't know each other right now.

His second thought was to just leave again. Letting her live a normal life instead of being pulled into all this mess. Everything that happened to her was because she met him. He dragged her into this. Maybe she'll live if he stayed away from her. No matter how much it'd hurt him.

But just as he wanted to turn around to leave, he found out he couldn't. Like, his legs didn't move as if an invisible force wanted him to stay right where he was. And then he felt something pushing him. It felt like a strong wind pushed him and Cloud was so not prepared for this that he fell to the ground. “Hey.“ Then he heard a voice he hasn't heard for two years...A voice he very early found himself falling in love with.

His heart skipped a beat and then another time when he dared to look up. There she was, looking at him worried. His heart thudded and soared at the sight of her and the urge to hug her and confess her his undying love for her came back. “Are you okay?“ She asked, tilting her head to the side.

Cloud nodded, letting out a hum because his voice failed him right now. He quickly got back on his feet and readjusted the sword on his back. Then he had no idea what to do next. Last time he just tried to get away from here...But then he looked to the flowers. “...You don't see many flowers around here...“ He said, feeling kinda stupid for his choice of words.

“You like them?“ Aerith asked him happily, her smile brought back a familiar warmth inside of him. Then she picked the same yellow lilie and held it out to him. “Do you want one?“

His answer was clear and immediate. “How much?“ He asked, even though he knew he paid 1 Gil back then.

But now her answer was different from last time. “Well, it depends on the customer. In your case...it's for free.“

There's no way he'll let her go empty handed. “Don't be ridiculous. 10 Gil?“ He asked, because 1 Gil was not enough.

She giggled and he felt so much love for her right now that his heart might explode right now. “I said you can have it.“ And with that said, she tucked it in his strap like the last time. The flower girl looked at the flower and then back up into his eyes. And Cloud felt like he could melt right then and there.

Before he could think of anything he could say to her next, she suddenly let her flower basket fall to the ground and flailed with her hands as if she's fighting something. Though he didn't know what...Then she looked back at him and grabbed his arm. “Help me!“

Her touch was tingling on his skin and went right to his core. But it also made the invisible forces visible. They looked like weird ghost creatures in black cloaks. One of them flew right towards them and Cloud acted instinctively. He pushed Aerith behind him and attacked the creature with his sword. But it vanished on impact. What the hell was that? They weren't there the last time. Though, Cloud couldn't quite concentrate on the enemy as Aerith held onto his arm while hiding behind him.

These creatures surrounded them and Cloud was ready to attack to protect Aerith. Until some SOLDIERs appeared. They wanted him to drop his sword -as if he'd ever do that. But what surprised him was that they apparently couldn't see these creatures...“They can't see them?“ He mumbled, just loud enough for Aerith to hear it. It looked bad for them...they were surrounded by enemies. Just as Cloud decided to just fight their way through them -completely forgetting his original mission- Aerith surprised him again by running away. “Hey, wait!“ He called after her, making her stop.

“Thanks for your help!“ She called over her shoulder, as she disappeared in an alley. These ghost things followed her and he was about to follow, if it weren't for these soldiers getting in his way. Rolling his eyes at these guys, he tightened his grip on his sword and began to fight his way through them, till he'll meet the others on the train again.

#clerith #clerith week 2020 #cloud strife #Aerith Gainsborough #fanfics #fanfiction #final fantasy vii #remake #ffvii

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greensaplinggrace · 4 years

Note

Hi, I just wanted to ask if you would be willing to dabble in a prompt about Cloud having a wing? Like maybe something where it first manifests in a really bad situation of some kind and he's just horrified and scared about it, and runs away from everyone because he's terrified of what they they think. They then him and end up reassuring and comforting him? Just- angst to family feels? There is a distinct lack of Cloud wingfics haha 😅 so I was just hoping you'd be interested.

I debated a long time about this being pre-Sephiroth reveal and post-Sephiroth reveal and finally decided to place it earlier in the game. I hope you don’t mind! This an AU where the Sector 7 plate never drops.

-UPDATE! This prompt has an alternate fill - VERSION 2 - HERE IT IS ON AO3

*TW for self esteem issues, self hatred, blood and injury, a brief contemplation of self harm/mutilation, hallucinations

- If you want to send in a prompt, the guidelines are HERE and HERE!

---

“I don’t believe it for a second!”

“It’s true! In front of dozens of people, too, including Madame M.”

A bellowing laugh fills the room, and Cloud stares furiously at his tumbler as the table nearly cracks beneath the force of Barret’s gun arm. “I knew he was full o’ shit! ‘I don’t dance’, my ass.”

“He was so good at it. By the end of the song, he wasn’t even following Andrea’s lead. It was like he just fell into the music.”

“Aw! I can’t believe I missed seeing Cloud finally let himself go.”

“Oh, it was wonderful, and he was blushing like mad the whole time. But you haven’t even heard the best part, yet!”

Cloud bites back a groan and hunches his shoulders, angling himself as far away from the rambunctious group gathered around the corner table. He catches sight of Tifa working her way down the bar with a rag, an apologetic smile on her lips, and sighs in defeat when she doesn’t even think to say a word in his defense.

“What, that it only took him glancin’ at the walls of Wall Market before he broke out dancin’? Cause we already knew he was repressed.”

“Barret!” It’s Tifa who finally protests, but it’s too little too late. Cloud sinks into his seat and wishes the entire world would disappear. His drink sure does, though not nearly fast enough. He grabs a nearby bottle and refills it himself.

“He’s got a point, though.”

Aerith giggles as if she knows a thing about him. “Cloud’s just shy.”

He is not shy.

“Shy or not, he was certainly willing to dance for Tifa.”

“And-” Cloud can fucking hear the wink in her voice. “-wear a dress for her.”

The room explodes into chaos. Cloud scowls against a blush as everybody bursts out laughing, voices overlapping in glee and disbelief. Even Tifa’s grinning, eyes sparkling with amusement when Jessie bounces over and slams stomach first into the table. She’s flushed on Gaia knows how much alcohol, eyes bright and cheeks rosy.

“I knneww he liked you!” she exclaims a bit too loudly, and Cloud winces. Half of him wants to speak up against the fact that they’re all gossiping about him when he’s right here. The other half of him just wants to remain quiet, refusing to give them the satisfaction of knowing he’s affected. “Did he really? It mm...must have been- so pretty! I bet it was the- the most amazing thing you’ve...ever seen.”

Cloud would say it was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever seen, but Tifa actually blushes.

Huh.

Cloud tries not to blush as well with the realization, turning away from the two as Jessie resumes the conversation amidst Tifa’s embarrassed silence. The others are busy, all chattering and mellowed out, scattered around the bar in small groups and talking about whatever it is drunk environmental activists usually find interesting.

There’s a simple camaraderie in the people around him. More than friends or acquaintances could ever be. A family.

He almost feels like an intruder, sitting here silent and morose in the midst of their comfortable chatter. All easy touches and loving warmth. Even Aerith has settled into the group as if she’s always been a part of it. She’s moved on to her second bottle now, talking animatedly with Barret about flowers, and how Cloud hadn’t ever expected them to get along like moss on a boulder is a mystery to him.

They look...happy. All of them do.

Fondness prods at the boundaries of his chest as he watches them. A wholly unfamiliar feeling, and one Cloud isn’t keen on courting at the moment. He can’t allow himself to think like that, not when he knows he’s unwelcome here. Barret had been right about this being a team - a family - that Cloud isn’t a part of. He’d been right to kick Cloud out the first time around.

He empties the rest of his drink in one go and doesn't even pause to deliberate further. It tastes like ashes.

He shouldn't have even lingered this long. Sitting here brooding at the bar while everybody has fun, bringing down the mood like one giant dark intrusion in their bright little haven of safety and warmth and...

Had his presence annoyed them, and that’s why they’d ignored it? Or had they even noticed him to begin with? Tifa certainly had, otherwise she would have left to go join in the celebrations of her family- her new family. One that Cloud isn’t part of anymore.

He stands to leave. The world tilts for a second, and he has to catch himself on the bar as his feet trip up underneath him, breath hitching and vision blurring. Nobody comments or moves to help him, though. Nobody even looks his way. So he staggers until he’s walking and makes a beeline for the front doors, past every joyful conversation and a smattering of giggles, until he’s bursting outside in a rush.

At once, he’s hit by a blast of the cool night air and the dim glow of the porchlights. For a second, the two worlds meld together - the quiet peace of the night and the warm, brash camaraderie of Seventh Heaven. A soothing lull to the strain of reality. Then the sounds cut off abruptly as the doors click shut, and all he’s left with is silence.

Cloud stumbles over to lean on the nearest metal railing, avoiding the stairs like the plague. Leave. He inhales deeply, the air crisp and refreshing, and breathes out some of the fogginess in his mind. They don’t want you here. He opens his eyes again and stares blankly at the ground below him, uncertain and on edge. Green flickers in the corner of his eye, a breath like ice ghosting through his hair. He swallows thickly and tells himself it’s the breeze, but slitted, sickly eyes grace his vision, and he has to duck his head over the railing to calm the tremors that arise.

“You think these people will accept you, once they know what you are?”

He breathes in shakily and grits his teeth against a response.

“You’re lucky they don’t care for you.”

They do.

They don’t.

He clutches at his hair and tries to make the world stop spinning, panting so loudly he can hear it past the rush of water in his ears.

“Imagine how disappointed they’d be if they learned what goes on inside your head?”

Cloud shakes his head and takes in another breath. He refuses to answer. Refuses to give anybody the satisfaction of knowing he’s hurt - knowing he’s weak.

He doesn’t want them to accept him. He never did and he never will. He’s stronger than that.

“Cloud?”

He jumps at the voice - real and alive and right there - heart racing for a moment in pure, unbridled fear as he thinks that Sephiroth’s finally become real. That the man can finally hurt him. Then the rest of it catches up to him. It’s a girl’s voice, small and high and above him. Not next to him. Not Sephiroth.

“Marlene?” he asks in disbelief, half convinced he might still be hallucinating. Yet when he races down the stairs and turns to face the source of the noise, it’s a little girl’s head peeking out at him over the edge of the awning. “How the f- how did you get up there?”

“I- I didn’t do it on purpose. I promise!” Her voice warbles with tears, and Cloud shifts uncomfortably. This is decidedly not his problem.

“I’ll go get Barret.”

“No! You can’t!”

He glances through the windows of the bar, where Barret’s laughing uproariously at whatever Tifa’s said. The man would kill for his daughter, and he’d probably beat Cloud’s ass for even considering not telling him. Cloud doesn’t need that right now. Barret already hates him enough, but at least he’s still willing to foist off his money. “You won’t get in trouble.” Probably. “He should know you’re safe.”

“But I will!” Marlene wails, and Cloud winces. “Daddy will be mad. I’m not s’post... supposed to be out here.”

“You're not allowed, you mean.”

Marlene sniffs again, lower lip quivering as her eyes start to water, and Cloud’s heart drops when he realizes she’s about to cry. “Please don’t tell Daddy! I only left out the window to see the lights. I didn’t mean to get stuck.”

“Can you go back to your room?” Cloud asks, though he already knows the answer. If only things were that easy.

“N-no...It’s dark and- and I can’t see. Please help me down, Cloudy...I’m scared.”

“It’s not- don’t call me that.” Marlene sniffs again, and Cloud sighs, squeezing his eyes shut for a second to fight off the growing headache. “Fine. Just...don’t move. Stay right there.”

He steps further from the building and examines the walls in the hopes of finding somewhere she could climb down, but she really has gotten herself trapped in the most unfortunate place possible. She’s on top of the awning, perched on the highest peak. Her knuckles are white from the death grip she has on the edge, knees occasionally sliding down the curve before she corrects them. Every time she so much as fidgets he feels his heart hit his throat, and by the time he’s finished examining every inch of the building, he feels more sober than he ever has in his life.

She’s much too high up, he concludes. This really is a job for Barret.

“You’d have to jump,” he finally says as he rounds the front of the stairs again, keeping his voice soft to avoid startling her, “we need to get Barret.”

“No! Don’t tell Daddy. He’ll be angry.”

Barret couldn't be angry with Marlene if his life depended on it. “I don’t think so. He just wants you safe.”

“You’re lying.” Marlene hiccoughs, voice cracking on the last word, and it takes an effort for him to remain still in the face of her distress. Something like guilt and understanding twists up inside him, but he can’t think too long about it.

“I’ll be right back,” he says, though every word feels like pulling teeth, “just don’t move and B...Dad will come save you.”

“But I want you to come save me! Please dont- please don’t leave!” She yells out in a panic, and then she’s moving, letting go of the roof and pushing to stand with too much force, feet sliding and eyes widening as Cloud’s stomach lurches in fear.

A dozen things happen at once, blurring and loud in the rush of panic. Marlene’s scream pierces the air, wood cracking and light flooding the area with a series of yells, and Marlene falls. Her scream cuts off as she hits empty space, and Cloud moves like he’s never moved before, feet skidding across the concrete and launching himself from the bottom step with a vicious gust of wind.

He doesn’t know how he reaches her in time. Doesn’t know anything except that he manages to snag hold of her before she even drops a foot, pulling her to his chest and curling around her with a snap. The harsh movement interrupts his flight, and in the next moment it’s Cloud that’s falling, wrapped tightly around his precious bundle as his back meets the top step. There’s a sickening crack, pain igniting across his back and forcing the breath from his lungs, but he doesn’t even think to let go. Not as every step afterward makes the pain spike and not as they finally hit the concrete, wrought metal a dark and twisting sky above them.

Marlene’s shaking on his chest, torn by hiccoughing cries and too afraid to let go, but at least she’s alive. Cloud almost wants to cry with her at the relief he feels seeing her there, safe and breathing in the cradle of his arms. Her small fingers are fisted in his shirt, head buried against his chest, and when she looks up at him her face is wet with tears.

“Is- is it over?”

His lungs feel too constricted to answer, chest tight, and before he can gather his thoughts or his breath there’s a thud of footsteps and a rise of voices. Other people, he realizes blankly for a second. Then, Barret - Avalanche, as awareness finally catches up to him.

“Marlene! Marlene!”

“What the hell happened?”

“Oh Gaia, is that-”

A shadow falls over them, and within seconds Marlene is pried from Cloud’s arms. Barret instantly sweeps her into a crushing hug, a spill of soft, comforting words pressed into his daughter’s hair. Cloud struggles to sit up when the other man turns away, hoping to capitalize on his distraction before anybody realizes a simple fall practically took him out. His face burns when he finally manages to push himself upright, but nothing could prepare him for the sight of everybody else standing there as well. Silent and frozen as they stare at him with wide, horrified eyes.

Cloud tenses and goes deathly still. His voice catches at the back of his throat, shame and pain and a dozen other things making his arms shake beneath his weight. He knows he should say something, but no words would be able to justify the fact that he’d almost let a child die. Now they know. Now they-

“What is that?” It’s Marlene who asks it, voice small in the heavy blanket of silence, and Cloud blinks in momentary confusion.

Then a feather falls into view, and Cloud nearly goes faint with shock. Before he can stop to think, he’s bringing his hand up, fingers splayed and stomach twisting as he reaches up to catch it. He expects dust and shadow - for the feather to disappear as every other has. Except that when his fingers wrap around it, all he feels are soft, delicates vanes and a thin shaft. Real.

No!

Cloud throws it as far away from him as he can, panic rising when all it does is catch on the air and keep drifting. Like a real feather should. Panting, he staggers to his feet, casting about desperately for Sephiroth as he grabs for his sword. Yet his hands hit nothing and all he sees is Barret and Tifa and Marlene, shocked and terrified and stunned. All looking at him and not anybody else . Or, more accurately, something behind him.

Cloud doesn’t need to see it to know, of course. The weight off balances him and has him trying to catch his footing, tripping backwards as they all just keep looking. Not saying anything. Not doing anything. Just-

“Are you a monster?”

And Cloud can’t bear to hear their answers. To look for one more second at their disgusted expressions and horrified eyes. The spell has been broken, Tifa opening her mouth to speak as Jessie gasps and moves forward, and Cloud trips backwards again, boots scraping loudly on the ground as he staggers around in a wide circle.

“Cloud!” It’s Tifa.

Tifa. She knows what Sephirtoth did. She knows he’s a monster-

And he can’t look back - can’t look into her eyes and know that she hates him.

So he runs.

He runs until his feet ache and nothing makes sense. Until the stares and gasps he draws from onlookers drive him deeper into the bowels of the scrapyards with the burn of shame and fear and hatred.

“I told you,” Sephiroth hisses, and Cloud spins in the center of a closed metal clearing to face the bastard, but all he’s met with is more walls.

“Shut up,” he snaps, “shut up!”

“They know you’re tainted, now”. Cloud doesn’t even need Sephiroth to tell him that. Doesn’t need Sephiroth to let him know that his mind is cracked and broken. That his body isn’t his own.

Cloud can’t even look at the metal for fear of seeing his reflection; gleaming snake eyes and a cruel smirk. He already has enough of Sephiroth. He already knows he’s a monster. He doesn’t need to see it. As if the voices in his head hadn’t proved it. As if the green flashes and painful hallucinations hadn’t already told him. Now his corruption isn’t only on the inside. Now it’s outside of him, too. A morbid display of his weakness and his failure. Proof that he can’t control what’s inside his head, let alone the appearance of his own body.

He holds back a sob, chest jumping and lips thinning. There’s a corner of the clearing that’s shadowed and dark, sheltered by a jagged metal overhang, and he forces one foot in front of the other. The sound of something dragging behind him makes him want to vomit. Pain sears through the appendage, pulling at his chest and back and making his shoulder ache. Snapped, he thinks, and has to push the thought to the back of his mind because he doesn’t care.

If he’s lucky, the thing is broken beyond repair.

He drops down and crawls beneath the overhang, pulling his knees to his chest and pressing against the cold metal. Stretched out in a gruesome, bloody display is the wing, nearly unnoticeable in the darkness of the night, and he presses his eyes to his knees so he doesn’t have to see it. The pain is a stark reminder, though.

He really is a monster.

They’d all been so scared of him. Tifa had been the worst, of course, but Marlene’s fear was palpable. Even thinking about it makes his eyes wet, and no amount of rubbing them on his pants can brush away the tears. Aerith had been wide eyed, fingers pressed to her mouth in shock, and Barret had looked thunderous. Probably from allowing Marlene anywhere within a foot of Cloud.

He curls into a tighter ball and tries to fight the heave of his shoulders, but it’s a fruitless endeavor. There’s a feeling of loss that burns, even as he reminds himself that he’d never been a part of their family in the first place. One that has him wishing he could cut the fucking wing away. That he could make everything better. Head back to Seventh Heaven and beg for their forgiveness.

If only he had his sword.

The mere thought has him shuddering in phantom pain, and he resists the urge to pull the wing closer for protection.

“Cloud?” A voice breaks the silence, and Cloud freezes at the sound. It’s Tifa’s voice, and she’s close enough to be right on top of him.

Then another voice speaks up, echoing down the walls of the alley he’s in, and Cloud ducks down to press even further into his hiding place at the sound of Barret’s approach. “Oi merc! Where the hell are you?”

“Barret, you’re going to scare him off.”

“Kid can take care of himself.”

“But did you see-”

A light swings into view, flickering along the battered edges of Cloud’s feathers, and both sets of footsteps immediately come to a stop. Cloud swallows and closes his eyes, trembling with fear or embarrassment, he doesn’t know.

Have they come to hunt him down? Or kick him out?

Tifa wouldn’t do that.

Cloud doesn’t say a word. Neither does Barret and Tifa. Their light lingers on his wing for a long time, and he wonders if they’ve finally noticed how ugly it is. The gruesome bend and twist of an unnatural limb.

“Oh Gaia. Cloud, are you hurt?”

It takes a greater effort this time around to resist pulling his wing closer, wrapping it around himself and shielding his body from prying eyes. The light hasn’t moved, but he knows their gazes have, and there’s not even a millimeter more space between himself and the walls that could help him shift away.

“That don’t look natural.” It’s not. “Shit, do you think it’s broken?”

The light moves, then, over bloody patches and the scattered feathers ringing his form. Cloud feels nauseous just looking at them, undeniably grateful that they haven’t turned to dust even as he wishes they would.

“That looks like a lot of blood…” Tifa worries, and Cloud flinches when she takes another step forward. “We need to get him back. Cloud, can you move?”

He doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know what they want from him. His mouth feels sealed shut with fear and loathing, and he can’t even swallow past the knot in his throat anymore. As if it isn’t shameful he’d been so weak as to get injured in the first place. Now he has a fucking wing sprouting from his back and all he wants to do is cry. Are they here to mock him? He just wishes they’d leave.

“We’re just here to help. Please, Cloud.”

It shouldn’t be Tifa begging. It shouldn’t be Barret approaching with light steps and a soft voice. Shouldn’t be either of them here to see him like this, offering help.

This is all so, so wrong. They should be afraid of him. They should hate him.

He knows he does.

“It’s okay-”

“It’s not.” He inhales like he’s drowning, throat tight and vision blurred. “I’m a- I’m like- Sephiroth.” The word is acid on his tongue and Tifa’s startled inhale only makes it worse. He’s a fool for reminding her, and now she’s going to abandon him. She’s going to realize this was a mistake and she’s going to leave.

“You’re nothing like him.”

Cloud almost chokes on his sob, tension cut away so abruptly his limbs go numb with the shock of it. He collapses in on himself, biting his lip to stifle the tremors, but the rest of his body shakes with each breath.

“I told you before that I was wrong about you, kid. That wasn’t a joke. You ain’t nothin’ like that sick fucking bastard.”

Cloud shakes his head. “You’re wrong. You’re wrong. I-I see him- I-”

“You see Sephiroth?” Tifa sounds faint, but Barret powers on as stubborn as ever.

“That doesn’t mean a thing, okay?” he says, and the conviction in his tone eases the band around Cloud’s chest. He takes in a shaky breath, latching desperately onto Barret’s next words. “What you see isn’t real, and having a wing don’t mean a thing except that you’ve got a wing.”

“Sephiroth has-”

“Sephiroth doesn’t have shit cause he’s a dead sonofabitch.”

That brings with it a whole host of worries Cloud hasn’t allowed himself to think about since he got here, and another silence descends between the three of them. The pain in his wing is a lot more noticeable now that he’s gathered enough wits to focus on it, and he can’t help the slightest hint of hope from forming - that they actually mean what they say. That they still care.

“You ain’t a monster, and Marlene shouldn’t have said that.” Barret lowers himself to a crouch, the hard edges of his expression melting into something soft as he continues. “You saved her. You saved my baby girl, and I will never forget that.”

Cloud had failed her. He’d almost let her fall. Yet he can’t bring himself to correct Barret, careful of the tentative trust.

“I ruined your gathering,” Cloud ends up saying instead, though he’s not entirely sure why.

Barret snorts. “Gathering was ruined as soon as you left.”

Should have snuck out. “Sorry.”

“That’s not what he meant,” Tifa says, sighing. She lowers herself to kneel beside Barret, and Cloud’s surprised to see nothing but kindness and concern in her eyes. That small bubble of hope grows when she smiles at him. A shy, reassuring twitch of the lips. “He meant that we missed you after you left. Aerith was worried she’d upset you.”

“But it was a…” Private affair.

Gaia, he’s such an idiot. It was stupid to worry about such a thing in the first place, and it only goes to show just how weak he is that he’d even been bothered at all. Cloud has never been shy about who he hangs out with before. He’s never cared before if people accept him. Yet the sting of Barret’s words had felt fresh, the mockery of a few days ago - of extra money and saying they wouldn’t need him - like a new cut across his skin. It hadn’t felt scarred over in the moment. Hadn’t felt anything but raw and exposed as they’d all laughed around him - at him.

“We wanted you there. Hell, it woud’a been nice to hear the story from you.”

“I’m sure you would have told it better. Though Aerith does have a...way with words.”

A hint of a smile finds its way to Cloud’s lips at that, but it rapidly gives up the ghost when his gaze lands on the wing again. He eyes it warily, swallowing down bile and blinking away the afterimages of blood and a sword and silver hair over monstrous eyes. He shudders at the memory, pulling his knees closer to his chest. There’s a limp, broken rasp of feathers over concrete as he moves, and he has to peel his gaze away before he does something he’ll regret.

“Cloud…” Tifa begins hesitantly, fingers outstretched toward his wing. They’re frozen, her voice hesitant as she speaks. “We never talked about what happened in Nibelheim. Sephiroth…”

“I know.”

She gives him a tiny nod and says nothing for a while, then: “you aren’t a monster. You’re not like him, and I could never hate you for this. You and Sephiroth...you aren’t the same. Even if-” She squeezes her eyes shut, lips pursing and shoulders hitching as she calms herself. Cloud and Barret both wait patiently. “Even if you see him...Sephiroth. You need help.”

“We can help you,” Barret pitches in, low and so unlike himself that Cloud thinks for a moment he might be fever dreaming or in an alcohol induced coma.

“The others are waiting at the bar for us, too.”

“Trust me when I say they’ll come out here themselves and scream your name for hours if we don’t return with ya. Your little flower girl threatened me. I ain’t never been threatened by someone so tiny in my life.”

“Everybody wants to help you,” Tifa says, “Please. I- we... love you.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that-” Tifa’s hair practically cracks through the air as her head whips around, and the burn of her vivid red eyes has Barret cowed. Cloud can’t quite hide the smirk that appears this time around, and Tifa shares a smug smile with him when Barret scowls at the both of them. “Uh huh. I don’t know why the hell I thought our friendly neighborhood merc here was the only Nibelheim bastard. You’re both just feral pains in my ass.”

The word choice is uncomfortable, but for the first time that night, the pang of rejection doesn’t follow. Barret looks relaxed around his wing, now. As does Tifa. Neither of them appears horrified, anymore. They don’t look disgusted.

“I’m...I don’t know what to do.” He has to pry the first words from his mouth, but he isn’t even aware of the next words until they fall like fire from his lips. “It hurts.”

His face heats with shame, yet Tifa and Barret don't mock him. They don’t call him weak or useless or a sorry excuse for a SOLDIER. And he forces his muscles to unwind, inhaling deeply and exhaling at length. They wouldn’t hurt him, he reminds himself, these people are safe.

“It’s okay, Cloud,” Tifa soothes. She rises slowly, every movement of her approach projected, and Cloud would protest the treatment if he wasn’t so painfully grateful for it. When she falls to her knees outside his shelter, the careful compassion on her face hasn’t changed. “We can patch you up. Just like when we were kids.”

He hesitates. “Here?”

“Back at the bar,” Barret corrects, “ain't no way we’d be able to heal you up out here, otherwise. Even if it were daytime.

Cloud takes another fortifying breath, comforted by Tifa’s solid support. Yet voicing his concerns is still too much, and he subsides reluctantly into the shadow of his safe haven.

“We’ll take the back alleys,” Tifa says, and Cloud blinks at her in surprise. Her flicker of a knowing smile is like a benediction, a soothing run of words like water over his skin. “We aren’t that far from Seventh Heaven, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Okay?”

He nods, and Barret’s loud clap is almost enough to make him jump. “Aight! Let’s get movin’. You think you can stand, SOLDIER boy?”

“I’m not an invalid,” Cloud barks with a scowl, “I can move just fine.”

“We could carry the-”

“Don’t!” He regrets snapping immediately, wincing and looking away. “I can move it myself.”

“It’s got to be painful. Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Don’t...don’t touch it.” He pauses and flicks his eyes to her, then over to Barret as the other man shifts to stand. They both came for him. They want to help him.

They consider him family. He blinks the tears from his eyes and looks away, crawling slowly from his shelter. Tifa is warm at his side, Barret steady and unwavering before him. Neither of them leaves.

They came for him. “...thank you.”

“Anytime.”

Cloud might just believe them.

#cloud strife #whump #hurt comfort #wingfic #barret wallace #tifa lockhart #cloti #but its mild #ff7 #ffvii #remake #found family #cloud strife needs a hug #promptfills #thanks so much for the ask!#i hope you like it XD

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fallintosanity · 4 years

Note

Number 3 for meta asks plz!

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

(idk about “always” because I only recently came up with this but shhh)

“Go get something to drink,” Cloud told the boy as he closed the door of their rented room. “You’ve been playing all day.”

“Yessir,” Luca said. He kicked off his sandals and ran barefoot over to the nightstand to retrieve one of the glasses sitting there, his hair shining almost blond in the dim golden light of the room’s single lamp. As Cloud bent down to untie his own boots, Luca darted into the bathroom toward the sink. The boy was too small to reach the faucet even on tiptoe, but he’d managed it last night by standing on the closed toilet lid, so Cloud wasn’t too worried.

Then Luca yelped, and the sharp sound of shattering glass crashed through the room.

Cloud stood back up, managing two whole steps across the room before Luca called, “I’ll clean it up! I’m sorry!” From here, Cloud could just see into the bathroom: the tile floor covered in glittering glass shards, and Luca lifting one bare foot to step directly into them.

“No!” Cloud yelled. In the next heartbeat he was across the bedroom and halfway into the bathroom, glass crunching under his boots as he reached out to stop Luca--

--only to freeze himself when Luca flung his arms up and cringed down, clearly bracing himself for a blow.

“Whoa,” Cloud said. “Hey, whoa. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Bright green eyes peeked warily at him from between Luca’s forearms, the set of the boy’s shoulders radiating skepticism.

Cloud didn’t know how to process that, or what it implied about how Luca had been treated before now, and he didn’t have the energy to try. “Just... stay there. I’m going to get a broom--”

“I can do it!” Luca interrupted, dropping his arms. There was a familiar stubborn set to his jaw, strange to see on a three-year-old’s face, and again he started to take a step forward.

“No!” Cloud snapped again, and Luca went still, though fearful tremors shook his tiny frame. Cloud sighed, and tried to gentle his voice. “There’s broken glass everywhere. If you step on it, you’ll get hurt.”

Luca studied him for a long, silent moment, but didn’t answer. Cloud said, “Don’t move. Not an inch. I’m going to go find a broom.”

Luca nodded once, short and sharp, but at least he seemed to get it. Cloud yanked his boots off without bothering with the laces, depositing them in a relatively clear spot in the bathroom so he wouldn’t track glass through the rest of the room. To his surprise, Imogen - the woman they were renting the room from - was just cresting the stairs when he pulled open the door. She held a broom and dustpan in one hand, and another glass in the other.

She smiled when she saw Cloud. “I heard the glass break,” she said. “Are you both all right?”

Cloud nodded. “I can pay--”

“Oh, my dear, no,” Imogen interrupted gently. “Don’t worry about it. Kids that young break things, and I’ve got plenty to spare.” She pressed the broom, dustpan, and glass into Cloud’s hands. “Do you need any help cleaning up?”

Cloud shook his head.

“If you’re sure,” Imogen said. “I’m right downstairs - holler if you need anything.”

“Thanks,” Cloud said, and headed back into their room.

Luca stood exactly where Cloud had left him, in exactly the same pose; apparently he’d taken that “don’t move an inch” literally. As Cloud bent down to start sweeping up the glass, Luca said, “I can help.”

There was a tiny quaver in his voice, a note of fear, and rage surged hot and sharp through Cloud as he realized why. Hojo would have expected the boy to clean up the mess. Hojo would have expected a three-year-old to walk barefoot through shattered glass to get a broom and dustpan and sweep up the shards all on his own. Hojo would have probably taken notes the whole time about his specimen’s pain tolerance, or his accelerated rate of healing, or his ability to follow orders like a good little soldier.

Cloud barely stopped himself from swearing out loud. Luca was still trembling, and Cloud didn’t want the boy to think Cloud’s anger was directed at him. Instead, Cloud threw himself into cleaning up the broken glass, sweeping carefully around Luca’s feet, then dampening one of the spare hand towels and wiping over the floor, and finally cleaning the glass out of his boots.

Luca didn’t move the whole time, though his sharp green eyes followed Cloud’s every motion with the caution of a rabbit who knows a hawk is nearby. When Cloud was done, he crouched in front of Luca and held out his hands. The boy hesitated, but then lifted his arms so Cloud could pick him up. Cloud rinsed Luca’s feet in the sink just to be safe - he’d broken enough glasses in his own childhood to know that shards found their way to the worst places. Then he filled the new glass with water from the sink, carried boy and glass over to one of the room’s twin beds, and sat down with Luca on his lap.

“Here,” Cloud said, holding out the glass.

Luca took it in both hands and drank carefully, still keeping one eye on Cloud from under his long bangs. When the glass was empty, Luca started to reach to set it on the nightstand, then hesitated, throwing a fearful glance at Cloud. It took Cloud a second to realize the boy was worried about dropping the glass again - or more specifically, was worried that Cloud was going to yell at him for risking dropping the glass again.

Making his voice as gentle as he could, Cloud said, “It’s fine. Go ahead.”

Luca hesitated a heartbeat or two longer, then leaned the rest of the way to set the glass carefully on the nightstand. Curling back in on himself, he folded his hands in his lap, his pale hair falling around his face. In a voice so quiet Cloud almost didn’t hear it, he asked, “Do I have to go to the punishment room now?”

Cloud bit back all the questions that jumped to the tip of his tongue: what’s the punishment room? and Hojo punished you for things like that? and what did he do to you? He said, “No. It was an accident. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I should’ve done better,” Luca muttered in a tone that suggested Hojo had told him that, repeatedly and often.

Since Luca was still looking at his own hands like they were the most fascinating things in the world, Cloud let himself roll his eyes. “Accidents happen.”

“Not in Project S,” Luca insisted. “I have to be perfect.”

Cloud shifted Luca on his knee so he could look the boy in the eye. Face to face like this, it was uncomfortably easy to see in the boy the man he would grow up to be - would have grown up to be, if Cloud hadn’t fallen back in time. But Cloud shoved those thoughts aside. The boy sitting in front of him was Luca now. Not Sephiroth, not anymore.

"Hojo’s dead,” Cloud told him. “You don’t have to be perfect anymore. Not for him. Not for anyone.”

Luca stared at him, his slit pupils almost round in the room’s dim light. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

Luca considered that solemnly, then nodded once. His body relaxed, and he snugged into Cloud’s chest. “Can you read me a story again tonight?”

“...Yeah,” Cloud said. “Yeah, I can.”

#sanity replies #ask meme #fanfiction #ffvii #okay look i know it's cliched as fuck #but i got this thought in my head #and then ageofzero encouraged me #and then you asked this #so here you go #1265 words of ffvii timetravel fluff #r3zuri

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theclosetpoet7 · 5 years

Text

Golden Saucer Delights

A CloTi fic by theClosetPoet7

Rating: MA, inspired by our chat group where Senigata gave me an idea to take my inappropriately-worded sentence to the next level. Thank you to Denebola Leo for being my amazing Beta. :D

Summary: "Whew, hot damn, I know I have Shera and all but that Tifa can be sexy." Cloud's eye twitches, resisting the urge to punch the guy. Barret doesn't waste any time in grabbing hold of the pilot's shoulder. "Come again you motherfucker?" [Set during the Original Game]

Perhaps he should berate himself for losing control like this.

Perhaps he should stay away from her for a while lest he ends up scaring her away.

Or perhaps he should just let things be, let his intentions be known so that she doesn't get the wrong idea.

Of course, how could she even think otherwise? When he has only had eyes for her since the beginning. Wasn't their first rough and tumble back in Seventh Heaven proof enough? Hadn't he claimed her as his woman a few nights after he joined AVALANCHE?

But then again, since his date with Aerith the night before, he honestly cannot fault her for avoiding him today. Especially because he had almost taken things too far last night.

Spotting her at the bar, drinking alone after he accompanied the flower girl back to their room, stirred his emotions initially in the same way he has always favored her. But, upon seeing her strained grip on the pink drink she was nursing, and noting the way she had a subtle glare in her scarlet eyes; made the guilt he had been denying come to life. And all he wanted to do was show her that she's the only one.

It's only ever been her.

So he had taken her back to his room, and he had touched her with the intent to go further than what was right. And he had let her feel the want he's been holding back, wanting to be inside her again for it had been too long since that night back in Midgar. Unfortunately though, touching her, as good as it felt, as heavy as the desire to bury himself in her was…touching her, only made him think of the other girl sleeping soundly a few doors away, only made him recall her innocent smile as the fireworks drowned out the words she wanted to say.

He thinks it's the same for Tifa, because she had pulled away and begrudgingly whispered that he had just come from a date.

He wants to tell her that he's sorry but like usual, he couldn't find the right words. What could he say anyway?

Cloud had never felt like a jackass until that night, especially when she snapped her suspenders back in place and left him sitting on the edge of the bed, hips still heated because she had straddled him moments before.

And when she shuts the door without another word, it took all of his strength to not go after her.

That night, his dreams were filled with dark brown strands cascading over smooth shoulders as she resumed her previous stance and rode him the way he wanted her to, in the way that told him that she is his just as much as he is hers.

Today though, she doesn't speak to him. And by not speak, he doesn't mean in the silent treatment kind. She still said good morning, still replied when addressed, but she has closed off her heart in some form. In a way that reminded him of the time he first revealed his connections to Sephiroth.

And she stays away.

She veers off from his side as they walk around the Golden Saucer, marveling at the colorful lights above while Aerith holds onto his arm. Her eyes subtly regarding them is not one he can miss because he had been looking at her the whole day.

The others haven't noticed the tense atmosphere yet. Well, except for Vincent, who while retreating back to his quarters for the night had casually muttered.

"You have some fixing to do." before closing the door in his face.

She's laughing at something Barret said, playfully smacking his arm when she nods her head enthusiastically as they turn the corner and find that game of test of strength. A surge of pride fills him when she breaks the record on the contraption, a silly grin on her face as their gun-wielding member tries to reach her score with just one arm.

Of course, Tifa had the most amount of brute strength out of all of them, except for him of course, who carried an enormous sword the majority of their travels.

She's given a giant chocobo as a prize and she leans down to give it to a little girl who had been watching them shyly. It reminded him of how kind she truly was, and how good she was with children, being the only one Barret trusts to take care of Marlene while they were away on missions, her gentle eyes regarding him with that look of affection when he returns to the bar.

Her legs wrap around his hips as he fucks her behind the counter.

"Cloud?"

Her green eyes peer up at him, some concern there. He shakes his head at the image of him and Tifa back at Seventh Heaven and shifts his attention to the flower girl. She also has that expression of delicate warmth. One that makes him wonder from time to time about how Aerith really feels about him, if he's reading the signals wrong. And it wasn't like he felt nothing for her at all. He might have been interested once. But, Tifa exists. It was that simple fact. Still though, he feels a sense of ease around the last Cetra for she just has that sweet quality about her.

"Is there something you want to do?"

His eyes are directed at Tifa once again, who is smiling widely until she feels his stare on her. There's a hint of emotion in those red orbs, for she quickly averts her attention and has her hands bunching at her pleated skirt, in a way that he's always known means that she's frustrated.

"Cloud?"

"I want to go chocobo racing."

"Oh, how fun!"

Aerith lets go of his arm and scampers off to wrap them around Tifa instead, capturing the others' attention.

"Cloud says he wants to go racing."

"Well, Chappy has been well rested for a while now." Tifa was the one who named their racing bird and she knew as much as he did about taking care of him, coming from a small village where there was a chocobo farm nearby.

He is nervous in her presence, like he is waiting for his mother to give him permission to go play. But she grins instead and instantly warms his heart when she says that it would be fun.

So here they were, standing near the stalls as they prepared Chappy for the race up ahead. The track is painted in its usual rainbow colors, neon lights shining bright and large tv screens flickering with the latest advertisements.

Chappy had already made a name for himself after coming in first several times before and the competition they have tonight isn't anything new. Easy money is all it is.

"Cloud, I've been thinking."

He almost jumps back when Tifa appears by his side, soft hands running over their bird's feathered mane, a light smile on her face when she leans her forehead against its beak.

"What is it?"

He wants to say more, wants to ask more, wants to know what's on her mind, if she is upset with him about last night or if she's okay now. Or if he's been overthinking again.

"Can I do the race tonight?"

She's biting into her lower lip, a careful anticipation evident on her face while she waits for his consent. He is the main racer and owner after all.

"Yeah."

"Really?"

"Of course, Teef."

The happiness in her is enough to help him conclude that it is a good decision to let her do as she pleased. After all, Tifa is always good at what she's doing.

His eye twitches.

"Whew, hot damn, I know I have Shera and all but that Tifa can be sexy."

Cid's words nearly rewards him with a glare and a punch to the face, but Cloud tries with all his might to remain apathetic. Besides, Barret doesn't waste time in grabbing hold of the pilot's shoulder with his very own menacing gaze.

"Come again you motherfucker?"

"Barret! Language!"

Aerith has her hands on her hips, lecturing the two men as they continued their friendly banter, though Barret honestly looked pissed at Cid for even glancing at his surrogate daughter the wrong way.

Cloud doesn't miss the way the other men ogle at her positioned so gracefully atop the chocobo; long lean legs settled with purpose around the saddle, gloves holding the reins with confidence as she bends closer into a racing stance.

He almost breaks the glass he is holding when he gets a peak of her black shorts beneath her leather skirt. Sure he's always seen those tight shorts, she had a knack for kicking monsters, but there was just something about her riding a chocobo that has him all hot and bothered.

"Oh Cloud, your head looks like a chocobo!"

He clenches his fists at the memory of those very words and the fact that she had been all over him last night.

"It's about to start."

Red XIII's voice is almost indistinguishable, what with the way he sets his mind on his childhood friend, mouth dry at the sight of her, heart pumping, because her eyes are focused with absolute determination as she waits for the gunshot to signal the start of the race.

"Tifa is so gonna kill this!"

"I bet she is, those other racers might wanna stay behind on a count of the view they will be having."

"That's it, I'm kicking you out."

"Come on guns, just teasing here."

"The stars say that Miss Tifa is going to lose."

"That just makes me question your validity, kitty cat."

"I believe in Tifa."

Aerith's is the last voice he drowns out when the gun fires, and she's off then, directing Chappy in the way he had taught her before, legs clenching hard when she picks up the speed, hair blowing in the wind and ass…

Wait.

Ass

Ass...

Her pretty ass bouncing, and her breasts, though confined by the sports bra she is donning, tantalizing him with their...liveliness.

Up and down.

and

Down.

Cloud can't seem to think anymore. The spectacle before him is too much. And hearing all the hoots and cheers from the number of men in the stadium, Cloud knows that he isn't the only one.

A hint of possessiveness overcomes him and he couldn't help but focus his eyes on her and only her during the course. Counting the minutes until she crosses the finish line. And she's back here.

With him.

So he can show everyone here that she isn't available.

She wins, of course. But purely based on her skills and not because of what Cid had been implying. She's jumping up and down with excitement, a big grin on her face when they hand her the trophy, running excitedly back towards the team.

"Did you see that? I won! I won!"

Before she can say any more, however, he's taking her hand in his. She must have been caught off guard because she nearly stumbles when he tugs her to him.

"Let's get out of here."

"What?"

"Wuhoo! Get some girl!"

Yuffie must be dead drunk. He doesn't care though, doesn't care about what the others are thinking. He just wants to be alone with her. He pulls the barmaid through the crowd, head set on where he is taking her. Tifa follows him with no fight in her, though she occasionally asks where he's taking her.

But he wants to get there as fast as he can.

He can no longer wait for even a second.

The kiss he gives her is deep and aggressive when he pushes her against the closed door of the room he had rented. She's returning it with equal fervor and wraps a leg around his hip, trapping him to her slim body. Already he is nearly hard for her, so he pushes his desire against her core and smirks when she gasps at the contact.

"Cloud."

"I want to fuck you, Tifa."

He's always been crude when it comes to this act. Coming from soldier, he had been exposed to various profanities and innuendos that gave him ideas about what sex would be like once he eventually had the chance to do it. And he knows she loves it when he uses that word.

"Then fuck me."

She is just as eager for some reason, the event last night probably being one that she has decided on letting go for now. So he kisses her then. And he slides her suspenders off and wastes no time in taking off her white tank top, lips already finding their way to her neck as she grabs his shirt's zipper and pulls it down, exposing his chest and rewarding him with her soft touch as she pries it off him, smoothing her hands over his pectorals and pulling at his neck to direct him to her lips again, fingers tangling in his chocobo locks.

Yes, perhaps he should have more control than this.

But, when she's pushing him onto the bed and she's pulling his pants off, leaving him in his dark blue boxers while she settles her legs over him, Cloud thinks screw control. He had Tifa on him right now. With her long legs mounting him like last night, only that she had already taken off her training shorts underneath.

It is such an erotic sight.

Tifa Lockhart, wearing just her blank tank top and mini-skirt, still in her thigh highs, while he's leaning backwards on his elbows, half-naked and in only his boxers, with so little between them.

He pushes himself up, meeting her cherry lips while he runs his hands over her thighs, rubbing them softly, thrusting his hips once in a while, already hard with want. He puts his hand under her skirt, flicking her through her moistened panties while he pulls one side of her sports bra down, popping out one breast which he takes in his mouth and starts sucking on.

"Hgnn...Cloud."

Her gasps of pleasure encourages his attention and he pulls briefly away to take her whole bra off as he strains his muscles against her hips, pushing up while he continues to touch her.

"Take them off."

"Cloud."

"Take your panties off."

She gets on her feet and bends down, breasts following her movement that only serve to make him rock hard with eagerness, head filled with what is about to happen next.

He backs into the center of the bed and watches her as she follows him and meets his lips once more. His hand angles her chin to him as he probes his tongue deeper and plays with hers until he crosses the point of no return. She is still wearing her pleated skirt, as well as her dark thigh-highs, and it is then when he realizes a new kink he has for her.

"Ride me."

Hands press onto her thighs, stroking her smooth skin as he meets her eyes when he makes the lewd suggestion. She doesn't even shy away from that because the next thing he knows, Tifa is grabbing his boxers and yanking them off of him, taking hold of his hardened cock while she guides it inside her.

"Fuck."

She's always been warm and tight for him, taking his whole shaft while she bites her lips to stop from screaming out his name. When he's completely inside, Cloud grips her hips to prevent her from moving. Because he wants to feel her first, all of her, wants to savor this moment of profound connection.

With her.

Only with her.

So with one hand, he tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, then traces her warm cheeks, her lips, following the path down her middle where he passes the scar between her breasts, onto her belly, until his finger makes contact with the tiny nub he knows is one that brings her immense pleasure; never breaking their eye contact.

He starts rubbing.

"Cloud!"

He lets her move then, and he watches.

Watches as she moves her hips to her own beat, riding him as hard as she could, taking him in and then pulling out only to slam back down before he can fully slip out. He keeps flicking her clit, his grasp on her right thigh tightening when a new wave of pleasure washes over him.

Her hands rest on the headboard behind him, sweat sliding down her forehead and onto her chest while she goes harder and faster, moving to her own release until he could no longer just let her do all the work, so he runs his hands over her waist and thrusts up, assuming an upward jerk that increases the wetness that had engulfed him. He slams his hips up, meeting her again and again, giving in to his desire to claim her, giving her all of him, as much of himself he can give. Fucking her with an animalistic pounding, driving in and out, hard and fast, until something inside her snaps and she suddenly arches into his hard body and opens her arms up to him.

Cloud could not help but accept her embrace, sitting up to return her hold as she quivers around him, grip tightening when he suddenly releases into her. The heat of their mixed fluids teasing the threads of his desire as he pumps her to prolong this feeling of absolute bliss, breaths coming out in harsh pants as they slump against each other.

Yes.

Fuck control.

______________

He watches the rise and fall of her chest. Her face is directed to the other side but he knows she's already awake. Last night's tryst has given him courage, so he doesn't stop himself from reaching out to her, gently pulling her against him while greedily resting his front between her butt cheeks and kissing her shoulders as he laces their fingers together.

Tifa accepts his touch and leans further into him.

"About the other night." He starts.

"Mm."

She shakes her head, and he pictures a sexually satisfied smile on her face when she does this.

"I'm sorry, though."

She tightens her hold on his fingers.

"It was just a date."

He buries his face in her hair, rewarding himself with the smell of her cherry shampoo.

"But I wanted it to be you."

He suddenly feels her stiffen, and if it wasn't for the way he loved the position they are in right now, Cloud would have rolled her onto her back so he could see her face. He gives her the time to reply, strong thighs pressing closer to her when his embrace becomes more intimate.

She kisses his fingers...

"Then take me out next time."

AN: For shame, oh my goodness, the inner pervert is winning today. Thank you for reading!

#cloti #cloti fanfiction #cloti fanfic #cloud x tifa

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theangelssecondwing · 4 years

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Chapter 14

„Genetic… experiments?“ My mouth was hanging open from what Sephiroth and Angeal had been telling me. „Shinra‘s scientists experimented on unborn children? And Genesis was one of these children?!“

„Hollander did. We do not know just how involved the company itself was in the experiments“, Angeal corrected me. „And Genesis isn‘t the only… result of these experiments.“

„Who else?“

Sephiroth met my gaze, and in a barely noticable notion, he tilted is head in Angeal‘s direction.

I looked to Angeal, eyes widened. „No way!“

He got up and walked over to the window, arms crossed and looking out into the overcast sky. „I hope it does not make you think any less of me.“

„Of course not!“ I got up as well, absolutely appalled. „You are the victim in this situation! And so is Genesis! This is so messed up!“

„I really don‘t appreciate being called a victim, you know“, he replied flatly.

I sighed and looked off to the side. „Sorry.“

„But thank you for your sympathy.“ He turned around again. „We met Genesis and Hollander in that lab. The state of degradation Genesis was in was appearantly due his genetical code being extremely unstable after Hollander messed around with it so much in-utero. Now Genesis is doing Hollander‘s bidding because he believes that Hollander knows how to cure him… and would be willing to do so.“

Yui had been quiet the entire time, just staring at her folded hands in her lap. „My poor Genesis“, she mumbled finally. Then her hands tensed up into fists. „Hollander will pay for this. All of this.“

„As we have established before.“ Sephiroth crossed his arms in front of his chest. „However, right now we have to make sure that Genesis survives. That is our biggest priority at the moment. Once we made sure that he is safe, then we can stop Hollander and anyone who was also involved in these experiments.“

„But how does one fix messed up DNA?“, Yui asked doubtfully.

„We‘ll have to find out.“ Angeal sounded absolutely determined. „And we will. Our next step is-“ He was interrupted by both his and Sephiroth‘s cellphone going off at the same time. They picked up and listened for a moment.

Then they exchanged an alarmed glance.

„We‘re on our way“, Sephiroth promised, and they both hung up. Then he turned to Yui and me. „The Shinra building is under attack. We‘ll go and take care of it. You-“

„I‘m coming too“, I said, jumping up. „My dad is in there!“

„Too dangerous“, Sephiroth replied. He cupped my face in his hands. „You‘ll be safe as long as you stay here. Don‘t worry about your father. I‘ll protect him.“ Then he kissed my forehead.

„Sephiroth.“ I grabbed the sleeves of his mantle, digging my nails into the smooth leather.

„I‘ll be fine“, he promised again. Once I let go, he looked up to Angeal. „Ready?“

„Let‘s go.“

They left, leaving Yui and me alone.

„What a mess“, I sighed and sat down. „But I guess this is what we signed up for when we started dating our boyfriends.“

„Indeed“, Yui replied and sat down next to me. After a short moment of silence she added:„Am I the only one who doesn‘t feel like sitting around waiting for the guys to get back?“

„No, but Sephiroth is right. It is too dangerous.“

„I know that.“ Yui‘s hands were curled into fists. „But… Genesis might also be there. And my mom? I have nobody to protect her for me!“

I remained quiet for a little. Would we even be in danger? Certainly, Genesis wouldn‘t attack us, if he was the one responsible for the attack, would he? „I… I guess it would be okay if we go to check out the situation. Maybe the attack is already over. And… I am really worried about my dad.“

Yui grabbed my hand and smiled at me gratefully. „I knew you‘d understand.“

The foyer was in ruins when we entered it. The guards were all occupied with the invading forces; both machines and men with all too familiar reddish-brown hair peeking out from under their helmets. Luckily, nobody, neither friend nor foe, really paid attention to us as we hurried up the stairs and to the elevator.

Yui hit the button to the floor both my dad and her mother had their offices in, and we caught our breaths as the elevator zoomed upward. What expected us when the door opened again was sheer pandemonium. Secretaries as well as their bosses were scrambling for safety from the attackers. Mostly machines. Some people were already down, leaving small pools of blood dotted around the usually immaculate floors. Knocked out or dead?

We didn‘t have time to check. Some of these people had dropped their guns, and we each grabbed one.

Even though it was common for people of our social class to carry firearms for self-defense, I had never even considered arming myself. The weapon was heavy and still warm from being recently used.

A shrill, ear-piercing shriek echoed through the corridor, and Yui and I rushed towards the sound. We found Justine cornered by one of the small security drones Shinra usually employed. I took aim, hoping I would hit. The recoil of the weapons felt like it would dislocate my shoulder, but the shot at least hit the target, which fell apart.

Not exactly quality craftsmenship, these drones, I thought.

Justine looked up at me and slowly tried to get to her feet, only for her high heeled shoes to slip and her to land on her behind again. She glared at me. „Don‘t think that this changes anything. You could save my life a thousand times and I still wouldn‘t forgive you for taking Sephiroth from me.“

„Whatever. I don‘t care“, I replied. „Come on, Yui. My dad-“

„Your father is on the presidential floor with my father and Mrs. Yuuji“, Justine interrupted me. „I just didn‘t make it to the elevater in time and then was cornered by this thing.“ She pointed to the remains of the drone.

„Hey!“, another voice rang over to us. A voice I recognized as Zack. „Everything alright over there?“ He came sprinting over, briefly slipping on a blood puddle but regaining his balance and making it the rest of the way to us.

„Zack!“ I turned to him. „Zack, where‘s Sephiroth?“

„After he evacuated everyone important and brought them to the president‘s office, we found out that Genesis actually came here to kill Hojo, so he‘s on his way to the laboratories. I just wanted to check up on this floor before going there too, so don‘t worry.“

„Then that‘s where we‘re going, too“, Yui said firmly. „I have something to say to Genesis.“

„What? No, that‘s too dangerous! I don‘t want to know what Sephiroth is going to do to me if he finds out I let his girlfriend and her friend but themselves in danger!“

„But we aren‘t in danger while you are with us, are we, Zack?“, I asked, doing my best to sound cheerful despite this mess of a situation. „If you don‘t let us come with you, we will go on our own. THEN we‘re really in danger.“

He slumped over slightly. „Aw, come on.“

„Don‘t worry. If Sephiroth gets mad, we‘ll accept full responsibility.“ I patted him on the shoulder.

Zack, Yui and I jumped out of the elevator as soon as the doors opened, and we ran down the corridor to the laboratory. An uncomfortable shiver went up my spine when I saw the glass door, still shattered from when Sephiroth and Angeal broke in to save me.

Easy, Cora, I reminded myself. Deep breaths. This is different.

Nobody was forcing me to be here right now. Except maybe my own recklessness.

We rushed through, and there was Genesis, his sword already pointed at Hojo‘s back. Hojo seemed completely unperturbed by this, but was just droning on and on about him being smarter than Hollander. I wasn‘t really paying that much attention to him. My focus was more on Yui, who rushed forward.

„Genesis!“

He turned his head, and his eyes widened for a split second. „Yui. Cora.“ He shook his head. „My friend, the fates are cruel. There are no dreams, no honor remains.“ That wasn‘t directed at us, but to Sephiroth and Angeal who stepped out of the elevator at that moment.

Yui was shaking. „..The arrow has left the bow of the Goddess. Genesis. There has to be another way. You don‘t have to do Hollander‘s bidding. Please. Come home.“

„Home?“ Genesis closed his eyes. „Was this here ever...‘home‘?“ He looked at her, and a small, sad smile appeared on his face. „Maybe it is. You have changed so much for me, Yui. But I fear that I cannot return. Hollander is the only one who can cure me. And to make sure that he will help me… I have to kill Hojo.“

I sighed. „I will hate myself for saying this, but… don‘t. Hollander has no intention of honoring his word. He is just using you. Genesis, we‘re your friends. Why won‘t you let us help?“

He looked away. „Hasn‘t Shinra already decided my fate? That I am to be put down like a dog that has outlived its usefullness?“

I bit my lip. I couldn‘t say that yes, Shinra had decided that he needed to be dealt with but no, we would not let that happen. Not while Hojo was listening.

Sephiroth grabbed my arm and pulled me behind him. „You know us well enough. And you know where our loyalties lie.“

Genesis stood silent for a moment. Then the corners of his mouth twitched upwards ever so slightly. „I see.“ His hand glew with channeled magic, which he aimed at a wall, the explosion ripping a decently sized hole into it. „I hope I will see you again soon. My friends.“ Then he jumped, the huge black wing again carrying him as safely as if he had two.

#The Angel's Second Wing #fanfiction #selfship fic

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where-the-wilds-things-are · 5 years

Text

Wild Meets Wild Chapter Four

“Come, we are already behind, we can speak more once we are in the camp,” ordered Lionheart. Without pausing, he and Whitestorm leaped away into the undergrowth. Rusty jumped to his paws and followed as quickly as he could. Princess and Smudge followed right next to him.

The two warriors seemed like they wanted to test their endurance, since they made no allowances for the trio at all. Thankfully, Wintergreen's walking them had made Rusty and Princess used to going far distances, and they kept with the swift pace. Smudge’s heartbeat was fast, but he otherwise showed no discomfort during their journey.

They leaped over fallen trees with a single bound, and Rusty was thankful that he had such long legs. They passed through sharply fragrant pine trees, where they had to jump across deep gullies churned up by what looked like came from an excavator machine. One gully was very wide and was half-filled with slimy water which made his nose curl. Lionheart and Whitestorm waded through without hesitating.

While getting their paws wet was something they usually enjoyed since they swam in Smudge’s pool, Rusty wished that it was clear water that didn't stink like a dumpster. Lifting his head so PK’s tail wouldn’t get wet, he waded through. The water barely touched his belly fur. Hopefully, once they were settled, he could ask Bluestar if they had any bodies of water they could take a dip in.

At last Lionheart and Whitestorm paused and Rusty and the others came to a halt. His lungs slightly burned, but in good way that made him want to do this again once he rested. Whitestorm and Lionheart stepped on a rock that rested before a small ravine.

“We are very close to our camp now. Stonefoot should be here with the others,” meowed Lionheart.

Rusty pricked his ears to see if he could hear them throughout the forest floor. Various scents tickled his nose. Then he picked up Penumbra’s scent, along with the others and some he didn’t recognize. That must be ThunderClan.

Princess squinted her eyes. “I smell cats, lots of cats.”

Lionheart nodded his head in approval. “Good. Very good. Those are your potential future clan mates.”

Smudge looked curiously ahead. “Will Stonefoot be in the camp, or will they wait for us outside?”

Whitestorm looked at the black-and-white tom. “Stonefoot is close to the entrance, it would be better if the Clan saw you all at once, so they can know just you three want to join the Clan.”

“There will come a time, if you are accepted into the Clan, when you will know each cat-scent by name,” Lionheart meowed. “Follow me!” He led the way nimbly down the boulders to the bottom of the ravine, where Stonefoot, Penumbra, Sephiroth, and Johnny were waiting for them.

Stonefoot rose to his paws. “I take it that they handled our territory well?”

The two warriors nodded. “They handled it nicely. If they pass, ThunderClan will be graced with three new additions,” answered Whitestorm.

In front of them was a thick patch of gorse, with scents and voices floating out of it. Lionheart cleared his throat as he looked at the foreign cats. “Now, we are about to enter camp. Some cats will look at you, some will whisper about you, or even both. They have never seen felines like you before, nor have they seen the things you are holding. Please, don’t take it the wrong way.”

“So we’ll be gawked by the peanut-gallery then. Nothing I’m not used to," meowed Penumbra as she got up with a grunt. Lionheart just sighed and pushed himself through the gorse tunnel. Whitestorm followed, and he turned to beckon with his tail for the rest to follow. Rusty went first, then Smudge, Princess, Penumbra, Sephiroth, Johnny, and finally Stonefoot at the rear.

As he had to lower himself to fit, his sides scraping against the prickly gorse, Rusty looked down and noticed that the grass beneath his paws was flattened into a broad, strong-smelling track. This must be the main entrance into the camp, he thought.

Beyond the gorse, a clearing opened up. The ground at the center was bare, hard earth, shaped by many generations of pawsteps. This camp had been here for a long time. The clearing was dappled by sunshine, and the air felt warm and still.

Rusty looked around, his eyes wide. There were cats everywhere, sitting alone or in groups, sharing food or purring quietly as they groomed one another.

“Damn, you guys got a whole community set up here!” whispered Johnny. His blue eyes were wide as he took in deep whiffs of air. Penumbra actually seemed overwhelmed. Whatever she thought the Clans lived like, this wasn’t it. Sephiroth made a noise behind the blanket in his mouth. Total amazement was on his face, and he nearly stumbled as he fully took in the sights.

Rusty felt like he was about to explode. They were finally here!

“Just after sun-high, when the day is hottest, is a time for sharing tongues,” Lionheart explained.

“Sharing tongues?” echoed Smudge. “You mean groom each other?" The Turkish Angora was silently bouncing from paw to paw, his whiskers shaking madly. Princess’ tail was wagging, and she was holding back from making chirping sounds. It was something they both did when they were excited.

“If that is what you call it, then yes. Clan cats always spend time grooming each other and sharing the news of the day,” Whitestorm told him. “We call it sharing tongues. It is a custom that binds the members of the Clan together.”

It seemed like the cats had obviously smelled the foreign scents of Rusty and the others, for heads began to turn and stare curiously in their direction. Some blinked in shock at the gaggle of cats, and softly murmured to the cats near them.

Rusty suddenly felt shy; back home nearly every cat was used to him and Princess. Now feeling stares heat his pelt made him squirm. He looked around the clearing. It was edged with thick grass, dotted with tree stumps and a fallen tree. A thick curtain of ferns and gorse shielded the camp from the woods.

Turning his head, he swiveled his ears toward the bushes. He couldn’t see through the knot of prickly branches, but he could hear the mewling of several kittens from somewhere inside. As he watched, a ginger she-cat squirmed out through a small gap in the front. That must be one of the queens, Rusty thought.

A tabby queen with distinctive black markings appeared around the bramble bush. The two she-cats exchanged a friendly lick between the ears before the tabby slipped inside the nursery, murmuring to the squealing kits.

“The care of our kits is shared by all of the queens,” meowed Lionheart. “All cats serve the Clan. Loyalty to the Clan is the first law in our warrior code, a lesson you must learn quickly if you wish to stay with us.”

“What is the Warrior Code?” asked Johnny. The others looked on curiously.

This time it was Whitestorm that answered. “It is a series of Laws that all Clans must follow. For example, kits must wait until sixth moons to become apprentices”.

Rusty quickly filed that away in his mind.

“Here comes Bluestar,” meowed Stonefoot, sniffing the air. Rusty sniffed the air too and was pleased that he was able to recognize the scent of the gray she-cat a moment before she appeared from the shadow of a large boulder that lay beside them at the head of the clearing.

“They came," she meowed. She then took stock of the other cats, and surprise flashed in her eyes. “Care to explain why we have unknown visitors here, along with what look likes things from two-leg place?”

She then stared at Rusty, Princess, and Smudge’s necks. “You somehow removed your bindings to your owners? Good, that can ease some cats into seeing that you are willing to leave your previous life behind."

Whitestorm addressed his leader, yellow eyes meeting blue-green. “These cats wanted to say goodbye to their friends, and offered to help carry gifts for the Queens and Elders.” Lowering his voice, he whispered, “Bluestar, we have much to discuss on what we saw later in your Den. One of them is about how they snapped their collars.”

Bluestar eyes widened, then narrowed. “I see then. Well, what do you think of them, Lionheart? You were convinced that they would want to stay over the fence.”

“I admit that I was wrong. They kept up with us with no complaints, even while carrying those things in their jaws. Oh, and Bluestar, this one,” he pointed to Smudge with his tail, “wants to train as a Medicine Cat.”

“It’s true, I’ll listen to my mentor if you honor me with this position,” mewed Smudge, who dipped his head.

“Spottedleaf does need an apprentice…” Shaking her head, she looked at the hopeful tom’s eyes. “If she accepts you, then you can walk the path of medicine."

Smudge bowed his head. “Thank you, Bluestar. I will not let this Clan down if she does."

“Then I shall announce their arrival to the Clan.” Bluestar leaped up onto the boulder and yowled, “Let all those cats old enough to catch their own prey join here beneath the Highrock for a Clan meeting.”

Her clear call brought all the cats trotting toward her, emerging like liquid shadows from the edges of the clearing. Rusty stayed where he was, flanked by his friends and the two Clan cats. The other cats settled themselves below the Highrock and looked expectantly up at their leader. He could feel their gazes burn in their direction, and then he heard the whispers fully as they carried over the otherwise silent hearing.

“Look at the size of those two!”

“Leopardshine had kits?!”

“That cat has four ears!”

“What is that tom in? The back of the weird thing has monster paws."

“I wish my fur was that silky and long."

“They smell of two-leg place! And those things beside them carry the same scent."

“Three of them have collar’s in their jaws, and the rest have collars around their necks. They’re kitty pets!”

“Are we really going to ignore the fact that Whitestorm, Lionheart, and those three next to them smell of dog slobber?”

Rusty felt a rush of relief as he recognized Graypaw’s thick gray fur among the cats. Beside him sat a she-cat that heavily looked like Bluestar, her tail curled over her paws. A large, dark gray tabby crouched behind them, the black stripes on his fur looking like shadows on a moonlit forest floor.

When the cats were still, Bluestar spoke. “ThunderClan needs more warriors,” she began. “Never before have we had so few apprentices in training. It has been decided that ThunderClan will take in two outsiders to train as warriors. The other wants to learn the way of healing. They have also broken their collars that bound them to their owners to prove their loyalty." Bluestar let the Clan take in what she had said, then continued.

“As for these other cats beside them, they have come to say goodbye to their companions, and even brought gifts for the Elders and Kits." As she said this, excited squeals came from the Nursery.

Rusty heard some indignant mutterings erupt among the Clan cats, but Bluestar silenced them with a firm yowl. “I have found cats who are willing to become apprentices of ThunderClan. One is willing to become Spottedleaf’s apprentice, unless someone else is willing to train under her?”

“Lucky to become apprentices,” caterwauled a loud voice above the ripple of shock that spread through the cats.

Rusty turned and saw a pale tabby cat standing up and glaring defiantly at the leader.

Bluestar ignored the tabby and addressed all of her Clan. “Lionheart and Whitestorm have met these young cats, and they agree with me that we should train them with the other apprentices.”

Rusty looked up at Lionheart, then back at the Clan, to find all eyes were on him, Princess, and Smudge now. As one, they met many gazes that were on them. They knew that if they showed any weakness by trembling, or smelled of fear-scent, that they might not be able to join if the clan found them to be scaredy cats.

Now a deafening crescendo of caterwauling rose from the crowd.

“Those two look weird with those big ears!”

“An outsider sharing tongues with StarClan? Outrageous!”

“Why should we accept things from them? It can make us soft!”

Rusty growled low in his throat and shared a look with Princess. The fur was standing up on the back of her neck, and her tail swished angrily. Smudge actually had a hard glint in his eyes, his gaze on a brown tom next to a ginger she-cat.

Penumbra had a thunderous expression on her face, with Sephiroth and Johnny holding back hisses. Be the better cat Rusty, be the better cat… He wanted to spit that the clan was not helping the image that some of the city cats had of them but bit his tongue.

Then one yowl, in particular, sounded out above the rest. “As I said before, they have collars! No matter if they took them off, or that two of them are big. Once a kitty pet, always a kitty pet. This Clan needs wild-born cats. Not soft mouths that probably haven’t even tasted a mouse."

Lionheart hissed into their direction, “That’s Lizardtail, he wants you to be fearful. Are you going to let him degrade the three of you and your friends in front of the Clan?”

Then a dark tabby spoke up, his voice full of hostility. “Kitty pets have no right to step paw in the forest. Let alone in the camp! Training them will cost us valuable time, and they’ll eat all of our prey without working for it! Everyone knows that kitty pets are lazy and slow."

Some cats howled in agreement, while others were silent. Waiting for them to respond to both of the tabby’s remarks.

“Bluestar! Let me lead a group to chase these jokes out of the Clan! We don’t need them, and we don't need their stinking gifts either,” yowled the dark tabby.

Rusty was about to say something, but Penumbra, whose patience had worn thin, hissed loudly at the two. The pair blinked at the sudden aggression.

“Shut the fuck up, right now. You reek of foul odor. Did you have a threeway with skunks and use a septic tank for your jacuzzi? It speaks volumes that the two of you taunt cats who are younger than you. That’s real mature. Also, that’s funny how you call us jokes, since you,” she looked at the dark tabby, “look like Stripe’s long lost brother from the movie Gremlins. On top of your birth being a joke, I feel sorry for your parents, unless you appeared out of thin air smelling of disappointment and bad breath."

Turning her face to Lizardtail, she continued with her verbal thrashing. “As for you, your voice is akin to a bunch of chainsaws mating. Loudly. I wonder how not one cat in your Clan didn’t starve to death with your unwanted talking scaring prey away. And why the hate on kitty pets hmm? Did someone’s dad go out for some catnip and didn’t come back?”

Resounding silence echoed from the clearing.

Lizardtail’s eyes grew big as goose eggs at Penumbra’s words. The dark tabby recoiled, his ears actually flat when the she-cat unleashed her anger on him. The clan cats in front of them had reactions that varied from sheer shock to anger and even amusement. Stonefoot failed to hold back his laughter but quieted himself when Whitestorm nudged him.

“So, it seems like this kitty pet has teeth, don’t you think Lizardtail? Darkstripe?” mewed Whitestorm. The tom had watched as Penumbra tore into the two warriors, and while he had a slightly disapproving look in his eyes, he didn’t stop her either.

The tom now called Darkstripe yowled in anger. “How dare you speak to your betters like that? I’ll shred those freaky ears of yours to pieces!” he spat.

Lizardtail had gotten over his shock, and a truly furious look, along with something else came into his eyes. “You’ll pay for that starving comment.” The silver tom had gone into a crouch, showing sharp teeth.

“You can try!” spat Rusty. He wasn’t going to let Thing One and Thing Two hurt Penumbra for standing up for them. Obviously taking the high road was now out of the question. Sure, he still wanted to join the Clan, but he would not roll over and let them say stuff like that to their faces.

“Count me in as well. After all, surely wild-cats can beat us lowly kitty pets,” said Princess. Her were paws planted into the ground, the tips of her claws peeking out.

“I’ll show them how stupid it is to think you are weak just because you're born across a fence. If they want to go, then we can go,” hissed Penumbra. Her blue and yellow eyes were fixed on the dark tabby tom, who seethed.

“It seems like these three want to fight you two,” said Bluestar from her perch. Looking at Smudge and Sephiroth, she asked: “Do you want to join in too?”

Sephiroth sneered as he saw Lizardtai and Darkstripe. “I don’t fight with basic cats.”

Smudge shook his head, his expression hard. “I believe in my friends. Besides, it’s like what Sephiroth said. No need to fight basic cats who act like little she-dogs.”

Johnny howled. “Kick their asses up and down the clearing you three!”

As soon as the words left his mouth, the three shot forward was one. Rusty crashed into Lizardtail, knocking him over. The two rolled on the ground as Princess and Pen tag-teamed Darkstripe.

Rusty hissed as he felt claws sink into his fur. Biting Lizardtail’s ear, he tossed him off with his hind legs. The tom was sent stumbling back, and Rusty headbutted him in the chest, something similar to what he did to Graypaw last night. Wheezing, the pale tabby claw’s scratched his cheek, making it sting. Having enough, Rusty jumped over his opponent and grabbed his throat with his forepaws, pulling him close.

Rusty had seen this move on the television when James watched humans fight each other in costumes on a raised square. Wrapping his paws around Lizardtaik’s neck, he started to apply pressure. The tabby gasped and started to struggle. His paws kicked the air as he tried to toss Rusty off.

Meanwhile, Darkstripe shrieked as Princess clawed his nose. He stepped back to Penumbra, who sprung her trap. Getting on her hind legs, she put her forelegs around his body. She then lifted him up and arch her back, causing his head to slam into the ground. When she released him, Darkstripe barely had the chance to groan before Princess jumped up and slammed her entire body weight on him.

Rusty’s grip on Lizardtail remained firm, and the tom began to sputter. “L-l-let me go!” The tom weakly tried to toss him off, but Rusty let out a threatening hiss. “Not until you apologize to Penumbra and the others.”

The pale tabby tried to wiggle free one last time, and after a moment of hesitating, mewed softly. “I’m sorry!” he wheezed. Instantly, Rusty let him go. Lizardtail stumbled forward and took great big gulps of air.

“That’s enough.” Bluestar’s voice sliced through the air. Princess clicked her tongue as she let go of the painful-looking hold she had Darkstripe in, who flopped to the ground. Penumbra also stopped her head butt charge into the tom’s stomach, coming to a halt as she watched the tom slowly rolled to his side.

At once, Bluestar leaped down from the Highrock and silenced the noisy crowd with a thunderous caterwaul. Rusty and Lizardtail remained fixed to the spot, gasping for breath. Rusty felt stinging from his cheek and above his eye, and his blood pumped hot through his veins. If this was what fighting felt like, even if it was a scuffle, then maybe he can finally understand Penumbra when she said it was thrilling. Lizardtail had a bad cut on his left ear, and blood dripped down his lean shoulders onto the dusty ground. They stared at each other, their hostility not yet spent.

Penumbra and Princess had minor scratches, and Darkstripe had a tuft of fur missing from his tail, causing pink skin to show from the tip. Judging by the triumphant look on the Chimera's face, it was obvious it was her that did it. Darkstripe’s pale yellow eyes burned with malice as he watched Penumbra slowly flick dark fur off her tongue, making full eye contact when she did it.

Bluestar stepped forward. “These three have won their battles for their honor. This has to be a sign from StarClan—they approve of them joining ThunderClan! And since they show that they know some unknown battle moves, training them to their full potential won’t be a waste of time.” She meowed with authority.

Rusty and Princess looked at Bluestar and solemnly nodded their acceptance. Penumbra flicked her ears, and behind them, Smudge, Sepiroth, and Johnny beamed with pride. He stood up and stepped forward into a shaft of sunshine, welcoming the warmth on his sore muscles. The pool of light blazed brightly on his golden-red spotted coat, making his fur glow. Rusty lifted his head proudly and looked at the cats that surrounded him. This time no cat argued or jeered. They stared at them with wide eyes. They had shown that kitty pets can fight, and shown themselves to be a worthy opponent in battle.

Bluestar approached Rusty and Princess and placed the shredded collars that she got from Lionheart on the ground in front of them. Quickly, they both lowered their heads, and she gently touched their ears with her nose. “You look like a brand of fire in this sunlight,” she murmured. Her eyes flashed briefly as if her words had more meaning for her than Rusty knew. Turning to Princess, she smiled. “You leaped like a deer in that battle, and with those spots on your back, you can say that you are part fawn.”

“You have fought well. All of you.” Then she turned to the Clan and announced, “From this day forward and until they have earned their warrior names, these apprentices will be called Firepaw and Deerpaw. In honor of his flame-colored coat, and her leaping like the deer."

She stepped back and, with the other cats, waited silently for their next move. Without hesitating, they both turned and kicked and kicked dust and grass over the collars as though burying their dirt. Inwardly, Firepaw was happy to see it go. Constance proudly told others that they were from “Gucci," but to him, it was annoying when it pinched his neck when he turned his head.

Bluestar then turned her head to Penumbra. “While I disapprove of how you talked to my Warriors, you fought like a Lioness from LionClan. You even did battle moves that I had never seen before. If you wanted to join, I would have proudly given you an apprentice name."

Penumbra looked at her in surprise. “Thanks. I heard stories from my mother, who told me that her great-great-grandmother fought off a tom from this Clan when she was still nursing. After hearing that, I didn’t have a good view of any forest cats. But now, I can see that there are unpleasant cats everywhere,” she meowed.

Gasps sounded off throughout the Clan. Firepaw stared at his two-toned friend. He never knew that her ancestor was attacked by a cat from here when she was still feeding her kits!

“But, there are also good cats everywhere too. And that’s life. There will be good and bad felines out there. And I know that Smudge and the others are in good paws, despite a few nuisances." Penumbra shook her head and licked her chest.

Bluestar hummed. “I’m am sorry that happened to your family, and if he was still around, I would have banished him for his cowardly actions."

Penumbra purred. “It’s fine. She left him bleeding from his neck, and he fled back to the forest. Apparently, he called himself Oakstar as if that was going to help win him the fight. Clearly, he underestimated her."

Firepaw ears prickled at the now storm of gasps and whispers. Was this Oakstar related to Pinestar? They both had tree-related names. But these reactions were a bit more intense. Maybe he was a controversial cat? Lionheart furiously whispered to Whitestorm, whose eyes widened.

Penumbra and the others were taken aback at this too. Sephiroth whispered to Johnny’s ear and Firepaw overhead what was being said. “What kind of name is Oakstar? Sounds like something a human male would call himself in one of those films that Sophia watches when she thinks no one is around."

A yowl escaped from Bluestar’s throat. The whispers stopped, and she sighed. “I apologize for my Clan, they are very excitable when it comes to gossip about previous leaders.”

Looking at the other two toms, she nodded her head. “Thank you for bringing these gifts." She flung her head to the pile. "I will make sure that it will be put to good use.”

Sephiroth stepped forward. “It was a pleasure, ma’am.” Sighs from a few she-cats echoed out when they heard the tom’s deep voice.

Longtail growled and limped out of the clearing toward a fern-shaded corner, followed by Darkstripe. The dark tom turned to Penumbra with a wilting stare, before going into an entrance. The cats split into groups, murmuring to each other excitedly.

“Hey, Firepaw! Deerpaw!”

Firepaw heard Graypaw’s friendly voice behind him. Firepaw! A thrill of pride surged through him at the sound of his new name. He turned to greet the gray apprentice with a welcoming sniff.

“That fight was amazing! I had never seen those moves before, and I learn from Lionheart! And when that she-cat, Pomumba, not only talked to two warriors like that but actually tossed Darkstripe my jaw nearly hit the floor.”

“The name is Penumbra, but that was your first try, so I won’t hold that against you.” Graypaw jumped and spun around. Said she-cat was behind him, amusement on her face. Sepiroth and Johnny came beside them. Smudge was nowhere to be seen.

Deerpaw looked for their black-and-white friend. “Where’s Smudge?”

Johnny turned his head to the place where Lizardtail and Darkstripe went into. “I saw him go in there after those two got bodied, but he did dump out all of those toys beside the blankets before doing so.”

Sure enough, they could see the toy mice, balls, and stuffed animals next to PK Thunder and Bonnie. Stonefoot stood guard over it to keep any curious cats from getting close to it.

Graypay trembled in excitement. “I wouldn’t want to be the cat who met you on the battlefield! And I thought Sandpaw had biting words.” Turning to Deerpaw, he added, “That hold looked painful, where did you learn that?” Finally, he turned to Firepaw. “Lizardtail’s ear got torn, that’ll rattle him up real good, along with Darkstripes tail.”

More cats seemed to assemble around the group.

“Greetings. Firepaw. Deerpaw."

“Firepaw. Deerpaw!”

“You fought extremely well for someone who came from outside the Clans. You would have made an excellent warrior.”

“Do you know of a cat named Leopardshine by chance?”

“Hey, can you tell me how you got your fur so silky and soft looking?”

“If you don’t mind me asking, why are you in that thing? Does it help you walk?”

Firepaw and the others were overwhelmed by the questions. Luckily for them, Lionheart came over to shoo them away.

“If you want to, you can get those cuts checked out in Spottedleaf’s den,” the golden tom said. The tiny cuts near Firepaw’s eye and cheek stung, and he licked his paw to rub them in an attempt to soothe them.

“I’ll go in once those two leave, thanks Lionheart,” replied Deerpaw. She seemed to take in the sights with Penumbra and Sephiroth.

The curtain of ferns trembled before Lizardtail skulked out of it. His ear had stopped bleeding, and it seemed to be wrapped up in spider-webs. His gaze was low, and he went under a bush near a nettle patch without a word. Darkstripe was next, and he glared at everything before sitting by a tree stump. His tail was also wrapped in spider-webs, and he glowered at the group before he curled up and looked away.

Deerpaw curiously looked on. “So they use webs as bandages here?”

“Wow. I never have seen Darkstripe that angry… Then again, I’ve never seen him happy either," said Graypaw.

Firepaw had to agree. The dark tabby seemed like he was born bitter at the world, though maybe him teasing his friends played a part in his thinking.

A pretty tortoiseshell she-cat padded out of the ferns, followed by Smudge. The tom bounded towards them, a happy expression on his face. “She said yes! She said yes! I’ll be getting my name tomorrow!” Slowing down to breathe, he went on. “Thank you for believing in me. All of you.”

Firepaw and Deerpaw cheered. “Way a go Smudge. We know you can do it.” Penumbra butted his shoulder with her nose and purred. “I hope that you live your dream to be the best doctor that no one ever was, Smudge.”

“Don’t forget to wash your paws,” teased Johnny.

“I hope that you succeed in your training,” Sephiroth replied.

“Hello there, can I please ask you two questions?” The group turned to see the same tortoiseshell she-cat standing there with her amber eyes looking at Penumbra and Johnny. This must be Spottedleaf, the Medicine Cat that the Clans talked about, thought Firepaw.

“Umm, okay?” answered Johnny. Confusion swam in his expression.

“I have heard of cats having injured or even broken backs, and dying of lungs being filled with liquid. But you seem fine, and that weird contraption seems to aide you so you can actually walk! If you don’t mind me asking, can you feel your back legs at all? Or is it just numb?”

Firepaw and the others shared a glance with each other, before waiting for Johnny’s reaction.

Said bi-colored tom was taken by surprise but answered the she-cat’s questions. “My owners took me to the vet to get this," he motioned to his wheelchair with his head. “I can barely feel them but that doesn’t stop me from trying to move them with the help of my owners and the vet." Johnny then walked around the group, the wheels making faint trails as he completed the circle.

“Fascinating, if only Mudfur and the others were here to see this! Two-legs actually made something for paralyzed cats that can have them move without dragging their bodies!” Spottedleaf stared at the wheels and shook her head. “By StarClan, if only us Medicine Cats can come somewhere close to making this, it can help so many cats in the future!”

She then turned to Penumbra. “Can you hear out of your second pair of ears? They seem like they are not attached to your skull."

Penumbra shook her head. “I was born like this, but can’t hear out of the second pair. I think they are just growths or something. But I have heard of another cat like me, forgot his name though."

Smudge answered for her. “I think it’s Yoda. You know, the green one from those space movies."

Sephiroth yawned. “You mean that one where that human kissed his si—Ow!”

Deerpaw swiped him on his tail. “Don’t confuse her with something that isn’t prevalent, Seph."

Spottedleaf was about to ask what Sephiroth meant when a warning yowl came from an old gray cat sitting at the edge of the clearing.

“Smallear smells trouble!” Graypaw meowed, immediately alert.

Firepaw jumped. He was so entrenched into the conversation that he forgot that the grey tabby was still beside him. Firepaw barely had time to look around before a young cat crashed through the bushes and into the camp. He was skinny and—apart from the white tip of his long, thin tail and dashes of white on his face and chest—he was jet black from head to toe.

Graypaw gasped. “That’s Ravenpaw! Why is he alone? Where’s Tigerclaw and the others?”

Penumbra looked at the scene in alarm. “What's going on? Why is he panting like he just came out of a marathon?”

Firepaw looked at Ravenpaw staggering across the floor of the clearing. He was panting heavily. His coat was ruffled and dusty, and his eyes were wild with fear.

“Ravenpaw’s an apprentice. Tigerclaw’s his mentor,” Graypaw explained quickly. “Ravenpaw went out with Tigerclaw, Nightsong, and Redtail at sunrise on a mission against RiverClan, the lucky furball!”

“Redtail?” Firepaw echoed, thoroughly confused by all these names.

“Nightsong?” asked Deerpaw. She sounded just as puzzled as he was.

“RiverClan? Is there an EarthClan too?” Smudge muttered as he tried to get a good look.

Johnny's forelegs tensed as he watched the spectacle in front of them. “With all of these names, you’d think you’ll find them on some MMO game."

“Bluestar’s deputy is Redtail. I’ll explain the others later,” hissed Grapaw. “But why on earth has Ravenpaw come back alone?” he added to himself. He lifted his head to listen as Bluestar stepped forward.

“Ravenpaw?” The she-cat spoke calmly, but a look of worry clouded her eyes. The other cats drew back, curling their lips with anxiety. Firepaw didn’t blame them, he could feel the atmosphere change from the calm it had from earlier.

“What has happened?” Bluestar jumped onto the Highrock and looked down at the trembling cat. “Speak, Ravenpaw!”

Ravenpaw was still struggling for breath, and his sides heaved fitfully while the dust around him turned red with blood, but still he managed to scramble up onto the Highrock and stand beside Bluestar. He turned to the crowd of eager faces that surrounded him, and summoned enough breath to declare, “RiverClan attacked us!”

Shocked yowls rose from the Clan cats and echoed through the forest.

“RiverClan attacked you?”

“Those fish-eaters probably wanted Sunningrocks!”

“They’ll pay for attacking us!”

“Silence!” Bluestar hissed. “Let Ravenpaw speak.”

The black tom coughed, before speaking. “We m-met five RiverClan warriors beside the stream, not far from the Sunningrocks,” he went on shakily. “Oakheart was among them.” He winced as the cut on his shoulder oozed blood down his leg.

“Oakheart was there!” yelped Graypaw.

Smudge turned to the gray tabby. “Who’s Oakheart?”

“He is the RiverClan Deputy, and one of the best fighters in the forest! I wish I was there, Ravenpaw is lucky…” Graypaw silenced himself after a fierce glance from the old gray tom who had first sensed Ravenpaw’s return.

Firepaw and the city cats turned their attention back to Ravenpaw.

“Oakheart said that his Clan h-had to be fed, and didn’t care that Sunningrocks belonged to us. He said he was willing to risk his life for the safety of RiverClan. Redtail, Nightsong, and Tigerclaw disagreed. Then they fought. The fighting was vicious, and Nightsong pulled a black warrior off of me. Oakheart had Redtail pinned. A-and then…” He was cut off when a ginger queen yowled.

“I smell Nightsong and the others!” Out of the gorse tunnel came a long-legged sleek black molly, shouldering an injured tortoiseshell cat. Both seemed exhausted. Behind them trailed a large dark brown tabby, a tom just slightly bigger than Firepaw and his sister.

The black molly seemed to mummer comfort to her ally. “It’s going to be okay Redtail. Once I get you in Spotted…” she finally seemed to take notice of Firepaw, Deerpaw, Smudge and the others in the clearing. “Who are you cats?!”

#i speak #wild meets wild #where the wilds things are #firepaw #deerpaw #smudge #thunderclan #penumbra #sephiroth #johnny #silverpine cats #the gang is finally here #wc #warrior cats #this chapter was fun to write #and yes firepaw deerpaw and penumbra pulled something to wrestling moves #what firepaw did to lizardtail was something close to the sleeper hold #he and his sister watched wrestling when it was on the tv #penumbra fighter is woman mma fighter so she picked up moves from her as well #stonefoot laughed at what pen said because he and darkstripe dont get along even though they are clanmates #firepaw deerpaw and smudge if need be will use human cursing because that is what they are used to and using clan curses didnt feel right #i had more fun than i should had when i wrote pen put darkstripe and lizardtail on blast #remember that cat cinnabun?#the one who costed oakstar two lives?#shes penumbras ancestor #and the reason why lizardtail got so mad over the starve joke is because in the code of the clans he and darkstripe was supposed to hunt #but darkstripe being darkstripe eat prey and pressured longtail into eating #a sick elder called poppydawn died of hunger because of it #longtail was horrified but darkstripe didnt give a mangy rats ass about it #how are they still friends in the books until tigerclawgate has me wondering was longtail on drugs at the time

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winterune · 4 years

Text

The Things that Matter

Cloti Fall Festival 2019 Day 4 hosted by @clotiweek

Prompts: Starlit Nights / “A man travels the world over in search of what he needs, and returns home to find it”

Summary: Two years after they defeated Sephiroth and destroyed Meteor, Tifa and Cloud return to Nibelheim, where they sit under a star-strewn sky atop the water tower, reminiscing about their loved ones lost in the fire.

Also available on AO3.

~*~*~*~*~

Something stirred him awake and Cloud opened his eyes to darkness. The wooden, creaking ceiling; the lamp on the bedside table; the drawn curtains moving from a draft in the window. Moonlight shone through it, enough to light the entire room dimly for Cloud to adjust his eyesight. He blinked away the sleep and realized the bed to his left was empty.

Cloud sat up and looked around. Tifa’s belongings were still there, but the person herself was missing. Her bed was still in a state of disarray. There was no sound coming from the bathroom. Did she go out?

Groggily, Cloud went over to the window, drawing the curtain to the side. The window was slightly open, and he moved to close it, but a movement somewhere above him made him pause. Tifa was walking idly at the top of the water tower.

They had been in Nibelheim since yesterday. It had felt like a good opportunity to visit with no looming darkness hanging overhead. Tifa had been the one who had proposed the idea to him one night as they sat on the porch of her bar. The Shinra employees were gone and some of the survivors that had managed to escape the fire and Hojo’s experiments had gone back to live there, revitalizing the town. They had heard that the people had made a proper burial ground for those who had lost their lives in the fire, and Tifa had said that she wanted to pay proper respects to her father.

They had arrived yesterday afternoon and found the town livelier than it had been two years ago under Shinra occupation. It hadn’t been as lively as it had been before the fire, but it was as lively as could be. People had been up and about. The stores were busy. Children were playing around with balls or jumping ropes or hide-and-seek. Some of the women were chatting and laughing together. The men were carrying bricks or wooden planks for some other building needed reconstructing. A monument had been erected just outside the town in memoriam of the Nibelheim incident seven years ago.

Among the survivors, there were some they knew, some they didn’t. Most remembered Tifa, and Tifa had greeted them with wide smiles and tears. Some remembered Cloud and somehow, they had learned that he was the one who had put a stop to things two years back. Cloud hadn’t been sure how to react to that.

They had gone to the cemetery right after. Tifa found her father’s grave and, after some looking around, Cloud found his mother’s. And time seemed to stop. For a moment, he forgot where he was and what had happened and he was back in his house seven years ago, eating the food his mother made, talking with her about the job he had landed on in Midgar, and resting on his bed as he listened to his mother asking if he’d met a girl.

The tears started falling before he knew it. Cloud tried to blink them away, but they wouldn’t stop—a slow, steady stream down his face. He felt his throat closing up—a crushing feeling in his chest that was suffocating him.

How could he have forgotten? How could he have let himself forget?

He had been there. He had seen his house on fire. He had seen his mother’s body burning. And he had been too late.

The last image he had of his mother was of a strained smile just as he had been about to head back to his team. Cloud remembered wondering if it had anything to do with his choice to leave the town. But he never did get to know what had made her look so sad, because she had forced that smile and said, “Be careful,” without giving him any chance to say anything.

Cloud stared at his mother’s name, half-hoping that by doing so would somehow resurrect her from death. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice breaking through the tears.

***

After putting on his boots, Cloud went outside and headed for the water tower. They had spent the day helping the townspeople after visiting the graveyard again. It had been a tiring day, but the effort they put on rebuilding the town was worth it. That was why when they went back to their rented room at the inn, Cloud was immediately asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. So, it had surprised him when he woke up to find night had already fallen and Tifa gone from the room.

Cloud curled his fingers around the ladder on the side of the water tower. How many years had it been since he last went up these steps? The rung felt smaller in his hand now.

He looked up. Tifa had sat down with her legs dangling down the edge of the landing. She had her back to him, so she hadn’t seen him yet. The rustle of his clothes and his almost-silent steps up the ladder seemed to alert Tifa of his presence, because just as he was reaching the landing, he found her looking his way, and her eyes went wide at the sight of him.

“Cloud?” she exclaimed, then shut her mouth self-consciously as her eyes darted this way and that. It was already late, and people were probably already asleep. “What are you doing here?” she asked in a hushed tone. “Weren’t you asleep?”

“I woke up and you weren’t there,” Cloud replied just as softly, bringing his feet down on the landing with a soft thud. Cool wind brushed past him and the air felt a tad chillier than it was down below. Cloud realized, then, that he was quite high, with no buildings whatsoever to block the wind. With mountains to one side and a vast plain to the other, the houses of Nibelheim lay quiet in the night.

He walked over and took his seat beside her, his legs dangling down over the edge. “I got worried.”

Tifa smiled. “It’s a small town. Nothing’s going to happen.”

“That’s not what happened seven years ago,” he said, his voice so quiet it was almost impossible to hear. But the air that night was silent, not even the sound of crickets could be heard, and Tifa heard it as loud as if Cloud had said it right to her ear.

It was a low blow, and he knew their circumstances were different now. Sephiroth was gone. The reactors weren’t working anymore. He doubted an incident like that would ever occur again. But still, there was an unease in his heart as he watched the town sleep that night. He half-expected someone to come barging out of a house carrying a burning torch, setting the whole town on fire. A maniacal laugh and the glint of a long, thin sword. Hysterical screams and dying wails. But the night stayed quiet with not much of an owl hooting or a wolf howling.

Both of them grew quiet, lost in their own thoughts. As Tifa looked to the sky, Cloud found his attention drawn to a certain house across the tower. His old house, where his mother had waited for him to come home. She had smiled at him when he told her he was leaving for Midgar. She had wished him luck. But, could it be that she had wanted him to stay?

What if he hadn’t left town? Would it have made any difference? He wouldn’t have had to be away from her. He would have been able to get his mother out on time.

The thought made him pause.

Would it, though? Yes, he had received trainings as an infantryman, but even with those trainings, he had failed to save his mother. What would have happened if he had stayed without receiving any sort of training whatsoever? Cloud scoffed at himself. He might have lost not only his mother, but Tifa too. He might have lost his own life.

“Doesn’t this take you back?” Tifa’s soft voice suddenly broke through his reverie.

Cloud glanced at her. She was leaning back and looking up at the sky. Her eyes had a faraway look, with a small, wistful smile grazing her lips.

He followed her gaze only to have his breath taken away by the vast open sky. In the clear and cloudless night, with neither building nor man-made light to obstruct the view, Cloud could see a myriad of stars in the sky—white ones and blues ones and even some bordering on red. Some shone so bright that it made him think it was close enough for him to reach up and grab it.

Maybe he could. Maybe if he reached up just a bit more, the star would be in his hand, and then the sky would open up and swallow him, taking him to where his mother was.

Cloud fisted his hand in the empty air and brought it back down to his lap.

“The stars were also so bright that night,” Tifa added.

They were. He remembered it. The bold announcement he had made. The promise he had to keep.

“Do you ever wish you could turn back time?” Cloud asked.

Tifa glanced at him, but he didn’t dare meet her stare. He was afraid that she would be able to tell what he was thinking. These self-deprecating thoughts that had constantly consumed him ever since they stepped foot in Nibelheim. Helping the townspeople was the only thing that could stop this train of thoughts.

Tifa didn’t answer immediately. Gradually, she looked away, back at the stars. The silence stretched on, and Cloud wondered if she would ever say anything, when she suddenly, quietly, murmured, “Sometimes. Sometimes I’d find myself looking at the sky and wish I could go back there and stop my father from going after him.” She paused, then chuckled under her breath. “Sometimes I wish I could’ve stopped Sephiroth somehow.”

Cloud glanced at her. “How would you have stopped him?”

Tifa shrugged. “I don’t know. Lock down the manor, for one.”

At that, Cloud smiled. Then he leaned back and propped himself on his hands, throwing his head back to drink in the vastness of the heavens.

“Do you think he’s happy right now?” he asked again. “Your father.”

It took a moment before Tifa replied, “He’s happy.”

“How do you know?”

“A feeling,” she said, “as a daughter.” Then, she looked at him and added, “Your mother’s happy too.”

“What—?”

Cloud stared at her, stunned. He hadn’t said one word about his mother, and there Tifa went and broached the topic he had been afraid to come near. The smile on her face was kind and knowing.

“Did you know, Cloud?” she said, looking up at the stars again, hugging her knee. “Back then, you were the person I most longed to see. I had lost my home, my father, my friends. I had lost everyone. And then I thought of you and the promise we made.” Tifa paused. “Even though I didn’t know it at the time, but you came for me, didn’t you? You came for me at my time of need, like you said you would. And just like how you came to my rescue, you also came to your mother. Right?”

Her words struck a deep chord inside him that Cloud was rendered speechless.

His gaze shifted to the quiet house across the tower—the house where he grew up in.

The painful image of it burning had been engraved into his mind so deep that Cloud wasn’t surprised he had kept the memory locked away, hidden even from himself. He had tried to break into his house—tried to take his mother out—but the gas had exploded and the force had thrown him aside. The hopelessness and powerlessness he had felt then had spurred him to run after Sephiroth into the reactor in the mountain.

A particularly warm breeze brushed against his skin, and for a moment, it was as if his mother was there, holding his hand and smiling at him.

Cloud looked up, but the image was gone, and the breeze had blown away, and in its place were the millions of stars filling his eyesight.

Tears burned his eyes and Cloud tried to blink them away.

“You came for her,” Tifa said again, enveloping his hand in hers. “That’s all that matters.”

Cloud met her gaze and when she smiled at him, Cloud was reminded that it was the same for her. That there was a deep-seated sadness in her heart much like his own that had only begun to heal.

That’s all that matters.

There had been this restlessness inside him that he couldn’t quite explain. He didn’t know when it started. But what he knew for certain was that, when he stood before his mother’s grave the day before, all the pent-up feelings he didn’t realize he had held came pouring out, and in its wake was a state of peaceful emptiness, that was slowly refilled as he helped the townspeople throughout the day. It was something he had forgotten—a contentment and fulfillment he hadn’t felt since the day he left his home.

Cloud looked at the starlit night and wondered if his mother was there, watching over him.

~ END ~

#thank you cloti #cloti fall festival 2019 #cloti #final fantasy #final fantasy vii #ff fanfic #ff7 fanfic #fanfiction #my fanfiction #my story #clotiweek 2019 #clotiweek

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up-sideand-down · 6 years

Text

Mechanically Reborn

After binge playing Overwatch...I got more crossover feels. Based on this old post of mine

Sephiroth sheathed his sword after the last test of his latest mech. It was always an oddly peaceful moment. He couldn’t hear the near-silent whirring of the machinery built around him. He could feel the bite of a sword hilt in his hand. It was as if, for one small moment, none of this had happened.

Aerith opened the bay doors and gently broke the nostalgia. She was taking copious notes, as usual. It was a familiar sight, though he rather prefered her note-taking style to Hojo’s. Hojo never drew flower doodles in the corner.

“So how is this last upgrade?” she asked, always wanting his honest opinion even if she knew the answer.

“It’s hard to tell considering this is the 7th in two weeks,” Sephiroth said.

“Do you want me to take them off?” she offered.

“No.” Sephiroth replied far to quickly, noting her little smile. He almost smiled back. It pulled strangely at his face visor when he did. He had been meaning to tell her about it.

“It’s...lighter,” he said, “at least it feels like it is. And smoother. You were right about the wiring. It was pinching somewhere...though I am leery about having mako free flowing around me, especially in a real battle when I take real damage.”

“I have on good word that the new lightweight mech material is twice as durable as mythril can be,” Aerith said, “and I have seen it in action. We’ll worry about leakage if we decide mako runs better. Speaking of...which test was better.” Sephiroth hesitated.

“The mako...was more powerful, but with a materia powered suit I had more control,” Sephiroth said.

“Control sounds better to me,” Aerith said. Sephiroth breathed in relief, getting yet another reminder that the WRO group was not ShinRa. This was about restoration, not power.

“Let’s drain the mako,” Aerith said, “I have a bracer that will do for now until we can do another update. There’s word of a plan of attack near Gongaga.”

“So another solo mission,” Sephiroth said.

“No,” Aerith said, “with a proper team. And I’m going with you.”

Seeing Aerith in battle gear...was a bit startling. He’d seen her fiddling with her staff before, as well as the wings, but hadn’t imagined they were hers.

“My first work,” she said proudly, “though they’re not as impressive until I limit break.” She had shown him, as always. The healing stream feeling like being wrapped in sunline, and the booster like a cold drop of adrenaline. He also noted her blaster.

“We are working together,” Sephiroth said, “If you are support, then it is our duty to protect you.” She laughed.

“It sounds easy on the transport,” she said, “in action it’s not as simple. I can take care of myself and you.” He let it go. He knew her well enough to know this was not an argument to start. As they flew though, she nudged him.

“How are you feeling?” she asked. He knew what she meant.

“Not myself,” he said, “Still...not sure about what I expected from all this...but happy with the benefits. I can help...and I can walk again.”

After landing, the chaos began. He saw exactly what Aerith meant. The WRO was sorely outnumbered.

But not outmatched. Sephiroth dove through the front line, sword at the ready, and made a clear path for Aerith and their allies to follow.

“We must retake the village,” Aerith said before their charge, “the reactor has already devastated these people enough. ShinRa onmics cannot rebuild it to do the same.”

But those omnics were everywhere. They had gone haywire from their initial directives and unable to be reprogrammed. They seemed to have their own plans in mind, and ShinRa had fallen trying to stop it and hide the fact that it happened.

Sephiroth watched two of their number fall under the omics and saw Aerith take some of the fire. He rushed to get back to her, impressed at her shooting and then he saw it.

A limit break

“Heroes never die!” Aerith declared, suddenly surrounding the fallen with her healing light and they rose again to join the fight. Her wings seemed aflame and she rose in the air, still firing away until they got back in formation. She switched back to her staff and Sephiroth felt her warmth around her.

“I’ve never been happier to have a Lifestream Engineer,” Sephiroth heard someone say. He had to agree.

They had reached the village and were still so overwhelmed. They were holding...but for how long? Then their comms crackled with a new message.

“Gongaga Forces. Backup from AVALANCHE is on it’s way. Touchdown will happen momentarily.”

“Thank Gaia,” Aerith gasped, having had two more limit breaks since her first one. Sephiroth struggled to keep up with her, block as much as he could when suddenly-

“Get behind me!” A woman said. She put forward a transparent shield in front of her, bashing a few omnics in the process. The machines did not rise again after that.

“You better get out of the way,” This voice sounded male. Sephiroth turned and almost attacked. It looked like a giant omnic, but then he realized there was a person inside of it. It was a giant man-run mech.

“We can cover you,” the mecha man said, putting up his own shield. Sephiroth took the chance and retreated to prepare for their next wave.

Sephiroth kept and eye on their two scrappy rescuers. The mech and shield tech looked strong, but it couldn’t last forever. As if reading his mind, he saw the mech start to crumble.

“I’m ejecting!” The man said.

“I am your shield,” the brunette woman said, pulling out a flail. The man jumped out as his monster of a machine broke around him and pulled out his own gun. Sephiroth went to stand with them. The blonde man glanced at him and nudged his partner aside so Sephiroth could walk past.

“Two minutes until the next mecha arrives,” the blonde said.

“Understood,” the brunette replied, pulling her weapon from where it had embedded itself in an omnic’s head.

“I can prepare it for self-destruct,” the blonde said.

“Hold off until we say so,” Aerith said, “I might have an idea.”

“You always do Aerith,” the blonde said.

“The shield won’t hold that for two minutes,” the brunette said.

“You can stand down a moment,” Sephiroth said, “we are ready.” Aerith nodded. The brunette nodded back. She put down her shield and gave her war cry. Sephiroth would realize that was her limit break later.

“Rally to me!” she cried, sending some sort of strength through all of them. Sephiroth didn’t know what came over him. He pulled his sword and it seemed to move outside of his own will. It cut down enemy over enemy until it seemed to exhaust itself.

He saw another monster mecha land in front of the blonde and the man crawl inside.

“All systems online,” he said, “I’m ready to initiate self destruct sequence.”

“Aim it at the reactor,” Aerith said, “I bet it’s emitting some sort of signal, we might be able to scramble the omnic hardware.”

“I’ll need to get closer,” the man said.

“You simply needed to ask,” Sephiroth said. Together Sephiroth and the mecha rider made their way to the crumbling husk. Fifty yards away the mecha stopped.

“Time to mosey on,” he said, rockets on the back of the mecha shot forward as the man jumped out. Sephiroth shielded his eyes from the blast, not seeing the shield woman get in front again.

As Aerith predicted, most of the omnics stopped. Some crumpling to the ground, a few wavering and staying on their feet. Sephiroth felt face tugging at his visor as he smiled at the cheering behind them.

“We might not have made it if you two hadn’t shown up,” Aerith said, “It was getting dicey.”

“I’m sure you would have done it,” the brunette said, “We just couldn’t resist butting in.”

“I’m sorry,” Aerith said, “Sephiroth, these are some old friends of mine. This is Tifa, an apprentice Crusader. And this...I’ve actually talked about him a lot, this is Cloud. He’s the one who invented the material I’ve been using on you. He uses it for his mechas.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Sephiroth said.

“We always make a good impression,” Cloud said, giving a crooked little smile, “though usually not going through two mechas in one day. But anyway...Aerith’s mentioned you before, but she never said you could do that dragon thing with your sword.”

“The what?” Sephiroth said.

#my writing #crossover #ff7/overwatch #mecharoth #Sephiroth #Aerith Gainsborough #Tifa Lockhart #Cloud Strife #Aerith is Mercy #Seph is Genji #Tifa is Brigitte #Cloud is D.va

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i-mushi · 7 years

Text

Green Dreams 10th Anniversary!

In honor of the 10th anniversary of GD’s publishing on fanfiction.net here is a sneak preview of the rewrite! This is the unedited, barely reread version of the prologue chapter.

Thank you to everyone who has shared their thoughts and love of GD with me, you encourage and humble me. I am so lucky that so many people have been touched by this story over the years and their endless support. I hope you continue to enjoy it and like the rewrite too!

It had once been the center of a sprawling metropolis once, packed from ground to sky with people. Sitting on refuse, garbage, and mountains of steel, Shinra Headquarters had towered over the citizens of Midgar and the entire desert of the eastern continent, a metal, polluting oasis. Cloud still remembered seeing it that first time from the ferry terminal, a black mountain thumbing its nose at the sky.

Now it had caved in on itself, full of toxic waste and mutated monsters. Only the bravest scavengers from Edge dared come into the destruction that had been Midgar, looking for parts, valuable metals, and materia. Few of them went deeper than the exterior hull since too much of the infrastructure had been devoted to mako reactors. They leaked what unfiltered mako was left into the rubble to be absorbed by monsters.

Monsters, even mako-tainted ones, didn’t bother Cloud Strife.

The one he was chasing now was some bastardized, aberration of a Rapps. The thing had mauled several scavengers and littered the desert around Midgar with the torn up limbs of other, feral creatures. Tifa had called in the request on behalf of Reeve Tuesti, who was worried about the chocobo farms the beast had been circling closer to.

Cloud popped the blade holders on Fenrir as he pulled up in a small valley a couple hundred yards from the mutated Rapps’ nest. There was no need to put the bike in danger when Cloud would be fighting in the air anyway, so he parked it under the overhang of a dune and trekked out.

First Tsurugi was a comfortable weight in his hand as Cloud sprinted up the hill, knowing it would take more than this fight to make him feel winded. Even so getting his first glimpse of the fiend made his heart jump a bit. It was easily twice the size of a normal Rapps, with extra talons and foot-long claws on its hinds legs. Something greenish dripped from the tail that at a guess Cloud assumed would be poisonous. He had plenty of antidotes though, so he took the aggressive route in his attacks.

Parrying wings and talons, slashing at membrane and guts, dodging both the tail and the sharp teeth of the monster. His heart rate was just picking up and he was considering splitting the sword into two when the beast flapped backwards, for a hairsbreadth of a moment its unarmored chest directly in front of Cloud. With speed born of mako enhancements, Cloud dashed forward and skewered the mutated Rapps on the end of his main blade, then pushed off the ground to double the damage as he ripped the blade through the beast, slamming it back down into the spine. It was his Climhazzard Limit Break, and the fiend gave out a particularly horrid shriek that made Cloud’s sensitive ears ring.

It took just a few more blows with the serrated sister swords to cut down the meat of the Rapps until it gave a last, guttural trill, and collapsed. Cloud, sword still buried in the bone of one of the wings, wiped a speck of blood from his cheek and withdrew the blade, grinding the serrated edge through the bone.

He drove back to Edge to tell Tifa the monster had been handled. It hadn’t been his most satisfying kill, but as he passed another caravan of cars heading east he knew that they’d be safer for it. Maybe Cloud was a pretty spotty delivery person, and a bad father figure for the orphans, but this at least he could do.

It was late into the afternoon before he would reach Edge, crossing through Midgar’s shadow to get there before nightfall. He’d given up avoiding the fallen city as he always made it back there eventually. It had been a place of wonder, technology, anonymity, and boyhood dreams when he was young. He’d gotten all of those in spades, shoved down his throat until he’d thrown up wonder and dreams and been left with the aftertaste of horror and dangerous wishes. Now he ended up clearing out the most dangerous beasts that came from inside it, never sure if they’d crawled out of the underbelly of Shinra or mutated upon arrival. Sometimes he didn’t know which category he fit in either.

Reeve and the World Regenesis Organization kept hoping to dig up Shinra secrets while Rufus and Neo-Shinra fought to keep them buried. Cloud accepted free sundries from Neo-Shinra and pay from WRO for taking out the occasional nuisance fiend, but otherwise stayed out of their feud. He just wanted peace, and since he couldn’t find it in himself he filled him time as much as possible with uncontroversial things. His delivery service kept him busy and traveling all over the continent, seeing friends but never staying.

AVALANCHE had scattered across the world, reuniting only briefly to deal with the three remnants of Sephiroth. Yuffie had become the leader of Wutai, mellowing a little but losing none of her spunk or nimble fingers. Cid finally married Shera and still tinkered with airships, reminiscing about the close misses they’d had as AVALANCHE and what he could do with Shinra’s abandoned rocket. Cloud saw Vincent only occasionally, and it was hard to say if Vincent had found closure somehow or whether he too was at loose ends like Cloud, wandering the Planet.

Tifa had tried to lure Cloud to stay in Edge after saving the city from the Bahamat SIN, encouraging him to bond with Denzel and Marlene, but Cloud still got on his bike and drove off after a day or two. He knew he made a poor father-substitute, and with Barret moved back to Edge and Tifa running Seventh Heaven with her firm maternal hand the kids were doing well. Getting Denzel out of Midgar and saving them from Bahamat SIN was as much as Cloud felt he could do.

He’d thought it would feel different, after standing up to Sephiroth a second time. That it would have resolved this miserable, boiling tangled knot of emotions in him he couldn’t identify. Instead it roiled under his skin when he stayed in place too long, gaze straying to the horizon, looking for the next mission, anywhere but the kids eager faces or the admiring crowds. He didn’t know how to feel about the adoring people who thanked him, now that he was known across all the continents as the hero of the age, the slayer of Sephiroth, the reformed SOLDIER who stopped Meteor. He wanted none of it, the boyhood dreams of valor dead in the fire at Nibelheim.

So he got on his bike and drove. When he remembered the depravity of his time with Hojo, his confused lies to AVALANCHE, the painful youth he spent as a cadet, he fought and killed monsters and tried to forget. Sometimes he mustered up the strength to face a demon, to sit in Aeris’ church and hope he hadn’t tainted it with his nightmares, or stand on the cliff where he and Zack’s memories had become one, but those attempts were dosed with bitterness. He’d made a lot of mistakes, he’d been weak when friends needed him to be strong, and he’d learned the hard way that trusting his own mind could be perilous. Cloud felt the weight of those lessons on him always, so he delivered packages, messages, kept the roads clear and tried to do the same to his mind. If he kept focused, if he didn’t dwell, maybe the knot inside would grow smaller and denser and be easier to swallow.

It hadn’t so far. If anything it kept swelling, and Cloud kept choking it down, afraid something worse than a scream would come out.

The nights were getting cooler as autumn settled into the continent. In the desert the seasons were less discernible, but the angle of the sun changed, the shadows of the dunes and hills lengthened, and the air turned crisper with the promise of winter. The weather didn’t bother Cloud much; nothing did anymore. Sometimes it was a wonder he bled red at all.

Inside a small wooden house tucked into the foothills south of Midgar, filled with carefully nurtured ferns and vines, Cloud lay curled up, the sheets tossed to the floor. He rarely slept soundly through the night, but on this cool fall night he was particularly restless, feet agitating the bed as his hands curled and uncurled.

He came awake violently, the only way he did anymore, mind sluggishly pulled out of a dream but his body primed for a fight. His senses were slow to recognize the sparse room, the simple blanket tossed to the floor, the handmade furniture and familiar nighttime colors. He had to consciously slow his tight, silent breaths as his muscles uncoiled and relaxed, his sword arm shaking from how taut it had been in his dream.

Another night interrupted by nightmares, these ones full of garish green and the disturbing sensation of an acidic womb, healing and burning him all over as he hung suspended in it, too weak to fight. He rubbed his face and tried fruitlessly to shake off the memory of those mako baths at Nibelheim. There’d be no more sleep tonight.

He stood up and the world tilted dangerously, like all the blood had rushed to his head, except Cloud never experienced that. Too much mako ran in his veins to make that possible anymore. His vision went dark around the edges and then lurid green, before clearing with a sharp jerk of his head. A small shudder of panic raced down his spine at the old, unfamiliar sensation, before he was able to ruthlessly squash it. He could feel his heart punching the inside of his ribs as he waited for his balance to return, trying not to imagine what was causing this. The dream had disoriented him more than usual, that was all.

When he felt steadier, Cloud walked to the bathroom and filled a cup with water from the tap, closing his eyes and sipping from it. The cool of the tile felt good under his hands, just as the liquid did in his parched throat. Nightmares were a regular part of his life, and Cloud had mastered the art of setting aside what was in his dreams and what was in his reality. As long as the lines didn’t blur he could wake from anything. Eventually.

He refilled the glass and considered the green light reflecting into the porcelain sink for a long moment before the horror kicked him in the chest. He dropped the glass but already the liquid had overflowed, burning his hand and dribbling into the sink. Cloud backed up jerkily, then swung forward and broke the faucet handle as he slammed it off.

Mako created a light all its own, and the porcelain of his sink cast the nauseating hue over the bathroom. His nose was burning, eyes watering, and his hand stung from the touch of it. Blindly Cloud backed out of the bathroom and started opening windows, but like bile the odor clung to the inside of his nose. In the light of the kitchen his hand was irritated and red, the familiar signs of a chemical burn.

The bathroom door cracked when he shut it too hard, but the white static was the only noise in his ears. His heart was pressing into his throat and he had to consciously sit down on the bed, press his good hand to his eyes, and breathe. In and out. In and out.

Imagining mako in his sink wasn’t the worst hallucination he’d ever suffered, but the realness of it shook him all the same. He could turn away from ghosts, drop his sword when he rehashed the old battles, but the vividness of the pain in his hand and the glow of the mako in his own bathroom in the dead of night made the lines he’d drawn a little fuzzier.

The morning light was still weak, but enough to stir Cloud out of bed. The constant paranoia that badgered him after his escape from Nibelheim had been reinforced by months of running, fighting, and camping in the wilds of the world. He never got much sleep anymore.

Wearily he stood up and considered his bathroom, wondering how long he could go without sleep before the exhaustion hit him. Maybe that’s all it had been, and the long years of this lifestyle were catching up to him. He glanced down at his hand, but he wasn’t sure if the starkness of the chemical burn was real or only what he expected to see.

His sink was clear of any green residue, the discarded cup empty and dry. He washed his face, brushed his teeth, and as he spat out the toothpaste and filled his cup with water to rinse, he recognized the warmth of the liquid in the cup, at the same moment the green tinge became apparent.

Violently, Cloud threw the cup in the sink, shattering the glass.

Mind’s playing tricks, mind’s playing tricks… He repeated to himself as he tried the broken faucet first, switched knobs to the working one, and watched as green liquid came out.

Cloud backed out and headed straight for the kitchen. It wasn’t real, none of it was. It never was. It never was, he kept thinking, even as more mako sluiced down his kitchen drain. In the reflection of the kitchen window above the sink, Cloud couldn’t make out anything except the mako gleam of his eyes. His pupils were as wide as they could go, his face white and bloodless.

His thoughts started to circle as he grabbed his bag, his boots, and his canteen. Mako in his house, in his reservoir, mako in the sinks. He had to get out, had to get away from the contamination. He threw First Tsurugi over his shoulder, grabbed the bag of loose materia, and gunned Fenrir.

The roar of the engine matched the roar of panic in his ears. Cloud swerved around monsters, skidded around corners, and the hysteria inside him moved just as fast, clawing up his chest until it constricted his throat. The desert air smacked him in the face when he broke free of the foothills, the sun blinding as he pushed Fenrir harder, aiming for that twinkling light to the west.

He didn’t stop until Fenrir’s front tire was washed clean by the surf, couldn’t stop moving until his boots were filled with seawater and his flannel pajamas were stuck to his skin. He couldn’t breathe until his burnt hand stop stinging under the coolness of the ocean water and the weight of his body was drifting up and down with the push and pull of the waves.

The fire drained from his limbs slowly, lethargically, and Cloud felt weak and shaky, strung out on too much fear and mako, too much running from the nightmares that plagued him. He’d never hallucinated so vividly, not since he’d mixed all his memories up, not since— not since…

He turned his mind away from it and focused on how his feet came off the sandy bottom of the beach and touched down softly with every swell. Dawn was still swelling behind him, the sea lightening into a crystalline blue Cloud felt sure he knew from somewhere else. Eventually he closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and willed all thoughts away from him. He imagined the mako dreams, the crushing knot in his chest he couldn’t untangle and couldn’t remove, floating off into the waves around him and bobbing away.

It felt, just for a moment, like the ocean was holding his hand, swaying with him in the tide, and then he finally slept.

Shinra HQ’s 0500 wake-up bugle was enough to jerk even the deepest sleeper out of bed. For a man who woke every time a house settled, the sound of Shinra’s trumpet was terrifying. Cloud shot up the instant it shattered the calm of night, and his head collided with the bottom of the bunk above with a bang.

He fell back disoriented and head aching, the room filling up with sounds he didn’t understand. As he opened his eyes and fought the instinct to jump to a fighting position lest he hit his head again, Cloud was horrified to find himself in another hallucination that it took him precious seconds to place. His cadet days were a blurry bygone, but this room, with its eight bunks, haphazard clothing and posters, and seven other boys in various states of undress, was familiar in the same way one’s breakfast was familiar in the toilet after vomiting.

“Hey Cloud, you okay? The whole bunk shook!”

Cloud’s head hurt, and distantly he could tell his heart rate and breathing weren’t normal, but nothing crossed his mind as he stared blankly at the boy in front of him. His whole brain seemed to have emptied in that first breath as he saw the room, the sharp, clear faces, the smell already assaulting his nose. His hand still hurt, his head was still pounding, why wasn’t he moving, why did this feel—

“Cloud? Hey Cloud, wake up!” The boy’s hand reached out and without thought Cloud batted it out of the air.

“Don’t touch me,” he managed, choking on the first word and spitting the rest out after. His mouth had gone so dry his voice rasped and sounded all wrong. What was happening? He was starting to feel lightheaded, the edges of the room’s glaring lights were too bright. What was going on?

“O-Okay.” Dan Gavish backed up, and Cloud felt the first stirrings of emotion coming back to him from wherever he’d shut them down. He was surprised to find he knew the cadet’s name, and just as surprised to recognize the face swimming up from his memory. The double-vision was Dan Gavish’s face in death: burnt on one half, warped in pain. He didn’t know why, didn’t know how, didn’t know when—

The other boys were leaving then; time wasn’t working quite straight. Cloud knew, knew, they were going to drill, or class, or somewhere he’d been before, but it felt wrong to even think it even as he watched these ghosts leave. He didn’t hear them murmuring or waking up, didn’t hear them troop out, didn’t see the last boy spare him a glance.

Cloud wasn’t even sure he was breathing until the room was so silent, his mouth so dry, and his lungs so empty he could feel the vacuum in them. Then he was choking, fighting to draw in enough air, searching for the taste of the desert and the salt of the ocean—ocean?—and finding nothing but the metallic, recirculated air of industrial Midgar. Cloud stumbled up, moving to one of the sinks, breathing too fast and hands trembling, and ended up staring into the grimy mirror at the eyes he should know, had known before. This time they didn’t have a mako gleam. This time they were just pale blue, like the ocean at dawn, huge in a thin, angular face with a shock of blond hair. This wasn’t his face anymore. The fierce lines, the stubble he sometimes grew, and the hardness he’d grown into were all gone. This wasn’t how dreams went! He snapped out of the them, his eyes were always his own, and they never felt like this.

His hands kept shaking, and when he clenched the sink so hard it should have broken beneath his strength, all it did was make his hand burn more and his eyes start to water. He threw himself back from the sink and on to the bunk, taking in the room wildly. His hand was burnt from the mako in his sink. The sink he’d built at twenty-four in a desert overlooking a rubble heap where this bunker and dozens like it had long since been wiped from the face of the Planet. But now he was sixteen, a cadet, mako-less, weak, bullied, open, young, new he couldn’t decide how to even start to understand this.

Mind’s playing tricks, mind’s playing tricks… He repeated, slowing his breathing even as he felt hot and then cold all over, looking down at the knobby knees and delicate, un-calloused feet. It was like the mako in the sink, a vivid hallucination he was letting get the better of him. It was a trick.

Cloud turned and punched the concrete wall. It didn’t give at all, not a mote of dust stirred up, but the impact shook Cloud’s arm and soul, and he pulled his fist back to watch the blood dribble down his knuckles. It didn’t heal instantly and the shaking kept moving deeper into him until he thought his teeth might vibrate faster than his heart could keep up. How could it hurt if this was a dream? How could he still be burned? How could this be real?

#green dreams #fanfiction #ffvii

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hiekkis-blog1 · 7 years

Text

Day 4: Uniform

In Nibelheim mountains during their mission with Sephiroth. I went with a modified version of original game’s events and smashed them up with CC. And Zack’s PoV for a change. Also, holy shit I’m still writing!

Day 4: uniform

Zack had noticed how uncommonly silent his friend was during this mission. First he had chalked it up to Sephiroth’s presence and the blonde’s shyness. Then there was motion sickness, he was never chatty when he had to concentrate to not throwing up. But when they finally arrived to Nibelheim, Zack couldn’t get a peep out his friend if anyone else was nearby.

Cloud wouldn’t take off his damn helmet! It was so confusing as Zack had gotten so used to recognizing his friend by his hair, or his height. It was so frustrating to have Cloud literally hiding in his uniform. He knew the blonde was shy as hell among new people sometimes, but they were in his home town. Cloud should have friends flocking all over him and welcoming him back home. When Zack asked about it, he just muttered it was personal and Zack just left him alone, affectionally calling him weirdo. Sometimes Cloud wanted to be alone for no reason. Zack didn’t understand it, but he respected it. Cloud would come around in his own time.

He let Cloud be when they met their new guide, Tifa, took some photos and climbed to the reactor.

“Tifa, when was the first time you started to explore these mountains? As you are the best guide this town has.” Zack tried to mollify their guide. She hadn’t liked the insinuation about being too weak to take with them to a dangerous mission like this one.

“Enough. I first came here when I was eight. Back then, nobody could go over the mountains alive and I had gotten it in to my head that dead people crossed here.” Tifa’s voice was cryptical.

“Sounds like a dare children make.” Zack guessed.

“It was close enough. I fell off a cliff after the bridge over there. I was in coma for a week. Naturally, I was a lot more careful when I came back the second time.”

“It takes guts to come back here after something like that.” Zack was honestly surprised. Tifa acted like a tough woman, but after hearing this, Zack believed that there was something behind the bravado.

“I didn’t get in trouble because of it. Everyone was so relieved that I was still alive, that I escaped the punishment.” Tifa smirked. “Later a wandering martial arts teacher came in town and he has taught me a lot. I can hold my own in a fight if necessary. I’ll be a professional wrestler someday!”

Their path took them over an old drawbridge. It seemed okay, but the Moment Zack stepped on it, he could feel it swinging unpleasantly under his feet. Sephiroth and Tifa were already crossing it.

“It gets harder from here! Follow me!” Their guide encouraged while moving swiftly. Cloud and the other infantryman Perkins were behind him. It all went well until the monsters attacked. Three Sonic Speeds flew in front of them and attacked Sephiroth. Zack joined the fight, knocking one out cold with the blunt side of his buster sword. Ice shard flew past him when he turned around, a Blizzaga encasing two other monsters.

They were done for. This fight was easy. He turned around to check if the others were all right when he felt a tremor in the bridge. The fighting had been too much for it!

“Uh… the bridge!!” Tifa’s warning came too late. Ropes holding the bridge aloof snapped one by one. Zack tried to grab Tifa. They fell screaming.

Zack hugged Tifa close and it was only thanks to his Mako-enhanced body that he didn’t break anything. The crash hurt. All air was knocked out of his lungs and he would sport some major bruises along his side for this. He had protected Tifa with his own body and thankfully she seemed to be okay.

“Zack! Are you okay?” She was instantly worried when she climbed off him. Zack had a joke about her jumping his bones on his lips when he saw Sephiroth approaching them. He had only one infantryman with him. Zack’s stomach lurched again. Only one blue uniform. Uniform that was too big for the person inside it. His Cloud was all right.

“Everyone seem to be all right. Can we get back to where we were?” He sounded terse and impatient.

“These caves are intertwined, just like an ant farm. Oh, and Sephiroth. There seems to be one person missing.” Tifa was worried when he glanced to Sephiroth and around then.

“It may sound cold, but we’ve got no time to search for him. We can’t go back now, so we must go on. We’ll travel together from here.”

“But Seph!” Zack protested. “We have already lost one man when the dragon attacked us. Alexei might still be alive somewhere around here. We could look around for some time and…”

“And waste more time? Wake up Zack. It is already past noon and this unavoidable detour will set us back for hours. It will be nightfall before we can get back to the village. Have you heard of the vicious nocturnal wildlife in this area? I will not endanger everyone to search for one man who is probably already dead.” Sephiroth’s stared Zack until he gave up. If he gave up on someone then they were most likely dead already. If it had been Cloud who was missing, he would have given up on this mission to search for him, odds be damned. But Cloud was safe and Sephiroth had a point.

“We’ll keep our eyes open. If we can spot a blue uniform anywhere, we’ll get him.” Zack relented.

Their trip to reactor was uneventful in comparison. Only wolves, dragons and nameless beasts bothered them, but Zack and Sephiroth together were enough to take down all daytime enemies. They left Tifa and Cloud outside, Sephiroth coldly ordering Cloud to take care of the lady while they researched for the cause of the failure. Zack was really amazed that Cloud was still silent, only raising his hand and shaking his head when Tifa tried to follow them. Maybe some time alone with Tifa would help Cloud with whatever was bothering the blonde.

All thoughts of Cloud’s problems were swept away by what he saw inside. Admiration for Sephiroth’s intelligence was soon replaced by fear and worry for silver general’s erratic behavior. Then Genesis came out from nothing, calling Sephiroth a monster, taunting him and finally asking for his help. Sephiroth refused and condemned his old friend to rot away.

Zack chased Genesis out of the reactor, only to see Cloud fall from a well-aimed fire-spell to the face.

“Damn it!” he cursed and rushed to aid his friend, his Cloud, his precious chocobo-head. He might regret letting Genesis go, but he would never forgive himself if anything happened to Cloud. “Hang on buddy! I’ll take care of these!” Genesis’ troops would pay dearly for this! Nobody touched his Cloud when he was still alive. He made short work of them. Tifa was already waking Cloud up, trying to protec him. Ridiculous, considering that Cloud had tried to protect her.

“He… tried to protect me…” she was pleading for Zack to understand that this wasn’t her fault.

“I know.” he acknowledged. “Tifa, stay close to me. Can you carry him back to town?”

“Sure can.” She agreed and hauled half-conscious Cloud up.

“Good. I’ll take care of the monsters. Did you see Sephiroth?”

“He just stormed off just before those creeps came!” Tifa fumed. “Didn’t say a word and acted like he didn’t even see us!”

Trek back to town took forever in Zack’s opinion. Cloud was only half conscious and Zack was too busy fighting monsters to help him. When he finally got the blonde back to inn, he was relieved. Tifa had gone to chase Sephiroth and they were alone. Carefully he laid Cloud down to bed and removed his helmet. Blonde’s face was a mess of burns. Nothing a potion or two couldn’t handle. Oh so carefully he poured the potion on the burns and watched as magic worked. He stroked blonde locks, grateful how he still had a chance to do so.

#clack week 2017 #day 4 #cloud strife #zack fair #ff vii #swf

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