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He can remember the look on his mother’s face when he’d boarded the transport that would take him to Costa del Sol, Junon, and from there to Midgar; pride and worry in equal measures. She’d fussed, smoothed his hair down and brushed off the shoulders of his shirt and said, “Remember, don’t go looking for trouble, my love.”
He never has, but trouble always seems to have a way of finding him anyway.
Three weeks into basic training, and he wants to die. His upper body strength is pitiful, he’s covered in bruises from the recoil on the rifles, and he’s running out of excuses for showering alone. About the only consolation is that he hasn’t washed out.
It doesn’t really get a lot better.
He eventually blacks enough eyes and bloodies enough noses to shut his barracks mates up, though he sleeps with his knife under his pillow just in case. He officially becomes part of the Shin-Ra infantry, learns to deal with having a sore shoulder all the time, and pretends his crush on General Sephiroth is a completely professional admiration.
Then he meets Zack Fair, SOLDIER, Second Class, and nothing is ever the same again.
“Somethin’ up, Spike?”
“What?” says Cloud, startled, and Zack grins down at him.
“You look kinda worried, is all.”
“It’s nothing,” he mutters into his awful coffee, and Zack’s eyebrows go up and his grin widens.
“Oh?”
“Come on, Zack, please.”
“You know you can’t lie to me, come on!”
Cloud groans, puts his head down on the cafeteria table and wonders if everything will just go away if he ignores it long enough.
“Nothing important, how about that?” he tries, and Zack snorts.
“Try again.”
“Please drop it, okay?”
He must sound extra pathetic, because Zack puts a hand on his shoulder.
“You okay?” he asks, voice soft this time.
“I will be,” he murmurs, and Zack hums and pats him on the shoulder, and seems to accept that.
“Hey,” he says after a moment, “you wanna meet Sephiroth?”
“What?” Cloud squawks, head snapping up, and Zack’s grin is back.
“I know you like him. I could make it happen, if you like?”
“I can’t believe I ever told you that,” he mutters, putting his face in his hands. “If you ever tell him, nobody will ever find your body, you do know that right?”
“Sure thing, Spike. So, d’you wanna?”
“No,” Cloud says, with as much sarcasm as he can muster, “I thought I’d wallow here like a sad loner instead. Yes, I want to meet him!”
So that… happens. Of course, the moment the two of them are in the room together, Zack says, in the most over-dramatic tone Cloud has ever heard in his life, “Oh, man, I gotta go! Sorry, guys!”
And then he makes his escape, the bastard.
“Um,” says Cloud, into the stretching silence. Sephiroth is just staring at him, like he’s some kind of museum exhibit, one of the vehicles on display in the lobby.
“I have heard, Infantryman Strife, that you have been in some altercations with those in your barracks.”
“Um. Yes, sir,” Cloud says, face burning. It’s not like it’s a secret, but that Sephiroth himself knows? Mortifying. And if he knows why--
“Despite your body, you are… male?”
“Yes, sir,” he says firmly, and Sephiroth nods, once. “Uh, how about you, sir? Guy or girl or… whatever?”
“...No,” says Sephiroth, after a long moment, frowning a little. “The Professor has always referred to me as it. Designations such as male or female are for people, and I am a tool.”
The tone of absolute certainty chills Cloud to the bone, and if he thought he could get away with it he’d go and kill Professor Hojo right now. He’s considering doing it anyway, actually. Only Sephiroth’s expression stops him, resigned and somehow longing.
“You know, everyone says he when they talk about you, but you could ask them to use something else. If you liked. It took my mom a while, when I told her, but she does.” And here he takes a leap of faith, striking out on instinct, and adds, “Something you picked for yourself, instead of having people always choose for you.”
Sephiroth says nothing for a long time, long enough that Zack returns and starts up another conversation without pause, dragging them both into it. An hour or so later, as Cloud turns to close the door behind him on the way out, Sephiroth says quietly, “Them. I think I would like you to use them, when you speak of me.”
“Yes, sir,” Cloud says, and doesn’t try and hide his smile.