Chapter Text
Valk turned his attention to Sephiroth.
“You’ve brought a guest,” Valk was surprisingly calm for being finally face to face with his alternate self.
“Um. Suprise?” Cloud shrugged his shoulders to his ears with an awkward smile. He wouldn’t have done this so suddenly if there was any other option. It was a rude thing to spring on someone.
The air grew tense as the two of them sized the other up. Valk narrowed his eyes ever so slightly. Sephiroth clenched his fist.
If there was ever a meeting that felt like two thunderstorms crossing paths it was this.
Then Valk sighed and grabbed a bag of goat feed. He poured an amount that was judged appropriate with a small tilt of his head side to side then sealed the bag.
“I’ll put the kettle on. In the meantime, you are going to bathe,” Valk declared. He addressed Sephiroth unwaveringly while clapping the dust off his gloved hands.
“What? No. I was promised answers, not more tricks and lies,” Sephiroth snarled. Cloud tried not to flinch.
“And you will have them, after food and bathing which based on your hair you haven’t done in several days. It's unsanitary,” his words were well aimed and hit true. Sephiroth pulled a few strands of hair in front of his face then rolled them between his fingers.
It was shiny with oil and under his eyes bags of shadow were starting to form. His skin hadn’t flushed with red or acne but it also shone slightly with oil from lack of care. His lips were chapped with sections cracked and peeling up to the point of blood. Sephiroth touched the dried skin with two gentle fingers. Awareness came back into himself as he explored the neglect of his body.
Of course Valk would know the right things to say. They were the same person. Cloud was glad that someone else had taken the reigns of the situation.
“I’ll get the bath prepped,” Cloud gave himself something to do besides stand there waiting for something.
Sephiroth moved to follow but–
“Leave the sword,” Valk ordered.
“No.” Sephiroth challenged.
“You’re not going to enter the house with that. I will not have you threaten Cloud,” Valk held out his hand for it.
Sephiroth scowled. He tightened his grip around it. The leather of his glove creaked with the force.
“Do you want answers about Professor Gast or not? Or even who I am?” Valk was only a little annoyed compared to Sephiroth's outright hostility.
His grip tightened a little more in one last burst of defiance then relaxed. Masamune was reluctantly placed in Valk’s open palm as Sephiroth passed by on his way to the front door.
Cloud had the insane vision of a scolded child handing over his toy.
Valk let out a small huff of amusement then followed them all in.
The inside of the house had changed drastically. The floors had been replaced from a beated muddled brown to a rich almost red color. The kitchen counters had gained new tops as well, now a marbled stone. It was the warmth so rarely found in winter brought to life. The old worn dullness of the old cabin had been overhauled into a place that wasn’t just the refuge for a social outcast. A home worth living in.
Cloud’s breath was stolen by the small alter in the main room.
A picture of Ma’ with offerings of dried meat and herbs with her journal rebound in hydrated quality leather.
“When you mentioned renovations… I thought like– the attic or something,” Cloud murmured while holding the framed photo from her bedroom’s closet.
“I’ve had a lot of time on my hands,” Valk replied simply.
There was a small twinkling sound of crystal. Sephiroth touched his mother’s sun catcher with two gentle fingers, turning it around to move the reflected light. His eyes relaxed from slited to a softer oval.
Kitty…
“Bath, I should get that started,” Cloud blinked away from the scene.
“We have running water to the bathtub now. I had pipes installed,” Valk said appearing with clothes and a towel.
“No shit?” Cloud smiled. No more lugging up bucket after bucket of water everytime he needed to bathe. That had been one of the nicer parts of midgar; consistent running water.
“Quite,” Valk turned to address Sephiroth. “A bath first, its through that door on the left, wash your hair. These will fit,” Then thrusted clothes into his counter part’s hands. It was a simple cotton shirt and flannel pants. They would for-sure fit because they were the same person.
Weird.
It was like trying to introduce two cats to each other. Sephiroth kept his distance and his guard up around Valk who was in a similar state. Sephiroth walked in a wide arc around him only coming close enough to grab the clothes.
“There’s not a window in there he can climb out of, is there?” Cloud asked with a raised eyebrow.
“No, but I would hear any escape attempts if there was,” Valk replied unbothered.
Sephiroth glared at them. He slinked into the bathroom.
The door clicked shut.
Then they were alone.
Strong arms circled around Cloud. The frost of tension and guilt and fear that built up for three years melted away under the warmth of the embrace. He was surrounded by the natural smell that was his Sephiroth; there was the comfort of his old detergent, of foliage and dried herbs. Though, the years had changed it slightly too. There was the slight sent of animals and hay, and something that had sandalwood in it. It didn’t matter. In fact, Cloud relaxed into the fact he wasn't the only one who had changed.
He wrapped his arms around Sephiroth in return. It was rewarded with a heavy sigh as Sephiroth melted. He leaned into Cloud letting him carry just a little bit of weight.
They stood there in each other’s embrace. They drank in the each other, scent and heart beat and touch, for all time they’d been apart.
Sephiroth pulled away to hold Cloud’s face in his palms.
“Welcome home,” He said.
“You already said that,” Cloud replied with a chuckle.
“Not properly,”
Sephiroth guided Cloud into a gentle kiss. His lips were warm and strange. They’d only kissed twice. Had it only been twice?
A sharp fizzle of guilt ate through the warm moment.
Cloud pulled away. Sephiroth looked at him curiously.
“I’m sorry, I–” Cloud began speaking. He took a cautious step back, but was pulled back in.
“There is nothing you could have possibly done to warrant apologizing to me,” Sephiroth still had a heavy intensity. A feeling of his entire existence focused down on one point, right now that was Cloud.
“I– it’s about Zack,” Cloud whispered while wishing for all the world to hide from himself in Sephiroth’s chest.
“What about him?”
“I kissed him– well he kissed me first and then later I kissed him again. Oh gods tried to have sex with him,” Cloud wanted to run away so badly. To not have this painful awkward conversation.
“Matters of the flesh,” Sephiroth said with distaste. Was it distasteful to talk about them or the fact Cloud had tried? That was such a loaded statement and beautifully Sephiroth in its drama.
There was just one issue.
“I don’t think it was just ‘of the flesh’,” Cloud murmured. Sephiroth paused.
“Has it changed your affections for me?”
“No, of course not,”
“Living here has–,” He paused. “Shrank my world. Before it was a malstrom of theories and projections and concepts. Ideas large enough to govern a nation or wage a war. Now, I care about tangibles; my animals, my body, the state of my house. You came back. You care for me. That is what I know. That is what I care about,”
Cloud began to cry as he kissed Sephiroth again. He’d hurt himself and Zack over this unfinished dance with Sephiroth, agonized over if he’d cheated on someone he wasn’t sure if he was actually dating. There was so much guilt.
The semantics of love. What a dreadful idea.
Sephiroth pulled away just in time for the other Sephiroth still slightly damp to come out of the bathroom.
(Cloud mentally shifted back to calling his Sephiroth Valk again.)
He did look better. The absence of black leather and armor softened him. The unstable look in his eyes was gone. He looked tired and fragile. Already broken; made out of a spiderweb of hairline fractures threatening to break.
Cloud miraculously, inexplicably, unbelievably, knew exactly how to handle a Sephiroth coming down from a manic episode.
A bizarre and niche skill that he never expected to have or use again.
“Do you want me to braid your hair?” Cloud offered gently. He sniffed away his tears.
Sephiroth looked at him wearily.
“It helps keep it out of the way, and it feels nice,” Cloud felt that old home field confidence coming back.
“We’ll talk while you eat. I’m going to make eggs and sausage. We have time,” Valk added while– to Cloud’s delight– putting on a checkered apron.
Sephiroth thought about it like a computer frozen while loading.
“Fine,” He finally decided.
Cloud grabbed a brush and hair tie after Valk directed him to their new home on Ma’s old vanity.
The main room had a new couch that Cloud guided Sephiroth to. It was familiar and novel all the same time. Like the first time he tasted fresh black cherries for the first time compared to the artificial flavoring. The flavoring still could be identified as black cherry, but it was not the same as the actual thing.
Handling Sephiroth was similar to handling Valk back then, but still different.
The sadness was louder.
Cloud gently made sure there were no tangles, there wasn’t, then pulled the silken hair into a simple three strand braid. He’d missed handling this silver hair no matter which head it was on.
“He’s why you weren’t afraid of me when we first met. I thought it was so strange that you’d cowered to Genesis but not to me,” Sephiroth whispered. His eyes looked somewhen else than the present.
“I try not to compare you two, treat you both an individuals, but you just don’t make me afraid by existing. Not after living for months with Valk,” Cloud replied just as whispered.
“Is that how you distinguish us? You call him Valk?”
“Short for Valkyrie, what I called him in our letters,” Cloud explained. He hadn’t considered that Sephiroth would also need something to distinguish himself from his counterpart.
The conversation fizzled out to silence. Not an uncomfortable one or a complete one. Goats bleated outside, there was the sound of Valk in the kitchen, the ambient noise of the forest. By the time the braid was done and tied off, Sephiroth’s eyes had drifted closed. Cloud breathed out and left himself sink back into the couch.
The fact he was waking up told Cloud he must have drifted off, that and the blanket carefully draped over him. They’d gotten to the house early morning and it was noon based off the wall clock.
Sephiroth was nowhere to be found, but Valk was sitting on the other end of the couch with a book.
“You should have woken me up,” Cloud mumbled sleepily.
“You looked tired, I wanted you to rest. You’ll need it for the next few hours,” Valk said ominously.
“And why exactly is that,” Cloud said.
Except Cloud didn’t say anything.
But it was his voice.
Cloud blearily looked toward the direction his voice came. He was sitting at the table eating a heaping plate of scrambled eggs. He dressed strangely in all black with a wolf pendant on his right shoulder connected to a soldier pauldron.
Eyes as green as life stream.
“You’re right. He has no mako. His eyes are blue,” He said.
Outside birds flew from the trees as a scream echoed from the house.