Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The smell of antiseptic, the steady mechanical beeping of the machines, and the dull, throbbing pain in his head are the first things Cloud becomes aware of as he gradually regains consciousness.

The next thing is a heavy hand covering his own.

He tries to speak, but his tongue feels like lead, and all that comes out as a muffled groan.

The rest of his body is heavy, immovable. He can’t even open his eyes, but the moment he stirs, the hand instantly reacts. It clutches harder, while another—soft and warm—lands on his cheek.

“Cloud?”

The voice sounds worried yet hopeful, and Cloud wonders who it belongs to. It is strangely familiar, but he cannot place it. 

“Get the doctor!” it barks at someone else who races out of the room, leaving Cloud in the care of those hands that won’t stop touching him.

It should probably bother him that he doesn’t know who they belong to, but he feels safe here. Every instinct he has is telling him to trust this person.

They murmur softly into his ear, so Cloud tries to listen, but he can’t keep up. The words are too fast, whispered fervently, and he feels too dazed. All he can make out is an emphatic, “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

It sounds like a vow, and Cloud believes it. 

He tries to move his fingers, to squeeze back and reassure his companion that he’s okay, but his limbs feel like they belong to someone else.

Slowly, with significant effort, he grasps the hand holding his. It feels unusually large; much bigger than Tifa’s.

It must be a man’s hand, Cloud realizes, but whose?

The first person that comes to mind is Barret, but when something soft and warm touches his knuckles, Cloud knows it can’t be him. They’ve become good friends over the years, but even now, Barret would rather eat dirt than kiss him. 

So who?

The hand that was on his cheek wanders into his hair, caressing in a way that feels shockingly familiar.

Cloud’s body recognizes this hand, even if his mind doesn’t. 

“Wh…” he croaks, but his throat is too dry.

“Shh, take it easy. The doctor is coming.” The hand moves his bangs away, sliding once more over his cheek. “Do you want some water?”

Cloud tries to nod, but his head just lolls against his shoulder. Keeping it up is too much effort, but what he does is enough for the person tending to him to understand.

They leave for a few moments, and when they return, they lift Cloud into a sitting position and press a plastic cup to his lips.

“Open your mouth.”

Cloud does.

It could be poison for all he knows, but he trusts this voice implicitly.

After a few sips, his throat starts to feel a little better. He can finally breathe without the air scraping over his vocal cords like sandpaper.

“Thank you,” he rasps, profoundly grateful. He leans against his savior’s chest and realizes they smell familiar. They smell like home.

But what does that mean?

Who could this be?

Dying to know, Cloud musters his feeble strength and forces his eyes open.

The first thing he sees are arms wrapped around his middle, clinging tightly. There is a simple silver band on one of the fingers, but it means nothing to Cloud. He doesn’t recognize these hands, so he turns in the embrace, hoping to find something familiar, and he does—hair as silver as the ring he saw and eyes the color of mako. 

Cloud flinches immediately, but he’s too weak to fight, and the hands follow him.

One returns to his face, still shockingly gentle, while those eerie mako eyes loom ever closer—closer than they’ve ever been—until they’re but inches away.

Dark circles surround them, making Sephiroth appear haggard, and that’s not the only thing that strikes Cloud as strange.

Sephiroth is wearing regular clothes—a pair of jeans and a t-shirt—that look completely out of place. It’s as if he stole them on the way there, hoping to blend in, but he still stands out like a sore thumb.

His hair is different, too. It’s tied in a loose bun, with bangs hanging loosely around his face, making it appear almost sallow.

But the strangest thing is that when he looks at Cloud, his eyes light up with warmth that has no right being there.

“Never scare me like that again,” he whispers, leaning in, far too close for comfort.

He inches closer and closer to Cloud’s face, filling him with panic that finally gives him the burst of adrenaline he needed to shove Sephiroth away. He recoils so violently he almost falls right off the bed, but Sephiroth’s hands steady him, keeping him in place.

Their presence on Cloud’s body suddenly feels like a violation. An unwelcome invasion of his personal space.

He squirms, but he cannot shake them.

The machines go off around him, blaring in alarm as his heart rate goes through the roof.

“What’s wrong?” Sephiroth asks, looking around as if searching for the source of Cloud’s distress. As if his mere presence isn’t enough to give him a heart attack.

He taps the call button repeatedly, but Cloud doesn’t even notice. He’s too busy searching for something he could use to defend himself.

His breaths come out in shallow gasps, so fast it feels like he might pass out. But he mustn’t! He can’t put himself in such a vulnerable position. He’ll sooner die than let Sephiroth turn him into a puppet again!

“Calm down,” Sephiroth says, leaning closer, but Cloud shoves him away again—as hard as he can in his weakened state.

“Why are you here?” he demands, and Sephiroth has the gall to look hurt.

“Where else would I be? What do y—”

“Don’t touch me!!”

Cloud is too weak to do anything, but he will not go down without a fight.

He yanks the IV out of his arm and points it at Sephiroth like a shiv. It is pointless, and he knows it. Even when he’s not this weak, defeating Sephiroth always takes a lot out of him. With nothing but a needle in his hand, he doesn’t even stand a chance.

But instead of attacking, Sephiroth stands there frozen, looking utterly horrified.

“Cloud, what in the world—”

Everything gets a million times worse when the door opens and Tifa walks in.

She moves around the room, completely oblivious, as if she can’t see the danger in front of her. As if there isn’t a mass murderer standing by Cloud’s bedside.

When she brushes past Sephiroth, Cloud goes numb with panic.

“Stay away from her!” he bellows, making them both freeze and stare at him in shock.

He can’t understand what’s happening here.

Why is Tifa so calm? And why isn’t Sephiroth attacking?

It feels like the answer is right in front of him, but his brain is still woozy from the painkillers.

Cloud struggles to get up, determined to protect Tifa… but there are cords and cables tying him to the bed.

In his desperation, he starts ripping them out, ignoring Tifa screaming at him to stop.

“Get behind me!” he orders, but for some reason, she keeps standing where she is—right next to Sephiroth!

He has to get to her. He has to protect her. He can’t let anyone else die!

Cloud takes a step toward them, but his legs can’t hold him. They give out the moment his feet touch the floor, and he falls, his consciousness slipping away once more.

He prepares for pain, but it never comes.

Strong arms catch him before he crashes to the floor.

They pull him against a broad, chiseled chest, and the last thought Cloud has before everything goes black is that it feels too flat to be Tifa’s.

The next time he regains consciousness, Cloud is still hooked to the machines, surrounded by their beeping. There’s still an overpowering smell of antiseptic, and there’s still plenty of pain.

But now, it’s all overshadowed by a lingering fear.

Immediately, he forces his eyes open, frantically searching the room, but all he finds is Tifa sitting in a chair next to his bed.

When she realizes he’s awake, she jumps up and approaches.

“Cloud!”

She touches his cheek, tilting his face toward her. Her touch is familiar, boundlessly gentle and caring, yet it feels wrong. It feels like something is missing.

Vaguely, Cloud remembers another hand touching him, but he wants to believe that was only a nightmare.

Still, he keeps looking around nervously, checking every corner, but to his relief, they are alone.

“You okay?” 

“Am I okay?” Tifa shakes her head in disbelief. “I’m not the one in the hospital, Cloud. You had us all so worried!”

“Yeah, well… it’s not like I planned this.” He winces in pain as he tries to sit up, and Tifa immediately reaches over to help. “What happened to me?”

“You crashed your bike on the way back to Edge.”

“Shit,” he mutters. “Fenrir?”

“It’s fine, Cloud. You should worry about yourself. You’re the one who got banged up.”

He groans, the pain shooting through his shoulders every time he moves. He feels like he got hit by a truck.

“Did I break anything?”

“No, you got lucky. You could have been paralyzed or worse, but all you got was a mild concussion.”

With the way his head is throbbing, it doesn’t feel very mild, but Cloud doesn’t have the energy to argue.

“Great,” he grunts, touching the back of his head and finding it covered in bandages. Beneath them, there is a rather large, extremely tender bump. “Ow,” he says in a whiny voice, making them both laugh.

“Don’t be a baby. You’ll live.”

Cloud smiles, nodding. “I’ll be fine as long as I don’t have any more dreams or hallucinations… or whatever the hell that was.”

“You were hallucinating?”

“Yeah… I saw Sephiroth.”

Tifa’s smile drops. “What do you mean?”

“I thought he was here, paying me a visit,” Cloud says, rolling his eyes at how ludicrous that sounds, but Tifa doesn’t find it funny.

“He was here,” she says slowly, studying him. “He’s out there still. He was absolutely livid when they wouldn’t let him see you, so he made a huge scene.”

Cloud blinks rapidly, unable to believe what he’s hearing.

“What…?”

“I don’t know what happened between you two, but you panicked when you saw him, so the nurses kicked him out. I think it hurt him a lot.”

The beeping grows louder, drawing Tifa’s attention. She gently squeezes Cloud’s hand, trying to soothe him.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m not calling you out or anything. Whatever it was, I’m sure you’ll work it out.”

“You’re not making any sense… Why would Sephiroth be here? Isn’t he dead?”

“Dead?!” Tifa sounds utterly shocked, making Cloud feel like he’s losing his mind.

Nothing makes sense anymore.

“We killed him, remember? We stopped him from destroying the world.”

“Cloud… that was twelve years ago.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It was two years ago at most!”

Tifa stares at him in silence, her eyes almost pitying.

“What year do you think it is?”

It’s a simple question, but the way she asks fills Cloud with unease. It feels like a test.

“[ ν ] – εγλ 0011.”

There is a slight tremble to Tifa’s frame when she gets up, and Cloud immediately knows he got it wrong.

“I’ll be right back.”

“Wait! You can’t leave me hanging! Tell me what’s going on!”

“I need a moment to think, Cloud. I—I need to talk to Sephiroth.”

Cloud grabs her wrist, stopping her.

“Have you lost your mind? Why would you talk to him?”

When she doesn’t immediately answer, he tries to pull her back, but she doesn’t let him.

“I don’t know how much I should tell you…”

“Tell me everything!”

“I want to, but I don’t want to freak you out again.”

“Freak me out?” he repeats incredulously, feeling more than a little freaked out already.

“Yes, Cloud, I… I think you forgot the last ten years of your life. And I don’t want to say anything that would confuse you even more.”

Ten years?

“Tifa—”

Their conversation is interrupted when a nurse barges into the room, looking angry as hell.

“Mr. Strife, your husband insists on seeing you. He won’t take no for an answer.”

Cloud’s head fills with white noise.

Underneath it, all he can hear is the thundering of his own heart.

As if in slow motion, the wool is pulled from his eyes, letting him see the truth, but he cannot bear it.

He clutches his head and screams until his throat turns raw.

In a matter of seconds, the room is flooded with doctors and nurses shouting something unintelligible, forcing him to lie down, but they don’t understand. Cloud has to get up and fight! He has to protect everyone! He’s the only one who stands a chance against Sephiroth! It’s all up to him! He has to…

Suddenly, his eyelids grow heavy.

They must have drugged him because, try as he might, he can’t keep his eyes open.

He makes one last, sluggish attempt to rise…

And then there’s only darkness.

A few days later, Cloud is sitting on a small bed in what used to be his room, unable to believe how much everything has changed.

At first, when Tifa told him he was missing ten years of his life, it sounded impossible, but the more he sees, the harder it is to deny it. 

Marlene is already sixteen, and she’s grown so much that her head now reaches all the way up to Cloud’s chin. She looks like an entirely different person, and Denzel… He’s turned into a young man, tall enough to tower over Cloud, which is something he really doesn’t want to acknowledge or focus on.

There are signs everywhere he looks, even in this room. The clutter and boxes are all over the floor, making it clear no one’s lived in it for a while. Based on what Tifa told him, he occasionally slept here when he stayed over at Seventh Heaven, but he spent most of his time in Kalm… with his husband.

The word still makes Cloud’s skin crawl. 

After everything Sephiroth has done, after all the ways he has hurt him, Cloud can’t imagine agreeing to marry him willingly.

And therein lies the catch.

He’s convinced Sephiroth spent the last ten years controlling him like a puppet, forcing him to submit, convincing everyone around them that it was normal… Until a blow to Cloud’s head unscrambled his brain, freeing him from Sephiroth’s influence.

It sounds far-fetched, and Cloud has no idea how Sephiroth could have been strong enough to achieve it, but it’s the only explanation he has. It certainly makes more sense than him being with Sephiroth because he chose to!

The thing Cloud can’t understand, though, is how Sephiroth managed to fool all of his friends.

Tifa, who used to hate him with every fiber of her being, turned into his staunch defender, using every chance to tell Cloud what a great guy he’s turned into.

What a load of crap.

Cloud doesn’t believe it for a second. All it does is make him even more suspicious. It makes him wonder if Sephiroth found a way to control his friends too.

Perhaps he’s grown so strong that he could control multiple people for years on end, and that…

That is utterly terrifying.

But that’s not even the worst of it. The scariest part is that Cloud has no idea what Sephiroth’s end goal might be.

If he had them all under his spell for years, why didn’t he destroy the world? What was stopping him?

Was there some new monstrosity he was waiting to unleash?

Cloud groans and rubs his face, wishing he could understand, but maybe it’s not possible to find logic in the actions of a madman.

In the end, all this worrying has just given him a headache, made worse by the lingering effects of his concussion.

The doctor ordered him to avoid stressors, but right now, that’s impossible. Simply existing in a world where Sephiroth is his husband is putting Cloud under an immense amount of pressure.

He has to fix this, but he doesn’t know how.

“You awake?” Tifa asks with a little knock against the door frame.

“Yeah.”

“You missed lunch. I thought you were sleeping, so I didn’t want to wake you.”

“It’s fine. I’m not hungry anyway.”

“You have to eat, Cloud. Your body needs energy to heal.”

“I’m fine,” he repeats, even though he feels anything but.

Unfortunately, Tifa knows him well enough to see right through his lie. She shuffles into the room and joins him on the bed.

“You wanna talk?”

“Not really.”

“Really?” she asks dubiously, tilting her head. “There’s nothing you want to ask? Nothing you’re curious about?”

Cloud shrugs. “You already told me everything.”

“Not by a long shot. Ten years is a long time, Cloud. I could spend weeks answering questions and still not cover even half of it.”

Cloud turns to look at her, and he can’t quite quell the rage he feels. “Alright, I have a question for you then. Why did you let it happen? How could you not know that he was controlling me?”

“Cloud…” Tifa’s eyes soften, filling with that awful pity again. “He wasn’t controlling you. Trust me. That’s the first thing I suspected. I did everything I could to drive you apart because I believed I was saving you… but you didn’t need saving. Your mind was perfectly clear. It was just love making you crazy.”

“Yeah, right,” Cloud snorts in disgust. As if he would ever be stupid enough to fall in love with that bastard. 

“Love,” Tifa insists firmly. “You were head over heels. I’ve never seen you so happy.”

“That doesn’t sound like me at all, Tifa! You should know that. I’ve never been that crazy about anyone!”

“Not before him, but Cloud… you adored him. And he adored you right back.”

Cloud scoffs, not believing it for a second.

“That bastard could never love anyone but himself.”

“Oh, Cloud… you couldn’t be more wrong.”

All Cloud gets from this conversation is that he cannot trust Tifa; she’s clearly been compromised. The real Tifa would never forgive Sephiroth for the horrible things did. She’d never waste her breath trying to defend him.

But whatever happened to her, Cloud will undo it.

As soon as his strength returns, he’ll kill Sephiroth and save his friends.

Tifa pats his knee, drawing his attention.

“Come on, I’ll reheat some food for you. You need to eat.”

Cloud nods dumbly and follows her into the kitchen, his mind awhirl with plans and possibilities.

Eventually, after spending a couple of days brooding in his room, Cloud starts coming down for lunch. As difficult as it is to look at the kids and see how much they’ve grown, he refuses to let Sephiroth turn him into a recluse. This is his family, so he wants to get to know them again.

Denzel is no longer the shy, lonely kid Cloud remembers. He’s become a lot more confident over the years, and now he’s talking animatedly, telling Cloud about his interests and universities he’d planning to apply to.

Marlene seems just as curious and sharp-witted as before, but she’s even more observant now that she’s older. And she never holds back. If she has something to say, she makes sure everyone knows it.

The trouble is that she’s been eyeing Cloud for days now, the cogs in her head turning clear as day. He doesn’t know what Tifa told her, but it’s obvious that she has questions. Not that Cloud can blame her. They’ve all changed so much that he can barely recognize them, and the feeling must be mutual. After eight long years under Sephiroth’s control, his personality is probably completely different. Unrecognizable.

Marlene watches him now as Tifa passes the gravy and poses what at first sounds like a perfectly innocent question.

“When was the last time you saw Kadaj?”

The gravy slips from Tifa’s fingers, drenching everything on Cloud’s plate.

She blushes immediately, apologizing profusely, before running off to get him another.

It’s not a big deal, but her strange reaction leaves Cloud curious. He looks around the table and is shocked to find everyone staring at him like he’s about to snap.

“Kadaj?” he asks, but no one will meet his eyes. “The remnants are back?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Tifa assures him with a tight smile. “You don’t need to worry about that right now. Just focus on getting well.”

“How can you say that? Cloud’s been here for almost two weeks. Kadaj is worried sick!”

“Marlene!” Tifa hisses, but the girl refuses to shut up.

“Uncle Sephiroth let me talk to him on the phone today—”

“Uncle Sephiroth…?” Cloud repeats incredulously.

The thought of that man being referred to as an uncle is utterly ridiculous, but that’s not even the biggest bombshell. In the next breath, Marlene delivers her final blow.

“—and he kept crying because he misses his dad!”

Deafening silence follows her words.

They echo in Cloud’s head, repeating over and over, but they refuse to make sense.

She can’t mean him… right?

He stands so abruptly that his chair topples over. Hitting the floor, it sounds like an explosion in the absolute silence of the room.

Without a word, he turns around and flees.

“Cloud,” Tifa calls after him, but he can’t stop. He practically runs to his room, his heart thundering in his ears.

What the hell has Sephiroth done to him?

A child…!

How dare he drag a child into their mess?

He hides his face in his hands, trying not to hyperventilate.

This feels like a cruel joke.

Cloud has always wanted a child, but this is a travesty. There’s no way in hell he agreed to raise a child with Sephiroth, especially not with a name like that. He’d never name his son after a monster like Kadaj!

Sephiroth must have forced him, there’s no doubt about it, and the thought makes Cloud sick to his stomach. It makes him wonder what else Sephiroth has done.

Did he fill the mind of an impressionable child with his evil plans? Did he turn Cloud’s son into a monster like him?

The thought leaves Cloud utterly broken. He cannot imagine anything worse than his own son turning into Sephiroth. It’s unthinkable. Unforgivable. Even if he kills Sephiroth today, it might be too late to undo the damage he’s already done.

“Hey,” Tifa says softly as she enters the room. She pulls up a storage box and sits across from Cloud, but he’s too angry to look at her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demands, too tired to play nice anymore. He feels betrayed and powerless, frustrated by his own stupidity.

“I didn’t want you to find out like this. I told Marlene not to mention it, but you know how she is.”

“Tifa… I’m not upset that she told me. I’m upset that you didn’t!”

“I didn’t think you were ready to hear it, Cloud. And honestly, your reaction is proving me right.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, was I supposed to be glad that my son is apparently being groomed by Sephiroth?!”

“I know you can’t believe me right now, but he’s actually a really great dad.”

Cloud tries not to gag.

It was hard to imagine Sephiroth as an uncle, but the thought of him as a dad is utterly preposterous! It’s an insult to every father out there in the world.

Cloud looks up at the ceiling and tries to regain some semblance of control.

“How old is he?”

“He’s four.”

“And he’s… really mine?”

“He is.”

Biting his lips, Cloud tries to picture his son, but he can’t. After all, the boy could take after his mother. He might not resemble Cloud at all.

Which leads him to his next question.

“Who’s the mother? Were you… I mean… Did we use a surrogate?”

Tifa is his best friend, so he can’t imagine asking anyone else, but the question visibly shocks her.

“Oh, heavens, no!” She blushes furiously, suddenly looking very awkward. “I mean… I would have considered it, had you asked. But you didn’t need me.”

“What do you mean? Who was it?”

Cloud squirms impatiently, feeling a little nauseous.

It doesn’t help that Tifa looks very uncomfortable, so he already knows he’s not going to like the answer.

“Just tell me.”

“Well… Kadaj doesn’t technically have a mother.”

Cloud frowns, his discomfort rising.

“What the hell does that mean? How can he not have a mother?”

Did Sephiroth grow him a fucking lab?

Cloud imagines a clone—a miniature version of Sephiroth himself—and the thought of raising such a creature as his own child disturbs him more than anything else he’s heard so far.

But then Tifa kneels at his feet and takes his hands into hers. 

“I need you to stay calm, okay? Don’t freak out.”

“You’re already freaking me the fuck out,” he says, feeling his stomach lurch.

“Kadaj doesn’t have a mother because he has two dads.” Tifa’s hands squeeze harder, her nails digging into Cloud’s skin. “There was no surrogate, Cloud. He’s your son… Yours and Sephiroth’s.”

It sounds like a joke, something straight out of a horror movie, but the moment is too grave, and Cloud knows Tifa wouldn’t play with him like that.

His stomach lurches again, the bile rising to his throat.

“But… we’d still need a surrogate,” he says, sounding a little desperate. He’s grasping at straws, and he knows it. “Two men can’t make babies together, Tifa.”

“I honestly don’t know how it worked… All you told me was that Sephiroth used Jenova’s cells to temporarily alter your body and make it possible for you to carry a child.”

Cold sweat drips down Cloud’s forehead. His hands begin to shake.

He stares at Tifa in disbelief.

“He mutilated my body… and you knew?”

“It wasn’t like that, Cloud! You both agreed to it. It wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. It was your dream! You wanted a child, so you talked Sephiroth into giving it to you.”

Cloud shakes his head, unseeing. This is all too much to take in.

The thought of giving birth to a child with Sephiroth’s DNA—and by extension, Jenova’s—makes him so queasy that he runs to the bathroom and empties the contents of his stomach.

After a while, Tifa shows up behind him and holds his head while he heaves and cries. It takes him a long time to calm down.

“There’s too much you don’t remember, Cloud. You keep judging Sephiroth based on his past actions, but there’s more to him than that.”

There’s nothing that bastard could have done to redeem himself, but Cloud is too emotionally drained to keep arguing. There’s no winning this, anyway. Tifa has clearly been brainwashed, and that’s not her fault. 

There’s only one person to blame here—and Cloud does. He hates Sephiroth more than ever before, and he vows to make him suffer for destroying every single aspect of his life.

Meanwhile, Tifa keeps trying to convince him the child was his idea; that Sephiroth was reluctant to do it at first because he was deeply worried about the consequences it could have on Cloud’s health. According to her, he spent Cloud’s entire pregnancy clinging to his side, fretting.

Cloud cannot imagine it. Any kind of human emotion on that alien face is far beyond his ability to conceive. 

But perhaps Sephiroth was worried about losing his heir. Perhaps his plans involved the child in some way. It would explain why he spent all those years waiting.

Long after Tifa leaves, Cloud keeps staring at his stomach, unable to believe there was a living being inside it. He examines his skin, looking for stretch marks or any other signs that he could have been pregnant, but there are none. He wants to believe this is only a nightmare, but he can’t afford to hide his head in the sand. Sephiroth himself was supposed to be a nightmare too, but that never stopped him from destroying Cloud’s life. 

This isn’t something he can run from.

His son will be his responsibility, and since the child carries Sephiroth’s genetic material, there’s no telling what he’ll turn into. He could be another monster in the making, and someday, it might be up to Cloud to stop him. And maybe that’s precisely what Sephiroth is counting on—Cloud’s inability to raise his sword against his own child.

It terrifies Cloud that he might be right.

He wants to believe he would always do the right thing and choose the world over his own feelings, but he’s never had to hurt a child before.

Certainly not his own.

And that scares him to death.

Not even a day later, Cloud decides he can no longer wait.

Now that he knows he has a son, he cannot leave him with Sephiroth for even a moment longer. He has to save him.

He’s still weak, and his mind is still hazy, so he’ll have to rely on the element of surprise. Hopefully, Sephiroth won’t expect him to attack so soon because that’s the only chance he’s got. 

He grabs his sword and heads out, but he doesn’t count on Tifa trying to stop him.

He doesn’t tell her where he’s going or what he’s planning to do, but she must have guessed anyway because she keeps getting in his way. There are suddenly countless things she needs him to do around the house, and none of them can wait.

Unfortunately for her, Cloud sees right through her plans, so he promises to do everything when he returns and speeds off toward Kalm without wasting a second.

In the rearview mirror, he sees Tifa speaking on the phone, waving her hands in the air, the way she does when she’s agitated, and Cloud knows, he just knows she’s talking to Sephiroth, warning him about his arrival.

So much for the element of surprise.

The betrayal stings, leaving Cloud with a heavy feeling in his heart, but he doesn’t blame Tifa.

The only one to blame for all this is Sephiroth himself.

Chapter Text

Kalm looks just as Cloud remembers it: endless rows of brick houses lining the sides of winding cobblestone streets. There is still a bustling marketplace in the center of the town, along with vibrant cafes and plenty of tourists.

Nothing at all has changed, yet there is no spark; nothing about this place reminds Cloud of home. He feels like just another tourist, wandering the streets without a genuine connection to them. There are no emotions tying him to this place.

Everything feels so foreign and strange that it’s hard to believe he used to live here.

Avoiding the crowds, Cloud heads down a small street just up the hill. Marlene readily gave him the address when he asked. Unlike Tifa, who knew what he was planning to do, the girl just wanted him to see Kadaj, so she jotted it down as quickly as she could.

But when Cloud finally gets there, he can’t help but wonder if he found the right place.

The street looks just like any other, completely unfamiliar.

Even without his memories, he expected to feel a wave of nostalgia or something, some sign that he used to live here, so when it doesn’t come, it makes everything feel that much more surreal. Like a past someone else had lived.

Cloud double-checks Marlene’s note to make sure he didn’t take a wrong turn, but this is definitely supposed to be his “home”.

It doesn’t feel that way at all.

It is a small, two-story building that doesn’t stand out in any particular way. At a glance, it looks just like every other house on the street. Curtains are drawn closed, but other than that, there’s nothing suspicious about it. Nothing that would warn the neighbors about a mass murderer living inside. There are even flowers growing in the front yard!

And not just any flowers; they’re yellow lilies.

The sight of them makes bile rise to Cloud’s throat.

By the time he parks in the driveway, he’s already shaking with anger. Adrenaline courses through his veins, filling him with strength. He still hasn’t fully recovered, but right now, he feels ready to rip Sephiroth apart. 

Even if Tifa called ahead to warn him, Cloud won’t let him get away. He’ll have to pay for everything he’s done!

But before he even gets off the bike, the front door opens, and there he stands, the bane of his existence—the monster who ruined his life.

Bathed in the light coming from the house, Sephiroth steps outside, turning this into a pathetic mockery of yet another one of Cloud’s dreams.

He’s always wanted to have a loving family, the kind where his spouse would greet him at the door with a kiss. But this is no such thing. The only thing Sephiroth might offer in greeting is cold steel to his chest.

Oddly enough, Sephiroth hasn’t brought a sword, but even without it, he looks just as Cloud remembers him: tall, menacing, and utterly cold.

There’s no sign of the loving husband Tifa painted him as, which makes Cloud more certain than ever that it was all for show. That Sephiroth only pretended to dote on him in front of his friends, while he treated him differently when they were alone.

Cloud glares as he approaches the door, and Sephiroth glares right back. Feeling the weight of those deadly reptilian eyes makes Cloud’s skin crawl. This man has violated him in ways he never thought possible. Subconsciously, his arm curls over his lower belly protectively. There’s no amount of pain he could inflict that would make Sephiroth pay for everything he’s done.

But he’s certainly going to try.

Sephiroth looks different when he’s not wearing his armor, and seeing him like this, in a pair of black jeans and a tight-fitting white shirt, reminds Cloud of how he looked at the hospital—with dark circles around his eyes and a weary expression.

Cloud was too dazed back then, but a memory comes to him now, sudden and unwelcome. He vividly remembers gentle hands touching his face and soft lips pressed against his knuckles.

His steps falter, but he presses on. He reminds himself that none of that was real. Sephiroth was either putting on a show for Tifa, or Cloud was high enough on painkillers to imagine it all.

Today, Sephiroth’s hair is pulled back into a loose ponytail, and he seems deathly pale. Even worse than he looked back at the hospital. Perhaps defeating him won’t be as difficult as Cloud feared because he looks just about ready to pass out.

But despite his exhaustion, when Cloud gets closer, he moves with him, blocking his way.

“Cloud,” he greets, visibly tense. His voice is completely flat and stone-cold. Not at all what you’d expect from a loving husband. 

Cloud still refuses to believe he could have willingly married this man. Despite the minor changes in his appearance, this is still the same genocidal maniac he was forced to kill three times over. There is no way he could have willingly kissed that face—the face of a man who killed his friends—not to mention anything more than that. He wouldn’t agree to carry the bastard’s child even if his life depended on it.  

He glances at the yellow flowers and reaches for his sword. Talking to Sephiroth would be a waste of time. All he wants to do is kill him.

As if sensing his thoughts, Sephiroth strengthens and pulls the door closed. It’s almost all the way shut now. Cloud expects him to summon Masamune, but instead he keeps glancing over his shoulder as if running from something. As if he’s more afraid of whatever is in there than of Cloud moving closer with his weapon drawn.

At the sound of heavy footsteps running their way, Sephiroth’s face turns ashen. His eyes dart to Cloud’s in horror.

From the other side of the door, comes the voice of a child.

“Dad! Where are you?”

Sephiroth clenches his jaw, his whole body taut as a bowstring, and Cloud finally understands—he’s not afraid for his own safety, but for that of his son. He actually thinks Cloud is going to hurt him.

The realization shocks Cloud to his core. It offends him. How dare Sephiroth think he’d hurt an innocent child!

But it’s even worse than that. He’s looking at Cloud as though he’s the monster here. A ruthless assassin who showed up on his doorstep with the intent to slaughter his family.

Cloud’s grip on the sword falters, but he refuses to put it down.

“I’ll be right there, Kaj. Stay inside,” Sephiroth calls back through the door without taking his eyes off Cloud, but the boy refuses to listen. He’s as stubborn and impulsive as his fathers, so he tugs the door sharply, so suddenly that it slips from Sephiroth’s fingers. It opens before he can stop it.

When he sees Cloud, a huge smile splits across his face. “Papa!”

“Wait!” Sephiroth says sharply, but Kadaj is too fast. He darts out behind him and leaps off the porch, straight into Cloud’s arms.

Out of the corner of his eye, Cloud sees Masamune appear, but it’s as if time itself had stopped. The moment stretches into infinity, and all he can focus on is the boy flying toward him. He moves on autopilot. Without even thinking, he drops his sword and catches him.

The boy slams into his chest, and it’s like an arrow piercing straight into his heart.

Kadaj giggles, digging his tiny hands into Cloud’s shirt.

“Papa,” he squeals happily, and Cloud falls to his knees with a gasp.

Papa.

The word sinks its claws into Cloud’s heart almost as fiercely as he clings to the boy.

He never imagined he’d hear anyone call him that…

And he wasn’t ready for how it would feel.

When he looks up with bewildered eyes, he finds Sephiroth watching them, and it chills him.

This must have been the bastard’s plan all along. He knew Cloud would get attached the moment he saw his son, and he must be planning to use that against him, as a way to get him back under his control. It makes Cloud want to revolt, to refuse any contact with the boy, but Kadaj has done nothing wrong. Even if he’s being used as a pawn, he’s too young to understand.

So when the boy wraps his arms around his neck, Cloud closes his eyes and pulls him closer.

The embrace feels like a dream.

He’s always wanted a child, and now, suddenly, he has one. It happened overnight, and he still can’t wrap his head around it. Especially since he has no memories to back it up. It’s devastating that there are so many precious moments he can no longer recall: the boy’s first words or his first steps. He doesn’t remember changing his diapers or waking up in the middle of the night to soothe his crying.

And yet, unlike the town, which felt completely foreign, this boy doesn’t feel like a stranger at all. Taking him into his arms feels like the most natural thing to do. It’s like being reunited with a missing piece of his soul.

It feels so momentous that, for a few seconds, Cloud actually forgets that Sephiroth is even there.

This dream presented to him seems so magical that he desperately wants it to be true. It would be incredibly easy to get lost in it, to ignore where the boy came from or what his existence might mean, to lose himself in the fantasy of what he wanted more than anything in the world.

For the first time, Cloud realizes how terrifyingly little it would take to manipulate him. He’s always believed he could resist Sephiroth. After everything they’ve been through, Cloud was sure there was nothing Sephiroth could do that would catch him off guard.

But he never imagined how it would feel to meet his own son.

When Cloud opens his eyes, Masamune is gone, but Sephiroth has moved even closer, still visibly tense, ready to react if Cloud so much as breathes in the boy’s direction.

But the last thing Cloud wants is to hurt this child.

He pulls back and takes his first proper look at the son he’s always wanted.

The boy’s cheeks are flushed and round, made even rounder by his enormous smile. The adoration in his eyes utterly disarms Cloud. No one has ever looked at him like that, and he never imagined anyone would.

He keeps staring at the boy’s eyes as if hypnotized. They’re the same shade of ocean-blue as Cloud’s, but they have Sephiroth’s snake-like pupils. That should terrify him, perhaps even disgust him, but the only thing Cloud feels is awe.

The boy’s hair also betrays his parentage. Its distinct shade of silver fills Cloud with unease, but the way it sticks out in every direction, forming pointy spikes on top of his head, is painfully familiar. It’s like looking in the mirror.

The child is such a perfect blend of both their features that there’s no denying he’s theirs.

Until this very moment, there was a part of Cloud that wanted to believe all that talk of pregnancy was a lie, but the proof staring him in the face is undeniable, and it winds him like a punch to the gut.

Coming here was a mistake.

Cloud vastly underestimated how seeing his son would make him feel. He thought he could deal with Sephiroth and whisk the child away, resolving the situation in minutes, but he didn’t expect to see the boy so soon. And now, he can’t do anything. He can’t kill Sephiroth in front of Kadaj. Despite his endless list of crimes, to this boy, Sephiroth isn’t some nameless monster; he is his beloved father. He wouldn’t understand why Cloud had to kill him.

No…

Cloud will have to come back and do this some other time.

Right now, he just needs to leave. The emotions swirling inside of him are too overwhelming.

He’s desperate to run, but the boy refuses to let go.

“Where were you, Papa? You were gone forever!”

The boy’s smile falters as he looks up at Cloud, and suddenly, his eyes fill with tears. 

“I… I was…”

Cloud’s throat runs dry as guilt chokes him. What could he possibly say?

Sorry, kid, I forgot all about you. Until last night, I didn’t even know you existed.

The truth is needlessly cruel, but none of the excuses Cloud can come up with sound good enough.

“I was…”

“He was visiting Tifa for a few days. I told you that.”

Cloud’s eyes snap over to Sephiroth in disbelief. Did he just cover for him?

But he doesn’t have time to think about that because a moment later, the boy’s bottom lip trembles, and his tears begin to fall.

“I thought you weren’t coming home,” he whispers, and Cloud’s heart shatters.

He wants to beg for forgiveness, to tell his son he’d never hurt him like that, but he doesn’t have the right words. Instead, he holds him close, hoping the embrace would be enough to reassure him.

Cloud wishes he could promise he would never leave, but that would be a lie. This house is not their home, and they both need to get away as quickly as possible.

“I would never abandon you,” he vows instead, and he means it.

No matter what it takes, Cloud will free them both from Sephiroth’s toxic influence.

“Dad said you’d be home in a few days, but Billy…” he mumbles against Cloud’s chest, suddenly a little sullen.

“Billy?”

“Yeah, Billy. My best friend, remember?”

“Right,” Cloud nods, although he doesn’t actually remember. “So, what did Billy say?”

“He told me his dad left for work one day and never came home. And now his mom and dad are celebrated.”

“Separated,” Sephiroth corrects.

The boy looks at Cloud with big, pleading eyes. “You won’t do that, right?”

Cloud feels sick to his stomach.

The boy is terrified of them getting a divorce, but what Cloud intends to do is so much worse.

Only minutes ago, he was planning to murder Sephiroth on this very porch without even considering the boy’s feelings.

And Cloud knows a thing or two about what it’s like to grow up without a father. It’s painful and alienating. You grow up missing a vital part of your identity, and no matter how much your other parent loves you, or how much they sacrifice for you, it leaves a hole inside your heart that can never be filled.

Cloud loathes Sephiroth for putting him in this position. He doesn’t want to break his own son’s heart in such a horrific way, but he knows that things between him and Sephiroth could never end with a simple separation. Not even death could keep them apart.

Cloud swallows thickly and ruffles the boy’s hair.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, avoiding the actual question, but it’s enough for the boy to give him a tearful smile.

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Good!” He grabs Cloud’s hand and starts pulling him inside. “Come on, we were making pizza!”

Cloud digs his heels in, feeling utterly bewildered, but the boy is like a force of nature—impossible to resist.

As he’s dragged up the stairs and through the front door, Cloud feels like a fly caught in a spider’s web. The more he resists, the more the web tightens, and before he knows it, he finds himself in the messy kitchen of a house he never wanted to set foot in. The house that was his prison for nearly a decade.

It leaves him feeling restless and afraid, even more so when he realizes he forgot his sword in the driveway.

He whirls around and considers running back to get it, but it’s too late. The weapon is already in Sephiroth’s hands, and he’s only a few steps behind.

A lump lodges in Cloud’s throat; he can’t breathe.

He came here feeling overconfident, so high on rage and adrenaline that he was certain he could do anything, but it took Sephiroth only a few minutes to turn things around. To disarm him and lure him right where he wanted him.

Cloud curses his own stupidity, but meeting Kadaj changed everything. It skewed his priorities and made him reckless. Even at the cost of endangering himself, he didn’t want to say no to the boy after seeing his tears.

The protectiveness Cloud feels for him is utterly frightening. They’ve only just met, but he’d do anything for this child.

The feeling is so intense and inexplicable that Cloud can’t help but wonder if Sephiroth is behind it, amplifying it somehow in order to control him. 

But even if he is, Cloud is not strong enough to fight it.

It sweeps him off his feet, and all he can do is pray that he’ll escape this house with his mind intact.

He relaxes a little when Sephiroth leaves the sword by the kitchen counter, and while that doesn’t exactly put him at ease, it gives him hope that even Sephiroth wouldn’t start a fight in front of a child.

So, Cloud allows himself to look at his surroundings.

The kitchen is in chaos. Between salami slices and grated cheese, there are lumps of flour all over the counter. The floor is spattered with red liquid, which looks suspiciously like blood. It’s as if a bomb had gone off on top of the counter, sending ingredients flying in every direction.

“What happened here?” Cloud asks, looking around in horror, and the boy giggles.

“We were making pizza!” he reminds him, as if that explains it. “Come on, Papa, you make one! You always make the best ones!”

Cloud can’t imagine Sephiroth doing something as mundane as making pizzas, but there is a light sheen of flour on his black jeans which confirms it. It makes Cloud’s world tilt on its axis. So much so that he freezes for a few seconds, until the boy shakes his arm and asks him to hurry.

“Let me wash my hands first,” he says, unable to believe what he’s doing.

His life was full of strange occurrences, but this one is perhaps the strangest of them all. 

He came here to kill Sephiroth, so how in the world did he end up in his kitchen making pizzas?

It is crazy, and he knows it, but a single smile from Kadaj is enough to leave him utterly disarmed. He can’t deny him anything.

While he was waiting for Cloud to join him, Kadaj started punching a ball of dough with his fists, doing his best to help, but all he actually does is send puffs of flour into the air. He fumbles with the dough, rolling and folding it clumsily, so Cloud gently pushes him aside and takes over.

There are already two finished mini pizzas on a baking tray, both overflowing with toppings. It seems like the idea was to use every ingredient known to man, but the end result is utterly disgusting.

Maybe the secret to Cloud’s pizzas was simply not making them taste like everything at once.

“What toppings would you like, K… kiddo?”

Cloud stumbles over the boy’s name and cannot bring himself to say it.

He knows he’ll have to use it. If he takes him in after killing Sephiroth, it will become unavoidable, but Cloud still hates it. It reminds him of too many things he'd rather forget.

Unfortunately, whether he likes it or not, it is still his son’s name, and he won’t further traumatize him by changing it.

He’ll just have to get used to it somehow.

“I like it when you add mush-ooms, Papa!”

Kadaj mangles the word, and Cloud can’t help but smile.

“Mushrooms.”

“Yeah, that!”

“Well, do we have any?”

The we slips out, feeling natural, and it stuns Cloud for a moment.

There is no we here. He mustn’t forget that.

This is not his home, or his family.

He came here to kill a monster, not to get lured into his trap!

“Dad said we’re out,” Kadaj says in a sulky voice, which makes Cloud reach over and ruffle his hair. He’s so adorable, it’s almost terrifying.

“Okay, so out of the stuff you actually have, what would you like?”

“Everything!”

Ah… so that’s how that happened.

Cloud looks at the greasy monstrosities, shaking his head. There’s no way in hell he’s making another one of those.

He stretches the dough into two more mini pizzas, and covers them with an assortment of toppings. On one he puts salami, tomatoes, and cheese, while he saves the bacon and sausage for the other. The only thing he doesn’t add is oregano. He’s always hated the smell, and maybe Kadaj is just like him. Maybe that’s why he thinks Cloud’s pizzas are so special.

He keeps thinking about Sephiroth while he works. The bastard left the kitchen at some point, moving somewhere out of sight, and somehow, that is even worse. Cloud hates not knowing what he’s up to. He automatically assumes he’s plotting something, which sets him on edge.

He wants to follow him, but even with his non-existent experience as a parent, he knows that he can’t leave a four year old in a kitchen full of sharp objects without supervision.

But as a result, he grows anxious, constantly checking over his shoulder, afraid that Sephiroth will attack when he least expects it.

Kadaj tries his best to imitate Cloud’s moves, stretching the dough with his tiny fingers, but the pizza he makes is thick and lumpy, significantly smaller than the others. Cloud still praises him for his efforts, which makes the boy beam with pride.

“I’ll put these in the oven,” Sephiroth says from behind them, scaring the living daylights out of Cloud.

He whirls around, his heart suddenly pounding.

Somehow, despite his constant vigilance, he didn’t see Sephiroth sneak up on him. It’s both infuriating and terrifying at the same time.

He clutches a rolling pin to his chest like a weapon, but all it does is earn him a raised eyebrow as Sephiroth reaches for the tray. He has to lean over Cloud to get it, and he’s suddenly far too close.

Cloud stumbles away on unsteady feet, making sure their bodies don’t touch. He grips the rolling pin so hard that his knuckles turn white.

Having his personal space invaded feels like intimidation—a threat—and it leaves Cloud shaking.

He wants to crack the bastard’s skull open.

“Papa!” Kadaj grabs his arm, startling him. “Let’s do the dishes together!”

Once again, Cloud is swept away, and even though his hands won’t stop shaking, he can’t say no to the boy.

He washes the dishes while Kadaj dries them, yet he can’t focus on anything but Sephiroth. Knowing that he’s there, right behind his back, makes Cloud yearn for a weapon. Facing away from such a violent predator feels incredibly stupid, so he keeps looking over his shoulder, casting worried glances at him, checking what he’s up to.

He’s shocked when he finds Sephiroth cleaning the counter, acting like that’s a normal thing for him to do.

It feels like a joke; all that’s left is the punchline.

The boy’s presence is the only thing stopping them from killing each other, yet they’re out here playing house, doing chores together like a proper family, and Cloud finds that incredibly fucked up.

A home is supposed to be a place where you feel safe, accepted, and loved.

Instead, Cloud keeps glancing over his shoulder, waiting for an attack that will surely come.

Sephiroth catches his distrustful gaze and stares him down, as if daring him to say something in front of the child. It only makes Cloud even more suspicious. He knows the bastard is up to something; he has to be! But he cannot prove it.

Before they even finish cleaning up, the oven dings, letting them know their pizzas are ready.

Cloud’s stomach rumbles in anticipation. He was so consumed by his thoughts that he missed lunch, and the smell of homemade pizzas is almost impossible to resist.

But the last thing he wants is to eat in this house.

“I should…”

Sephiroth slams the baking tray on the counter, making Cloud flinch. The words die on his lips.

“Whatever plans you have can wait until after dinner.”

It sounds like an order, so it immediately sets Cloud’s blood to boil.

“I will not…!” he tries, but a sudden glare cuts him off. For the first time tonight, Sephiroth looks angry. He looks like he might hurt Cloud, and that gives him pause.

He glances at his sword, still resting against the counter, but from where he’s standing, he’d have to go through Sephiroth to get it.

“If you leave, it will break the boy’s heart.”

Cloud’s eyes snap to Sephiroth in shock.

What stage of manipulation is this?

He gapes, utterly befuddled, but it seems that Sephiroth has nothing more to say. With his bare hands, he transfers the steaming hot pizzas onto plates, and Cloud wonders if his skin is made of asbestos. But of course, Sephiroth would have to have a high tolerance for heat; after all, he’s always loved playing with fire.

Without waiting for Cloud to respond, he carries the plates off to the table.

Cloud walks after him in a daze, wondering yet again how this night took such a strange turn.

He never imagined, not in a million years, that he would find himself having dinner with Sephiroth, sharing the same table, with their son sitting between them.

It is worse than any nightmare his mind could have come up with.

The table is small, and the bastard’s legs are impossibly long. When he stretches them out, they brush against Cloud’s, making him jump. It makes his heart lodge in his throat. He’s sure that Sephiroth only wanted him to sit here so he could torture him.

He pushes his chair back, putting as much space between them as possible, but it doesn’t feel like enough. It could never be enough. As long as they’re both on the same planet, there can never be enough miles between them.

Sitting so close to Sephiroth leaves Cloud feeling jittery. He squirms, itching to get away.

Oblivious to the strange tension in the air, Kadaj talks excitedly, telling them about some fun facts he learned in preschool that day.

“Did you know that dogs used to be wolves? Like, way back in the past. But then someone took a wolf home and, and… it became a dog!”

“Is that so?” Cloud asks, smiling despite himself. Kadaj’s teacher probably explained it a little better than that, but the boy’s interpretation is infinitely more endearing. 

“Yeah! Do you like wolves, Papa? Is that why you wear that wolf thing?”

“My medallion?” Cloud looks down at the symbol of Fenrir he still wears on his chest, and the boy nods. “It represents strength. It’s an old belief from my hometown.”

“Oh.” Kadaj’s face falls a little, but he presses further. “But you do like wolves, right?”

Cloud’s eyes narrow. “Why?”

“Well, I was thinking we could get a wolf and keep him here. Y’know, for a while!”

“Is… this your way of saying you want a dog?”

Kadaj nods enthusiastically. “Can we get one, Papa? Pleeeease?”

He blasts Cloud with the full power of his puppy eyes, and there’s no escape.

In his desperation, Cloud turns to the only other person in the room for help, but that’s even more disconcerting because he finds Sephiroth smiling.

Those usually deadly mako eyes look impossibly fond, and in that moment, he seems like an entirely different person.

Cloud stares at him breathlessly, unable to believe it.

The expression is gone the instant he catches Cloud looking, leaving him to wonder if it was ever there at all. 

“Maybe in a year or two. When you’re a little older.”

“Aww, Daaad!”

“We can talk about it again if you prove to me you’re mature enough to take care of a dog.”

“I can take care of it,” Kadaj mutters in a sulky voice, poking at the pizza on his plate.

“Playing with your food is not very mature,” Sephiroth says casually, but the boy immediately straightens. He pulls his chair all the way in and starts eating properly, even using a napkin to wipe his lips between bites.

Cloud has to admit he’s a little impressed.

It amazes him how well Sephiroth handled that. Instead of making the boy cry by refusing the give him what he wanted, he used it as a way to make him more obedient.

In the back of his head, Cloud hears Tifa’s voice telling him Sephiroth is a great dad, but even now, he refuses to believe it. This is manipulation, pure and simple, and Sephiroth has always been a master manipulator.

This entire dinner must be playing out exactly as he planned.

He allowed Cloud to meet Kadaj, knowing he would grow attached, while he blended into the background and kept an eye on them throughout every interaction. He barely spoke, letting Cloud have his moment with the boy, but of course, that wasn’t selflessness. It was just Sephiroth pulling their strings, maintaining control of the situation.

Looking at it this way puts an ugly stain on the entire evening. It makes Cloud want to get as far away from here as possible, and the moment the dinner is done, he intends to do just that.

He leaves his plate in the sink and heads straight for the door.

But he doesn’t even make it out of the kitchen before Kadaj grabs him again and starts dragging him in the opposite direction—toward the living room.

“Stamp’s Adventures is about to start!”

“What?”

“There’s no time, Papa! Hurry!”

Cloud has no idea what the boy is talking about, but he finds himself getting swept away once more. It seems that papa is a magical word he’s powerless against. His ultimate weakness. 

Kadaj takes him to the living room and makes him join him on the couch before turning on the TV. Stamp’s Adventures, as it turns out, is a cartoon about a little beagle dog and his friends. It’s obviously Kadaj’s favorite because he even sings along to the theme song without missing any words.

“You missed so many episodes, Papa. Last week they went to Cosmo Canyon!”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah! And they met flying chocobos!”

“I’m sorry I missed that,” Cloud says, and he’s surprised to realize that he actually means it.

This cartoon was clearly something he and Kadaj used to watch together, and he desperately wishes he could remember that. It breaks his heart that there are so many precious moments with his son that may be lost to him forever.

But whatever happens, Cloud will create new memories, even better than the ones he lost, because these will be real, untainted by Sephiroth’s toxic influence exerting control over his mind.

Kadaj watches the cartoon with rapt attention, while Cloud watches him.

When he tried to imagine what his son would look like, what he pictured was entirely different. Sephiroth’s features never even occurred to him as a possibility, and they are extremely jarring.

Cloud can see himself in the boy, in the way he smiles and furrows his brows, but to his horror, he can also see Sephiroth. The boy has his nose, and from the side, he practically looks like a miniature version of him. It is impossible to look at Kadaj and not see Sephiroth, which makes Cloud want to hate him, but at the same time, there is enough of him in the boy that he can’t bring himself to do so.

He still can’t figure out whose personality Kadaj takes after, though.

He seems so happy and full of life, and Cloud cannot associate those emotions with either of them. If he didn’t look so much like them, he might even question if he was truly theirs. As it is, he just wishes he could understand how two introverts ended up with such an extroverted child.

Kadaj bounces on the couch, giggling at the TV, fully invested in the chase for some treasure Stamp and his friends are currently caught up in. It makes Cloud smile, especially when, after a while, it saps up all his energy and he curls up against his side, practically falling asleep in his lap.

“Time for bed,” Sephiroth says from behind them, making Cloud jerk up in shock.

The bastard moves like a fucking ghost, popping up everywhere when Cloud least expects it. It’s infuriating! He should put a damn bell on him. 

“Nooo, not yet,” Kadaj whines in a sleepy voice, resisting when Sephiroth leans down to pick him up. “I wanna spend more time with Papa!”

He sounds so devastatingly sad that it breaks Cloud’s heart. 

“You’ll see him in the morning,” Sephiroth assures him, making Cloud want to kick him in the head. He gnashes his teeth furiously.

Manipulative bastard… How dare he make promises that Cloud would be forced to keep?

He tries to glare at Sephiroth, but he pointedly ignores him.

Cloud’s stomach churns, his mind spinning.

He’s only been here for a few hours, but he already feels like he’s losing himself.

Fuck!

Yet when Kadaj reaches for him with his tiny hands, all Cloud can do is reach back.

A little hesitantly, he cups the boy’s face, moving the hair out of his eyes. They’re bleary and half-asleep, but so genuinely frightened that it makes Cloud want to take him into his arms and never let go. 

“You gotta go to sleep,” he whispers, brushing Kadaj’s cheek.

“But Papa!”

“Shh, I’ll be here when you wake up.”

The lie chokes him, but he tells himself it’s for the greater good. The boy needs to sleep.

“Let’s get you to bed,” Sephiroth cuts in and carries him off.

Kadaj huddles against him with a muffled whine, already dozing against his chest.

Had anyone told him about this, Cloud never would have believed it. He never imagined Sephiroth could be capable of such tenderness. What he sees is so bizarre and unexpected that Cloud can’t help but follow them.

The boy’s room is on the upper floor, up a narrow flight of stairs, but Sephiroth carries him with ease that speaks of familiarity. He must do this often, Cloud realizes, and he doesn’t know what to make of that.

Hovering by the door, he watches Sephiroth tuck the boy into bed and kiss him goodnight.

What he sees feels so unreal that he begins to wonder if his concussion is playing tricks on him. Making him imagine things that aren’t real.

“Papa,” Kadaj calls out to him drowsily, extending his hand, and it’s like gravitation—an irresistible force pulling Cloud into his orbit.

He steps into the room and kneels by his son’s bed.

Thankfully, Sephiroth moves out of the way, so it’s easy to ignore him.

“Good night,” Cloud murmurs, and after pausing for only a second, he bends down to kiss the boy’s forehead.

“Read me a story,” Kadaj pleads, putting him on the spot again.

“I…”

“Another time, Kaj. It’s getting late.”

“But it’s been days since Papa read me a story!”

The boy makes it sound like it was decades.

“Did I not read to you in his absence?”

“You did, but it’s not the same. Papa always does the voices!”

“Ah… how could I compete with that?” Sephiroth responds with a chuckle, and it makes Cloud’s stomach flip uncomfortably. He feels like he’s fallen through the looking glass. He can’t even recognize this softly smiling man before him because he’s nothing like the monster he used to know.

Cloud is so stunned that he doesn’t even resist when Sephiroth passes him a book of short tales. He grips it with trembling hands, at a loss for what to do. All he wants is to get out of here before he loses his mind, but Kadaj’s eyes are alight with excitement, with expectation, and once again, Cloud simply cannot say no.

He sits on the edge of the bed and flips through the pages, unseeing.

How does this keep happening? Why is he letting them push him around like this? Was this what it was like before he lost his memories—the two of them ganging up on him and making him do whatever they wanted?

It’s an infuriating thought, but the boy seems completely guileless. Cloud can’t fault him for anything, so as always, he places the blame solely on Sephiroth.

There is a smiling beagle on the cover the book, so it’s easy to assume what it’s about. The marked chapter, as predicted, features the characters from the cartoon they watched earlier.

Cloud has no idea what kind of voices he used in the past, but he does his best to imitate the ones he heard on the TV, and Kadaj seems happy enough. In truth, the boy is so tired that he can barely keep his eyes open, but he stubbornly refuses to fall asleep. He inches closer, little by little, until he’s close enough to curl up against Cloud and look at the pictures while he reads.

The story emphasizes the importance of friendship, and Cloud is relieved to see these were the kind of values he was teaching his son. He can only hope that Sephiroth didn’t have a secret stash of books somewhere that he read to Kadaj while he was away.

Before Cloud even reaches the end of the chapter, the boy is sound asleep, so he gently extricates himself from his arms, rearranges the pillow so he’s nice and comfortable, and turns off the light.

There’s still brightness coming from the hallway, illuminating the boy’s sleeping form, and the sight makes Cloud’s heart clench. It is impossible to resist leaning down and giving him another kiss.

This is everything Cloud has ever wanted, so it kills him to know that it’s all fake. He’ll never forgive Sephiroth for turning his dream into a prison.

He places the book on the nightstand and tiptoes out of the room, wishing he could simply take the boy with him and never return.

Sephiroth is waiting in the hallway, but Cloud doesn’t have the energy to deal with him right now. After everything that happened tonight, he feels emotionally drained, and he needs time to process it all. He’ll figure out what to do with Sephiroth later, but for now, he just needs to get the hell out of here.

He marches ahead, intent on ignoring Sephiroth, but he makes the mistake of turning his back on him.

Just because they spent the night talking to each other civilly in front of Kadaj, it didn’t mean the truce would hold now that the boy was no longer there, and in hindsight, Cloud really should have known better.

The moment his back is turned, Sephiroth grabs him from behind and slams him against the wall. It drives the air out of his lungs, and no matter how hard he fights back, he can’t force Sephiroth away. He finds himself pinned face-first against the wall, with Sephiroth breathing down his neck. The bastard crowds him, not letting him move.

There’s that element of surprise Cloud was counting on, but in the end, he was the one stupid enough to fall for it.

Feeling Sephiroth standing so close leaves him numb with panic.

He imagines all the things Sephiroth must have done to him, and everything he might yet do. Bile rises up his throat, and suddenly he can’t breathe.

But Sephiroth doesn’t touch him; he only speaks.

“I will not let you kill me, Cloud.”

“I never needed your permission before,” Cloud snaps, trying to keep his voice steady as Sephiroth holds him still.

“Things have changed since the last time we fought.”

“Yeah? Well, no matter how strong you get, I will still defeat you!”

“You misunderstand, Cloud.” Sephiroth grabs his shoulders and whips him around, still pinning him to the wall, entirely too close for Cloud’s liking. “What changed is that now I have people I want to protect.”

The maelstrom of emotion in Sephiroth’s eyes is too complex for Cloud to understand, so he doesn’t even try. He glares at him coldly, defiantly.

“Kadaj would be better off without you.”

Something dark and unfamiliar flashes in Sephiroth’s eyes as he sneers. “Be that as it may, I will not let you take him from me.”

“That’s not your call to make. You’re lucky you’re still breathing!”

“Oh, yes. I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he purrs, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Tell me, Cloud; what do you know about raising children?”

The sudden question catches Cloud off guard, and he bristles. “Certainly more than you!”

“I sincerely doubt that. After all, I was here, raising this boy for the last four years, while you went and forgot all about it.”

“Fuck you!” Cloud gasps, trembling all over. “It’s not like I chose to forget! And even if I don’t know anything, at least I would raise him to be a decent person!”

When he meets Sephiroth’s eyes, they are completely dead; devoid of all emotion.

It is absolutely terrifying.

“And how would such a decent person feel if he knew you murdered his father?”

Red-hot rage gives Cloud the momentum he needs to shove Sephiroth away so hard it makes him stumble.

“Go to hell,” he chokes out, breathing harshly. If he had his sword now, he would run him through, consequences be damned. But it’s still down by the kitchen counter.

Cloud never should have come here; he knows that now. Like so many times before, Tifa was right, and he should have listened. He wasn’t ready for this, not by a long shot. There are so many things he didn’t consider. No matter how he feels about Sephiroth, or what his continued existence might mean for this world, his death would affect Kadaj, and Cloud cannot ignore that. One wrong decision could ruin the boy’s entire future.

“Damn you,” Cloud curses under his breath.

He’s not in his right mind. After everything that happened tonight, he’s too emotional, too conflicted, so he needs to leave and clear his head.

Wordlessly, he heads for the door, but Sephiroth stops him.

“Where are you going?”

“Home!” Cloud wrenches his arm away and tries to keep walking, but Sephiroth blocks his path.

“This is your home, Cloud.”

“I don’t know how you made me believe that in the past, but I’m not stupid enough to fall for it again.”

“Dammit, Cloud. This isn’t about us! How do you think Kadaj will feel if you’re not here in the morning? He’ll be devastated! You have no idea how the last few weeks have affected him.”

“Then you shouldn’t have told him I’d be here! If he gets sad, that’s on you!”

Fucking Sephiroth and his fucking schemes!

Cloud knew he would try to manipulate him, but he didn’t expect him to be so open about it.

“I see now why you wanted a child, but I won’t let you use him to blackmail me.”

Without warning, Sephiroth punches the wall next to Cloud’s head so hard the plaster cracks. It shocks him into silence. Sephiroth looks absolutely livid, almost deranged. Cloud has never seen him this angry.  

“You cannot leave,” he says firmly, as if it’s a done deal.

“The hell I can’t! I’ll—”

“No,” Sephiroth interrupts sharply. “I won’t let anyone hurt our son. Not even you, Cloud.”

“You can’t seriously expect me to sleep under the same roof as you!”

“You’ve been sleeping in my bed for seven years!”

The words cut up Cloud like daggers, and his body seizes in shock. Bile rises to his throat again.

It’s not as if he didn’t know… After all, they have a son together, so they must have had sex at some point, but Cloud absolutely and resolutely did not want to think about that. It makes him sick to his stomach, and he despises Sephiroth for rubbing it in.

“I’ll never let you do that to me again,” he whispers, shaking like a leaf.

He storms out before Sephiroth can stop him.

He’s already halfway back to Edge when he realizes he forgot his sword in Sephiroth’s kitchen.

Utterly defeated, Cloud grits his teeth and whispers, “Damn you,” because he knows this is all Sephiroth’s fault.

Chapter Text

Cloud spends the night awake.

Every time he closes his eyes, he remembers Kadaj’s pleading gaze and the desperate way he clutched at his shirt. The words, “I thought you weren’t coming home,” reverberate in his head, feeding his guilt.

He tries to reason it away, but it won’t leave him alone. It chokes him more and more with each passing second.

How do you think Kadaj will feel if you’re not here in the morning?

Sephiroth’s words twist into his heart like a knife.

He’ll be devastated!

Cloud rolls onto his side, desperately trying to ignore the voice inside his head.

The sun is already up, and he hasn’t had a moment of peace.

You have no idea how the last few weeks have affected him.

Cloud pulls the pillow over his head and screams into it.

Damn you, he thinks as he gets out of bed.

Damn you, he thinks again as he throws his clothes on in a rush.

Damn you, damn you, damn you, he thinks all the way to Kalm.

He parks in front of the house, wondering if he’s finally lost his mind. This time, he doesn’t even have a weapon, yet he’s stupidly risking his life by walking straight into a viper’s den.

If he dies here today, his epitaph should say: “Cloud Strife, a victim of his own stupidity”.

No one greets him at the door this time, so he tries to knock. Three quick raps against the wood, and then he waits. He stands on the porch awkwardly, feeling like an idiot. After a few seconds, he knocks again, but the door remains closed.

He curses under his breath, his frustration rising. He didn’t come all this way just to give up. The thought of Kadaj feeling sad drives him, so he ignores his brain screaming at him to stop and tries the door. It shocks him to find it unlocked. Immediately, his heart starts beating faster. Going in would be a crazy thing to do, but he doesn’t let that stop him. According to everyone, this is supposed to be his home, so he can’t be trespassing.

The first thing he hears upon entering the house is the sound of crying coming from upstairs, which instantly puts him on high alert.

Moving as quickly and silently as possible, Cloud takes the stairs two at a time. He traces the sound to Kadaj’s room, which only deepens his unease.

The door is ajar, so he leans in to peek through the narrow gap, imagining all sorts of horrors: Sephiroth beating the boy, torturing him, abusing him in truly vicious ways. 

He can’t rightly say what he expected to find, but he certainly never imagined he would see Sephiroth kneeling by his son’s bed, holding him close as he cried.

Kadaj looks inconsolable, clinging to him desperately while his tears continue to fall, and in that moment, Cloud knows this is all his fault. Guilt chokes him.

“You’re lying to me,” Kadaj moans in a devastated voice.

“I’m not.” Sephiroth brushes away his tears, but he can’t get to them fast enough; they just keep coming. “We’re okay, Kaj. You don’t need to worry about us.”

Kadaj shakes his head, his spikes bouncing. “I don’t believe you. I know you had a fight! Why else would Papa leave in the middle of the night!”

The accusation hits Cloud like a sledgehammer. It makes him feel like a monster. Sephiroth warned him this would happen, yet he still chose to leave. And now, he’s hurt the boy once more.

Every single tear, every second of misery, it is all on Cloud.

He wants to blame Sephiroth for making him promise he’d be there in the morning, but deep down he knows this isn’t about the promise. It’s about the fact that he left. 

Yet, to his surprise, Sephiroth doesn’t use this to turn the boy against him.

Instead of trying to build up resentment, he’s in there, patiently cleaning up Cloud’s mess.

“Do you remember how I told you that Papa fell off his bike?” Sephiroth asks, and Kadaj nods. “When he fell, he hit his head really hard, and now he has trouble remembering things.”

Kadaj gapes at him in awe. “He hit his head that hard?”

“He did. Hard enough that some of his memories fell out.”

Kadaj gasps, his mouth turning into a perfect little “O”. He’s so captivated that he’s stopped crying, and once again, Cloud is blown away by how good Sephiroth is at dealing with him. He doesn’t treat Kadaj as an adult, but he doesn’t talk down to him either. He finds a way to tell him things in a way he can understand without treating him like an idiot, which is a lot harder than it might seem. Especially for someone like Sephiroth, who sees most humans as idiots too.

A little frown forms between Kadaj’s brows. He worries his lip as he asks, “Can he get them back?”

“I don’t know, Kaj. I hope he can, but he’ll need our help. We have to be patient with him and give him time to recover. Can you do that for me?”

The boy nods, squaring his jaw in a familiar way. Cloud knows that stubborn expression; he’s seen it countless times in the mirror.

Sephiroth smiles, cupping his cheek. “I knew I could count on you.”

“You can always count on me, Dad.”

Sephiroth pulls the boy back into his arms and holds him for a while until he completely settles.

Even after spending the whole evening with them yesterday, Cloud still can’t believe Sephiroth would treat anyone with such kindness. He never seemed capable of it.

And yet… he can’t help but wonder if Sephiroth is actually manipulating the boy, enlisting his help in order to control Cloud. After all, Sephiroth must know him well enough to predict that Kadaj will be his greatest weakness.

Cloud fears he’s playing right into Sephiroth’s hand by coming here, and he hates himself for it. His stupid, bleeding heart is too damn predictable and easy to manipulate. But he can’t help it. He doesn’t want to be the cause of Kadaj’s tears.

He retreats downstairs before anyone sees him and heads into the kitchen. Maybe it’s some backward logic that wouldn’t make sense to anyone but him, but he wants to make breakfast for Kadaj as an apology. As a small way to make up for his absence and the grief he caused.

But when he enters the kitchen, he’s shocked to find that breakfast has already been served.

There are three plates with fried eggs and bacon, two steaming mugs of coffee, and one glass of orange juice.

Cloud stares at it in disbelief, feeling his insides clench.

The bastard was expecting him. He knew Cloud would come back first thing in the morning!

In hindsight, that’s probably why the door was unlocked.

“Damn you,” Cloud growls under his breath, gritting his teeth.

This is infuriating on so many levels.

A family breakfast is something Cloud has always wanted to experience.

His mother was always working too hard, leaving for work well before dawn while Cloud was still asleep, so he spent his childhood eating alone. Even on weekends, when they ate together, the absence of his father made their little family feel incomplete. It left him longing for something intangible, something he couldn’t even put into words.

In his mind, breakfast was a magical time to be shared with your loved ones. An unattainable goal he strived for in life.

Even when he was a child, Cloud had this dream that one day he would have a family of his own and once he did, no matter how busy he got or what got in his way, he would always make sure they ate breakfast together.

But not like this…

Like so many of Cloud’s dreams, this has been turned into a farce too.

“Didn’t anyone tell you it’s rude to eavesdrop?”

Cloud swivels around so fast that it leaves him lightheaded. He got so lost in his thoughts that he let Sephiroth sneak up on him again. How humiliating. He’s been careless lately, but his thoughts are all over the place, to the point that he feels like he’s losing his mind.

The last thing he needs is to see Sephiroth smiling smugly at him, leaning against the door.

He feels caught, and not just because Sephiroth knows about the spying. It’s as though Sephiroth can see right through him, and that leaves him feeling raw, like an exposed nerve.

He refuses to apologize, yet the guilt chokes him. They both know Kadaj got hurt because of him. Sephiroth had warned him not to run away, but Cloud didn’t listen. Worse yet, he left Sephiroth to deal with the aftermath.

But he’d rather eat his own foot than admit he was wrong, so he says nothing.

He glances around the kitchen, looking for his sword, but it’s not where he left it, and that immediately puts him on edge.

“Where—” he starts to ask, but in that moment, Kadaj comes bundling down the stairs. He makes a beeline for the kitchen, and the moment he sees Cloud, his eyes light up like fireworks. He looks like this is Christmas and his birthday all wrapped into one.

“Papa!” he exclaims and breaks into a run.

“Slow down,” Cloud chides, but he’s already on his knees, waiting to pick him up.

When he takes him into his arms, something inside him finally settles. It feels like he’s finally where he’s supposed to be.

Kadaj is no longer crying, but the red rims around his eyes betray his pain, and Cloud vows not to hurt him like that ever again. He kisses the crown of the boy’s head in silent apology, feeling overcome with an intense wave of protectiveness.

“Come on, breakfast is getting cold,” he chokes out and carries Kadaj off to the table.

It takes conscious effort to put him down. Every cell in Cloud’s body is screaming at him to run straight for the door, to kidnap the boy and take him out from under Sephiroth’s thumb. He desperately wants to save him, but he knows this isn’t the way. If he and Sephiroth start fighting over him, it will only hurt Kadaj in the end. And after what he witnessed earlier, Cloud is certain that he loves both of his fathers equally. He trusts Sephiroth implicitly, so he wouldn’t want to be “saved”.

They dig in, and this time, Cloud lets the conversation continue without him. Sephiroth and Kadaj keep talking about preschool, about Kadaj’s teachers and friends Cloud knows nothing about, so he stays out of it. Whenever a name pops up, he tries to remember it, but after a while, there are too many for him to keep track of.

What shocks him, though, is that Sephiroth knows every single one. And it’s not as if he’s pretending. He has questions and opinions about those people, so he clearly knows who they are. It leaves Cloud surprised, and that’s putting it mildly.

Until a few weeks ago, he had never imagined Sephiroth as a father, but had he tried, he would have pictured him as a cold, detached figure who left his child in the care of his spouse. A man like Sephiroth, who knows nothing of love, would reduce raising a child to strict discipline and abuse.

Or so Cloud thought…

But reality seems quite different.

Sephiroth seems to be actively involved in the boy’s life. He patiently listens as Kadaj tells him about his worries, reminds him about homework—a rather stunning piece of macaroni art in the shape of a dog—and even teases him from time to time. It feels surreal. It might be the craziest thing Cloud has seen since he woke up in this crazy world.

But as he watches them interact, he can’t help but feel a little jealous. Yesterday, when Sephiroth sat with them silently, Cloud had the impression he was truly bonding with Kadaj. It felt special. The boy seemed to adore him so much that Cloud convinced himself he liked him more than Sephiroth. He even assumed it meant Kadaj was starved for affection. But he couldn’t have been more wrong. Kadaj and Sephiroth are so close that they may as well have a language of their own. It’s as if they’re speaking on a different wavelength that Cloud can’t quite match, and that makes him feel like an outsider looking in.

He already sees himself as a failure of a father because he lost all the memories he had of his son, but he never imagined that he could fall short when compared to Sephiroth.

How in the world did that bastard get so good at this?

Cloud takes a sip of his coffee and moans as it warms his insides. It’s strong, with a dash of milk and a bit of sugar. Just how he likes it. He’s very particular about it, so he always has to make it himself because no one else can get it quite right. Even Tifa, bless her heart, has never managed it. But this is great. It’s…

It’s absolutely perfect.

Cloud’s eyes snap over to Sephiroth, and even though he seems focused on Kadaj and their discussion about an upcoming school recital, he’s obviously watching Cloud out of the corner of his eye, waiting for his reaction. 

Fucking bastard.

Cloud slams the mug down on the table, refusing to drink any more.

“Something wrong with your coffee, Cloud?”

He’s not quite smirking, but Cloud swears he can hear the smugness in his voice, so he lies. “It’s too strong.”

“Oh?” Sephiroth hums, but damn him, he sounds pleased! He must know that Cloud is lying, and Cloud hates him for it.

He goes back to his conversation with Kadaj, leaving Cloud seething.

This is a silly thing to get worked up about, and he knows it. After all, he and Sephiroth have been married for years. It shouldn’t be surprising that they learned a thing or two about each other.

Yet somehow, it is. Being together didn’t necessarily mean paying attention to each other. Most of the time, Cloud tries not to imagine what his life must have been like over the past seven years, but as far as he’s concerned, being married to Sephiroth could only mean one thing: being treated as a servant, cooking and cleaning, memorizing all of Sephiroth’s likes and dislikes so he could please him, while Sephiroth never bothered to do the same in turn.

So it shocks him that Sephiroth knows how he takes his coffee.

Of course, there’s no doubt this is another attempt at manipulation, but it’s truly shocking that he knows enough about Cloud to pull it off. It shakes the very idea of how Cloud perceives their relationship because it means that Sephiroth actually took the time to learn some things about him.

But why? What motive could he have had?

Cloud’s stomach roils, putting him off his food. He pushes the coffee away, no longer in the mood to drink it. Which is just as well, because breakfast seems to be over.

“I have to take Kadaj to school,” Sephiroth tells him, getting to his feet, and Cloud assumes that is his cue to leave.

After all, it would be weird to stay in this house alone. It may have been his home before the accident, but right now, he’s nothing but a visitor. It wouldn’t feel right to stay here while the owners are away.

However, unlike last night, when he was desperate to run, in this moment, Cloud has no desire to leave.

Being here alone, without Sephiroth constantly looking over his shoulder, would give him a chance to look around. He’s convinced the bastard is hiding something, so he wants to find out what. Getting unrestricted access to the house would be a perfect opportunity to do just that.

And so, instead of offering to leave like a normal person, Cloud just nods, acknowledging the information. He even takes an exaggerated sip of his coffee just to drive the point home.

If Sephiroth is surprised by his decision to stay, he doesn’t show it. He helps Kadaj pack his things, grabs his keys and goes, leaving Cloud alone in the house that used to be his prison for the very first time.

He doesn’t know how much time he has, but Kalm is a small town, so Kadaj’s school can’t be that far. It’s safe to assume Sephiroth won’t be gone for long, so he has to make every second count.

The first place he explores is the living room. He searches the drawers and cabinets, rifling through them impatiently, then skims over the books in the small library. He even tries to pull on them, hoping to reveal a trapdoor or a hidden compartment, but he finds no such thing. It appears to be a simple, ordinary bookshelf.

Next to it is a stack of old motorcycle magazines, several DVDs of Stamp’s Adventures, and a thick scrapbook. Nothing sinister, but it piques Cloud’s curiosity. He takes the book and turns it over in his hands. The name “Kadaj” is written on the cover in an elegant cursive, with a little heart mark at the end.

These days, Cloud rarely uses cursive because he finds block letters much more convenient, but he’d recognize his own handwriting anywhere. And this is clearly it. He wrote those letters as carefully as he could with a metallic silver marker, designing the cover like an exclusive edition of a very special book. He even took the time to decorate it with some calligraphic lines and drawings.

In the bottom right corner, there are three elaborate stick figures—which is the extent of Cloud’s ability to draw—that are clearly meant to represent him, Kadaj… and Sephiroth.

Looking at it makes his heart beat faster, thundering like a stampede. It’s such a silly, disgustingly romantic gesture that Cloud wastes a full minute staring at it in disbelief. He’s never been prone to such pointless displays of sentimentality, and he can’t imagine changing to the point that he would do that.

And yet, he can’t imagine Sephiroth forcing him to do something so inane either. If he had Cloud under his control, there were certainly far more important things he’d want him to do.

Cloud peeks inside the book and discovers it’s full of Kadaj’s baby pictures, which immediately makes him smile. He flips to a few pages at random, feeling his heart ache. He’s dying to see them all, but there is no time. Besides, he knows this is a very dangerous thing to want. He’s already grown stupidly attached to the boy, and this would undoubtedly make him care about him even more. But Cloud cannot resist it. He wants to reclaim at least a portion of the memories he had lost. Even if they were tainted, even if they were fake, he wants to see what his son looked like as a baby. That much could not be fake.

The scrapbook was compiled in the form of a journal. Every photo is accompanied by a few lines of text, explaining the story behind it, and it feels like a miracle. This is exactly the kind of thing Cloud needed. It will give him a chance to see his son’s first steps, to touch the first lock of his hair, and see what he looked like when they first brought him home from the hospital… Maybe he can even see himself as he nursed him.

That thought comes unbidden, leading to a plethora of uncomfortable questions.

Did Cloud nurse him? Or did his body revert to normal right after delivery?

He hates not knowing these things, and he hates the fact that he wants to even more. He could try asking Tifa, but there’s probably only one person who has all the answers he seeks… and he’ll be damned if he resorts to asking Sephiroth about it.

He tries to put the book back and forget about it, but he can’t. The desire to learn is simply too great, so he picks it back up.

There may not be time to look through it now, but he can take it home and examine it later.

Decision made, Cloud takes a quick detour to put the book in the trunk of his bike before continuing with his search.

For a while, he doesn’t find anything interesting. There are a few framed photos scattered around the room, but they can’t be hiding anything, so he tries to ignore them. Unfortunately, he’s too curious for his own good, and after a while, his curiosity gets the better of him.

The first photo he picks up is of his friends, except Sephiroth is in it as well. It is a candid shot in which Barret is laughing heartily, his head thrown back, and even Sephiroth, who’s standing right next to him, seems to be smiling as if he’s in on the joke. The others are grinning too, and Cloud can’t understand it. How could his friends accept and forgive Sephiroth after all the horrors he’s put them through?

He turns the photo over in his hands, looking at it from different angles, searching for some sign that it was doctored. Maybe Sephiroth put it there for him to find, hoping to convince him that he used to get along with his friends. But no matter how long Cloud stares at it, he can’t find any signs of editing.

After a while, he gives up and moves on.

Most of the other photos feature Kadaj with either Cloud or Sephiroth or the three of them together, but there are also a few of Cloud and Sephiroth alone, and it’s those that draw his attention. He can barely recognize himself in them. The carefree expression and the wide smile look almost unnatural on his face. In one photo, he’s staring at Sephiroth with a dopey smile and a look that can only be described as smitten. Cloud puts that one away quickly, angrily. The mere sight of it makes his stomach churn.

A dull throb pulses in his head, blinding him for a moment, but he ignores it.

Sephiroth must have done that to him—forced him to adore him and serve him as his master. After all, that had been his goal all along.

The trouble is that in most of these pictures, Sephiroth doesn’t look any better. In some of them, Cloud isn’t even facing his way—he’s either focused on Kadaj or his friends—but Sephiroth’s eyes are always on him, tracking him from the back, watching as if mesmerized.

If it were anyone else, based on these photos, Cloud would say they were in love.

But it’s him and Sephiroth, so there must be another explanation.

After all, Sephiroth has always been staring at him. Long before their relationship turned into… whatever this is. He’s always been the world’s most persistent stalker. So the fact that he’s looking at Cloud doesn’t mean anything. It could just be about his desire to control him. Nothing more.

Pain pulses behind Cloud’s temples, sharper this time.

He’s been getting occasional headaches since the concussion, but this one feels worse than most. Hopefully, it’ll go away because he didn’t bring any painkillers.

He rubs his eyes impatiently and moves on.

All that’s left is a photo in an intricate frame, displayed centrally, in a place of honor. In it, he and Sephiroth are both dressed to the nines, wearing elegant white tuxedos with their hair styled and carefully slicked back. Even Cloud’s was somehow successfully tamed. They’re completely oblivious to the camera, standing close together with their hands clasped, staring into each other’s eyes. Behind them, there is a dais, which makes it obvious they’re in a church.

It’s their wedding photo, Cloud realizes with no small amount of shock, and his hands begin to shake.

The headache intensifies, but he still ignores it.

The photo feels terribly familiar. Everything about it… the church, those clothes…

He could swear that suit was awfully tight. The photo only shows them from the waist up, yet Cloud is suddenly sure he wore dress shoes that day. They were so uncomfortable they left him with blisters.

He blinks in confusion, rubbing his head.

Why would he think that?

Why…

As he runs a trembling hand over the photo, pain slams into him, overwhelming in its intensity. It brings him to his knees, leaving him breathless. The frame falls from his numb hands, shattering on the floor, but he doesn’t even notice because he’s no longer standing in Sephiroth’s living room; he’s back inside that church, lost in the memory immortalized in the photo.

He’s standing with Tifa, who’s helping him fix his tie, feeling jittery. Through the door, he can see that the church is absolutely packed. All of his friends are there. Yuffie is sobbing openly, making a spectacle of herself; Vincent is standing in a corner, lurking like a giant bat; Nanaki is smiling proudly, flicking his tail; Barret is pretending to glare, but try as he might, he can’t hide the tears in his eyes.

Marlene is walking between the pews, scattering rose petals, serving as their flower girl. It takes Cloud a moment to notice Denzel because he’s standing next to Sephiroth, keeping their rings safe.

The moment Cloud’s eyes flit over Sephiroth, he steals his full attention. He looks absolutely gorgeous in his fitted white tux, filling Cloud’s stomach with butterflies. It’s an expression he’s heard a million times before, but he's never actually experienced it—until now. He’s so nervous that he can’t stop rocking on the balls of his feet, unable to keep still.

“Stop moving,” Tifa scolds him with a smile.

Since she’s the closest thing to family Cloud has, they decided she should walk him down the aisle and give him away. Right now, Cloud is incredibly grateful for her presence because it’s the only thing keeping him sane. He’s so nervous that he feels like he’s about to explode.

“Ready?”

He takes a deep breath and lets it out through his nose. “Yeah.”

It’s nerve-wracking, but he’s more than ready. He spent hundreds of hours planning this wedding down to the tiniest detail because he wanted everything to be absolutely perfect.

All that’s left now is to take a few steps and promise himself to the man he loves forever.

He feels giddy just thinking about it.

When they start moving, Cloud feels like he’s walking on air. Every head in the church turns in his direction, including his soon to be husband’s. He’s looking at Cloud with a pleased little smile that’s melting his insides.

His legs are so unsteady, they seem to have a mind of their own. Cloud desperately prays he won’t stumble and ruin the moment he spent so long waiting for.

The only thing holding him up is Tifa’s firm grip on his arm. It’s a good thing she’s leading him because Cloud can’t see his surroundings at all. All he can see is Sephiroth. His heart is pounding so fast it feels ready to burst out of his chest.

“Almost there,” Tifa whispers, but Cloud can’t find enough air to respond. He has to focus on placing one foot in front of the other, on keeping himself steady. Those last few steps feel like miles.

He wants to break into a run, to throw himself into Sephiroth’s arms and kiss him in front of all their friends, but he forces himself to go slow. He wants to make this moment special. Besides, there’s no need to rush. They have their whole lives ahead of them. Nothing will ever separate them again.

When he reaches the altar, Sephiroth takes his hand, and the fire in his eyes—a mixture of pride, desire, and affection—takes Cloud’s breath away.

Cloud is so nervous and excited that he can barely repeat the vows. The words echo in his head, repeating over and over: until death do us part.

But they’ve been through that already, haven’t they? Forever in their case truly means forever.

For all eternity.

They exchange the rings, and in the next moment, Sephiroth is there, leaning over him with a pleased quirk of his lips. His big, warm hand cups Cloud’s cheek, brushing it softly. It brings those butterflies back to Cloud’s stomach with a vengeance. It feels like there are entire swarms of them. He’s so close that Cloud can feel his breath on his lips when he whispers, “You’re mine now.”

The memory ends as suddenly as it came, leaving Cloud reeling.

He comes to on the floor, surrounded by shattered glass, panting. His head is still pounding. The pain is so intense he almost vomits.

“What… the fuck… was that?” he gasps out loud to no one in particular.

He kicks the frame away and crawls backward, putting some distance between him and the wreck. When it fell, the glass damaged the photo, but it still stares at Cloud from the floor as if mocking him.

It all felt so real. He could smell the flowers, feel the pressure of Tifa’s hand, hear the murmuring of the crowd. And worst of all, in that moment, he was genuinely excited about marrying Sephiroth. The love and attraction he felt for him seemed so real.

He rubs his lips with the back of his hand, but they still feel dirty. He didn’t actually remember Sephiroth kissing him, but just knowing that he did is enough to disgust him.

“Ugh,” Cloud groans, clutching his head.

Was that a memory? Or a trick of some sort?

It was triggered the moment he touched the frame, so maybe it was booby-trapped. Maybe Sephiroth predicted he would go snooping around, so he left it there for him to find. To punish him. That way, he could feed him fake memories, make him question himself, until his mind became pliable enough to be controlled again.

The headache itself confirms it.

Whenever Sephiroth tried to mess with his mind in the past—by shoving thoughts and ideas into his head—it always left him with a throbbing headache. So this must be the same. But unfortunately for him, Cloud is not stupid enough to fall for it.

In fact, this makes him more certain than ever that Sephiroth is hiding something. There must be something truly horrific in this house if he resorted to setting traps in order to hide it. Perhaps he got hold of another black materia or something even more dangerous.

The thought of Sephiroth being in possession of a dark artifact that would allow him to control people’s minds at will is almost too terrifying to contemplate. Cloud has to find it and get rid of it quickly. This might be his only chance! There’s no telling how long he has before he falls under Sephiroth’s spell once more.

And so, with renewed determination, Cloud keeps searching.

He abandons the living room as a lost cause and heads for the next location—the master bedroom. Sephiroth’s bedroom.

If he’s hiding anything, it will have to be there.

As he climbs up the stairs, Cloud’s mind slowly clears. Perhaps it’s because he’s no longer close to that photo and whatever toxic effect it had on him, but the headache lets up significantly. It tapers off to a dull ache, easy to ignore.

The room itself is not difficult to find, but stepping inside is a different matter. It gives Cloud all sorts of complicated feelings. Especially when he picks up on the signs of it being a shared space: the double bed, two wardrobes, clothes Cloud recognizes as his own…

This isn’t Sephiroth’s bedroom, as he dubbed it. It’s their bedroom.

Or it used to be.

Cloud edges inside, moving slowly. Gods only know what kind of unspeakable horrors he survived on this very bed. The realization turns his breathing ragged, but he refuses to leave. He gives the bed a wide berth, trying not to dwell on it.

It’s impossible to change the past, but he can control his own future; he can make sure it never happens again.

He rifles through the wardrobes and drawers, searching for anything sinister, but all he finds are clothes, socks, and underwear. The more he looks, the more frustrated he becomes. Nothing of importance can be found here. All he learns is that, apparently, Sephiroth wears briefs, but he could have gone his whole life without knowing that.

He pays special attention to Sephiroth’s spaces, believing it improbable that he would hide something where Cloud was likely to look.

His wardrobe contains a wide selection of clothes in a variety of colors. Sweaters, t-shirts, jeans, even a pair of shorts! At a glance, it looks perfectly normal, but Cloud isn’t buying it. It’s mimicry, pure and simple. A predator blending into his surroundings so that he would appear harmless while waiting for the right moment to strike.

He may have gotten good at posing as a family man, but Cloud knows what he really is.

The trouble is that Sephiroth is very good at covering his tracks. Even after turning the room upside-down, Cloud can’t find anything suspicious. But he knows it must be there!

What he finds, unexpectedly, is his sword, which was placed on a weapons rack in the corner, along with a few other weapons. Other than that, the search proves to be a giant waste of time.

All that’s left is one nightstand, on the opposite side of the bed from the one Sephiroth has been using. Cloud assumed it was his, so he paid it no mind, but since there’s nowhere else to look, he turns to it at last.

He tries the top drawer, and he finds it locked.

It instantly sends his heart racing. This must be it, he thinks. The bastard was hiding whatever it was right under Cloud’s nose!

He tugs on the drawer roughly, impatiently, but it refuses to budge.

As he tries to pry it open with his fingers, clawing at it with his nails, his mind goes wild with possibilities. What could it possibly be? More of Jenova’s missing limbs? Drugs? Opioids?

At first, Cloud didn’t want to break the lock because he didn’t want Sephiroth to know he went snooping around his room, but he’s way past that. He’s like a dog with a bone, certain that he’s finally hit jackpot. The damn thing won’t open, but Cloud refuses to give up. He claws at it while his frustration continues to rise. With an angry huff, he kicks the nightstand as hard as he can, but it still won’t break.

All out of options, Cloud picks up his sword, determined to chop it into pieces.

“What in the world are you doing?”

The unexpected voice makes Cloud jump ten feet into the air. He lets out a very undignified yelp and swings wildly, nearly cleaving Sephiroth’s head off, but the bastard’s reflexes are just as good as they used to be, so he dodges just in time.

“Stop sneaking up on me!” Cloud roars, shaking with anger.

He was so focused on what he was doing that he didn’t even hear Sephiroth approach, and that infuriates him. It’s happened too many times over the past two days.

Cloud used to have a sixth sense warning him about Sephiroth’s presence, but it no longer seems to work. It’s as if his own body is working against him. Perhaps, after spending so many years around Sephiroth, it simply no longer perceives him as a threat. And that drives him crazy.

He tightens his grip on the sword.

He could use it.

Sephiroth glances down at it, then up at Cloud’s face. He arches an eyebrow.

“It’s you who invited yourself into my bedroom, Cloud.” He scoffs with a smirk. “I didn’t realize you were so eager to return to my bed.”

The words, “You’re mine now,” whispered in that memory, echo in Cloud’s head. They leave him blushing furiously, feeling like he’s about to combust.

“Fuck you,” he chokes out, absolutely mortified. He wants to storm out and get as far away from Sephiroth as possible, but there’s no time for that. He needs answers. “Open it,” he orders, pointing at the drawer.

“You don’t want me to do that. Trust me.”

“Trust you?” Cloud repeats incredulously, practically laughing in his face, and it makes Sephiroth’s expression darken. He scowls before looking away.

It’s hard to gauge what he’s thinking when he gets like this, but Cloud tells himself it is fear. If Sephiroth is being evasive, it must mean he’s on the right track, so he keeps pushing.

“Open the damn drawer, Sephiroth. I know you’re hiding something!”

“I’m not hiding anything.”

Cloud scoffs. “Do you think I’m an idiot? Why else would you lock it?”

“It wasn’t me who locked it.”

“Oh, no, I’m sure it locked itself!”

Sephiroth rolls his eyes, extremely unimpressed. “It was you, Cloud. You wanted to keep it locked.”

“Fine, whatever! Let’s say it was me, but now I want it unlocked, so give me the damn key!”

They glare at each other for a few moments, the air practically crackling between them, until Sephiroth sighs and produces a key. He dangles it in front of Cloud’s face before dropping it into his hand. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Ignoring his words, Cloud runs to open the drawer.

He keeps his sword close to him, but he leaves it on the floor. It can wait. Everything else can wait now that he’s finally about to unravel this mystery! Hopefully, it’ll explain how Sephiroth kept him under his thrall for so many years.

In his excitement, Cloud pulls on the drawer so hard that he nearly spills its contents onto the floor. A few items roll around it, rattling loudly, commanding attention.

Cloud stares at them in disbelief.

There’s no black materia, no Jenova, or drugs. Not even an evil manifesto. Only a drawer full of lube and sex toys.

He slams it back shut, blushing wildly.

“I told you not to look,” Sephiroth says smugly, and Cloud wants to throttle him.

“Why the fuck do you even have that?!” He stumbles back in shock, unable to keep the quiver from his voice. “And why would you lock it?”

“I told you, I’m not the one who locked it. You wanted to make sure we were the only ones who had access to it because we live in a house with a young, curious boy who likes to go snooping, just like his father. And as for your other question… Well, I’m sure you can figure it out.”

Cloud grits his teeth, shaking his head. “What kind of depravities did you force me into?”

“Depravities?” Sephiroth repeats coldly, crossing his arms. “It’s just sex, Cloud. I never took you for a prude.”

“Well, maybe I am!” he snaps because he can’t think of a better comeback.

In truth, he has no idea what he is. Ten years ago, which is as far as his memories reach, he was still a virgin. It makes sense that he isn’t anymore, but he can’t imagine becoming that sexually adventurous.

Certainly not with Sephiroth!

The discovery leaves him rattled, and it doesn’t help that Sephiroth keeps rubbing it in.

“Surely it doesn’t surprise you that we used to have sex, Cloud? Or did you think Kadaj was brought to us by a flying chocobo?”

“Shut up!”

He won’t think about that. He won’t!

For a second, he’s hyperaware of the bed behind him. One simple push is all it would take to have him on his back, at Sephiroth’s mercy. The sword is at his feet, but he’s shaking so hard that he can’t bend over to pick it up.

He refuses to bend over in front of Sephiroth. The mere thought makes his skin crawl.

Feeling helpless, Cloud storms out of the room. And then he’s running again, desperate to get away.

This is the second time he’s fled this house in under twenty-four hours, and it makes him feel like a coward, but he can’t stand being around Sephiroth. It’s easier when Kadaj is there. They’re both trying to be on their best behavior in front of their son, which makes it easy to ignore the bastard. But when they’re alone, it’s as if he’s trying to get a rise out of Cloud. Pushing all the wrong buttons until he explodes.

Cloud regrets not killing him when he had the chance, but he has to consider how his actions would affect Kadaj. He can’t do anything without a solid plan.

So until he has one, he’ll have to stay away from this wretched house—and Sephiroth—whenever the boy is away.

Chapter Text

Things get a little awkward when Cloud returns to Seventh Heaven. Everyone is surprised to see him, and that instantly pisses him off. It’s as if they were all expecting him to just move back in with Sephiroth, to step back into a life that was never his, but why in the world would he do that? He wants to spent time with Kadaj, of course, but expecting him to be around Sephiroth is too tall an order. 

“You won’t get rid of me so easily,” he snaps at them testily, which makes Tifa pull him into a hug.

“Don’t be like that! You know you can stay here as long as you want. This will always be your second home!”

She means to reassure him, but the fact that she calls it his second home just upsets him even more.

Cloud feels completely alone in this world he doesn’t recognize. The only thing that makes sense here is Kadaj. Which is illogical in itself because Kadaj should be the worst reminder of everything Sephiroth had put him through. But he’s not. When he’s with him, Cloud doesn’t think about anything else. Not about Sephiroth, or Jenova, or his duty to protect the Planet. The world narrows down to his son, and everything else ceases to matter.

Cloud wishes he could bring Kadaj to Seventh Heaven, far from Sephiroth’s constant hovering, but he knows he can’t do that without a fight. Sephiroth made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t going to let him take the child away from him.

The trouble is that he really doesn’t want to go back to Kalm. What he saw at Sephiroth’s house still weighs heavily on his mind. Thinking about the locked drawer brings a blush to his cheeks, and the memory of their wedding still confuses him. Tifa was there, so he could simply ask her if any of that was real, but he finds himself reluctant to do so. If Sephiroth is controlling her as he fears, she would simply confirm whatever Sephiroth wanted him to think, feeding his delusions. So it’s better to remain unsure than to find comfort in lies.

The only thing he can trust are pictures as tangible evidence of his past… which reminds him of the scrapbook he brought home.

The memories it contains make him nervous, especially after what happened when he touched that wedding photo, but the need to see them is too strong. He can only hope there are no more traps waiting for him in there.

Although, to be fair, he can’t be sure that’s what happened last time. Maybe it was a trap, as he’d like to believe, but it’s just as likely that it was a genuine memory. The doctors told him certain situations and emotions could trigger the return of his memories, so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. The problem is that he found what he saw so disturbing that he refuses to believe any of it was real. He clings to that conviction like a lifeline because he cannot accept that he ever felt anything other than loathing for Sephiroth.

But most alarming of all is that some of those feelings have lingered, hidden in the recesses of his mind.

It’s not as if they’ve suddenly changed how he feels about Sephiroth—he still hates the bastard—but they come to him in waves, like an unwanted memory of something deeply embarrassing, mortifying, that you never wanted to think about again. He tries to ignore them, but the harder he tries, the more he focuses on them instead.

He squeezes his eyes shut, forcing them out of his mind, but even now he hears Sephiroth whispering, You’re mine now.

“I’ll never be yours,” Cloud mutters aloud, hating his own traitorous body when his stomach flips at the words.

Desperate for a distraction, he looks down at the scrapbook in his hands and tries to imagine himself making it. Printing the photos, gluing them onto the pages, recording his memories in the form of a journal… but he can’t. He’s never been the crafty type. Or sentimental enough to do something like this.

He traces the spine with his fingers, feeling its ridges and creases. It seems to have been opened thousands of times… so why is it so hard to open it now? He wants to; gods, he’s dying to, but something stays his hand. There are so many things he doesn’t remember, but without proof, he can easily dismiss them as lies. But what happens if he finds that proof in these photos? Will he still be able to deny them?

What if…

His stomach lurches again.

There’s no point thinking about what ifs. And there’s no point in running.

With a sigh and a heavy heart, Cloud opens the book to the very first page and immediately regrets it.  

It shows a photo of him and Sephiroth holding what appears to be a wrinkled, blood-covered loaf of bread. It must have been taken right after Kadaj was born because Cloud is still flushed and sweaty, utterly exhausted, yet even in a moment like that, he’s still smiling. Sephiroth is sitting on the edge of his hospital bed with one arm around Cloud’s shoulders and the other over Cloud’s, propping up their baby. And while Cloud is smiling at the child, Sephiroth’s eyes are reserved only for him. He carries an expression that can only be described as reverent.

Cloud slams the book shut with a groan.

There is no way any of those emotions were genuine, but they make his heart ache all the same because he’s spent his whole life yearning for something like this. Exactly like this. He wanted a child and a husband who would adore him.

But that can’t be Sephiroth! He’s not even capable of such emotions. 

Cloud’s mind understands that, but it’s not as easy to convince his heart. It sends blood rushing to his cheeks, making his head spin. He digs his nails into his knees, clutching desperately. It infuriates him that, even though he knows this can’t be real, he can’t stay unaffected.

“Hey, you okay? You’ve been up here all day—oh! You brought Kadaj’s baby book!”

Without waiting for an invitation, Tifa charges into the room and joins him on the bed with a huge smile.

“I take it you’ve seen it, then?”

“Seen it? Cloud, I know it like the back of my hand! You made me look through it every time I came over.” She reaches for the book immediately and flips through a few pages. Unlike Cloud, she doesn’t have a problem opening it. “You always had new pictures you wanted to show me. Since the moment Kadaj was born, you never went anywhere without a camera. You told me you wanted to preserve every moment you had with him. And when I said a baby book should be reserved for special moments only, you insisted that every moment with Kadaj was special.”

When she looks back up, her eyes are shimmering with emotion.

“And I guess you were right. I’m glad you took so many photos because now they can help you see just how happy you were.”

Cloud knows she’s only trying to help, but when she says things like that, it feels like she’s pressuring him to remember; like she’s doing Sephiroth another favor by forcing these—potentially fake—memories onto him.

Usually, Cloud keeps such thoughts to himself because he knows there’s no use arguing, but today, he’s too damn tired to play nice.

“None of that is real, Tifa,” he says, and watches her face fall.

“You still think that?”

She sounds so disappointed that he immediately regrets saying anything at all. He should know by now that she’s not on his side; not in this.

“I know the photos themselves are real, but I don’t trust the feelings behind them.”

Tifa closes the book and holds it against her chest while giving him a look that borders on pity.

“You’ve been proud of Kadaj since the moment he was born. As soon as he was old enough, you started taking him everywhere you went, and although you denied it at the time, I know you did it because you wanted to show off. You wanted the world to know you became a father.”

“What is that supposed to prove? I don’t doubt that I loved my son!”

“And you think Sephiroth doesn’t?”

Cloud thinks about it for a while, remembering the care and patience he’s seen Sephiroth exhibit around the boy. “I… supposed he does.”

“So the problem is that you think he doesn’t care about you?” 

Tifa’s lips curl into a little smirk, like this is some kind of gotcha, which immediately rubs Cloud the wrong way.

“The problem is that I think he’s going to destroy the world!”

“Why would he do that, Cloud? You just agreed that he loves his son, who lives on this planet with the rest of us. He can’t destroy it without killing him too. And even if you doubt how he feels about you, you can’t think he would hurt Kadaj!”

Cloud grows quiet, considering her words. They sound reasonable, but the stakes are too high.

“What if you’re wrong?”

“I rarely am,” Tifa says with a smile. “So if you can’t trust Sephiroth, trust me. He won’t do anything to hurt you, or your son. For years, I’ve watched him do everything he could to please you.”

The words do something funny to Cloud’s stomach, and it twists, filling with warmth.

He squirms uncomfortably.

“Maybe he was just nice to me when you were around. You weren’t there 24/7!”

“It’s the little things, Cloud; the way he looks at you, the way he treats you. He’s always conscious of your needs... Before you even realize you want something, he’s already there giving it to you. You can’t fake that kind of affection. Certainly not for so many years.”

“Sephiroth could,” Cloud mutters stubbornly.

He doesn’t believe any of this, but his damn heart refuses to listen. It keeps fluttering strangely, making him feel flushed all over. The scenes from the church replay in his mind.

Cloud looks up at the ceiling with a sigh. 

“You should try talking to him. Get to know him a little better,” Tifa says, gently patting his thigh.

“Tifa… it’s not like I can trust a single word he says.”

“And that’s the root of your trouble! He’s changed, Cloud. Since the last time he came back, he hasn’t given me a single reason to doubt him.”

Cloud scowls, not even trying to hide his disgust. “He’s given me at least five in the last twenty-four hours!”

Tifa laughs and smacks his arm. “You’re as stubborn as a mule, Cloud Strife.”

Soon after Tifa leaves, Cloud falls asleep without meaning to. The all-nighter he pulled the night before, combined with all the stress and anxiety that followed, takes him out cold. He passes out before he knows what hit him and spends the night at Seventh Heaven.

Usually, that wouldn’t be a big deal, but he was planning to go to Kalm, to see Kadaj. 

Guilt slams into him the moment he opens his eyes, making him miss the blissful ignorance of sleep. Not even a day after vowing he’d never hurt Kadaj like that again, he messed up in the exact same way.

If he doesn’t get his act together soon, he might even make the boy hate him. Or at the very least, he’ll push him straight into Sephiroth’s arms.

Desperate to fix what he’s done, Cloud wants to storm over there right now, but there’s no way he can make it before Kadaj goes to preschool. Whether he wants to or not, he’ll have to wait a few more hours to see him again. 

To pass the time, Cloud returns his attention to the scrapbook.

He’s even more terrified to open it now, after what he saw in it last time, but he can’t keep running away forever. If he wants to strengthen his bond with his son, he’ll have to face the past head-on.

So, he takes a few shuddering breaths and tries again.

Making sure to avoid the first page, Cloud skips ahead to the next one. It shows an ultrasound with a brief description and a date. 

It’s blurry and grainy, but there’s no mistaking the tiny baby growing inside a bubble. A womb.

It’s almost impossible to believe that is his body.

Cloud looks down at his stomach, pressing and prodding. It feels perfectly normal, but Tifa did say the changes were only temporary. For one crazy moment, he wonders what would happen if he wanted to have more children, but he quickly banishes that thought. It’s horrific enough that he survived that once. 

Twelve weeks, the picture says, but to Cloud, Kadaj looks barely bigger than a bean. It’s crazy to think that he brought a new life into this world; that a living being spent nine months growing inside of him.

He turned that tiny bean into a human, and that feels like pure magic. It’s a bond that can never be broken.

Cloud keeps flipping through the pages, his smile growing with every picture he sees. There’s Kadaj in the cradle, surrounded by toys. Kadaj napping blissfully on Cloud’s chest. Cloud struggling to feed an obstinately resisting Kadaj. Sephiroth blowing raspberries on Kadaj’s belly... but he quickly skips that one.

Every photo comes with a short story, and after only a few, Cloud’s heart is already filled to bursting. He could spend an entire week fixating on nothing but this. If only these pictures would trigger a memory, so he could experience some of it firsthand, but there’s no such luck. All he can do is stare at these glimpses of the past and feel incomplete.

They make him long for the memories he had lost, and for the first time, Cloud doesn’t even question if they are real. Because he wants them to be. And he desperately wants them back.

After a while, he comes across a small lock of blond hair, and it shocks him so much that he freezes. It looks just like his own, so he quickly reads the description, trying to understand, but it does little to explain. All it offers is a date and a brief story about Kadaj being terrified of scissors.

At the bottom of the page, though, there is a small note written in a different pen, referencing something fifty pages ahead. Cloud skips to it impatiently. There he finds another lock of hair—silver this time—with a longer explanation.

Apparently, Kadaj’s hair was blond when he was born, but it changed over time. The color faded and darkened until it eventually turned grey. It happened when he was about six months old, and it stayed that way ever since.

Cloud goes back to the blond lock and caresses it with his thumb. If his hair color hadn’t changed, Kadaj would have been a spitting image of him, and he bemoans the fact that he isn’t. Everything would have been so much simpler if the boy didn’t look so much like Sephiroth. If he weren’t a walking, talking reminder of the horrors Cloud had lived through.

But in truth, as impossible as that sounds, Cloud has already grown to accept Kadaj as he is. Even if he carries Sephiroth’s DNA, he is still Cloud’s, and he can’t help but love him.

On the next page, there is a photo of Sephiroth giving baby Kadaj a bath. Up to that point, Cloud has been good at dodging photos with Sephiroth. They were there, of course—tons of them—but Cloud would take a peek ahead and skip the page if he saw him. This time, he was so distracted by the hair that he didn’t notice it in time.

He wants to get past it quickly, like every time before, but it just so happens that Kadaj is blond in this photo, so he can’t skim over it. He has to look.

The boy’s normally spiky hair is glued to his face, covered in suds. Sephiroth must have been washing it because he’s leaning over the baby basin with shampoo all over his hands. His shirt is absolutely drenched, and there’s one giant bubble on the tip of his nose. He looks so ridiculous that Cloud bursts out laughing.

The big, menacing villain, the so-called Demon of Wutai, defeated by a little baby.

Sephiroth himself looks absolutely flabbergasted, his eyes almost comically large, and Cloud can’t stop laughing. After a few seconds, he catches himself and realizes that he’s smiling at Sephiroth, so he quickly looks away.

Kadaj, the likely culprit, was caught mid-motion, kicking up the suds with his little legs, wearing a big, happy smile on his face.

The only word to describe the photo is adorable, and even Cloud can’t deny it. But there’s no amount of torture that would get him to admit that there was even a single second when he associated the word cute with someone like Sephiroth.

He keeps turning the pages until he comes across a photo with a simple title: Afternoon nap.

This time, the handwriting is not his own, and that unnerves him. The letters are sharp and angular, commanding somehow, even though they’re just dry ink on a page. It’s easy to guess who they belong to, which immediately annoys Cloud. It feels as if Sephiroth had just violated his space by encroaching on something that was his alone.

Cloud ignores the text for the time being and looks at the photo first.

It shows a moment of respite in which Cloud is holding a slightly bigger Kadaj. They’re napping together on the living room couch, so it’s easy to assume Cloud dozed off after struggling to put the boy to sleep.

It is only a simple moment, but the intimacy of it is striking. It is a stark reminder of the fact that Cloud allowed himself to sleep in front of Sephiroth, trusting him with his own life and the life of his baby.

Right now, that seems inconceivable. He can’t imagine anything—anything at all—that could make him trust Sephiroth.

The description under the photo is brief and to the point: “Finally letting Papa sleep after working hard on his first tooth.”

Cloud stares at the words for a few seconds, his brain spinning in place.

He tries to imagine Sephiroth writing them, and he can’t. They’re too sweet, too… domestic.

Cloud frowns at them for a while before forcing himself to move on, skimming quickly through the rest of the book. There are so many photos that he can’t possibly give them all their due attention in a single day. He already knows he’ll keep coming back to this book repeatedly. It is a treasure trove of memories, and to someone like Cloud, who lost his own, a thing like that is invaluable.

On one of the pages, he finds Kadaj’s first word.

It is Papa.

Cloud snaps the book shut and grabs his keys.

Before the lump in his throat is even done dissolving, he’s already on his bike, heading back to Kalm.

Once again, Cloud finds himself on Sephiroth’s doorstep, shuffling his feet, feeling like an idiot. Coming here always makes him feel strange, but it’s even worse now, after the way he stormed out last time. Being back reminds him of that awful conversation and the things he found in the drawer. Truth be told, he’s still not ready to face Sephiroth, and he might never be, but he knows it’s unavoidable. If he wants to see his son, he’ll have to put up with his presence… at least for now. Until he finds a way to get rid of him for good.

He knocks and waits, feeling jittery, but the door remains closed. After about a minute, he tries the handle, but this time it won’t budge. It seems he is no longer welcome, or perhaps Sephiroth is simply not expecting him.

Either way, Cloud refuses to leave. He wants to see his son, and he won’t take no for an answer. So he bangs on the door as hard as he can until it finally opens.

“Cloud,” Sephiroth says, and he can’t quite hide the shock in his voice. “We have a doorbell, you know.”

Cloud rolls his eyes and scoffs. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, feeling increasingly annoyed when Sephiroth doesn’t say anything else.

“Are you gonna let me in or what?”

Sephiroth grips the door, but doesn’t open it. He narrows his eyes. “If you’re planning to run away again, you better leave now before Kadaj sees you.” His words are cutting, and they make Cloud look away in shame.

He knows he messed up, so he can’t even curse at him the way he wants to.

“I won’t leave,” he grumbles reluctantly, and a moment later, Sephiroth finally opens the door.

His hand is still gripping the handle, so when it moves, a flash of silver catches Cloud’s eye. For a split second, he thinks it’s a weapon, so he flinches, but then he realizes it’s only a ring. A simple, silver band wrapped around Sephiroth’s finger, reflecting the light.

It cuts Cloud worse than any weapon could have. He stares at it, unable to look away.

He recognizes that ring from the memory he saw. It was him who placed it on Sephiroth’s hand.

If he needed proof that what he saw was real, that it wasn’t a lie or a fantasy, it’s right there in front of him. Tangible evidence that it was indeed a memory.

Cloud’s heart starts beating wildly, his mind filling with questions. 

If what he saw was real, what about the crazy things he felt? Was that real too?

When Sephiroth catches him staring, he quickly pulls his hand away. 

“Kadaj is in the living room,” he says before turning around and heading up the stairs, leaving Cloud blinking after him in confusion.

Why is he the one acting strange when Cloud has every reason to wonder if he’s losing his damn mind?

Well, whatever. If Sephiroth wants to sulk in his room, that’s his business. Good riddance! It’ll give Cloud some time alone with his son, which is all he wanted to begin with.

He locks the front door and heads to the living room, determined to put Sephiroth out of his mind.

The moment Kadaj sees him, he drops his toys and runs to him.

“Papa! You’re home!” he exclaims with a blinding smile when Cloud pulls him into his arms.

“Hey kiddo.”

From this distance, he can see the boy’s eyes are puffy, so he must have been crying.

“Dad said you’d be gone for a few days,” he whispers against Cloud’s chest. His voice is so small, so tentative that it breaks Cloud’s heart. 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here last night, Kaj. I had some errands to run.”

The nickname slips out, as if his mouth is used to saying it, even if Cloud himself isn’t. But now that it’s out, it feels right. It’s much easier to say than Kadaj.

“It’s okay, Papa. I know you had things to do.”

He sounds devastatingly sad but full of understanding, and Cloud can’t fathom who taught him to be so kind. Children his age are usually unreasonable, crying and begging for what they want regardless of circumstances.

In comparison, Kadaj seems remarkably mature. Almost stoic. It would be easier if he screamed or threw a fit. That way, Cloud could tell himself that a child couldn’t possibly understand the situation between adults.

But when he puts on a brave face, hiding how badly he’s hurt, it almost drowns Cloud in guilt.

And that is why he decides to stay.

He spends the evening playing with Kadaj, learning the names of his favorite toys before settling down on the couch to watch another episode of Stamp’s Adventures. When it’s time for bed, Cloud reads him another story, tucks him in, and kisses him.

Afterwards, he returns to the living room feeling lost. Sephiroth is nowhere to be found, and Cloud has no desire to see him anyway, so he makes himself comfortable on the couch, intent on waiting there until morning.

His plan is to have breakfast with Kadaj and send him off to preschool before heading home to get some sleep. It’ll be exhausting, no doubt about it, but it’ll be worth it knowing that he won’t hurt his son again.

Unfortunately, life rarely happens the way Cloud wants it to. He’s still tired, even though he spent most of the day sleeping, and sitting in a silent room is terribly boring. After a few hours, his eyes begin to droop. Before he even realizes what he’s doing, he curls up on the couch, fully dressed, and falls into a fitful sleep.

He dreams of Sephiroth torturing him with Masamune, but after a while, the sword turns into one of those horrid things he saw in the drawer. And all the while, he keeps saying, You’re mine now.

When Cloud opens his eyes with a gasp, it is already morning. It takes him a moment to reorient himself and realize where he is. When he does, he groans in frustration.

How in the world did he even manage to fall asleep here? No wonder it gave him nightmares!

When he rolls over, he gets tangled in a blanket, and it takes his sleep-addled mind a moment to realize why that is alarming. He bolts upright and looks around, but there’s no one there.

Yet there is definitely a blanket thrown over his waist, which wasn’t there last night. It means that Sephiroth must have been here, sneaking around him while he was asleep. There is even a set of clean clothes sitting neatly on the table.

Cloud plops down on the couch and draws the blanket up to his chin, feeling stifled.

Was this kindness? Or another mind game, devised to show him that Sephiroth could have easily killed him last night?

Spending the night here was insanely stupid, but if he’s forced to choose between risking his life and hurting his son, Cloud already knows what choice he’s going to make.

A few minutes later, he hears a door open upstairs and buries his face in the cushions. The last thing he wants is to see Sephiroth first thing in the morning.

But instead of Sephiroth coming down the stairs, there is the sound of another door opening, and then, “Papa? Where’s Papa?”

Kadaj’s voice cracks with grief, and Cloud’s heart leaps to his throat. Sephiroth murmurs something in response, but his voice is too quiet to carry down the stairs. It’s easy to guess what he must have told him, though, because in the next moment, Kadaj storms into the living room.

“You’re still here!” he exclaims when he sees Cloud and jumps straight onto his stomach, winding him. Cloud feels him shake as he holds him. “I thought you left,” he whispers, and Cloud’s stomach lurches.

It’s way too early for this.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he chokes out past the guilt and the weight of his own complicated feelings.

Nestled against his chest, Kadaj looks up at him with wide, curious eyes. “But why are you sleeping down here?”

He sounds so confused, so lost, that Cloud doesn’t know what to tell him.

“I…”

“Give your father some room to breathe, Kaj. You’ll scare him away.”

The boy backs off immediately. “Sorry, Papa.”

Sephiroth moves through the living room without even sparing them a glance, and heads into the kitchen to turn on the coffee machine. Cloud shoots him a dirty glare, but he doesn’t even notice. He wants to tell him to fuck off and stay out of it, but he clearly just covered for him yet again.

Why does he keep doing that?

“It’s okay,” he directs his words at Kadaj and ruffles his hair.

He’s been awake for less than fifteen minutes, and he’s already exhausted. He wishes he could hibernate for a few years like one of Nibelheim dragons.

“Come on, time to brush your teeth,” Sephiroth says, and Kadaj clambers off of Cloud. He runs to the bathroom where Sephiroth helps him use the toothbrush. Cloud watches them from the couch, feeling utterly lost.

Seeing the two of them together just makes him feel even more inadequate. They’re like a well-oiled machine, and Cloud is nothing but a spare part. What do you know about raising children, Sephiroth had asked, and the answer is, apparently, nothing. Nothing at all.

Cloud moves to sit up, which sends pain shooting up his spine. The damn couch is so uncomfortable, it could easily be classified as a grade A torture device.

He continues to sit there, staring off into space for a good long while. Eventually, Sephiroth returns.

“The bathroom is free. You can use the shower if you want.”

Cloud looks at him incredulously. “You must be mad if you think I’m going to shower at your house. You could have cameras in there for all I know!”

Sephiroth’s expression darkens, his eyes flashing dangerously. “Why would I need to film you when I already have everything I want?”

“Wait… what?!” 

Did he just imply that he’s filmed him before?

Cloud jumps to his feet, ready to fight, but Sephiroth dismisses him before he can utter a single word.

“I don’t have time for this. I need to get Kadaj ready for school.” He marches off, leaving Cloud shaking.

He’s lying; he’s gotta be! There’s no way Cloud actually let him… no! He’s just messing with him!

But as always, his words get under Cloud’s skin. He can’t stop thinking about the possibility of Sephiroth having hours of compromising footage he could get off on.

With an angry huff, Cloud shoves the clothes away and refuses to wear them. He’ll shower and change once he gets home.

He continues to sit there until Kadaj shows up to drag him off to breakfast, and like every time before, Cloud simply can’t say no to the boy. While he eats, he tries to ignore Sephiroth as much as he can, but he’s hyperaware of his presence. He needs to know if he’s lying. And if he’s not, what kind of videos could he have? Violent or sexual? Or both?

Cloud blushes, glaring at his plate. The conversation goes on around him, and this time, it’s a little easier to follow. Some of the names keep popping up repeatedly, which helps him memorize them. He does his best to catalogue them all because he’s dying to relearn everything he knew about his son’s life. He’s eager to take an active role in it once more.

And that’s why, when Sephiroth says he’s taking Kadaj to preschool, this time, Cloud decides to come along. He needs to know where it is. It doesn’t feel right that he has no idea where his son spends most of his days.

Sephiroth looks at him a little strangely when he announces he’s coming along, but he doesn’t get a chance to complain because Kadaj is instantly elated. He keeps bouncing between them, giggling happily. Seeing him like this makes Cloud realize just how subdued he’s been over the past two days.

When they head out, Sephiroth takes Kadaj’s hand, while Cloud keeps to himself, off to the side. But it doesn’t stay that way for long. The boy grabs him with his other hand, forcing him to walk with them, hand in hand.

And that is how Cloud finds himself taking a leisurely stroll through the streets of Kalm with his mortal enemy.

How ironic. And a bit on the nose, as metaphors go. Kadaj is literally forcing them together, serving as a conduit, creating a perfect caricature of a happy family.

Holding hands like this feels electrifying. Like a closed circuit of energy.

Even though he and Sephiroth aren’t touching at all, Cloud can practically feel his blood humming with tension.

Luckily, the preschool is only a few streets away, just as he suspected, so he doesn’t have to stay close to Sephiroth for long.

They walk Kadaj to the gate and watch him run off to join his friends. A boy with curly red hair grins when he sees him, and Cloud immediately assumes that is Billy. They laugh at something together, and it fills Cloud’s heart with warmth. He’s reminded of his own childhood and how he grew up being an outcast, so he’s deeply relieved that won’t be his son’s fate. Impossibly, despite being raised by him and Sephiroth—who probably had an even worse upbringing than Cloud—Kadaj seems naturally sociable.

When he walks into the building and disappears from sight, Cloud can no longer ignore the fact that he’s been left alone with his longtime enemy. He expects Sephiroth to say something scathing, but he doesn’t, so they continue to stand there, drowning in oppressive silence.

This morning, Sephiroth’s ring is gone once more, and for some reason, that keeps nagging at Cloud. He can’t let it go.

Why is he not wearing it?

He can’t bring himself to ask because he doesn’t want Sephiroth to think that he wants him to wear it, but its absence is rather conspicuous. The only time he put it on was when he didn’t expect to see Cloud. That can’t be a coincidence. It makes Cloud wonder if he’s actually taking it off for his sake, but that can’t be right… can it?

He’s still deciding whether to bring it up when a woman he doesn’t know runs up to them and calls his name.

“Mr. Strife!”

She came from the school, so she must be one of Kadaj’s teachers. Cloud frantically runs through a list of names he’s memorized, trying to remember which one was the teacher. Miss… Maple? He thinks so, but he can’t be sure, which makes him a little weary.

He turns to her anyway, ready to bluff his way through it, but then he realizes she’s not looking at him at all.

She’s talking to Sephiroth.

“I wanted to talk to you about Kadaj’s homework.”

She raises some concerns about Kadaj being significantly ahead of his class and outright accuses Sephiroth of doing his homework for him, which he adamantly denies… but Cloud can’t really focus on any of that. His heart is pounding in his ears, deafeningly loud, and the second she leaves, he rounds on Sephiroth.

“What did she call you?”

“What?” he looks genuinely confused, as if he didn’t even notice, which infuriates Cloud even more.

“She called you Mr. Strife!”

Sephiroth shrugs casually as if it’s not a big deal. “She must have been talking to you.”

“No, she wasn’t! She was clearly talking to you!”

“She always sees us together, so maybe she got us confused.”

“Dammit, Sephiroth… Can you stop lying?” Cloud grabs his arm when he tries to walk away and turns him back around. “You didn’t even flinch. You’re obviously used to being called Strife!”

Sephiroth’s eyes turn dark and unfathomable. Cold and empty, like the void of space.

“What do you want me to say, Cloud?”

“I don’t know! Try the truth, for once!”

Sephiroth lets out an angry, frustrated breath. “She called me Strife because that is my name.”

He wrenches his arm out of Cloud’s grip and walks away, leaving him gaping. It takes Cloud a couple of seconds to pull himself together and run after him.

“What the fuck? Did you steal my identity?!”

Sephiroth stops so suddenly that Cloud runs into him from behind. He turns to him with an incredulous expression. “Steal your…? Do you hear yourself? Do you realize how insane that sounds?”

“Well, I don’t know! Why else would you have my name?”

“First of all, I do not have your name. I took my husband’s last name when I married him. Or did you think we’d leave Kadaj without one?”

“So… you did it for Kadaj?” Cloud asks slowly, feeling like he’s drowning underwater. 

“Among other reasons.”

The soft words leave Cloud utterly speechless.

What other reasons?

This time, when Sephiroth walks away, he cannot follow. He stays rooted to the spot, feeling like his brain is leaking out of his ears.

Sephiroth. Took. His. Last. Name.

How is that possible?

Every day, Cloud learns something new about this marriage that turns his world upside down. He expected Sephiroth to rob him of his identity, to mold him into his image, and force him to become whatever he wanted. So it’s completely baffling that he assumed a part of Cloud’s identity instead and welcomed it as his own. Not to steal it, but to share it.

It distorts the picture he has of Sephiroth in his mind by splitting it into three: the monster he remembers, the family man he’s just getting to know, and a third one that is something else entirely. He cannot even perceive it properly. It’s like trying to watch a 3D movie without the glasses and ending up with images that make no sense on their own. They just give you a headache.

Cloud feels like he’s missing something vital, something like those glasses, that would allow him to merge those images into one.

Maybe then he could finally figure out this Sephiroth, because he’s starting to feel like a complete unknown.

He takes his time getting back to Sephiroth’s house, walking slowly to clear his mind. When he finally gets there, he doesn’t even bother going in. He just gets on his bike and drives away, sticking to his plan to steer clear of Sephiroth while Kadaj is not there.

He spends the afternoon with his friends and returns to Kalm right after the boy comes home. They watch Stamp’s Adventures together before Cloud tucks him into bed.

After that, he retreats to the couch where he suffers until morning.

This becomes his new routine.

Sleeping on the bumpy couch leads to crippling pain in his back, but he never complains. He considers it a small price to pay in order to spend time with his son. Every sacrifice is worth it. Going back and forth from Edge every day is exhausting but manageable. It only takes about an hour each way, so Cloud doesn’t mind. He goes home for lunch, spends some time with his friends, and always returns in time to greet Kadaj at the door.

A small seed of happiness takes root in his heart and begins to grow.

He tries to avoid Sephiroth as much as he can. They only talk to each other at meals and when they walk Kadaj to school. Apart from that, it’s as if he’s trying to stay out of Cloud’s way, which feels like a blessing. Being in his presence still makes Cloud uncomfortable, but he tries to keep things civil for the sake of their child.

Seemingly overnight, Cloud is thrown into a new life of cartoons, family dinners, and bedtime stories. Kadaj rarely gets homework, but when he does, they work on it together by turning it into a game.

Every moment with Kadaj is a joyous one, so it’s shockingly easy to get used to it all.

Cloud keeps telling himself this is only temporary, that one of these days he’ll have to deal with Sephiroth. It is only because he knows his death would hurt Kadaj that he keeps putting it off. But after one week turns into two, Cloud becomes a lot less certain that is what he needs to do. Throughout his time here, he’s been keeping an eye on Sephiroth, but he never stepped out of line. He’s either gotten extremely good at pretending—which is certainly possible—or he’s truly decided to settle down.

Perhaps Tifa was right, and he really doesn’t want to destroy the Planet now that his son is on it. And if he’s only trying to live his life, with no intention of hurting anyone, is it really necessary for Cloud to destroy this newfound happiness in order to get rid of him?

The terrifying thing is that he has come to enjoy his time with Kadaj so much that he really doesn’t want to change this status quo. What he found here feels too precious, impossible to give up.

With each passing day, Cloud finds himself falling more and more.

This life, this place… it’s starting to feel like home.

Chapter Text

For three long weeks, Cloud travels to Kalm and back every single day. He sleeps on Sephiroth’s horrible couch, has breakfast with his son, takes him to school, then goes and spends a few hours with his friends before going back to tuck Kadaj into bed.

He does this every day without fail. Rinse and repeat.

It leaves him feeling drained, especially since the couch is so uncomfortable that he can barely sleep at night, but he refuses to give up. He wants to spend time with his son, no matter the cost.

But his exhaustion must be showing, because one day, at lunch, Marlene greets him with, “You don’t have to come here every day, you know.”

“Marlene!” Tifa chides, but the girl is as unrepentant as ever.

“What? I’m just saying what we’re all thinking!” She glances at Cloud apologetically. “It’s not like we don’t want you here, but you’re really starting to look like a zombie.”

“Wow, thanks,” Cloud drawls, but Marlene just takes it in stride.

“You’re welcome! Someone had to say it.”

It gets even worse when Denzel takes her side. “You could bring Kadaj and Uncle Sephiroth here for a few days, so you won’t have to go back and forth.”

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Tifa chimes in immediately, and Cloud almost throws up his lunch.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Marlene presses, and in that moment, Cloud truly hates them all.

This is supposed to be his safe space. The only place untainted by Sephiroth, where he can come to escape him for a few hours. And they want him to bring him here? No way.

“Maybe some other time,” he lies just to get them off his back.

He carries his half-eaten plate and drops it into the sink. This whole conversation has put him off his food.

“It wouldn’t be the first time, you know,” Tifa adds, because none of them know when to leave things alone. “They used to stay here all the time.”

Cloud takes a shuddering breath, praying for patience.

Things have changed, if you haven’t noticed, he wants to snap, but he bites his tongue and asks, “Where would they even sleep? There’s no room for them.”

“Kadaj used to sleep with Denzel, and Sephiroth… well. He slept with you, of course.”

A chill passes down Cloud’s spine.

It was bad enough thinking about them sharing Sephiroth’s double bed, but the bed upstairs is only a single. The only way they could fit in it together would be wrapped around each other, and he absolutely refuses to entertain that thought.

“We’re definitely not doing that again,” he growls and flees the kitchen.

Once back in the safety of his room, he takes a few breaths, trying to calm down. His eyes are drawn to the familiar bed, but after what he’d just heard, it looks completely different. Tainted somehow.

Cloud already knew he’d gone through horrors on Sephiroth’s bed, but he never imagined that he could have faced them here, too. It meant that no place was truly sacred anymore. Sephiroth had spread his evil absolutely everywhere, to every part of Cloud’s life, consuming him. Nothing has remained unsullied. He even laid claim to Cloud’s very name.

It is devastating, but it forces Cloud to consider Marlene’s words. These days, he is so tired that he can barely function. And if Sephiroth’s presence is already felt everywhere, even here, in Cloud’s own bed, then what is the point of avoiding that house specifically?

Perhaps he could stay in Kalm and avoid Sephiroth when Kadaj is not around. After all, the bastard has been surprisingly decent lately. Most of the time, it feels as if he’s avoiding Cloud just as much as Cloud is avoiding him. And if they can stay out of each other’s way, maybe there’s no need for Cloud to push himself to a breaking point. Besides, all this driving back and forth is costing him a fortune. Looking at his bank account the other day almost made him weep.

He mulls it over for a few more days, but eventually, he convinces himself to stay.

They walk Kadaj to preschool together, just like any other day, and get separated on the way back. By unspoken agreement, they never walk back together. It would be too awkward trying to act civil without Kadaj to distract them, so Cloud is grateful that Sephiroth has never tried to force the issue.

Until today, Cloud has always taken his time, giving Sephiroth a head start so they wouldn’t run into each other along the way, then gotten on his bike and left. But now that he’s decided to stay, he awkwardly climbs the steps to Sephiroth’s porch and hesitates on his doorstep, fighting an overwhelming urge to run. He knows Sephiroth will be alone, which makes everything so much worse.

Can they even survive a few hours under the same roof without killing each other?

It would be wise to turn around and leave, but Cloud is so damn tired. He can’t stomach the thought of driving back to Edge, and that’s the final push that forces him to knock. He does it once, twice, then tries the doorbell, but nothing happens. Next he tries to peek inside, but as always, the curtains are drawn. He bangs on the door a few times for good measure, but it remains closed.

Either Sephiroth is not home, or he’s decided to ignore him. But Cloud knows nothing of his plans, so maybe he had some errands to run. 

Frustrated and confused, he sits on the porch and waits.

If Sephiroth is in there, playing possum, Cloud will kill him the moment he sees him.

Ten minutes pass, then twenty. By the time it reaches thirty, Cloud is ready to kick down the door.

It is sheer dumb luck that Sephiroth shows up right before he does.

Cloud sees him walking up the driveway, carrying two bags overflowing with groceries. When he spots Cloud sitting on his porch, his eyes widen and he freezes for a second, but the expression quickly transforms into a smirk.

“Waiting for me?” he purrs, and the smugness in his voice makes Cloud’s blood boil.

“I needed to piss,” he lies, furious with himself for not coming up with a better excuse.

The way Sephiroth chuckles as he unlocks the door tells him that he’s seen right through him.

“Go ahead. You know where to go.”

Desperate to maintain his stupid lie, Cloud runs to the bathroom like his life depends on it. He sits on the edge of the tub, trying not to hyperventilate.

Why in the world did he get himself into this mess? He should have just gone home!

And he still could. It’s not too late to change his mind. He could walk out, pretend that he really just needed to use the toilet, and leave with at least some of his dignity left intact.

But he’s so damn tired of fleeing this house.

It’s time for him to take a stand.

Right. Okay. He can do this!

He leaves the bathroom psyching himself up, but the first thing Sephiroth says when he sees him is, “You didn’t flush,” and Cloud almost combusts in shame.

Damn him! There’s no way he can do this!

“You must be deaf if you didn’t hear it, because I absolutely did!”

“Mhmm,” Sephiroth hums, and Cloud hates him.

Fortunately, that is all he says as he takes the bags to the kitchen and starts unloading the groceries.

Cloud glances at him from the foyer, feeling lost and unsure. His lie implied that he was here to use the toilet, so now that he has, he should leave… but the whole point of waiting for Sephiroth was so he could stay.

He hovers by the door long enough to draw Sephiroth’s attention. He pins Cloud with those unnatural eyes of his, giving him a ridiculous urge to hide. His breath stutters out of him, but he forces himself to remain still. He even glares back for good measure.

“You can wait for Kadaj in the living room,” Sephiroth says, and after a brief pause, sounding somewhat hesitant, he adds, “Or you can help me with the groceries.”

Help me.

For reasons Cloud cannot explain, his palms turn sweaty. He rubs them on his thighs nervously.

“I’ll go wait then.”

He practically runs out of the room and out of Sephiroth’s sight.

For the next few hours, he sits on pins and needles waiting for Sephiroth to come and harass him, but he never does. Eventually, he ventures back into the kitchen only to find that Sephiroth is long gone. He must have gone back to his room, and Cloud hadn’t even noticed.

Feeling curious, he explores the rest of the ground floor, but doesn’t find anything interesting. Apart from the living room and kitchen, there is a laundry room and a pantry. He gives both a quick glance, but at this point, he’s past thinking that Sephiroth could be hiding something horrible in this house. There’s no way he’d let Cloud roam around unsupervised if there was anything there for him to find. Instead, out of sheer curiosity, he explores the pantry. He steals an energy bar since he’s a little hungry, and returns to the couch to wait.

These days, it feels like so much of his life revolves around this damn couch. He sleeps here, he watches Stamp’s Adventures here, and now he even eats here.

Cloud snorts, feeling more than a little pathetic, but it’s all worth it so he could spend time with Kadaj.

When the boy comes home, all of Cloud’s bitterness disappears, and tomorrow, he finds the strength to do it all over again.

In the morning, there are clean clothes waiting for him on the table. Sephiroth hadn’t tried to offer him clothes since the first night he’d stayed over. It was yet another unspoken agreement that Cloud would shower and change back at the bar. But now, apparently, Sephiroth has come to believe he will stay.

Worse yet, atop the clothes, there is a key. It glints silver in the morning light, filling Cloud’s stomach with bricks. He can’t breathe.

Spending time here was one thing, but getting a key… that makes it official somehow. It feels like moving in.

Cloud is thankful beyond words that Sephiroth didn’t try to give it to him in person, at least. This way, he can leave it here and pretend this never happened.

In fact, he should leave it. He knows this. But being stuck outside, waiting for Sephiroth like a lovesick puppy felt utterly humiliating. It was a pointless waste of time. Besides, if he had a key, he wouldn’t have to interact with Sephiroth at all. He wouldn’t have to come up with embarrassing lies.

It’s this that finally convinces him to take it.

The key feels like an anvil in his hand, holding the weight of the world, but he ignores the dreadful implications it carries and slips it into his pocket.

When they head out to take Kadaj to preschool, Sephiroth glances at him, and he tenses, expecting him to say something awful, to make fun of him for taking the damn key, but his eyes just linger quietly on his face, studying him. In the end, Sephiroth says nothing at all, and in some ways, that is even worse because it leaves Cloud wondering what that look had meant for the rest of the day.

When Cloud unlocks the front door for the very first time, it feels like a huge step. It feels like accepting, at least on some level, that he belongs here, and he hates himself for it.

He closes the door and locks it from the inside, and the feeling intensifies. It feels like he’s willingly locking himself inside his old prison, making the same mistakes without learning from them.

Leaning his head against the door, he whispers, “What the fuck are you doing?”

But the question remains unanswered.

Eventually, he retreats to the living room, and for want of something to do, turns his attention to the old motorcycle magazines he had found when he’d first looked around the house. They keep him occupied until Sephiroth returns. Once he does and sees him with those magazines, something strange passes through his eyes. For a moment, it looks like he might say something, but he doesn’t.

The following day, Cloud finds the latest issue waiting for him on the table.

Next to it is a sandwich wrapped in foil.

They make Cloud’s stomach flip strangely, leaving him instantly annoyed.

He glares at the sandwich as if it had personally offended him. He wants nothing from Sephiroth, but he hates wasting food. His Ma raised him better than that.

Besides, he is rather hungry.

With a sigh, Cloud swallows his pride and picks it up. A single bite is enough to recognize the flavor—smoked salmon with avocado—but to Cloud it tastes like poison. It chokes him, and he cannot swallow.

Avocados were extremely rare in Nibelheim, almost impossible to find, and as such, they cost a small fortune. Cloud was always curious about them as a child. He saw how green they were and thought they would taste like melons. Ma caught him staring at them at the store too many times, so on his fourteenth birthday, right before he joined Shinra, she bought them for him as a treat. That turned out to be the last birthday he would spent with her, which made these particular sandwiches incredibly special.

They reminded him of his mother.

His vision blurs as his eyes fill with tears. He crushes the sandwich in his hand, wishing it were Sephiroth’s neck.

Damn him to the deepest pits of hell!

Cloud grabs his half-eaten sandwich and charges up the stairs.

Since the day he’d turned Sephiroth’s room upside down, he’d always considered it off-limits. He didn’t want to go in there. But right now, his rage blinds him, so he doesn’t even knock before barging inside.

The door slams against the opposite wall when he kicks it in, rattling on its hinges, and Sephiroth, the bastard, pretends to be shocked when a sandwich lands on his lap.

“I thought we could stay out of each other’s way, but you just can’t help yourself, can you, you piece of shit!”

Sephiroth’s surprise turns into alarm when he realizes there are tears of rage in the corners of Cloud’s eyes. He drops the book he’d been reading and gets to his feet.

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know! There’s no way that sandwich was a coincidence!”

Sephiroth frowns. “You always said it was your favorite.”

“Yeah, it’s my favorite because it reminds me of my mother! Remember her? The woman you killed!” 

How did he ever think this could work? Sephiroth’s sadistic nature knows no bounds!

“You never told me it had anything to do with your mother.”

“Oh, spare me! You must have known!”

Shaking his head, Sephiroth heaves a sigh. “All I wanted was for you to eat, Cloud. You’ve been skipping meals for days; that can’t be good for you.”

“Right, and you were sooo worried about me!”

The words make Sephiroth grit his teeth, his patience running out. “I do not appreciate being mocked, Cloud.”

“Well, guess what! I don’t appreciate it either! So stop with these fucking mind games!”

They glare at each other for a few moments, breathing harshly. Sephiroth is the first to look away. He takes a deep, calming breath and says, “I can make you another sandwich.”

It is an olive branch, even Cloud can see that much, but he refuses to take it.

“I don’t want anything from you,” he snaps and storms out, slamming the door behind him.

The next day, there is a simple ham sandwich waiting for him, and he immediately decides to throw it away. He takes it all the way to the kitchen, but when he opens the trash can, he wavers.

His Ma raised him better than that.

So he stands there for a full minute, deciding on the fate of a stupid sandwich.

In the end, with a frustrated sigh, Cloud takes it back to the couch and eats it. The damn thing is delicious, which only infuriates him even more.

He doesn’t understand why Sephiroth insists on feeding him. At a glance, it seems like kindness, but Cloud knows him better than that. There has to be some angle he’s working here. But the frustrating thing is that Cloud can’t figure out what. And his stupid heart, which was already swayed by that memory from inside the church, keeps fluttering with excitement at the thought of being pampered by his husband.

Bah! What a load of crap!

As if Sephiroth could ever be a doting husband!

Cloud takes the plate to the sink, but refuses to wash it. Let Sephiroth deal with it later!

He goes back to the living room and tries to read some more, but he can’t concentrate. He can’t stop thinking about the sandwich… and Sephiroth.

For the first time, he takes a moment to wonder if Sephiroth is eating anything. Cloud has never seen him have lunch, so unless he’s been sneaking sandwiches to his bedroom, he must have been skipping meals too.

What does he even do all day? Doesn’t he have a job to get to? Is he staying at home to keep an eye on Cloud? But that makes no sense when they barely see each other. Sephiroth mostly stays cooped up in his room, but there’s no way he lived like that before Cloud’s accident.

Thinking about it makes him realize that Sephiroth’s life must have been uprooted just as much as his own. His home was overtaken by a stranger, yet he never blamed Cloud for anything. Never tried to kick him out or imply that he was invading his space. He could have made Cloud leave by simply forcing his presence upon him, but he didn’t even do that.

Cloud bites his lip, guilt gnawing at him.

After a while, he gets up and washes the plate.

Every night, after dinner, Cloud and Kadaj watch Stamp’s Adventures. The cartoon is too childish to hold Cloud’s attention, but he loves seeing Kadaj get all excited about it, so he treasures their time together. It’s become their thing, and he wouldn’t change it for the world. It’s one of the few things they do alone, just the two of them, and that makes it special.

Unfortunately, as with everything else, Sephiroth has to go and ruin it.

Kadaj catches him passing through the room one night just as the cartoon is about to start, so he grabs his arm and stops him.

“Come join us, Dad! You never spend time with us anymore!”

Cloud immediately tenses and looks at Sephiroth to find his eyes already on him.

Don’t you dare, he wants to say, but he can’t in front of Kadaj. Instead, he shakes his head once—one sharp jerk toward the door—hoping Sephiroth will take the hint and leave. But he doesn’t. He turns to Kadaj, who’s looking at him with pleading eyes, and approaches the couch.

Cloud swallows an exasperated groan, but his annoyance quickly turns into terror when Kadaj tries to get Sephiroth to sit between them. Horrified, he backs away as far as the limited space allows… which isn’t a lot.

Luckily, at least in this, Sephiroth has the decency to do the right thing. He pulls Kadaj into his lap, keeping to the opposite end of the couch, leaving Cloud some space to breathe.

Now if only his lungs would remember how to work.

The best they can do are short, shallow breaths that leave him lightheaded.

It becomes impossible to watch the cartoon or enjoy his time with Kadaj now that Sephiroth is there. He’s like a giant black hole sapping the joy out of the room, turning it into gloom.

Well, for Cloud, at least. Kadaj seems beside himself with happiness. He keeps trying to engage them in conversation, but they’re both awfully quiet. Eventually, Sephiroth starts answering his questions, and it makes everything even more surreal. Cloud never thought he’d see the day when Sephiroth would seriously discuss whether dogs can ride chocobos because there is a talking cartoon dog doing it.

Kadaj’s excitement evaporates after a while, until he stops watching the cartoon altogether. He keeps looking between them instead, trying to make them talk to each other, and it breaks Cloud’s heart to see him working so hard to fix something that can never be fixed. He desperately wishes he could explain that to the boy.

The moment the episode is over, Cloud shoots off the couch, eager to get away, and Kadaj jumps up to stop him.

“Wait, Papa!” he exclaims, a little frantic. He reaches for him, but he’s already holding a glass of juice, so when his hand strikes out, it sends liquid flying all over the couch.

“Shit!” Cloud curses, forgetting for a moment that he shouldn’t use such words in front of a child.

The glass was almost full, leaving the cushions completely soaked. He tries to fix it, to mop up the juice as best he can, but the damage has already been done.

He lets out an angry breath, resisting the urge to curse once more. When he looks up, he catches Kadaj biting his lip, glancing between him and Sephiroth, looking guilty as hell, and in that moment, Cloud knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did it on purpose.

He shoots Sephiroth an angry, incredulous glare, but the bastard just stares at him levelly.

Are you in on this together, burns on the tip of his tongue, begging to be asked. The thought alone is like a stab to the heart.

Cloud couldn’t bear it if his own son chose Sephiroth over him.

“I’m sorry, Papa,” Kadaj says in a trembling voice, pulling him out of his spiraling thoughts. He can probably sense Cloud’s rage and frustration, so he does his best to rein them in. He drops to his knees and takes the boy into his arms.

“It’s okay, Kaj. I’m not mad at you.”

Tiny hands bunch into fists, clutching at his shirt.

“You won’t leave, right?” Kadaj asks in a small voice, shuddering against him. “Please don’t leave.”

Damn it…

Cloud holds him even tighter, choking on his guilt. “I won’t leave.”

He never imagined Kadaj could be suffering so much in silence. On most days, he seemed perfectly happy, but maybe that was just wishful thinking; Cloud projecting his own feelings onto the boy. He should have known by now how Kadaj acts brave in front of him. In hindsight, he probably should have seen this coming. But Cloud truly thought that he was giving Kadaj everything he wanted by simply staying here.

What else was there to give?

He glances at Sephiroth without meaning to and fears that he already knows the answer.

But some things are just impossible. He cannot do them, even for the boy.

Cloud spends some extra time reading to Kadaj that night because he’s too upset to fall asleep. He refuses to let go of Cloud’s hand, afraid that he will leave the moment he lets go. It takes a very long time for sleep to claim him, and by the time it does, Cloud is utterly exhausted.

Afterwards, he returns to the living room to check on the couch, but as expected, it is impossible to sleep on it. The cushions are sticky and wet, and if he removes them, the damn thing will be harder to sleep on than the floor.

So, he retreats to the kitchen, prepared to sit there until morning.

Sephiroth finds him after a while.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? I’m hunkering down for the night.”

“In here?” he asks, looking around.

“Where else? I have nowhere to sleep.”

“There’s a bed upstairs,” Sephiroth says slowly, and air leaves Cloud in a wheeze.

“So that was your plan all along,” he accuses sharply, and Sephiroth has the gall to act confused.

“My plan?”

“Don’t play dumb, Sephiroth. It doesn’t become you. I know Kadaj spilled that juice on purpose. I suspected you put him up to it, and lo and behold, I was right!”

“I didn’t put him up to anything, Cloud. Did you stop to think, for even a second, how this situation is affecting him? If he’s willing to go that far, have you asked yourself why?”

“Of course I have,” Cloud hisses angrily, looking away.

How dare Sephiroth imply that he doesn’t care about his son’s feelings! That’s all he cares about! He’s already moved to this godsforsaken place for him. He’s been sleeping on that horrible couch just to stay close to him. But surely no one can expect him to sacrifice the last shred of freedom he has left!

He can understand that Kadaj wants to see his parents back together, but there’s a limit to what Cloud can do.

“You could give me a few towels or a blanket to cover the cushions. That way, I could probably still use the couch.”

“And what would that solve, Cloud? Surely you understand this isn’t about the couch. It’s about you and your stubbornness hurting our son.”

“Fuck you,” he rasps, nearly choking on rage.

The maelstrom of emotion in his chest threatens to overwhelm him. There’s guilt and shame and anger and loathing. The thought of sharing a bed with Sephiroth, the same one where he abused him for years, makes him sick to his stomach.

But the thought of hurting Kadaj is even worse.

Sephiroth takes a step closer, and Cloud takes a step back. “I won’t lay a finger on you. You have my word.”

“Do you think your word means anything to me?” Cloud demands, feeling unsteady, and what little softness there was on Sephiroth’s face disappears. He only becomes aware of it once it’s gone.

“No, I don’t imagine it does,” he says coldly. “But your choice here is simple: you can either continue to hurt Kadaj with your selfishness, or you can do what he clearly needs you to do.”

Cloud’s hands begin to shake.

This is manipulation, pure and simple. A textbook example of it!

But he remembers how Kadaj trembled in his arms, and how long it took him to fall asleep because he was deathly afraid that Cloud would leave.

He closes his eyes and struggles to breathe.

“If you touch me, I will slit your throat.”

Sephiroth responds with a mirthless chuckle.

He heads up the stairs, expecting Cloud to follow, but his legs refuse to move. He stands at the bottom of the stairs, gripping the banister until his knuckles turn white.

For Kadaj, he can do anything. As a father, he has to put his son first.

It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine.

Cloud repeats the words like a mantra as he follows Sephiroth up the stairs and into his bedroom.

When he steps inside and sees the bed, it takes everything in him not to turn around and flee.

The feeling intensifies when Sephiroth pins him with his stare.

He’s standing at the foot of the bed, looking uncharacteristically hesitant for a moment.

“I’ll go to the bathroom to change. You can change in here.”

“Change? I’m not taking my clothes off!” Cloud exclaims, his voice tinged with hysteria. He folds his arms across his chest protectively.

A muscle in Sephiroth’s jaw twitches as he grits his teeth. His expression hardens.

“This isn’t exactly easy for me either, you know,” he says in a low, haughty voice and strides out of the room.

Cloud remains frozen to the spot, shaking like a leaf.

What the hell was that? Is he offended?! What right does he have to be offended! None of this is Cloud’s fault! He never wanted to come to this house in the first place, and even when he did, his plan was to avoid this room at all costs! It was Sephiroth who forced him to come here, so he doesn’t get to sulk about it now! Cloud would have been perfectly fine spending the night in the kitchen; in fact, that would have been better for everyone!

Well, for everyone except Kadaj, who seems to be dead set on forcing them together.

For a few moments, Cloud considers sleeping on the floor or even huddling against the wall next to the weapons rack, but Kadaj always looks for him the second he wakes up. If he comes here tomorrow morning, as he undoubtedly will, and finds Cloud sleeping on the floor, it will only upset him even more and Cloud’s sacrifice will have been in vain.

There are only two options here: he can walk away, maybe even flee all the way to Edge, and hurt Kadaj, or he can swallow his pride and sleep here tonight. Maybe seeing them share the bed once will be enough to reassure the boy, and Cloud can go back to the couch tomorrow.

With a heavy sigh, he takes his sword and rests it by the headboard, where it will be easy to reach if Sephiroth tries anything funny. And then, reluctantly, he changes into his pajamas and slips under the covers.

Perhaps he can pretend to be asleep by the time Sephiroth returns, so he won’t have to suffer through any more awkward conversations.

He lies on the very edge of the bed, as far away as he can without falling off, and faces away from where Sephiroth will be. He tries to relax, but it’s impossible. The moment he closes his eyes, his mind assails him with images of what could happen to him tonight, of what must have happened to him here already.

It doesn’t help that the entire bed carries Sephiroth’s scent. It must be his shampoo that gives the pillows their fresh, breezy fragrance. Underneath it, there is something musky, something uniquely him. It makes Cloud shiver. He catches himself pressing his nose into the pillow, inhaling it, and quickly turns away.

It’s as if his own body is working against him, siding with Sephiroth against his wishes. He worries his thumbnail between his teeth, trying and failing to sort out his feelings.

After a while, he hears Sephiroth approach, so he closes his eyes and pretends to be asleep. He feels the other side of the bed dip, and his heart rate instantly skyrockets.

True to his word, Sephiroth doesn’t touch him, but Cloud is hyperaware of his presence anyway. His heart is pounding against his ribcage so loudly that he’s sure Sephiroth can actually hear it.

Minutes stretch, maybe hours. Cloud cannot sleep. He’s afraid that the moment he lets his guard down, Sephiroth will do something horrible.

At first, he was afraid of Sephiroth hurting him, summoning his sword and stabbing him straight through the back, but that is no longer his primary concern. Right now, Cloud is more worried that Sephiroth will do something else, something altogether different. Something far more terrifying.

Every time Sephiroth shifts his weight, the bed moves, and it jolts Cloud like a shot of electricity. He clutches the pillow, praying for morning to come, but it’s as if time itself stands still. Every second feels like an eternity.

Cloud’s breathing turns ragged, and the sheets get too hot.

Suddenly, there’s a whisper right next to his ear, and it nearly makes him jump out of his skin.

“Do I frighten you, Cloud?”

He swivels around and finds himself face to face with Sephiroth in the dark.

It’s pitch black so he can’t really see, but he knows Sephiroth is unacceptably close; close enough that Cloud can feel his breath as he exhales.

A dull pulse throbs in his head, but he ignores it.

Using both hands, he shoves Sephiroth away and sits upright.

“I’m not afraid of you!” he snaps, but his voice shakes.

“I promised not to touch you, and I won’t.”

“I wouldn’t let you, even if you tried!”

“Oh?” 

Sephiroth grabs Cloud’s shoulder before he can stop him, and his body seizes in panic.

Reacting on instinct, he recoils so violently that he falls right off the bed.

He lands on his back with a pained grunt.

“Cloud!”

Light suddenly blinds him, forcing him to close his eyes.

After a few moments, he opens them, squinting, and realizes the bedside lamp was turned on. Sephiroth is leaning over the edge of the bed, staring at him with a mixture of concern and pity. Cloud wants to kick him in the face. He can’t decide who he hates more—Sephiroth for messing with him or himself for being stupid enough to fall for it.

“Are you hurt?” the bastard asks, but Cloud only stumbles to his feet and leaves without a word.

He wishes he could storm out of the house, but he can’t show up at the bar in the middle of the night. It would make everyone worried. Besides, he has to be there for Kadaj in the morning.

So, to give himself time to clear his head, he goes down to the kitchen. He pours himself a glass of cold water, hoping it would calm him. The pulsing in his head keeps getting worse. It goes from a dull throb to a sharp, stabbing pain right behind his eyes, causing flashes in his vision.

He guzzles the water greedily, but it’s not enough. It feels like his body is burning, so he fills another glass and downs it.

He closes his eyes and wills his body to relax, but the sensations keep coming, consuming him.

Back in the bedroom, Sephiroth’s scent was everywhere. On the pillow, on the sheets, on the man himself when he came too close. It shrouded Cloud like a warm embrace that felt overly familiar. It left him feeling tighter than a bowstring.

Somewhere on the edges of his mind, there’s a memory looming. Cloud can sense it, even if he can’t quite see it yet. Every time his head throbs, he gets a little glimpse of it. It beckons him, so he reaches for it, even though he knows he shouldn’t.

The moment he touches it, pain explodes behind his eyelids, blinding him.

With a gasp, he falls to his knees, dropping the glass onto the floor.

He’s back in the bedroom, with Sephiroth leaning over him. His green eyes are softer than Cloud has ever seen them, the pupils so dilated they almost look like almonds. As if from a distance, he can hear his own laughter and feels his lips stretch into a smile. Happiness washes over him like a caress when Sephiroth returns the smile with one of his own. Even now, he doesn’t smile that often, so it leaves Cloud feeling giddy.

He giggles, pressing his face into the crook of Sephiroth’s neck with a sigh, “You always smell so good.”

“And you are drunk,” Sephiroth responds with a chuckle.

“Am not!”

Helplessly, Cloud giggles again, drowning on the happiness bubbling inside his chest.

The weight of Sephiroth’s body atop his own leaves him yearning, so he wraps his arms around his neck and tugs him down for a kiss. Pleasure explodes inside him when their lips touch, making his head swim even more.

The kiss is soft and unhurried, conveying emotion rather than desire. When it ends, Sephiroth whispers, “Go to sleep.”

“Nooo, I wanna kiss you some more,” Cloud whines, pulling him down again. His words slur together, his vision blurring, but he still catches Sephiroth shaking his head.

“You can kiss me all you want tomorrow.”

“Ugggh, you’re no fun!”

Sephiroth lets out a low chuckle that reverberates down Cloud’s spine. He gives him a quick peck on the lips before tucking him into bed and joining him under the covers.

“Touch me,” Cloud pleads, so he embraces him from behind, drawing him close, flush against that sturdy chest. His fingers splay over Cloud’s stomach possessively.

“Better?” he whispers, hooking his chin over Cloud’s shoulder.

“Mm, more.”

“Tomorrow,” Sephiroth vows, kissing the side of his neck, making him hum in appreciation.

“No fair,” Cloud mumbles drowsily, already falling asleep. “You’re lucky I love you.”

Lips linger on his neck, followed by a softly whispered, “I love you, too.”

The memory dissolves like ripples on a pond, but it leaves Cloud drowning.

He gasps, trying to resurface, but it’s like having rocks tied to his feet.

Suddenly, someone grabs his shoulders and yanks him up.

It’s Sephiroth—the real one—and looks almost manic. Terrified.

Cloud stares at his mouth and remembers how it felt against his own. How it tasted. A blush spreads over his cheeks like wildfire.

“What happened?” Sephiroth demands, checking him for injuries, but the ones he sustained can’t be seen by the naked eye.

The words I love you cut up his insides, ripping them to shreds.

As Sephiroth fusses over him, Cloud becomes aware of the shattered glass surrounding him. There’s even a large gash across his palm, but he cannot feel pain at all. He’s gone completely numb.

Sephiroth curses when he sees it, gripping his wrist hard enough to hurt. He searches Cloud’s eyes with such open horror that somehow, even through the haze of his own panic, Cloud realizes he must think he hurt himself on purpose.

“Watch your step,” he says, pulling Cloud away from the glass. “Why are you barefoot?”

When Cloud stumbles and almost steps on the shards, Sephiroth swoops down and picks him up.

He tries to resist, to push him away, but his attempts are feeble at best. He’s still too bewildered and lost in that memory. He leans his head against Sephiroth’s chest, letting his scent fill his nostrils, overwhelming him even more.

“Put me down,” he says, but Sephiroth ignores him. He carries him to the bathroom and sets him on the edge of the tub.

“Don’t move.”

There is a first-aid kit in his hands when he returns, which he uses to clean Cloud’s wound. His hands are so careful, so gentle, that Cloud genuinely cannot believe this man can be Sephiroth—the same person who inflicted far worse wounds upon his body. He still carries scars on his chest to prove it.

None of this makes any sense.

Maybe he’s hallucinating. Maybe he’s still in that hospital, stuck in a coma, dreaming up this crazy world.

That would make more sense than Sephiroth treating him with kindness.

With tenderness.

I love you.

I love you too.

The words echo in Cloud’s brain, repeating over and over. They sound like a foreign language because he cannot understand them. They make no sense coming from Sephiroth.

But even here, even now, the worry in Sephiroth’s eyes seems incredibly real.

All the smugness and indifference is gone, and what remains takes Cloud’s breath away.

Can it really be fake?

Sephiroth doesn’t stop moving until he’s done dressing Cloud’s wound. He wraps it in a bandage and secures it carefully—not too tight—and Cloud doesn’t know what to say. He flexes his hand, feeling lost.

A hand cups his cheek, startling him, but this time he doesn’t flinch away.

“What happened back there?”

The turmoil he sees in Sephiroth’s eyes shocks him even more.

“Just a headache,” he lies, because he still cannot trust him. He doesn’t want to tell him about his memories returning.

“Must have been some headache.”

Sephiroth searches his eyes, clearly not believing his excuse.

His hand remains on Cloud’s cheek, tracing it softly with his thumb. It takes Cloud a moment to remember that he doesn’t want it there, so he turns his face away.

You promised not to touch me, he wants to accuse, but the words refuse to come out.

It shocks him that Sephiroth’s touch doesn’t feel as vile as he expected it to.

In that memory, it actually felt incredibly good.

From beneath his lashes, Cloud glances at Sephiroth and finds something deeply vulnerable in his eyes.

For the first time since he woke up in the hospital, he takes a moment to consider how Sephiroth must be feeling.

He thinks back on that memory, and his stomach twists into knots.

After feeling such happiness for only a few minutes, the loss of it left Cloud absolutely gutted.

If that was real… If that was truly what their life was like… how did it feel for Sephiroth to lose it, after living with it for so many years?

Cloud bites his lips and looks away.

He cannot even imagine how much it must have hurt.