fic: eir's tomorrow (ff7) - interlude ii
More young!Sephiroth, angel!Cloud, and the collective awkwardness therein. Actually written several weeks ago, before the RL pressure starting getting to me, but, uh, better late than never?
Eir's Tomorrow
Interlude II
Author: jukeboxhound
Also unbeta'd because artimusdin is better at focusing on actual work.
FF7 || R || Sephiroth/Cloud || chapter: 1,400 words
The Planet isn't willing to let death take away its greatest weapon. If Cloud can't save the past, then he'll be damned to watch history repeat itself.
Interlude II.
Sephiroth chewed absently on his lip before remembering that it was a filthy habit and Hojo wouldn't stand for it. Sighing silently, he resisted the urge to shift in his chair and tried to remember the mechanism for the programmed death of eukaryotic cells. Something about the mitochondria or chromosomal telomeres, or maybe they were interrelated, or maybe he was forgetting something entirely and he was a disappointment.
Something moved in the corner of his eye. He twisted around sharply, nearly knocking his elbow into the chair back, mildly surprised when he saw the angel sitting on his bed and staring blankly off into space.
"Cloud?" he ventured.
After a few long seconds Cloud blinked and slowly turned his head. He looked pale against the black of his uniform, the translucent wings arching behind him more washed out than ever. Sephiroth frowned. "You look sick."
At first he didn't think Cloud was going to respond - sometimes he couldn't, if the Planet was doing something weird to him - but then Cloud's lips quirked in a brief smile. Wry, Sephiroth thought, thinking of one of the fiction novels with lots of description that Professor Gast had given him, and decided it sounded right.
"Probably," Cloud agreed quietly.
Professor Gast had once said that sometimes taking a break from studying meant you could come back and study better, so Sephiroth didn't feel so guilty about leaving his biology assignment unfinished and sitting on the bed next to Cloud instead. The angel watched him with an odd expression as Sephiroth scooted about on the blankets trying to get comfortable.
"Why do you feel sick?" he asked, then went on more tentatively, "Is it the Planet?"
"Sometimes," Cloud hedged, looking away. Sephiroth followed his line of sight, but didn't understand what was so interesting about the wall on the other side of his room.
"Is it the mako? Professor Gast says that sometimes the lab assistants here get sick because there's so much mako here that it permeates the air."
"I…no. No, the mako doesn't bother me."
Sephiroth waited for Cloud to expand on that, but when the silence stretched on, he had to resist the urge to shift again. He considered the possibility of an actual illness, but he didn't think angels were susceptible to viruses, bacteria, fungi, or parasites, and he'd never seen Cloud eat or drink or sleep. There was no vomiting, sweating, fever, tremors, nor any other common symptom. Unless angels didn't get sick the same way humans did?
Sephiroth inched closer to Cloud until his knee was nearly touching the other's thigh, and then he leaned forward to put his arms around Cloud's waist. He felt Cloud tense up, arms lifted awkwardly like he wasn't sure what to do with them, but Sephiroth held on stubbornly.
"Uh," said Cloud when a long moment passed.
"Miss Ifalna often hugs me," he explained, voice muffled by Cloud's ribs. "She says it helps. I'm not convinced, but maybe I just haven't had a large enough experiment population to know." Maybe he should tell Miss Ifalna about this experiment the next time he saw her.
There was no way Sephiroth could know that Cloud was thinking of another kid from a lifetime ago, how are you supposed to take care of us if you can't even take care of yourself, but he definitely noticed the way Cloud let out a long breath and relaxed, as though all that tension had been holed up in his lungs. Sephiroth couldn't help a slight twitch when an arm settled lightly over his shoulders. There was an uncomfortable pause, and then he said, "Does it have anything to do with what you talk about to yourself when you don't think I can hear you?"
"…What?"
Belatedly Sephiroth realized this might be one of those situations in which the truth shouldn't be mentioned aloud. Professor Gast said that sometimes the truth made people do stupid things, that some people could go mad from it, although he couldn't really imagine an angel going mad. Even if the things he did and said weren't always rational.
"I hear you sometimes," Sephiroth explained. "Usually you're asking for forgiveness. Sometimes you talk about how selfish you are, although I don't think the floorboards really care."
Cloud didn't actually move or say anything, but Sephiroth could tell that he was mentally drifting away, maybe called by the Planet, and he felt a burst of anger. "You're sick inside, aren't you, like the lab assistants that get poisoned by mako. You need to focus on something external."
Sephiroth looked up as Cloud looked down, the wings flexing restlessly. "What would you suggest?" asked Cloud, the words barely audible, and Sephiroth sat up to budge himself over until his knees touched Cloud's. Books were too mental, they might tie Cloud up inside like they sometimes did to mako-poisoned people (whatever Cloud said about not being bothered by it), and there weren't many other distractions in his room.
"Me," Sephiroth replied. Cloud smiled faintly.
"Shouldn't the adult be taking care of the kid?"
"I don't know," and for reason that honest answer made Cloud frown, eyes narrow with some dark emotion. "Should angels?"
"I'm not an angel."
Which was obviously wrong because there were wings, Sephiroth thought derisively. Maybe Cloud should be the one studying the methodology of empirical science. "And anyway, I'm not a kid. Professor Hojo says I'm superior to humans, although I once asked him why and he said not to ask stupid questions."
"Hojo isn't always right," Cloud said firmly, "and you are human. Remember what I told you about your mother?"
"Yes."
"So ignore him. Listen to Gast, he's the one that wants to take care of you."
"But why would he want to do that?"
Cloud twitched and looked at Sephiroth like he'd never seen him before, which he seemed to do a lot, and Sephiroth started wondering if maybe angels could be mad after all. "Because he thinks of you like a son and parents are supposed to take care of their kids, even if they're not related by blood."
"Oh," said Sephiroth. "But how do I take care of you?"
"You don't," Cloud told him bluntly, and Sephiroth felt a curl of anger, or maybe it was hurt. He was aware enough of the outside world to know that most children didn't grow up in laboratories, though he had a hard time imagining anything other than the scientists and the mako showers and his own room, and he was smart enough to realize that his unusual upbringing would've made him different. There was proof enough of that in the way Cloud sometimes looked incredulous when Sephiroth asked what he thought was a perfectly legitimate question. So, yeah, Sephiroth knew he wasn't really normal. But he still wanted to be useful in a way that had nothing to do with his genetics.
His thoughts must've been written all over his face because Cloud paused, then ventured, "Uh. We could…talk?"
"About what?"
"Um," said Cloud.
The silence dragged on. So Sephiroth tried, "What's your favorite color?"
At first Cloud's expression was as blank as usual, but then his lips pulled back into a smile and the corners of his eyes crinkled a little, and he started laughing like the sudden humor was welling up from deep inside his chest and spilling out. His teeth shone bright white and his mouth was a warm red, all human, and it was like years' worth of tightly suppressed humor just suddenly broke through some kind of floodgate. His eyes squinted all the way shut, head falling back, body shaking.
Sephiroth wasn't entirely sure was what so funny, but it was hard not to start laughing himself when he'd managed to make his strange angel so happy. He'd never made anyone feel like that and he thought he might want to do that again sometime.
"Purple," said Cloud when he managed to catch his breath, and of course Sephiroth didn't know that he was thinking of messy black hair and eyes that glowed blue with a tinge of violet, of purple cloth pressed against his cheek as he was carried out of a lab. Sephiroth just said, "Oh," and mentally filed it away with the scant other things he knew about Cloud.
chapter 17 || main post || chapter 18
ETA: I meant to say this earlier, so. This fic mentions disasters like earthquakes and especially reactor meltdowns. Given current events not just in Japan but also other countries, please understand that although the previous chapters were written before most of these real-life events the parallels are nevertheless there, and no disrespect is ever intended.
Eir's Tomorrow
Interlude II
Author: jukeboxhound
Also unbeta'd because artimusdin is better at focusing on actual work.
FF7 || R || Sephiroth/Cloud || chapter: 1,400 words
The Planet isn't willing to let death take away its greatest weapon. If Cloud can't save the past, then he'll be damned to watch history repeat itself.
Interlude II.
Sephiroth chewed absently on his lip before remembering that it was a filthy habit and Hojo wouldn't stand for it. Sighing silently, he resisted the urge to shift in his chair and tried to remember the mechanism for the programmed death of eukaryotic cells. Something about the mitochondria or chromosomal telomeres, or maybe they were interrelated, or maybe he was forgetting something entirely and he was a disappointment.
Something moved in the corner of his eye. He twisted around sharply, nearly knocking his elbow into the chair back, mildly surprised when he saw the angel sitting on his bed and staring blankly off into space.
"Cloud?" he ventured.
After a few long seconds Cloud blinked and slowly turned his head. He looked pale against the black of his uniform, the translucent wings arching behind him more washed out than ever. Sephiroth frowned. "You look sick."
At first he didn't think Cloud was going to respond - sometimes he couldn't, if the Planet was doing something weird to him - but then Cloud's lips quirked in a brief smile. Wry, Sephiroth thought, thinking of one of the fiction novels with lots of description that Professor Gast had given him, and decided it sounded right.
"Probably," Cloud agreed quietly.
Professor Gast had once said that sometimes taking a break from studying meant you could come back and study better, so Sephiroth didn't feel so guilty about leaving his biology assignment unfinished and sitting on the bed next to Cloud instead. The angel watched him with an odd expression as Sephiroth scooted about on the blankets trying to get comfortable.
"Why do you feel sick?" he asked, then went on more tentatively, "Is it the Planet?"
"Sometimes," Cloud hedged, looking away. Sephiroth followed his line of sight, but didn't understand what was so interesting about the wall on the other side of his room.
"Is it the mako? Professor Gast says that sometimes the lab assistants here get sick because there's so much mako here that it permeates the air."
"I…no. No, the mako doesn't bother me."
Sephiroth waited for Cloud to expand on that, but when the silence stretched on, he had to resist the urge to shift again. He considered the possibility of an actual illness, but he didn't think angels were susceptible to viruses, bacteria, fungi, or parasites, and he'd never seen Cloud eat or drink or sleep. There was no vomiting, sweating, fever, tremors, nor any other common symptom. Unless angels didn't get sick the same way humans did?
Sephiroth inched closer to Cloud until his knee was nearly touching the other's thigh, and then he leaned forward to put his arms around Cloud's waist. He felt Cloud tense up, arms lifted awkwardly like he wasn't sure what to do with them, but Sephiroth held on stubbornly.
"Uh," said Cloud when a long moment passed.
"Miss Ifalna often hugs me," he explained, voice muffled by Cloud's ribs. "She says it helps. I'm not convinced, but maybe I just haven't had a large enough experiment population to know." Maybe he should tell Miss Ifalna about this experiment the next time he saw her.
There was no way Sephiroth could know that Cloud was thinking of another kid from a lifetime ago, how are you supposed to take care of us if you can't even take care of yourself, but he definitely noticed the way Cloud let out a long breath and relaxed, as though all that tension had been holed up in his lungs. Sephiroth couldn't help a slight twitch when an arm settled lightly over his shoulders. There was an uncomfortable pause, and then he said, "Does it have anything to do with what you talk about to yourself when you don't think I can hear you?"
"…What?"
Belatedly Sephiroth realized this might be one of those situations in which the truth shouldn't be mentioned aloud. Professor Gast said that sometimes the truth made people do stupid things, that some people could go mad from it, although he couldn't really imagine an angel going mad. Even if the things he did and said weren't always rational.
"I hear you sometimes," Sephiroth explained. "Usually you're asking for forgiveness. Sometimes you talk about how selfish you are, although I don't think the floorboards really care."
Cloud didn't actually move or say anything, but Sephiroth could tell that he was mentally drifting away, maybe called by the Planet, and he felt a burst of anger. "You're sick inside, aren't you, like the lab assistants that get poisoned by mako. You need to focus on something external."
Sephiroth looked up as Cloud looked down, the wings flexing restlessly. "What would you suggest?" asked Cloud, the words barely audible, and Sephiroth sat up to budge himself over until his knees touched Cloud's. Books were too mental, they might tie Cloud up inside like they sometimes did to mako-poisoned people (whatever Cloud said about not being bothered by it), and there weren't many other distractions in his room.
"Me," Sephiroth replied. Cloud smiled faintly.
"Shouldn't the adult be taking care of the kid?"
"I don't know," and for reason that honest answer made Cloud frown, eyes narrow with some dark emotion. "Should angels?"
"I'm not an angel."
Which was obviously wrong because there were wings, Sephiroth thought derisively. Maybe Cloud should be the one studying the methodology of empirical science. "And anyway, I'm not a kid. Professor Hojo says I'm superior to humans, although I once asked him why and he said not to ask stupid questions."
"Hojo isn't always right," Cloud said firmly, "and you are human. Remember what I told you about your mother?"
"Yes."
"So ignore him. Listen to Gast, he's the one that wants to take care of you."
"But why would he want to do that?"
Cloud twitched and looked at Sephiroth like he'd never seen him before, which he seemed to do a lot, and Sephiroth started wondering if maybe angels could be mad after all. "Because he thinks of you like a son and parents are supposed to take care of their kids, even if they're not related by blood."
"Oh," said Sephiroth. "But how do I take care of you?"
"You don't," Cloud told him bluntly, and Sephiroth felt a curl of anger, or maybe it was hurt. He was aware enough of the outside world to know that most children didn't grow up in laboratories, though he had a hard time imagining anything other than the scientists and the mako showers and his own room, and he was smart enough to realize that his unusual upbringing would've made him different. There was proof enough of that in the way Cloud sometimes looked incredulous when Sephiroth asked what he thought was a perfectly legitimate question. So, yeah, Sephiroth knew he wasn't really normal. But he still wanted to be useful in a way that had nothing to do with his genetics.
His thoughts must've been written all over his face because Cloud paused, then ventured, "Uh. We could…talk?"
"About what?"
"Um," said Cloud.
The silence dragged on. So Sephiroth tried, "What's your favorite color?"
At first Cloud's expression was as blank as usual, but then his lips pulled back into a smile and the corners of his eyes crinkled a little, and he started laughing like the sudden humor was welling up from deep inside his chest and spilling out. His teeth shone bright white and his mouth was a warm red, all human, and it was like years' worth of tightly suppressed humor just suddenly broke through some kind of floodgate. His eyes squinted all the way shut, head falling back, body shaking.
Sephiroth wasn't entirely sure was what so funny, but it was hard not to start laughing himself when he'd managed to make his strange angel so happy. He'd never made anyone feel like that and he thought he might want to do that again sometime.
"Purple," said Cloud when he managed to catch his breath, and of course Sephiroth didn't know that he was thinking of messy black hair and eyes that glowed blue with a tinge of violet, of purple cloth pressed against his cheek as he was carried out of a lab. Sephiroth just said, "Oh," and mentally filed it away with the scant other things he knew about Cloud.
chapter 17 || main post || chapter 18
ETA: I meant to say this earlier, so. This fic mentions disasters like earthquakes and especially reactor meltdowns. Given current events not just in Japan but also other countries, please understand that although the previous chapters were written before most of these real-life events the parallels are nevertheless there, and no disrespect is ever intended.