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They were serving dinner in the Seventh Heaven, and the bar was full.
Cloud hadn’t had any deliveries for the day, so he’d ended up helping Tifa—first cleaning the tables for the customers, then joining the chef in the kitchen. By now, Seventh Heaven was popular enough that Tifa couldn’t manage everything on her own, so she took care of the bar and the drinks while her new employee, Ruth, worked in the kitchen.
Cloud did everything. He still wasn’t a good cook, but he helped out wherever he could, letting both Tifa and Ruth order him around.
Tonight was busy—so busy that Cloud was constantly moving between the kitchen and the bar, filling orders and taking away empty plates.
It was one of those moments when he lost his balance.
Cloud had just pushed open the door to the kitchen when the piles of dishes on his arms tilted, and for a fraction of a second, he could only think of the mess and the noise that would follow.
But to his surprise, none of that happened. Plates started falling on the floor, but at the moment, they were suspended in the air.
“Cloud, can you—what the—?” Ruth had appeared from behind the corner, brown curls escaping from the bun she’d twisted on the top of her head.
“Could you take the plates, please?” Cloud said quietly, not daring to move an inch in case he would break whatever spell he was under.
Ruth walked closer to him, eyes narrowed, and then took the plates that were floating right above the floor. Then she noticed how precarious the pile on Cloud’s arms was, and she quickly helped him unload them all to the nearby table. “What the heck happened?” she asked.
Cloud looked at the plates and then at the doors with confusion. “I have no clue. I do know I carried too much and it made my lose my balance, but—”
He couldn’t use magic without materia. There was no way he could’ve stopped the plates from dropping. So what had happened?
“Are you sure you don’t have materia with you?” Ruth asked.
Cloud went over his pockets, even the bracelet he’d left on his wrist, but all materia slots were empty. “Nope, I have none. Could it have been a fluke of the lifestream?”
“I think we would’ve seen it, though,” Ruth said. She looked around the kitchen. “Besides, we’re above the plate. I don’t think the lifestream even comes up here.”
That was true, too. Cloud thought about ghosts and suppressed a shiver—it was completely possible there were some around here, considering how many lives had been lost during the Meteorfall and the Geostigma Crisis.
“I’ll go talk with Tifa,” he said and ran his fingers through the blond mess of his hair. “Maybe she has an idea.”
He turned and returned to the bar.
Tifa was standing behind the counter, wiping glasses and then setting them back on the shelf, when Cloud went to her and whispered, “Does this building have something that could cause things to float?”
Tifa looked at him like he’d grown a few extra heads. “What was that, Cloud?”
Cloud glanced towards the customers and then nodded toward the more secluded corner near the kitchen doors. There, he told Tifa what had happened and how Ruth had also seen it.
“They just… hovered there?” Tifa confirmed. “In the air?”
“Yep. They never fell on the floor,” Cloud said. He sighed. “I was hoping all this stuff was past us by now.”
“You’re a magnet for supernatural,” Tifa said with a snort, patting his shoulder.
“Unfortunately,” Cloud muttered.
Floating plates hadn’t been the only things that had been bothering Cloud for the past few weeks. There was a lot of other weird stuff happening, but only around him—probably the thing about the plates was connected to those, now that he thought about it.
It had started when his things had been in different spots from where he’d set them. First, he’d thought that Denzel or Marlene (or both) had been playing pranks on him, but they had been with him when one of Cloud’s books about the lifestream had fallen from the shelf on its own, so they couldn’t be responsible.
Cloud had hoped it would only bother him at home, but it had happened even when he’d gone out for deliveries. It almost felt like someone was teasing him, but he had no idea who, especially since he couldn’t see the culprit.
It all gave him a headache, so he decided to forget it for now, and returned back to back to work.
Unfortunately, these weird little things started to happen more often. But it had a different pattern now.
Cloud didn’t have to keep looking for his things anymore, but now it felt like he had an exceptionally eager guardian angel.
Once, he stepped out of the shower and slipped on the wet tiles. He would’ve gone straight on his back—except something had caught him and helped him back on his feet.
Another time, a drunk customer had thrown a beer glass at him, and it had pulverized before he’d even had time to react (that had scared the rest of the customers shitless, with even Tifa looking at him with a weird expression).
If Cloud was even slightly in danger of hurting himself, he was saved from it by an unnatural force.
It went to such lengths that all his friends started joking about the guardian angel, doing their best to keep Cloud alive.
“Good luck with that,” Yuffie had snorted when she’d visited Midgar.
Cloud had scowled at her, and her glass of soda had, for some damn reason, burst outwards into her face.
None of them, even Vincent, was able to tell who was so obsessed with keeping Cloud safe. Even when he was driving, he could feel the safety net around him and his bike. If his tires skidded even a little, the unseen force kept him on the road.
Cloud was driving back from Kalm when he noticed a group of fiends straying a little too close to a nearby settlement. It was a new town, built around some old Shinra ruins, and by now, it already had everything needed for a little place to thrive. But because it was still being built, it was prone to fiend attacks.
These fiends weren’t a big danger (yet), but Cloud parked Fenrir to the side of the road anyway, deciding to dispatch them before they made it any closer.
He pulled his sword out of the compartment, checked his materia, and approached the fiends.
A gust of wind blew past him, and then, in front of his disbelieving eyes, the creatures were sliding into parts faster than he could keep track of—and by the time he got close enough to attack himself, there was nothing left to kill.
Cloud looked at the carnage and blinked a few times.
Clearly, there was someone who was trying to keep him safe and make sure he didn’t get hurt or inconvenienced.
Even without the single black feather floating through the air onto his palm, he had a pretty good idea about who it was.
But it didn’t make any sense. Why would Sephiroth want to keep him safe? It hadn’t been too long since their fight at the ruins of Midgar, and even then, Sephiroth had been adamant about continuing with his plan to use the planet to his own ends.
Protecting Cloud like this was in direct conflict with it.
He looked down at the feather on his palm and watched it disintegrate.
Knowing didn’t make it any less weird, though. Cloud continued with his life, wondering how Sephiroth even knew to save him.
It made Cloud think that he was being watched constantly, even though he couldn’t sense an additional presence or see anything else than the lone feathers that were left behind—but only for Cloud to find, no one else.
So it meant that Sephiroth wanted him to know who was keeping him safe. From every possible inconvenience.
“What do you want from me,” Cloud muttered as his coffee mug righted itself on his desk without a single drop spilling over (he’d knocked it over with his elbow by accident).
He didn’t get an answer, of course. Just another black feather that fell on his table. They’d stopped disappearing at some point, and now Cloud kept them in a jar on his table.
There wasn’t really a point to save them. He shouldn’t even want to save them. But for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to throw them away either.
His room was silent, but he could swear he felt a touch of fingers against his cheek.
From then on, it made a little more sense. No matter what happened, Cloud was protected, even from the slightest inconvenience. If there was rain outside, he didn’t need an umbrella—he just stayed dry. His boots were never wet. There was always just enough gas in Fenrir’s tank.
Still, Cloud wasn’t stupid enough to tell the others that his worst nemesis had now, somehow, transformed into an opposite force.
Especially since he realized he didn’t hate it.
Cloud had all the right reasons to hate Sephiroth. He’d lost everything because of him—Nibelheim, his mother, Aerith, even his autonomy, for a while—yet when he tried to call forth that hatred, it was constantly mixed with curiosity, even a little bit of affection.
What had changed for Sephiroth to go from wanting to destroy him to wanting to protect him like this? Was it just another way to manipulate him? That was what Cloud thought, at first, but as time passed and the invisible safety became more and more fixed, Cloud had to admit that it had to be something else.
Sephiroth had another reason to protect him like this.
Cloud tried, constantly, to speak to him. He visited mako springs along with some bigger cracks in the earth where he could see the stream. But none of it helped him get a connection to Sephiroth.
It was as if Sephiroth only existed as an invisible being, only able to protect him but do nothing else.
Cloud decided he would be fine with it. It felt good to be looked over like that.
It didn’t take too long, then, for him to realize he was falling in love.
Falling in love with this new Sephiroth, who he couldn’t even see, who was always there, keeping him safe. Cloud started seeing dreams about him, their bodies tangled together, and Cloud often woke up so sticky, sweaty and achy that he questioned if those had been dreams at all.
But when he was awake, he couldn’t see Sephiroth at all. His only hint was the black feathers. His collection was getting bigger now, and it was starting to get harder to explain it. He told the others that they were just crow feathers that he collected when he found them, but he could see from the look on Tifa’s face that she didn’t believe him.
So Cloud decided to move out.
It was a better option, because Denzel and Marlene were getting older, and they would want their own rooms at some point. Cloud promised his old room to Denzel, and he found a nice little house below the plate, much to the surprise of the others.
“It would be more comfortable up,” Tifa said as she looked around in the little house. “You know how hard it is to get clean water and electricity down here.”
“I know,” Cloud said. “But I love it.”
The house was small and had only two rooms, a kitchen and an outdated bathroom. He used whatever scrap he could to renovate the building, but just as Tifa had warned him, there were often issues with lights, heating or water.
Just like Cloud had expected, it took less than a month for all of those problems to go away. His water was perfectly clear, his lights never flickered and he was never too cold or too hot.
Cloud came to find that he did enjoy being by himself. The house quickly started to look like his, with a lot of flowers all around the place, a bookshelf stacked with tomes and parts for Fenrir scattered all over the place.
Yet, Sephiroth still hadn’t gotten a form, and Cloud found himself wishing for it. To have a companion. Even though this was the exact man he wasn’t supposed to want.
It took six more months.
It was night when Cloud stirred awake, the rain pelting the roof of his house. It was located in a spot below the plate where he could see the sky, where the rain would land, and there was already greenery growing in his yard.
Cloud realized immediately that he wasn’t alone, but he wasn’t alarmed. He turned on his side, only to see Sephiroth lying beside him on the bed, very clearly naked, silver hair falling around him.
“What took you so long?” Cloud muttered, pouting.
“I apologize,” Sephiroth said, reaching forward to kiss Cloud’s forehead. It was surreal, to be like this, with Sephiroth, to actually want him. As a person. “Building my form was more difficult than I expected.”
His hand slid under the blanket, then under Cloud’s t-shirt, stopped to rest on Cloud’s hip.
Cloud blew out a shaky breath. He hadn’t exactly given a lot of thought about his sexuality, just taken his dreams as a sign that he was just sexually frustrated, but Sephiroth’s touch made goosebumps erupt on his skin, and he angled closer before he could think better of it.
Sephiroth’s pale green eyes glowed in the dimness of the room as they stared at each other for a moment. When Cloud finally felt the lips against his own, it just felt right in all possible ways, and his dick twitched. His body roared to life.
Sephiroth chuckled as his hand started to travel, down Cloud’s hip, inside his night shorts, his boxers. He made a choked sound as the slender fingers wrapped around his length and started moving, up and down.
Cloud found himself fucking Sephiroth’s hand as the man increased his pace, but just as the pleasure crested, as he was about to fall—
Sephiroth pulled his hand away.
Cloud made a frustrated noise.
“Not too soon, puppet,” Sephiroth purred. “We’re just getting started, are we?”
Less surprisingly, he reached out to the nightstand drawer to pull out the bottle of lube Cloud had stored there—of course he knew where it was.
Cloud kicked his blanket away impatiently, getting rid of his pants at the same time, trying not to feel embarrassed by the way his dick bounced against his abdomen. It was leaking and throbbing, but the high he so desperately wanted was out of reach. At least for the moment.
“So impatient,” Sephiroth breathed as he moved between Cloud’s legs. “Weren’t the dreams good enough for you?”
Cloud wasn’t surprised to hear the dreams had been more or less real. He should’ve expected it.
He blinked, trying to find words. It was harder and harder, especially when he could feel the fingers tease the edges of his hole and then slip in.
“I didn’t think—” he started, then moaned and arched his back as Sephiroth started to move his finger inside him, tantalizingly close to his prostate. “I didn’t think—haah, fuck—that I would get this when I’m awake.”
Sephiroth hummed in amusement. “Ever since the beginning, my plan was to return to you. Unfortunately, all I could do at first was just to watch over you.” The finger moved, skirting Cloud’s prostate on purpose, and he squirmed.
“Stop teasing me,” he snapped.
Sephiroth glanced at him and then, unceremoniously, added two more fingers at once.
It burned. It was a lot more than Cloud had prepared for. The onslaught to his prostate was now merciless and made him whine and both try to escape it and to lean into it. His dick was weeping profusely, but Sephiroth pulled his fingers out before Cloud managed to come.
“Asshole,” Cloud growled, but whimpered right after as Sephiroth pinched the tip of his dick.
“Patience, puppet,” Sephiroth murmured.
Cloud glared at him, but then his vision tilted and he found himself straddling Sephiroth, his dick very close to Cloud’s entrance.
“Wait—” he said, fumbling, “you’re too big, without lube—”
“There’s already lube, my love,” Sephiroth said and now he was laughing. “Don’t worry.”
Cloud had never had sex in this position before—while awake, that was—so he gasped as he started to lower himself on Sephiroth’s cock. It was so good, really, the stretch and burn just about perfect. Sephiroth held him steady as he sank lower and lower, until he was finally fully seated.
“Enjoy, puppet,” Sephiroth said softly. “Show me how you enjoy.”
Cloud started to move, uncertainly at first, rocking himself back and forth. It was almost overwhelming, this angle—he was so deliciously stuffed—but the movement felt divine. It wasn’t too quick or too slow, just agonizing in the perfect kind of way.
As Cloud moved, he reached out with his arms and Sephiroth laced their fingers.
Maybe it wasn’t the best moment to speak, but Cloud couldn’t hold his tongue. “What changed?” he asked carefully. Sephiroth looked ethereal beneath him, hair spilled on the pillow, eyes fixed on him.
“There are a lot of perspectives in the lifestream,” Sephiroth said, and from the way he said it, Cloud knew he wouldn’t get anything else.
He increased his pace and Sephiroth’s expression shifted. He wasn’t fully able to hide his groans either, and the feeling was incredibly heady—Cloud had that effect on Sephiroth himself, the blight of the world.
Combined with the movement and the constant pressure on his prostate, it was too much and he came with a pained cry.
Sephiroth came just moments later, and Cloud slumped against his chest. It was sweaty, and Cloud heard the rapid beat of his heart.
“I can’t show you to my friends,” he murmured. “Not yet.”
“I don’t mind,” Sephiroth said quietly, kissing Cloud’s temple. “I just need you. I do not care about anyone else.”
It shouldn’t have been that easy, yet it was.
Mere minutes later, Sephiroth’s cock twitched inside Cloud, and he suppressed a groan. He was also getting harder again.
Sephiroth rolled them over without a word, with Cloud on his back on the bed with Sephiroth hovering over him.
Cloud moaned loudly as Sephiroth pushed in again and started thrusting, with more force, almost desperate. It was as if he had a need to be as close to Cloud as possible, because every time he bottomed out, he reached down to kiss Cloud’s lips, to press their bodies together.
“I will not leave your side,” Sephiroth murmured into Cloud’s ear with another inward thrust.
“Good,” Cloud said with a gasp, as Sephiroth had nailed his prostate again. “I want you to stay with me.”
With the next thrust, Sephiroth came and the feeling of it alone threw Cloud over the edge.
“Forever,” Sephiroth promised and drowned Cloud into another, hungry kiss.