[It’s strange how he feels the floor fall out from beneath his feet, yet he still remains standing.
When he sees Cloud — the shape of his face, the color of those eyes stirring with emotion — he cannot help but think of an old smartphone, blinking up at him with each received message flashing notification after notification. All of them read but unreplied to, left hanging because he could not bring himself to know what he wanted. But he could see himself hurting Cloud as each day passed, and thinking it might be simpler, in a way, to just let the warmth that had grown between them slowly dissipate.
He had needed the time to himself. He had needed to think, to realigned the shattered pieces in all the wrong places; he could not bear the weight of someone else’s thoughts intermingling with his own. He just couldn’t, he had been— so useless, then.
But now, years later, the past is catching up to him, as it always does. It snaps back like a rubber band, flung right into his lap, and now Sephiroth must deal with consequences of actions he tries so hard not to think about, not any longer. Packed away in some small corner of his mind, in a neon-bright box he could never learn how to completely ignore.
He wills himself to say something. Anything. The woman’s adulation slips over him, around him, never registering.]
What are you… doing here?
[Why is Cloud here? Did he come looking for him after all this time…? His mind wraps itself into circles, trying to understand. He has no reason to be here, not any longer, he quit his job at the company years ago — and even if he didn’t, why would security be attending the festivities? He’s not in uniform; he’s dressed well. Very well. A bright spot in this party of needless decadence, looking at him with a dead expression but with a churning, unfathomable light in his eyes.]
no subject
When he sees Cloud — the shape of his face, the color of those eyes stirring with emotion — he cannot help but think of an old smartphone, blinking up at him with each received message flashing notification after notification. All of them read but unreplied to, left hanging because he could not bring himself to know what he wanted. But he could see himself hurting Cloud as each day passed, and thinking it might be simpler, in a way, to just let the warmth that had grown between them slowly dissipate.
He had needed the time to himself. He had needed to think, to realigned the shattered pieces in all the wrong places; he could not bear the weight of someone else’s thoughts intermingling with his own. He just couldn’t, he had been— so useless, then.
But now, years later, the past is catching up to him, as it always does. It snaps back like a rubber band, flung right into his lap, and now Sephiroth must deal with consequences of actions he tries so hard not to think about, not any longer. Packed away in some small corner of his mind, in a neon-bright box he could never learn how to completely ignore.
He wills himself to say something. Anything. The woman’s adulation slips over him, around him, never registering.]
What are you… doing here?
[Why is Cloud here? Did he come looking for him after all this time…? His mind wraps itself into circles, trying to understand. He has no reason to be here, not any longer, he quit his job at the company years ago — and even if he didn’t, why would security be attending the festivities? He’s not in uniform; he’s dressed well. Very well. A bright spot in this party of needless decadence, looking at him with a dead expression but with a churning, unfathomable light in his eyes.]