finalflight | PSL; WHAT YOU GONNA DO WHEN IT ALL FALLS DOWN?

[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.]

Edited 2020-05-17 18:50 (UTC)

[it was inevitable, really, running into sephiroth.]

[he wants to be angry and to release all the years of festering hurt onto the man. he deserves as much, doesn't he? leaving him on read, ignoring him, leaving without warning, with nothing that would bring peace to the end of their relationship. even now he struggles with whether he had forgotten something important, if the reason sephiroth up and left one day was because of him.]

[but he never got an answer, not even to that question. he closes a fist close to his stomach, trying to center himself at the question and the answer that comes with it.]

[the woman keeps prattling on, like this is a conversation between three rather than with just the two of them, and cloud gives her a passing glance before releasing the curl of his fingers—breathing in. cloud could walk away from all this—probably should—and keep on with the present and the future at large, but a part of him is unable to let go of a past that he had cherished so much and was looking forward of existing in, for years and years to come. how naive. how gullible—]

[he turns to the bartender as he stands from the stool, announcing to hold his order, and without much of a glance at the woman, he walks up and beside sephiroth.]

Let's talk outside.

[while phrased as a request, the tight grip on sephiroth's wrist (he's really here) provides no room for rejection, as cloud starts to take brisk steps towards the floor's lobby area. away from people, away from prying eyes.]

[He feels like Cloud is purposefully making him wait for an answer — what irony, he undoubtedly deserves it — and time has turned into molasses. When he stands and nears him, he half expects for him to walk away and disappear into the crowd, and later he’ll think he had seen only an illusion, or a ghost come to haunt him for his past mistakes. Regret made visible, seen only in his mind’s eye.

But then there’s a grip around his wrist, tight and real and solid, and Sephiroth’s heart fills with static.]

…Fine.

[It’s all he can manage, skewing his tone into something detached, trying to wring out everything else and utterly ignoring the woman who is still yammering on to Sephiroth about something he doesn’t care about. She at least has the sense not to follow after they depart, both of them weaving through the crowd with a surreality stolen straight from a dream. A daymare, maybe, depending on what Cloud has to say to him.

It’s a short walk to one of the side exits; tall glass doors that open with a gentle push, swinging wide and allowing them into the night air. Midgar’s sky had always been full of city smog, but a few stars defiantly push past the haze and stare at them from above. The sound of the highway echoes in the distance, cars blazing across it in the dark.

Sephiroth doesn’t know what to say. Cloud’s fingers are still tight around him, and his words are gone. Maybe he’s not supposed to speak first.]

I—

[He does, anyway, perhaps to his detriment.]

If I had known you were here, I wouldn’t have… [He trails off.] I wouldn’t want to make it unpleasant.

[it's only when they're outside that cloud lets go, filling his lungs with air, still feeling terrified by all the thoughts and emotions that are cropping up with just sephiroth being here. it's tumultuous; painful. he takes several steps away, only to settle by a nearby pillar, setting his back to it.]

[no, sephiroth shouldn't be allowed the benefit of speaking first—but that's always how he's been. hilariously detached, in some ways, from what was right, always following some clinical and "logical" order for things.]

I knew you'd be here.

[he says lightly, much more easier than what he had expected.]

Rufus said you were back on the payroll. A good omen for the start of his presidency.

[the attention was not, of course, on the returning star employee of shinra though. it was on rufus, the new president. he who stirs a merry conversation inside, with laughter and champagne that never ceases. cloud can see it from where he stands, the man dressed in white, like he's free of any sins inherited from his father.]

[crossing his arms, he looks up at sephiroth instead.]

Five years is a long time to be a ghost.

[Knew he’d be here?

His gaze seems to follow Cloud’s for a moment, falling onto the figure of the new President of Shinra, and all those within who celebrate this new age for the company and for Midgar itself. He supposes his own return is news that’ll make the rounds eventually — if it already hasn’t with his appearance here — but to have heard it beforehand? From the man himself?

Sephiroth reels in his question for now. Replies to the comment about five years, which strike him hard. He expected it.]

I know it is. [What is there to say? An apology isn’t enough. He isn’t sure it’s what Cloud wishes to hear after all this time, or if he’d be offended that Sephiroth had the gall to dilute those five years into something that could be fixed with a simple, “I’m sorry.”]

I didn’t expect you to wait for that long. And by the time I thought to contact you, it was already too late.

[Too much time had passed, irreparable by that point. Does it sound like he’s making excuses? That Sephiroth, the bright military mind with every contingency for every battle, was just acting as a coward?]

I didn’t think I would ever find you back here, in this building. Are you working for Shinra again?

It wasn't your call on deciding it was too late.

[it's a scoff, really, the way cloud spits it out.]

[sephiroth's decision to pull away didn't just individually affect him, but it also affected cloud. he must have known that he couldn't just walk away from it all and assume nothing would be the matter. because it matters, and it hurts still, and to hear no answers—just words that stall for an explanation—just makes it somehow worse.]

[he inhales and exhales sharply, biting down on his bottom lip and looking down at his shoes.]

[might as well answer the question poised earlier.]

I came here with Rufus. We're together.

[—but it's notfair. it's not as simple as 'we're together,' because it was years before he allowed himself to move on, years before he decided it was not worth holding on to someone who had taken his heart and ran away with it, left it stranded somewhere that it could never be recovered from.]

You left. You shut me out and left.

[Every word, every accusation, every jarring revelation, might as well be sharpened steel lodging between his ribs. He cannot deny any of it, and so Sephiroth stands there still and stoic, his brow pulling downward but his body language revealing nothing.

He had left. He had made that decision for the both of them without any discussion or warning. And now, years later, seeing Cloud again and learning that he’s found himself with Rufus Shinra of all people—

He has no right to be upset, he knows that. Sephiroth said it himself, that he did not expect Cloud to wait years for him, for something that he killed with his own two hands. But he cannot help it; Sephiroth imagines Cloud on Rufus’ arm, Cloud spending time in Rufus’ penthouse apartment somewhere high above the Upper Plate, Cloud sharing Rufus’ bed, and an unwanted malaise gnaws through him like a disease.]

Him? [—is all he can say at first. All his mind will allow for now.] Why?

[cloud narrows his eyes at sephiroth.]

Seriously?

[but that... anger pretty much disappears after giving it a few seconds to fester. he's so tired of this upset, of how he can't seem to let go, and how sephiroth being here after so long brought forth something like hope. for what, exactly? he doesn't know.]

[stepping forward towards the other, cloud manages a feeble attempt at a punch to the gut.]

Because he was here. Because you left and I lost so much in the process.

[he doesn't look so disgruntled as he looks sad.]

Why did you leave? Did I do something wrong?

[Cloud’s fist to his middle is so lackluster that it doesn’t even knock a fraction of air out of his lungs, and Sephiroth finds himself catching that wrist with his hand, holding on.

He isn’t good at this. He never was — emotions were always so hard to untangle for him, and so he kept them wound up inside, partitioned behind a cold demeanor and detached interest. Cloud had managed to sneak past those defenses, but perhaps he made Sephiroth’s emotional core all the more difficult to traverse, regardless of how welcome his presence was all those years ago.

Now, he finds it’s just as impossible to traverse as before. He’s had years to figure out what to say, but spent no time weaving the words together into something coherent.]

No. It had nothing to do with you, not in the way you’re thinking.

[Cloud’s offense was that he had been close, when his life felt like it had been upended, when everything was perceived as wrong and false. When he needed to detach himself from it all and just get away.]

I needed time after everything I had learned about my family was a lie. I felt like my whole world was false, everything I knew thrown into chaos. I couldn’t stay with Shinra. I couldn’t stay in this city.

[His eyes fix on Cloud’s face.]

Nothing I say will fix what’s already happened. ...Are you happy with him?

[With Rufus.]

[he feels that there's more to that explanation, but it's something from the nothing he had received for years. but there's relief that swoops over him when sephiroth reassures him that he had not been the reason for this to happen in the first place, and if there's one thing about sephiroth, it's that he'd never hide behind a lie.]

[omitting the truth is one thing, yes, but a lie? unlikely to happen.]

[cloud meets his eyes, a stubborn kind of defiance in his own, always present.]

No, it won't, but you didn't have to run away by yourself. I could have helped. I would have understood— [the question about his happiness cuts him short, and cloud takes his hand back. he looks back inside to the party, at how rufus looks so oblivious over the fact that cloud is not there to celebrate with him. so, with an easy shrug,] I like this dog.

[then back to sephiroth.]

What would you do if I was happy with him? Am I anything to you anymore?

[this family crisis that sephiroth is talking about, cloud wants to know more, but he needs to earn it, it feels.]

[It’s easy in retrospect. Makes him feel foolish for striking it out on his own back then, when Cloud was there. Now, he might be standing directly before him, but they no longer belong to each other. It’s too late, it has been for years.

...He likes his dog. A non-committal answer, and he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to take that.]

Would you want me to leave you alone if you were happy with him? [He counters.] Have you moved on completely from me, Cloud? After what I did?

That's...

[an unfair question.]

[cloud shakes his head, taking a step back and keeping his arms crossed, averting his gaze from sephiroth altogether. another champagne pops inside, cheering getting louder.]

I don't know.

[is what he says instead to the stillness of the night sky out here.]

It's complicated, and expecting me to give you an answer right now — that's unfair. But I've got to know. Were you going to look for me, now that you've made it back? Or were you going to throw yourself into work and hope you'd never have to run into me again?

[he needs more; he won't put himself in a vulnerable spot again without knowing that sephiroth has as much to risk.]

[Maybe it is unfair. But Sephiroth finds himself wanting to know just as badly, now that the rift of time is no longer an obstacle between them. (Or maybe he's fooling himself, thinking that those years will not keep them divided forever. A permanent scar against both of their minds, scored by Sephiroth himself. Why had he been so callous?)]

...I wasn't going to look for you. I thought that part of myself long buried in the past, left there by my own accord.

[There is no point in lying about it. It's like Cloud said; Sephiroth does not weave lies for avoidance's sake. He was never that kind of man.]

But now that you're here... [He doesn't know.] I don't know anymore. [He can't leave it hanging at that. Both of them not knowing how to proceed, stuck in this mire of uncertainty.] Even if we cannot be what we were before, we were... friends first. Is it too much to ask for the same again?

[friends.]

[his throat is tight at the request, so he just bites the inside of his cheek as he keeps his gaze away from the other. sephiroth hardly ever shows emotion or makes requests that would otherwise put him in a vulnerable position. cloud knows, perhaps better than anyone, how lonely it's always been for him - how sephiroth built up walls to keep others away, when in fact he was starved for someone who cared for him as a person, not as someone with a celebrity status.]

[cloud nods briskly, his voice coming out quieter than he intends.]

Maybe.

[and it's almost funny how he keeps reaching forward for the other - thrice now - with his hand, grabbing tightly at the lapel of sephiroth's suit.]

Welcome back. Asshole.

[ok, sephiroth deserves to be shit on for a bit longer.]

[cloud remains as he is, poised with his head looking down, focused on the texture of the fabric under his fingers. it's something of a nervous action, uncertain of all the things he wishes to say but also doesn't want to. not right now anyway.]

I have some of your belongings. I could... drop them off some day.

Edited 2020-05-18 16:52 (UTC)

[Cloud knows him better than anyone. He’s the only one who ever has, who ever looked at him and saw past the reputation, past the walls he shored up for himself. Not unfriendly, but not warm. To have lost that for those years — though he undoubtedly deserved it — felt like losing a piece of himself, until the distance had deadened the loss, and he learned to live without it.

Until now. Now, standing here, with Cloud curling his fingers around his jacket lapel, it rushes back into him, that old feeling of knowing what it was like to have someone stand next to you, understand you, know what you were really like despite the show you put on for the world.

He feels his heart twisting in his chest. Friends. It’s more than what he deserves, and maybe still not enough, but he’ll not test what grace is given to him now.

Welcome back. Asshole. His lips twitch.]

You could. I would be appreciative. I am, that you kept anything of mine for so long.

[The cheering inside continues, bubbling into lower laughter and the buzz of conversation.]

I'm glad to see you again, Cloud.

Yeah.

[and he lets go of his clothes in that same breath, drawing back and stuffing hands into his pockets. he notices rufus looking around amidst the conversations he's keeping up with, and a pang of guilt builds up. it's so unfair; he had moved on, he was willing to just let things be, see how they panned out.]

[with a hand, he waves over his shoulder as he starts making his way inside.]

[there's really not much else for him to say — and so cloud returns back to the bar, where his drink was held for him, and he's soon found by rufus who wants to have a toast together, all in his excitement over finally, finally achieving what he's wanted for years. cloud tries his best to keep up appearances, knowing that he's got to try and make it for most of the party.]

[he doesn't try to find sephiroth again, being incredibly obvious at keeping his gaze centered in the area right in front of him.]

[it is weeks later when he sets foot again in the shinra building. it's weird to think that he worked here, once, but now he has access to it as rufus's partner. he doesn't have access to everything, of course, but enough access that he can find himself to sephiroth's office. his old one, just like it had been before, and it's only the sound of wheels on polished floor that foretell his arrival, as cloud pushes the door open and allows himself in, suitcase trailing behind him.]

Hey.

[it's better to just — do this as normal as possible. the door closes behind him as he sets the suitcase to stand upright in the middle of the room.]

I should've called, but Lara outside said you weren't in a meeting. So.

[papers strewn across his desk, books and reports, and yet he looks so immaculate, like none of it disturbs him.]

...sorry if you are. Busy.

[The weeks crawl by as Sephiroth once again tries to settle into a sense of normalcy. It should be easy, given his history with the company. The same office, the same job, the same level of influence; it’s like slipping into a pair of well-worn shoes, if not for the memory that plays on loop in his head. Meeting Cloud again had been a hitch in his attempt at readjustment, always prowling at the edges of his mind. He hasn’t seen him sense.

He focus falters from it sometimes. In the quiet moments of his days, he is always thinking back to him. Wondering if he should try to reach out again or if their hope of keeping up a friendship had been wishful thinking under a starless sky. So when Cloud arrives without preamble, lugging in a suitcase and standing there in his office like something summoned from his own mind, Sephiroth stares for a long moment.

And then remembers himself.]

No. No, I’m not busy. I just wasn’t expecting you.

[He stands and moves towards him, towards the suitcase, too, planted there on the floor.]

Are these...?

[His things?]

Your things.

[he finishes sephiroth's sentence with a nod of his head, stepping back as the other steps forward. this is when cloud settles onto one of the cushioned chairs and pretty much slumps into it. he rubs at his forehead with a hand, feeling tension building up. a lot's been happening lately, with rufus's takeover as president, sephiroth coming back, some complications in tifa's bar...]

[it's all a lot, and cloud hasn't been sleeping well. he hasn't had a conversation with rufus that's led to anything resembling what they had before. he's changed and it just—]

[cloud huffs and sits up, looking over at the suitcase.]

Some of your jackets are in there. Uniform. Books, too. Your journals. That chess set that cost way too much money for its worth, and you never actually used. [he raises an eyebrow.] "It's not for playing," right?

It’s not for playing. Only for display.

[—he echoes, nostalgia wrapping itself into his thoughts. Sephiroth bends down slightly to unzip the suitcase just enough, a lock of silver hair sliding over his shoulder. He dips his hand in and pulls out the first thing his fingers touch — an old book. Fiction. The rare crime thriller in his repertoire of mostly military history and political intrigue. He turns it over in his hands.]

I remember this. I...

[The words fall off his lips when he lifts his eyes to look at Cloud, and suddenly it becomes all too obvious how tired he looks, slumped into his office sofa and under the fluorescent light fixtures.]

...What is it?

[Ever the observant one. Is being here already too much, he wonders? Maybe he’s being foolish, even entertaining this moment between them.]

[he never finished the book. the bookmark is still between the pages, untouched, and while cloud tried to get through it once—in one of many attempts to try and understand just what the hell was going through sephiroth's head—he never really got past the page sephiroth had left it off at.]

[the sudden attention on himself, however, has cloud very much feeling like he's on the spotlight. it's embarrassing how nice it feels that someone's noticed, but it also shows how easy it is for him to just let himself be around the other; no pretenses, no putting up appearances.]

[nothing really ever escapes sephiroth's scrutiny, after all.]

It's just a lot. [he sighs out, shaking his head and hand before sephiroth can think it's about this, them.] It feels like I'm trying to keep shit together when the world wants to spin out of orbit anyway. [he frowns, leaning forward and resting elbows to his knees.] I'm not sure I'm willing to keep up with how some things are changing. Stresses me out and then— [pointing at his head] you know. Keeps me up at night, can't concentrate the next day.

[He's relieved to hear that it has nothing to do with himself and Cloud, but he pushes that emotion away in the next second. To have it replaced with some other mode of stress or worry isn't necessarily something he should wish on him, either.]

Your headaches. They're still as bad as they were.

[He remembers them. Annoyances when they were kind, reasons for depriving Cloud of a night's sleep when they were not.]

And when you say how things are changing, do you mean Rufus Shinra's new role as President?

[And how...? Cloud does not work here, so he does not feel the transformative policies and changes being rolled out from top to bottom, but instead from a more... personal standpoint?

A frown crosses his features, but he lets him reply first.]

[he offers sephiroth something of a defeated smile. his headaches are pretty much still a constant, and not even with rufus' money and influence could he find a treatment that works to liberate him from the torture. it's stress, a psychological thing, probably connected to something in his past which—again—with his personalized-amnesia is hard for him to dive into.]

[it's the rufus question that has cloud... tense up.]

[sitting back, he crosses his arms and looks like he's struggling to come up with an answer.]

You asked me why him before. [this really is shitty] It was a coincidence we met, and we became friends. We got close. He was idealistic and had a vision different to his father's. We got together about seven months ago, but... he's changed, since he's become president. He's not— [ugh, he puts a hand to his forehead and leans into it] Talking to you about my partner when we had a history ourselves, this is a new low. [a pause...] He doesn't know. About us.

[Again, he knows he has no right, but he feels wrong when Cloud tells him about Rufus. His possessive nature tries to claw its way to the top, declaring that he should not be with Cloud, that the President has too much gall to assume anyone should have him, and Sephiroth has to force himself to not interrupt. To listen until the end.

His brow is furrowed and the line of his jaw tight, but his voice is as schooled as ever.]

He doesn’t have to. About then or now.

[He says it immediately, then pauses, to clarify.]

The past is none of his business. And we’re not doing anything wrong in the present. You don’t have to feel ashamed to talk about him to me, Cloud. I want to know how you’re doing after all this time. And…

[He shakes his head, reaching to put his book down on his desk.]

Things are different here, too. His policies are almost purposefully opposite of his father’s. Rufus has always been an ambitious man, but now that he has the power to see them come to light… Are you really surprised that he’s changed?

[...cloud can only offer a shrug, sitting back on the couch and stretching his legs in front of him. it's easy to feel like he's over his head. with midgar, with getting to have a chance to jump into a relationship with sephiroth at one point, to now being together with likely the most powerful man in all of gaia. he never wanted any of these overly-complicated things.]

[besides, politics is not his forte. it's never been.]

I don't know. I guess I never thought... [he let's his words linger. it's terrifying, really. when sephiroth left abruptly, cloud felt like he didn't know him anymore. to think that he doesn't really know rufus much anymore, it says volumes about him, doesn't it? he curls hands into a fist on his lap, keeps his eyes level.] I didn't expect to hold on to these feelings after so long, still.

[what is he talking about?]

[his lips thin into a line, and he turns his face away.]

I don't think I can like what he's become.

[He should offer more comfort, despite being terrible at it. So Sephiroth draws closer, moving to sit on the other side of the couch, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. It’s about as casual as he gets, but even then, he cannot quite close the space between them.

However, the words forming on his tongue die when Cloud mentions feelings that cannot fade after all this time. Electricity sparks in his chest, and he tells it to quiet itself, to stop—

But he has to chase faster it, to clarify.]

What feelings?

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