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

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?

[of course sephiroth chases after it. it leaves cloud in something of a... spot, and he glances over at the other for a moment before he speaks.]

...you left suddenly. We never broke up. I didn't care for you any less from one day to the next, so when you left without a word—it hurt. And the feelings remained.

[he waves his hand about a bit, motioning towards them.]

It's not like they ever went away either. Maybe I was only thinking about them because of how shit it felt. Who knows. I thought I had moved on, after all this time, but I just... [he lets his hand fall on the couch, on the space between them.] I haven't stopped thinking about you. Since that night.

And I should give you a hard time for what you did, and I should hate you for it. But I can't. It's — not fair, Sephiroth.

[It’s not fair. It isn’t. The circumstances between them are too wound-up, tight as a knot that fills the space between them, their connection strained and jumbled by his own hand. Cloud should hate him, as he said — it would be easier, he thinks, if he did.

He should be a better man; he should drop it, ease out of this line of thinking, give advice about Rufus without tying it back to him.

But he can’t. Maybe that makes him an even worse person, or maybe he never truly let go, even if he was the one to leave.]

Then what is it you want? Between us.

[His eyes trail down Cloud’s hand, and if he reached out to take it, he wonders if it would bridge inches of the miles-long distance between them. Sephiroth remains still all the same.]

Pretend the President isn’t a consideration.

[whatever option in taking his hand that was there, is now gone, as cloud picks himself up from the couch and back up on his feet. he goes for the suitcase and sets it down to lie on the ground, unzipping it all the way and pulling out a few more books and the journals. he sets them on sephiroth's table alongside the other one.]

It's Tifa's suitcase, so I'll need it back.

[his back to sephiroth, he returns to the suitcase and then reaches down for one of the jackets. he grabs hold of it—and remains otherwise unmoving. thinking.]

[what does he want?]

[he doesn't know. he's been hurt once before, and bad, but could he just set it to the side? build something from that, see if the pain he feels right now can be replaced with something good?]

I miss you. [is what he settles on, holding tighter onto the jacket, like it anchors him in some way.] I miss your touch, and talking to you, and just... your being there. Like you could care less about anything else, but I meant something. [it's laughable, he thinks, shaking his head and looking down, rising to his feet again and folding the jacket into its middle and just holding on to it against his front.] You showed me I could belong, and then you just...

[what does he want? the answer is clear, but admitting it is just leagues beyond him.]

Edited 2020-05-20 18:33 (UTC)

[He watches as he returns to the suitcase, noting the lines of his shoulders as he crouches down to unearth the items packed within. I miss you, Cloud says, and it’s a knife to the heart. It’s electricity in his veins a second time, undeterred by how complicated this is. How messy it could be for both of them.

And yet he finds himself standing, approaching. His hand coming to Cloud’s shoulder to turn him, to make him—]

Look at me.

[Either way, Sephiroth will end up in his vision, and he lifts his hand, pausing, unsure, just a whisper against the curve of Cloud’s jawline.]

I left you; I hurt you. I made a mistake, and I don’t expect forgiveness— but every day, I regret it. In those five years, there were times when I thought I could forget about you entirely and live with my decision, but then I would dream about you like it was a punishment and I wasn’t allowed to—

[Sephiroth pauses, realizing that his sentence is running too long. He needs to avoid sounding desperate, because this isn’t about him. He should have learned that long ago.

Emotion is churning behind green eyes, kept locked behind Sephiroth’s wavering willpower. He’s quiet, and his hand finally brushes across the warmth of Cloud’s cheek. Fond and longing— but dangerous, wherever this road could lead.]

You could come back to me.

[Selfish. He knows it.]

[to look at him is easier said than done, for sephiroth has several inches over him. but cloud does turn to look up at him, despite how vulnerable he feels at having spoken of what treads his mind, in time to see how sephiroth moves close; how he seems to try and gather himself, to resemble something a little more... responsive.]

[and he speaks, freely, something he hadn't done, and something cloud remembers five years ago—of finally pushing past that inability to express each other fruitfully.]

[what sephiroth says is enough to have cloud's eyes widen in a slow bound understanding.]

[then there's his touch, and words that speak of a suggestion but really imply more. a selfish desire, perhaps a request, even. a decision that the two of them ought to make together. it's so tenuous, because cloud already feels like he's tipping towards terrible decisions anyway, and the brush of knuckles over his cheek is enough to pull him over.]

[cloud lets the jacket fall to their feet as he raises his hands to put around the curve of sephiroth's neck, behind his head, and bring him down to meet him halfway. their lips meet, and cloud does not care. his chest bursts with feeling, with an emotion long since buried but which very well still remained there, grossly frozen in time out of a means to protect himself more so than anything else.]

[How is he supposed to tame his body’s reactions when he feels the warmth of Cloud’s touch hook around his neck, tilting him down, his breath on his lips right before they meet?

His heart is going to burst.

It is going to spill over with the longing built up over the years, emotion barely kept leashed since he saw him that night at the party. The world comes to a standstill and lurches beneath his feet at the same time. Sephiroth’s hand drops from the other man’s face, smoothing over his shoulder, and slides behind his back to secure him in place. To make certain he will not slip away from this one moment that has him wondering, if just for a second, if he could be dreaming again.

He closes his eyes, leans in, and turns it into a proper kiss. It’s eager, but he doesn’t care. He missed him, so much, and it would be wrong to not let him know.

He kisses him until he must breathe, pulling away only to fill his lungs with Cloud’s scent.]

You should warn me first.

[And it’s a breathless joke, on the dizzied tail of a realization that he’s just negated something he told Cloud moments before.

The past is none of his business. And we’re not doing anything wrong in the present.

So much for that.]

[the hand at his back is—solid, and it reminds him oh so much about sephiroth's general possessiveness towards him—of a sense of belonging that is so dastardly precious and reminisced upon. his hands move downward from sephiroth's neck, to his collar and relinquishing entirely any sense of needing to keep steady as the kiss deepens, is more eager—teeth and tongue and a vapid sense of held back optimism—and they push against the ironed-stitched lines of sephiroth's dress shirt.]

[he holds on to it, even as sephiroth pulls back and cloud blinks his eyes open.]

You'd never warn me.

[his hands hold tight onto his shirt, as he stares up at sephiroth, and there is no remorse or hesitation in his eyes, no post-realization that he shouldn't be doing this.]

[it's after a moment that he lifts his hands up, to push back sephiroth's silver bangs out of the way and over his shoulders. his thumbs gently pressing on his brow, down the line of his cheekbones, dipping down until they rest against the tie wound around his shirt. and cloud tugs—pulls—insistent, stubborn, and nothing more.]

It'll take you a million years to make it up to me. No, a trillion.

[and that nothing becomes, without preamble, into another kiss—pushy, really.]

Edited 2020-05-21 02:48 (UTC)

[Cloud’s fingers fist into the fabric of his shirt, twist around his tie. No warning for it, as he said, the normal now reversed. Sephiroth remembers those moments clearly, holding onto imagery of the past so greedily in his mind. The way he would descend upon Cloud like a storm, hungry for his warmth, in the quiet of their apartment. His hands slipping beneath his shirt to trail the planes of muscles beneath, the taste of his bottom lip as he teased it with tongue and teeth.

He’s reminded of that florid obsession with his body, his presence so close to him, in the kiss he’s given. Demanding, immediate, and yes, pushy. Sephiroth’s fingers press harder into his back, and his other hand cups his side as he allows Cloud’s lips to subsume him. He returns the favor, slipping his tongue into his mouth, humming a low sound of impatience that reverberates from the hollow of his throat.

And his reservations, too, fade away like something bleached too long under the sun.

He severs the kiss only to breathe and to reply, and even then their lips are barely parted. His breath brushes against the corner of Cloud’s mouth, and heat radiates between them.]

Every moment of mine is yours. [His lips quirk, and he finds that he’s smiling.] A trillion years, if that’s what you demand from me. I owe you more than that.

Edited 2020-05-21 13:10 (UTC)

I'm letting you off easy.

[it's the smile, really. cloud finds the realization that sephiroth would be more than willing to put up with whatever "punishment" cloud deemed sufficient because, in the end, this ultimate result of getting to be with one another? it's the kind of result that would make it all worth it. it's — strange, to describe how he feels, but he wants to think about those confusing thoughts later, and right now just bask in the fact that sephiroth is here.]

[after five stupid long years, sephiroth is no longer gone.]

[and it could just so easily be like how it was before. right?]

[cloud shakes his head and drags his hands away from the other's tie, onto his chest, and around his middle. it's just as easy for him, in their height difference, to press his head against the other's chest while they embrace. cloud missed him, and he never got to say good bye, and now...]

[he frowns]

Headache. This is helping.

[he tries to hide the wetness in his voice, but also trying to hide the sentimentality of the act with a mostly-solid excuse.]

Edited 2020-05-21 13:18 (UTC)

[It’ll be easy to hear Sephiroth’s heart hammering in his chest, proof of the opposite of his calm and mostly collected demeanor. Proof that there’s so much still swirling inside of him, and how prone he is to keeping it to himself — a detriment, usually, but maybe the tempo of his heartbeat is a keen reassurance in this moment.

He runs his hands back up until they’re at the sides of Cloud’s face, his thumbs gently grazing over his temples.]

Sit down again. I can try to help you feel better.

[Just like before, the nights Cloud spent with his head in Sephiroth’s lap as he messaged the headaches away. Abated them. And on the worse nights, when even that would not work, at least he was there.]

[rufus was never quite as sympathetic about cloud's headaches the same way sephiroth was, so he's appreciative of the offer. as thrilling as it is to sit here and hear his heart hammer against his chest, the offer has cloud nodding and pulling away, going back to the couch and taking a seat. he doesn't travel alone though, deciding he'd rather take sephiroth's hand and tug him along with him—stepping away from the crumpled jacket atop his shoes.]

Were you really not busy?

[he knows he's going to be a massive distraction for the man for the rest of the day. oh well.]

[“Oh well” appears to be the prevailing mood for both of them. Sephiroth finds himself led by the arm to the couch they were just sitting on, the toe of his shoes grazing over his fallen jacket as they cross the room.]

I’m ahead enough that it can wait for a day.

[Put off for a day, more like, because yes, Cloud will remain a distraction for as long as he’s present in his office.

Sephiroth sinks into the cushions.]

No one else will come up here to check.

[Sephiroth might be the star employee, but he is intimidating to most. Cloud remains the only one who would approach him without putting on airs, just like he did all those years ago.]

You mean Rufus won't.

[cloud huffs and closes his eyes, letting go of sephiroth's hand to pinch the point between his eyes. despite the mention of the elephant in the room, cloud decides that he doesn't want to dwell on that too much—thus his decision to make himself comfortable and put his head on sephiroth's lap, legs stretched towards one end of the couch, ankles crossed.]

...it's whatever. I'll think about it later.

[taking one of sephiroth's hands, he puts it unceremoniously over his face. he doesn't want the other to see the embarrassed face he's otherwise making, or how he's trying hard to keep an expression of indifference.]

Have at it. Do your magic.

[“Rufus” is a name that can break the happy spell in the air, the notion that things could be the same as they were before. It lashes reality back into his mind, reminding Sephiroth that this is five years later, and things are going to be more complicated to allow for it.

His hand is guided to Cloud’s face; Sephiroth’s palm is wide and his fingers long and slender, enough to cover the majority of his features when so haphazardly placed above them. He slides two fingers to press gently at one temple, placing his other hand similarly on the other.]

I don’t want to play at deceit.

[His touch moves in small, gentle circles, massaging Cloud’s temples in an easy motion.]

Hiding under Rufus’ radar to not get caught.

[He doesn’t care to. If this is something that they’re to pursue, he wants to do so openly, earnestly. Duplicity doesn’t compliment him.]

I know.

[he says quickly, understanding what sephiroth means. he hadn't meant that he wouldn't break things off with rufus, but it was just not something he was going to run into his office, right this second, to tell him about. he needed to sort through some things first, and then... put him down easy.]

[cloud closes his eyes and lets sephiroth work on ridding him of his headache, feeling the tension dissipate a little.]

[it's a little too relaxing.]

Just give me some time to get it done right.

[which brings another concern...]

—do you think he'll get back at you for it?

[He works at Cloud's temples, fingers moving slowly, almost in time with his own breathing. Idly, green eyes watch Cloud's relaxing face, comparing each line of his features with what he recalls from five years ago. What's stayed the same, what time has changed.]

I don't know.

[He tilts his head down, silver bangs framing his face. The tips tickle at Cloud's shoulders.]

That depends on the state of his pride. I've known him for a long time, you know. If he... cares enough about you, he won't be happy. [The very idea rakes against him.] But if the opposite is true, he'll probably not even bat an eye.

[the idea of everything is just... wild to him. a few weeks ago, he didn't have this problem ricocheting in his head. it took no time at all for cloud to choose one man over the other, his feelings quite obvious to himself, as much as he tried to deny their existence when he first saw sephiroth after five years. to think that now he's lying with his head on the man's lap, getting his temples massaged to rid him of one of his many headaches...]

[it's unreal.]

We'll find out soon enough.

[and funny, too, how sleepy his voice sounds.]

[but cloud doesn't want to sleep. not yet. which is why he opens his eyes to look up at sephiroth, raising a hand to press onto the man's cheek—a light touch—before settling onto the curve of his neck.]

You'll tell me what happened? With your family.

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

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