supersoldier | noctium ic inbox.

Settling in.

[Concise, unspecific. Not very helpful, maybe, given the context of their last meeting.]

What do you need?

we agreed on something.

[before you punched him on the nose, but—]

where?

Does that agreement still apply?

[It seems like a stint of emotion got in the way.]

You make it difficult.

[“Where” is ignored for now.]

it was your idea. we have a common goal even with our differences.

["differences" is an understatement, but he's brushing past it.]

have you worked out synchronizing?

[don't die before i kill you]

A truce is pointless if you continue to make an effort to frustrate me. How is your nose?

I know how it works.

healed.

[will cloud ever have the wherewithal to admit to having gotten overwhelmed with his own frustration, with his own weaknesses pooling around him? no. not ever; especially not to sephiroth.]

[time for the good old reflecting.]

you make it difficult too.
i can find you, you know.

I’m not trying to. I would prefer to work together, but without the constant threat of accusation that you hang over my head.

The effort runs both ways, Strife.

I don’t need you to find me.

[Case in point: address attached. A townhouse, and Sephiroth is the only resident.]

[he's trying.]

i'm heading over.

And why is that necessary?

to check in on you.

[in case you're hiding the crazy duh]

I can take care of myself. Your visit won’t enlighten anything for you.

it's not distrust.

[not entirely]

i just want to make sure.

Fine. I’ll be outside.

Go around the back. The gate is unlocked.

[as if cloud was not already on his way despite sephiroth telling him it wouldn't be necessary. he'll be there shortly.]

[in the meantime.]

who else lives with you?

No one.

[As though that’s surprising.]

good. that'll make this easier.

[?????]

[no further text messages, for he's rounding around the corner and coming around the back—where he expects to see sephiroth the moment he pushes the gate open.]

[there's only the briefest of hesitation when cloud raises his eyes to see the man in the flesh. it shouldn't be such a jarring experience (anymore), but there's an underlying swell of fear that always washes over him regardless, soon removed altogether by a combination of anger and hatred.]

[cloud closes the gate behind him, not once removing his eyes from the taller man.]

Sephiroth.

[A questionable statement, indeed, but not worthy of a follow-up. Sephiroth ignores his messages until Cloud is sure to make his appearance.

And when the gate swings open, Cloud is greeted by the leather-clad form of the SOLDIER with Masamune in-hand, stationed in a defensive stance as he eyes an invisible enemy in front of him. It seems that the man’s texts had interrupted a stint of training and practice, and he cannot be bothered to even glance at him until he’s finished.

Sephiroth tends to make it look easy — the cutting arc of his blade trailing in a sheen of metal with a forward step and a vertical sweep, biting at the air. But even now, he can feel it: the dearth of Manna making his limbs stiff and sluggish, exerting himself when something so simple is often thoughtless, easy. He frowns and straightens, pulls himself back into a stance with his blade held parallel to a raised elbow, and finally speaks.]

Cloud.

[He wonders if seeing that he’s not setting things ablaze is enough to abate the man’s stubbornness for today.]

Are you expecting a tour of the house, as well?

[cloud's taken back, momentarily, to a memory that seems so far-off; himself a child, looking at the screen with nothing but wide eyes and an enthusiasm that was uncommon to his usually taciturn demeanor. the war hero sephiroth, shown for all to see, standing with no inch of error for the cameras. a man cloud had look up to with such fervor that it moved him, so badly, to the point that he wanted to go to midgar, to be just like him—a hero in his own right.]

[he reels back whatever enthused fondness he may have felt, of childlike admiration, and commits to it by curling his hands into fists and leaving them at his sides, weighed down by will alone.]

No.

[past all that, he watches curiously, as if unable to contest away entirely the feeling. there is also that annoying pulse of recognition, of a connection barely there, that while unknown to him brings a sense of ease onto him.]

I want to say something to you.

[and that's when he steps forward, though not enough as to disturb sephiroth's space.]

Much as it pains me to say it— [a pause, conflicted, before he tries again.] You'd be right to want to abandon our truce.

[There are times in which Sephiroth looks as though he’s carved from stone, able to remain so still even as he inherits the stance of a predator about to strike. There’s little more than the wind tousling the tips of long hair.

But in that layered silence, Cloud’s words appear to have their effect, and despite how fervently Sephiroth was determined to not have his training interrupted, he smooths out of his rigid angles and lowers his blade. Turns to look at Cloud with mildness in his eyes.]

Am I?

[He wonders what this is — an accidence of wrong? His pride should swallow it whole, celebrate it; but he can only remember the feeling of his knuckles colliding into Cloud’s nose, and it dies on the vine.]

Maybe. And maybe you would be, too. But I don’t give up so easily, and I assume you feel the same.

[they're cut from a similar source in that regard; pride bolsters them to their convictions, and while it may be truth for sephiroth and a facsimile for cloud of someone else, it's the very same thing that keeps them both stunted to reproach and incapable of abandoning their efforts so easily, too.]

[it does not make cloud feel any better to have sephiroth's entire attention, or to have his words acquiesce to the sentiment he's been trying to coalesce from abstraction into some kind of form.]

[the last thing cloud wants is to leave sephiroth to his own devices; that much is a truth that he doesn't have to voice out. sephiroth should know it.]

... [but try as he might, cloud cannot bring himself to say the words. i apologize, much less i'm sorry. it makes him sick, because of who sephiroth is to become. cloud is not quite there yet—to apologize to the man who murdered his mother and burnt down his home. instead, he tries a roundabout route.] I was out of line.

[It’s hard to banish the commanding officer in him, and he sees it for what it is: someone of lower rank owning up to their mistakes. An “I’m sorry” isn’t necessary; almost useless in a military setting.

Though this is far from it.]

It’s fine. You paid the price for it, and even then... it was an unduly harsh one.

[Masamune shines like quicksilver as he brings it behind him, aligned with his spine, punctuating the abandonment of his training. Sephiroth is as straightforward as ever.]

Do you understand why I acted as I did?

I don't need a rehash of what happened.

[it's enough that cloud came here to apologize in his own roundabout way. to have to receive some kind of lecture over it? he's not exactly down for that. now, instead, he focuses his gaze on sephiroth—looks him over curiously—and it is sasuke's words that ricochet in his head.]

[the idea of death in this world is very real, especially if they fail to synchronize as they've been told to do.]

[sephiroth lives alone, and there's knowledge lingering in his thoughts that the man was never one to keep company, even when they worked together. friends or colleagues as they may have been, cloud doesn't remember sharing time together outside of missions—this mistaken truth pushed to the recesses of his mind before he can think too hard about it.]

You will die if you don't complete synching. [matter of factly,] You know how it works, but have you done it?

That wasn’t my intent.

[To rehash, to lecture. There was a fleeting moment of consideration, perhaps, to illuminate Cloud as to why it is so frustrating for him to hear the same accusations and be unable to do anything about it — why it turns his understanding of himself on its head, into something ugly, something he cannot fix if it’s true. Proof of a wrongness within, sleeping in his core and waiting to surface.

But Cloud dismisses it, and a frown twitches across Sephiroth’s face. He reels in these thoughts; will not waste them on someone who doesn’t care to hear it.]

I know. I already feel the effects.

[Death is never something he had worried about, and though a true concern, he shows no trepidation.]

Touch, isn’t it? It’ll necessitate physical interaction and adaptation. But circumstances aren’t dire yet.

Edited 2021-02-07 23:35 (UTC)

[said so clinically, so coldly; like sephiroth's still analyzing how to go about it. and yet it feels like an instruction read off a manual, rather than actual information having been internalized and actions set into place for it.]

[cloud frowns and crosses his arms, defiant despite his height.]

And what will you do then? When circumstances are dire.

Edited 2021-02-08 00:05 (UTC)

[The pause is longer than it should be, especially for an answer so obvious.]

...Seek someone willing and able to fix the problem. The same as you, I would think.

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