Author's Note: This started out as the product of a late-night conversation with my roommate and only got weirder from there. It was just too much fun not to write, though! Ahhhhh, delicious AU crack... Contains some mention of Kingdom Hearts characters, but not enough to warrant labeling it a crossover.

Ifalna hated planning family reunions.

She sighed and checked off Barrett's name, pencilling "chips and dip" in beside it. It was hard to decide which was worse, the actual get-togethers with the regular gate-crashers Awkwardness and Embarrassment, or the headache of organizing them all...

Gast asked, "Do we have to invite the Shinras this year?"

"For the last time, yes," Ifalna said wearily. "They're your entire side of the family, we do have to have to invite them - we can always hope they'll go yachting this year instead..." It wasn't as if she could leave the responsibility to anyone else; the other Shinras didn't care, Hojo didn't have anywhere to hold them, and while Ifalna couldn't imagine what sort of gathering Vincent would plan, she found it all too easy to visualize the kind of party Barrett or Cid would throw, and she had long ago resolved that such things would never occur at a family gathering until she had been dead at least sixty years.

"What about Hojo?" Gast asked. "Didn't you figure out he isn't related to us?"

"Finding that out was your job," Ifalna said, "and you forgot to ask him last time he was here. It doesn't matter anyway, you know he's going to show up whether we invite him or not so we might as well send him an invitation to be polite -"

She heard a door slam upstairs, a wordless yell, and then the pitter-patter tread of Aeris running downstairs. "Mooooooom!" came the expected cry, as Aeris pounded on the door to the study. "Sephy hit me and Cloud with his door!"

"I didn't do it on purpose!" Sephiroth yelled from his room. "It's not my fault you two are too stupid to get out of the way!"

Ifalna heard Cloud say, "I'm not stupid, you're stupid and you're mean!"

"Then stop following me around! Dad, make Cloud stop following me!"

Ifalna sighed again and looked at her husband. "And here we thought they'd get easier to take care of when they were all toilet-trained..." She stood up, stretched, and went to the foot of the stairs. "Sephiroth, open your door, come down here and explain your behavior now or you will be in serious trouble!"

Sephiroth flung the door open; luckily it opened on the inside and missed hitting Cloud a second time. He stomped downstairs as best he could in socked feet, and Cloud followed, dragging Cait Sith on the floor behind him. "They started it!" he announced as soon as he reached the bottom step. "I just wanted to be alone and Cloud wouldn't stop following me, and then Aeris had to jump in and encourage him and they wouldn't go away, and I was just closing the door to keep them out of my room and it's their own fault they didn't get out of the way!"

"He's lying," Aeris said immediately, "he was trying to hit us on purpose, he's always being mean to me and Cloud!"

Gast poked his head out of the study. "Seph? Is she right?"

Sephiroth stared sullenly at the floor. "... maybe..."

"See!" Aeris said. "I told you he was trying to hit us -"

"Because you're a snitch," Sephiroth said loudly, "and you're always telling on me and on Cloud too -"

"ENOUGH!" Ifalna shouted, and for a wonder all three children closed their mouths. "Sephiroth, I don't care how annoying they're being, you do not try to hit your little brother or sister, do you understand me?"

"Yeah, but they -" Sephiroth began.

"I was just -" Cloud started.

Gast cut them off. "Seph, listen to me - Cloud, you too, this is for both of you."

They shut up.

"You are getting a bit old to be following people around, Cloud," Gast said. "It's not very grown-up of you to tag behind Sephiroth like a lost puppy."

Cloud shrugged.

"And Sephiroth - you need to be a little more patient with your younger brother." Gast looked at him over the top of his glasses. "I know it's annoying, but you're just going to have to put up with it for a while. When you were that age, we used to tell Vincent he should get a restraining order, the way you stalked him whenever he was visiting. And I had to lock my study door if I wanted to get any work done..."

"Did not," Sephiroth muttered, and then more quietly, "not like he's my actual brother anyway..."

"SEPHIROTH ADAM GAINSBOROUGH WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?"

"Nothing," Sephiroth said quickly.

"It had better have been nothing," Ifalna said.

Gast sighed. "All right, then. Aeris, while you're down here you can help your mother with the invitations -"

"Are you going to invite Aunt Jenova this year?" Sephiroth asked.

There was an uncomfortable silence before Cloud said, "Who's Aunt Jenova?"

Ifalna shot Gast a venomous look; he cleared his throat and said, "Well, ah. Your Aunt Jenova is - well - she's my sister, but she doesn't. Erm. She doesn't really come to reunions."

"Lucky," Cloud said, and wandered back up the stairs.

"Why doesn't she come?" Aeris asked. "Is she stuck-up like Uncle Shinra?"

"Not - exactly," Gast said.

"I wish she'd come," Sephiroth said. "She was so cool. She brought two of her cats and I got to play with them and she told me all kinds of awesome stories about aliens and ancient temples and ultimate weapons..."

"Sephiroth," Gast said, "are you volunteering to help with invitations too?"

"... I have to go clean my room," Sephiroth said.

"Good boy," said Ifalna. "And keep an eye on Cloud. WITHOUT HITTING HIM THIS TIME."

"Yes, Mom," Sephiroth said with an eyeroll, and went upstairs muttering.

Aeris was looking at her parents with a pure and innocent curiosity. They braced themselves, but all she said was, "I don't remember Aunt Jenova visiting us..."

"Well, you wouldn't, hon, you were only a year old the last time she did," Gast said. "I'm amazed Seph remembers her at all."

"I'm not," Ifalna muttered. "He woke us up for weeks with nightmares about meteors..."

"I hope she doesn't come, then," Aeris said firmly. "She'd scare Cloud to death."

Ifalna beamed. "At least I'm raising one sensible child," she said.

Upstairs, Cloud had come wandering back into his brother's room, and Sephiroth had no choice but to let him in or get in trouble again. As revenge, he turned up his stereo.

"You're not even really my brother, you know," Sephiroth said, after he closed the door to muffle the soundwaves a bit. (Parents just didn't understand revenge that involved Metallica at eighty decibels too loud.)

"Am too!" Cloud insisted. "Mom and Dad say so and they'd know! They know better than you."

"They're just lying to you so you don't feel bad," Sephiroth said. "But I can figure it out. I remember when you came and Mom wasn't pregnant at all."

"She was too! You're the liar! Liar liar pants on fire..." Cloud hugged Cait Sith and stuck his tongue out at his brother.

"Really, you can even check in the photo albums and see," Sephiroth said. "There's a bunch of pictures when Mom was pregnant with me, and some more when she was pregnant with Aeris, but there aren't any of her being pregnant with you. Just you as a baby. We didn't even go to the hospital..." Sudden inspiration struck, and he added, "Uncle Hojo was around a lot then... I bet he's your real dad, and I wish you lived with him instead of us and then you wouldn't bother me all the time."

"HE IS NOT MY DAD I DON'T LIKE HIM AND I HATE YOU YOU'RE MAKING IT ALL UP!"

"You don't even have the same hair as the rest of us," Sephiroth pointed out. "It's all spiky and the rest of us have flat hair because we're cooler than you and your - your Hojo-genes."

Cloud started to cry, not his usual loud, half-faked sobs designed to attract their mother's or Aeris's attention, but real quiet tears and other fluids leaking down his face and soaking into Cait Sith's stuffing. "... 's not true," he managed to say in a choked voice, "I hate you... making it all up..."

Sephiroth hesitated, then turned down the music and said, "You're right. I was making it up, you're my brother, now stop crying, okay? You are my brother."

Cloud sniffled. "Really?"

"Really," Sephiroth said. "I just wish you weren't because you're such a stupid brat."

"You're mean," Cloud said, sniffling again.

"Yeah," Sephiroth said. Then he smiled, and rubbed Cloud's head. "What're you going to do, cry about it?"

"No!" Cloud said immediately.

"Good," Sephiroth said. "Girls hate crybabies, that's why Tifa beats you up all the time."

"She beats you up too," Cloud said.

Sephiroth glared at him and muttered, too softly for Cloud to hear, "Only because Aeris tells on me if I hit her back..."

"Mom really is my mom?" Cloud asked, not yet content with Sephiroth's answers. "She was pregnant and everything?"

"Yes," Sephiroth said. "She got so fat, I thought she was going to have an elephant-baby, but instead she just had a puny little dork and we've been stuck with you ever since."

"I'm not a dork, you're a dork," Cloud said, but at least he wasn't crying anymore.

"Whatever. Give me Cait Sith for a minute."

"NO he's mine Mom said so!"

"Yeah, well, he used to be mine, too," Sephiroth said impatiently, "and look, you got gunk all over him crying, give him here..." He took the plushie from Cloud's reluctant grip and tried to wipe the damp and snot off it with his T-shirt. "You are such a loser, you mess everything up. I bet it's going to stain."

"You got stains on him too," Cloud said. "And you pulled his eyes out and Uncle Reeve had to sew them back on for you, he told me so."

"Uncle Reeve tells everybody everything." Sephiroth gave up and handed Cait Sith back to Cloud. "Try not to cry on him next time you're being a baby, okay?"

Cloud shrugged.

Sephiroth flopped on his bed (Mom had made a huge fuss over the black sheets he'd wanted, but he had gotten them at last) and stared up at the Kurt Cobain poster hanging above. He'd probably never had to deal with stupid adopted little brothers who never left you alone... "I hope Aunt Jenova does come," he said, "maybe then this reunion wouldn't suck."

"I didn't even know we had an Aunt Jenova," said Cloud. "Nobody tells me nothin'."

"She told me I was special. She said I really understood her," Sephiroth said wistfully. "And she had awesome jewelry."

Before this confession could become awkward, a loud clunk came from the window, and Cloud ran to it and looked outside.

"Hey, buddy!" Zack yelled up. "Aren't you in the wrong room? Seph isn't keeping you prisoner and experimenting on you, is he?"

Cloud shook his head. Sephiroth said something about stupid Zack thinking he was funny, but under his breath.

"Awesome! Wanna come play, then?"

Cloud's face lit up, then darkened again. "I can't," he said. "We have to get ready for the reunion."

"Awwww - c'mon, it won't be for weeks yet, right?" Zack said. "I got a new soccer ball, we could go down to the park with Tifa and play and take Nanaki, too... You too, Seph, it's no fun with just three of us! And Yuffie's not hanging around to bug us either..."

Cloud looked over at Sephiroth with hope in his eyes.

"... fine," Sephiroth said. "But I'm on Zack's team."

The day of the reunion it rained. It figured. Nanaki had to be shut up on the porch because the garage was too stuffy in the summer, and every time Hojo walked by the French doors he'd start growling and barking. Cloud, Aeris, and Sephiroth all sympathized.

"This is so lame," Sephiroth said. He was sitting on the living room couch in another of his endless supply of black T-shirts and sulking because Ifalna wouldn't let him supply the background music.

"I don't think the rest of the family would appreciate losing their eardrums to that noise you listen to," she had said, and that had been that.

It didn't help his mood that Uncle Heidegger and Aunt Scarlet had been the first to show up that morning, and Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo had latched onto him immediately and refused to let go; Loz was using Sephiroth's legs as punching bags, Yazoo was drawing on his arm with a marker, and Kadaj was yanking on his sleeve and demanding to be played with.

Aeris took pity on her older brother and picked Kadaj up. "Come on, Kadaj, let's go see what Cloud's up to! You like playing with Cloud, don't you?"

"No! Wanna play Sephy!" Kadaj said.

Aeris tried to hide a giggle at the stricken look on Sephiroth's face, and said, "Yes, but Sephy doesn't want to play right now, so let's find Cloud..."

Cloud had managed to escape with Marlene and Denzel before the triplets could attack, and they were hiding upstairs in his room with Tifa, who had come over for moral support. Aeris knocked on the door, and Cloud opened it a crack and peeked out.

"Sorry," Cloud said, "no bratty cousins allowed."

"Yeah," said Tifa. "Just the cute ones!" She was showing Marlene how to put boys in a stranglehold, using Cait Sith as a dummy, while Denzel and Cloud both had toy swords.

Kadaj opened his mouth to scream at his exclusion from this fun, and Aeris said quickly, "Well, fine, we'll just go and play with Uncle Reeve."

"Uncle Reeve's here?" Cloud said, and Marlene and Denzel peeked out around him.

"Yeah, he got here a few minutes ago," Aeris said, "he's been talking with Rufus and his new bodyguard, though."

"He's probably giving them the Talk," Tifa said.

"What talk?" Kadaj demanded before Cloud could.

"You know - the Talk," Aeris said.

"The one you get when you're a grown-up," Tifa said, and giggled.

Cloud shrugged. "Fine, be that way. I'm gonna go find Uncle Reeve!"

Ifalna had just set out the platter of chips and dip that Barrett had brought in the dining room, as well as a dish of some strange, vaguely exotic-looking casserole which Hojo claimed was indeed edible and not an escaped lab experiment. Reeve was helping himself to the chips and still talking to Rufus and a guy with long dark hair who had to be the new bodyguard, while Elena hung on every word; Cid and Barrett were daring each other to try Hojo's cooking - until Vincent ghosted up behind them and said, "I wouldn't eat that, if I were you."

"!%$!"

"And jes' why not?"

"His kitchen is a part of his laboratory," Vincent said, and he drifted off to allow them to process the implications.

Nobody touched Hojo's dish.

"Hi, Uncle Vincent," Cloud said. Marlene and Denzel waved, but didn't speak.

Vincent looked down and said gravely, "Ah, yes." He didn't say anything else, and after a minute Cloud decided to go talk to Uncle Reeve, even if it meant putting up with Rufus being a snot.

"Hey, kids! Been keeping out of trouble?" Reeve said, and rubbed Marlene and Denzel's heads. They beamed up at him and said "Yef!", and he gave them each some of his chips.

"Oh, Cloud," said Rufus, "this is Tseng, he's my new - bodyguard."

Tseng glowered at him over Rufus's shoulder. Cloud didn't know why. It wasn't Cloud's fault that Rufus was stuck-up.

"Anyway, I just got a new motorcycle from the old man," Rufus said, and slicked his hair back. "I might let you have a ride on it, if you ask really nicely..."

Cloud shrugged. He loved motorcycles, but it wasn't worth being nice to Rufus. He wasn't sure anything was worth being nice to Rufus.

"Tifa show me how to beat up boys!" Marlene announced proudly.

"What a valuable life lesson that will be," said Rufus. Denzel looked confused, but Marlene already had a fine sarcasm detection system and looked ready to test her new skills out on Rufus.

"I think that's great!" Elena said quickly. "Girls can be just as good at boys at fighting, can't they?"

Rufus opened his mouth, but Cloud didn't stick around to hear what he said. Rufus wouldn't dare pick on Marlene and Denzel too much with Uncle Reeve there, and Cloud was getting hungry. As he went through the door to the kitchen, he heard Uncle Cid and Uncle Barrett arguing in whispers:

"- ain't spoken to him since Lucrecia left, so how does he know?"

"$*& if I care, I ain't gonna touch that -"

In the kitchen itself, his mother and Aunt Elmyra were gossiping about Aunt Scarlet (in perfect safety, as Scarlet never lowered herself to come into the kitchen). Aunt Elmyra was saying, "If she'd just treat them consistently instead of spoiling them one minute and screaming at them the next, they could be sweet kids..."

"I've got my doubts, but you do have a point," Ifalna said. "I shudder to think of what goes on if she takes them out in public, I'd be embarrassed to death if any of mine acted like that - Cloud, what are you doing in here?"

"'m hungry," he said.

"Dinner's not ready yet, go have some chips - but not too many, you'll ruin your appetite."

Employing all his cunning, he said, "Cait Sith can't have chips, he wants a cookie."

Ifalna rolled her eyes, but Aunt Elmyra laughed and handed him one from the cooling rack on the counter. "Don't let anyone else see you've got one, or no one'll be eating dinner at all," she said.

Cloud was fine with that; he sat on a stool and ate his cookie and listened to the two of them chatter on and on about things he didn't really get. It was nice and peaceful only hanging out with the grown-ups... at least until Dad came in and Hojo sidled in with him. They were talking about work, and Hojo said, "If I were you, I'd slip that icy academic a little something that would melt him a little and make him more agreeable -"

"That would, in fact, be illegal," Gast said. "And Professor Even can be a pain in faculty meetings, but I'm more worried about the head of research from that company who's been financing some of his work - just a bit on the shady side -" He saw Cloud listening and closed his mouth.

"Well, little Cloud," Hojo said. Cloud glared and didn't say anything back. He wasn't little, he was six. "Doing well? Looking forward to school soon?"

"... kinda," said Cloud. Being at school and away from Mom all day instead of just mornings sounded scary, but at least he would still be with Sora and Roxas and Kairi and Namine from kindergarten, and Tifa and Riku had said it wasn't so bad and you got to learn interesting things and do fun stuff. Cloud wanted to learn how to ride motorcycles, but Axel said he still hadn't learned how and he was in fourth grade, which seemed unimaginably distant to Cloud.

"Be sure and study your sciences," Hojo said, with his weird little smirk and a head-bob. "You never know when you'll need them..."

"Cloud, go make sure Sephiroth hasn't killed the little brats - I mean, the triplets," his mother said. Cloud jumped off the stool and ran to the living room; behind him he heard his mother start to tell Hojo off for trying to poison Dad's coworkers, and grinned.

Sephiroth was still sulking on the couch, but not because of Loz and Yazoo, who were teasing Nanaki through the French doors; Rufus's bodyguards from last year had sprawled on the couch with him, and the red-haired one - Cloud thought his name was Reno, but he wasn't sure - was telling him college stories.

"- so Demmy shows up for the Political Theory exam stoned out of his gourd, still carryin' his guitar, and he sits in the corner and plays till the professor hands out the papers, and you know what he does?"

"I don't care," Sephiroth said.

"He aces that damn test! A plus, Prof said he'd never seen a better essay or heard a better version of 'Smoke on the Water,' I just about died laughing, didn't you, Rude?"

The bald man on Seph's other side nodded.

Sephiroth said, "This reunion sucks."

The doorbell rang. Ifalna came out of the kitchen, saying, "What is it now..." Then she saw through the inset glass window of the front door and almost dropped the bowl of mashed potatoes she was holding.

"Hon, who is it?" Gast asked, but Hojo was already opening the door and smiling crookedly.

"Jenova, my dear! So glad you could make it this year."

"Best reunion ever," said Sephiroth.