It sounded like the heavens had split open directly on top of Cloud Strife. He woke with a gasp, his heart in his throat. Shooting up in bed, Cloud only had a few moments to register the objects on his dresser and desk rattling in the dimness before the whole bedroom lit up with searing blue light.
Cloud pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and then clutched his ears. He fell out of bed and hit the hardwood floor in his confusion. He yelled something, scared and disoriented, but his voice was easily eclipsed by the shrill whine of whatever this was that grew to a roar, inside Cloud's body and out, deafening—
Impact. The ground shook like a Gaiaquake. Cloud bounced on the floor and landed painfully on his shoulder. His house was full of crashes—breaking glass, dresser drawers coming loose, objects clattering to the floor in the bathroom. The few seconds afterward were unnaturally still and quiet as if the whole planet couldn't believe what had just happened and was reeling from the shock.
"Ow," Cloud moaned. He picked himself up off the floor, his ears popped, and the world turned to chaos once more.
The slippers by the side of the bed weren't especially sturdy but they protected his feet as Cloud staggered out of his bedroom. Broken glass crunched beneath him. He blinked rapidly and squinted both from his ringing headache and to see in the darkness. The regular shapes of his home—the coat rack, the couch, the rectangular pictures by the bannister—seemed warped and foreboding, terrifying, even.
Cloud did not own a gun. He grabbed a hammer from his bike's toolbox and burst outside. After that eerie silence before, the night was now alive. The nocturnal ones were awake and the previously asleep creatures were too. He tuned out the chattering and buzzing and focused on the far edges of his property. There—to the Southeast. Something large. Something metal. Something smoldering, the only brightness other than the stars for a mile.
The blond man headed for the thing without delay. His slippers shuffled through the tall, unkempt grasses. He lost one in the fields that hadn't seen an hour's worth of care since seven months and fourteen days ago. Cloud pressed on.
As the big thing in the distance got less distant and even bigger, Cloud nearly turned around. It was the size of a bus, and it was looking a lot like…
But there was no fucking way…
The thing—the craft?—looked metal. Chunks glowed red from heat. Parts of the field were scorched, the fragile grasses crumbling to ash, but it hadn't spread. Metal and… things had broken off during the crash. Tech spilled out onto Cloud's farm. Wires and circuitry, but nothing like Cloud had ever seen… this seemed to shift before his eyes, designed for one function one moment and another the next.
Something creaked from inside.
While it was the size of a bus it wasn't the shape of one. This was more streamlined, wider in back and narrower in front, thought the nose was buried in the ground so he couldn't see exactly. Wings extended from the sides of the craft, angled up for maximum drag… as if trying to slow a descent.
Another creak.
Cloud swallowed thickly and crept closer. He stepped over gutted machinery that sparkled and winked at him. He side-stepped tubing spilling a green sludge onto the dirt. He reached the damaged craft.
He didn't need to locate a door or hatch or anything, because a section of the paneling dematerialized right in front of him, as if someone had been waiting.
This was the kind of thing that ended up in those bizarre black and white magazines at the grocery store check-out, maybe, Cloud had thought on the walk over.
This was definitely that kind of thing, Cloud thought now, as a massive ball of multicolored gel oozed out of the craft, stopping a few feet in front of him. Cloud dropped the hammer.
It was taller than Cloud. It… wasn't a ball. The gel, or… plasma, perhaps, was shaped into writhing tentacles on bottom. It was how it had crawled out and onto the field. Where some were absorbed others grew, constantly.
The thing seemed silver one moment, then green, then both, and that color green, like the substance oozing from those blasted pipes… looked like mako.
Electricity swam lazily around inside the thing's body. The sparks squiggled like eels inside the plasma. Some came together and some zigzagged away.
Cloud felt faint. He stood there, staring, his brain almost unable to comprehend. Then the giant blob morphed.
It shrunk. Elongated. Grew two tentacles on bottom that supported it like legs. They became opaque, blue and yellows. Then they were skin, then they were the shapes of human legs. The thing formed a torso, and then a black leather jacket. Hair, too, and a face, and then eyes that were staring at him—
Cloud yelled in fright and scrambled backwards. He fell on his ass but was up quick as anything. His injured shoulder screamed at him. With a last few sickening schliiiks the creature stopped transforming.
It was a man. A tall, towering man with pale, silvery skin and outrageously silver hair. He had hands, and teeth and sharp ears, and predatory eyes, and a singular massive wing.
He eyed Cloud for a long moment. He blinked horizontally with a set of eyelids and then vertically like Cloud did with the outer ones. He tapped his wrist with two fingers. His hands were gloved. A small, shimmering ball of light rose from a device on his wrist.
"Pch," he said. "Kah. Wuh. Loo. Rrrr. Hweh."
Cloud took another step back, but that was all he could manage with being so frozen in terror.
"Fleeghrshkwyuzzksaxixibll…"
The man tried out a variety of sounds. He then enunciated clearly into the ball of light, "Common. A rudimentary language formed 1248 Shivas before the present moment. It is unknown how many languages are spoken on G-32x but the specimen before me speaks 'Common.' In my current form I am unable to produce Jenovian speech and thought patterns. Note: translate with the new Tuesti model upon returning to Reunion."
"You've got to be kidding," Cloud breathed, and then barked, "Hey! It seems like you can understand me. Stop! What do you want from us?"
Cloud would either go down in history books as that first brave man who interacted with alien life or the sniveling weakling who didn't put up a fight, who didn't try to show what humans could do.
"The specimen is frightened," the alien—motherfucking alien—noted briefly. "I was investigating G-32x in response to Lazard's readings. The energy stream—due to the anomaly, I suspect—fried the sensors in my ship and disabled the engines. It is unknown how long repairs will take or, indeed, if they are possible at all."
The alien looked mournful for a moment. He then focused on Cloud. "Hello," he said. "Unless you mean to attack me, I wish you no harm."
Cloud could hardly believe what he was seeing, let alone hearing. There was an intelligent response, something quick and biting and strong, like a lead movie character would say in this situation. Instead Cloud just said, "You're an alien."
"Well, to me, you are the alien."
"…Was that a joke?"
Spoken into the ball of light: "Specimen has trouble processing humor. Unknown how intelligent the denizens of G-32x are."
Being insulted by a mass of jellied electric tentacles that had turned into a man-like creature was the thing to snap Cloud out of it. "You said you meant me no harm. But what about my species? My planet? Why are you here? We—we don't want war with anybody—"
"I am a scientist." On the s sound a long, forked tongue slithered out between his lips. "I mean you no harm, but depending on your cooperation, others of my kind may. I will explain more later."
"Later?" Cloud asked, cautiously.
"I am going to swoon in about ten seconds. I sustained damage during the crash."
Swoon? Cloud thought. He then saw what the alien meant. His eyes closed and he passed out into the dirt.
The alien sweated what could only be mako. He grit his teeth and occasionally groaned in his sleep but he didn't wake up as Cloud dragged his heavy ass a couple hundred feet back to the house. Cloud didn't know why he was doing it. In fact, Cloud tried not to think of anything at all. He just moved. If he stopped to process all this he'd break so he kept going.
The guy's hair was tripping Cloud out. It seemed to exist on another plane. It was like… trapped starlight, all that energy concentrated in one place. It was like a photoshop edit, Cloud could only conclude, where someone had edited out hair and inserted on another layer an image of silver hair that sparkled, that thrummed with the beat of the universe.
It hurt to look at and the stench of mako seeping through the guy's pores made his head hurt too. When Cloud lugged him up the steps to the porch his legs turned into blue and yellow tentacles, just for a moment. The legs and tight leather pants returned.
Cloud wanted to scream, but he did not. They made it into the living room. His shoulder ached terribly. The alien's feet (webbed toes, though the rest seemed regular enough) knocked into things but Cloud didn't care. He was eight feet tall, easy. Heavy.
With a heave Cloud got his upper body on the couch. Another heave—the lower half. The mako on his hands turned them numb, so he washed them off in the sink. Back in the living room, Cloud stared at the alien for a long minute.
The wing stretched out over the back, huge and frightening. The outfit looked uncomfortable, all that sticky black leather... but Cloud wasn't about to undress him.
A fucking alien.
Cloud turned and ran from his house as if chased by demons from hell. He had lost his second slipper carrying the creature back and he sprinted, barefoot, through the fields. The neglect had left them uneven and prickly. He nearly sprained an ankle again in a rabbit hole but kept going until he'd passed the spaceship and then doubled back.
It still smoked. It still oozed. It was still there, in his backyard, of the home he'd grown up in, of the home he'd ran away from, of the home he'd eventually returned to. It was real. The unconscious being on his couch, real.
Dropped hammer in hand, Cloud entered the craft.
He had to duck his head when standing. The whole thing was angled horribly, it being nose-down. Parts of the walls were obliterated. For something that hurtled from outer space it was in pretty good condition even with half its innards spilled everywhere.
There were no windows. It was all black. There were no computer displays with millions of buttons or futuristic holographic interfaces. Some panels shifted before his eyes, like before, but Cloud couldn't begin to fathom how it worked. This alien was some kind of… shapeshifting energy monster. The way it interacted with things had to be quite different from Cloud, with his stubby fingers and flesh.
In the back was a cube of mako. It seemed to be in a gelatinous form too, contained in a shield of clear, glasslike material.
Cloud yelled and smashed it with the hammer. Nothing happened. He swung again anyway. He smashed the walls, the floor. He struck the already-broken panels, satisfied when they cracked further.
Cloud Strife had been King of this tiny farm. The empty animal houses, the decrepit barn, the abandoned sewing room. It was all his, and he was bigger than all of it. Cloud bashed at everything in sight until he wrenched his shoulder further and the metal part of the hammer broke off. Then he stumbled outside and collapsed in the dirt.
Cloud Strife, although King of this place, was small. An alien slept on his couch. He was smaller than he'd thought possible.
It had been seven months and fourteen days since Cloud last cried. He'd told himself then that it was going to be the last time. Cloud tipped backwards, stared up at the stars, and wept.
Several hours passed before Cloud returned. He'd laid there for a while, curled up by the wreckage of an alien spacecraft, crying, dozing, he didn't know. He'd come back to himself as the sun started to rise.
It was hard, going back in there. The old Strife family farmhouse looked worse than usual. And that was… even without the missing shingles and broken windows. Cloud crept up the stairs. He knew where they creaked. The boards were old. He crouched and peeked over the bottom edge of the window.
The alien was awake. He sat up, facing away from him. The leather jacket was on the floor, exposing more slightly-gray, silverish skin. His deep voice carried easily through the now-empty window frame.
"—evidence suggests that G-32x's lifestream has been tainted by a resident of this planet. Intriguing, since I have concluded that they have not made extraterrestrial contact before, and would have no knowledge of how to do so. Ex. Tra. Terrrrrestrial. Esstrial. Extra. I am having an enjoyable time speaking with this species' biology—lips, tongue, and mouth, according to my ipsuchip. Much preferable to the expressive dance employed last time. The one who witnessed the crash is outside and believes I cannot hear him breathing. Come inside."
Cold ice rushed through Cloud's veins. He crouched a moment more and then stood. He came through the creaking screen door and the wooden one just behind it. He stood uncertainly before the alien feeling like he was on display, being scrutinized. It should have been the other way around—the alien had a wing, for Gaia's sake. Shirtless he looked like any other incredibly fit (hot?) dude, except he had four nipples, a set a centimeter below the set humans normally had.
It was like someone had tried to copy a human and done it really badly, with lots of glitches and mix-ups. Maybe that's exactly what had happened.
"Do you have a name?"
The alien tilted his head. "You may call me Sephiroth."
"Sephiroth," Cloud repeated, doubtful.
"It seems I know more of the religions those on your planet ascribe to than you."
"Just stop, okay?" Cloud yelled, his voice cracking. "I get this is funny for you because you're surrounded by a bunch of primitive people who don't know you exist, but I am freaking the fuck out about this! Aliens aren't supposed to exist but a spaceship crashed in my field!"
"Fuck," Sephiroth said. Cloud stared. "My apologies, I like that word."
Cloud covered his face with his hands. Something warm and soft pushed against him. It was the wing, Cloud realized, and it half-pushed, half-scooped him over and up onto the couch. As Cloud sat there, a little stunned, Sephiroth asked, "…You truly believed you were alone in the universe?"
"I—" Cloud snapped his mouth shut. It was hard to look away from Sephiroth. The alien as a human was gorgeous, made only more appealing by the blatant wrongness. The eyes, the canines, the nipples, the hair, the tongue, the skin. There was so much. "I always thought it was possible. Most people do. We're out there looking for life on our moons. But… it's not me who's supposed to discover one. I'm not supposed to be talking to you, like this. I can't believe it's happening."
Sephiroth was quiet. His gaze made Cloud uncomfortable. He didn't know it wasn't nice to stare.
"What is your name?"
"…Cloud."
"We are now acquaintances. I will tell you something about myself so that we may be allies. I am forbidden from making first contact with new species on my own. The rest of the galaxy waits for those to develop the tools necessary to reach out by themselves. Crash-landing creates an exception. I would like you to understand that I am not here to invade, nor attack. You need not fear me. I wish to cooperate until I am able to return home."
Tension left Cloud's shoulders. He exhaled slowly.
"You have been broadcasting Please don't kill me for the past few minutes."
"You read my mind?"
"Not exactly. I am a being of energy; I can sense strong feelings or temperaments."
Sephiroth waited, and Cloud realized he was waiting for a response. He was serious. "I, ah. There isn't much to know about me. Moved here a little over half a year ago. I'm just a regular, uh… human. That's my species."
"I know. I read various things on your internet before you returned to the house. Congratulations—not many species think to develop something like this."
"Thanks," Cloud muttered, a little overwhelmed. Sephiroth continued to wait and Cloud said, "Forget it. There isn't much to me. Aren't you curious about other things?"
"You are a writer."
Cloud's voice was aggressive. "Did you look me up?"
"No." Sephiroth gestured at the coffee table in front of the couch. One of Cloud's books was there—his own smiling face was in a corner of the back cover. "I read it."
"…Yeah?"
"You are a little heavy-handed with your plot devices but your characterization is solid."
"Okay." Cloud stood; this was just too surreal. He was out. "Sephiroth."
The alien met his gaze. It was so bizarre to address this thing and have it respond. "I need to sleep. What are you going to do?" Cloud couldn't stop him probably if Sephiroth decided to march on the world's leaders and destroy them but it would be nice to know. He could do—something.
"It will be some time before I am recuperated," Sephiroth said gravely, "I must find out why your planet crashed my ship."
Why Cloud's planet crashed his ship…?
"If you're still around when I wake up, and this wasn't a nightmare, I'll see you then. Do you… need new clothes?"
"I would appreciate new pants."
Cloud got him some sweatpants (he was sure they'd end up looking like capris on a guy two and a half feet taller than him) and some underwear. He handed it over and turned to go back upstairs. On the final step he turned around to look at Sephiroth one last time. The alien was watching him, his mouth turned down in a frown.
He gingerly walked to his bed, avoiding broken glass. Cleaning could wait. Cloud stripped off his clothes and crawled naked into bed. He closed his eyes and dreamed nothing, just endless blackness like the void of space.
The sun was fully risen when Cloud stirred. For a moment everything seemed like a fuzzy dream… and then his shoulder throbbed, bringing it all back with horrible clarity. He got up and dressed quickly. As he descended the stairs he rubbed sleep out of his eyes. No one in the living room. Not in the kitchen. Not in the den, or out on the porch.
Cloud's imagination ran wild. If he was to turn on the news right now he'd see all kinds of destruction—Sephiroth was taking over his planet and Cloud had let his guard down and slept, letting him walk out after gaining all kinds of information on humanity—
He found Sephiroth in the room where Cloud did his writing (or tried to). The computer, pushed aside, was replaced by a tiny light show.
Several small balls of light hovered over the desk. Some of them arced to others and drifted around, forming intricate patterns. Some twinkled blue, others greenish, others pink. Sephiroth touched one with his fingertip and it fizzled, sparking and shooting into ten little arcs. It must have made sense to him.
Spread out on the surface was some of Cloud's lined paper. Sephiroth had drawn several complicated diagrams that were scribbles to Cloud's eyes.
"Good morrow, home slice," the alien said without turning around.
"What?"
Sephiroth turned around, saw Cloud's expression. "Oh. Did my ipsuchip translate wrong? That happens. 'Good morning, ally.'"
"You really… want to make that clear, huh. That we're not enemies."
"Well, yes. I am millions of lightyears from my home, Cloud Strife. My ship is ruined. My weapons were destroyed in the impact. My communications are down, and something on this planet is sickening me. By some miracle I crashed away from civilization and have not been discovered by anyone other than you. It is very much in my best interests to make peace with you."
Sephiroth sounded more and more agitated as his little rant went on. He harshly jabbed at an orb, then swore—Ggrleeble—as his arms transformed into tentacles. Thick, blue and yellow, they knocked Cloud's computer monitor to the floor (Cloud caught it, thankfully) and sent the papers askew.
"I am a scientist," he said softly. "This is not a military operation."
With human hands he took the monitor from Cloud and set it back in its spot. Cloud stood there, awkward. He didn't know what to say. This whole situation had to be pretty scary for Sephiroth too, now that he thought about it.
"You're going to figure out how to get home."
"Yes." Sephiroth sounded determined. "My original mission parameters still stand. I will investigate the anomaly that originally led me here as I am able while I rebuild my ship."
"An anomaly? Is something wrong with Gaia?"
Sephiroth's fingers wiggled in place as he considered something. He tapped an orb and slowly dragged it to the left. "What do you know of mako?" he asked finally.
Sephiroth's wing extended in the small space and herded Cloud close to Sephiroth's side like yesterday. It was strong. Cloud thought, "We refine it to produce electricity. It powers our homes, and we use mako to produce fuel for vehicles. I don't know where we'd be without it."
"Mako," Sephiroth said, "Or, more accurately, the energy produced from it, is the energy of the universe. Mako is alive."
He smiled slowly at Cloud's confused look. The sharp canines dimpled his lower lip. "I did research into the Cetra."
"They believe the planet is alive." In Midgar Cloud had been friends with a girl who believed in the Lifestream, a flow of energy inside and around Gaia. "It's juts religion, though."
"They are correct. Well, not about everything. But the unnaturally high mako reserves on this planet essentially make your Gaia an organism. Mako is an incredibly coveted resource in this galaxy, and those who can utilize it wield the power."
"Well, we refine it just fine in the reactors. So are we powerful?"
A grin that made Cloud's belly flip in terror, or excitement. "My species is the only one known in existence to be able to process raw mako inside our own bodies. The flow of the universe is ours."
Cloud reached out and touched a greenish orb. It sparked him and he jerked his hand back. It did not move. "You never answered my question," he said, "About whether something was wrong with Gaia."
Sephiroth's fingers flew. The colors danced like the aurora borealis and glittered like stars. "Something is siphoning off your planet's mako, and it isn't any of your reactors. And whatever it is, it's poisoning the life energy of your planet as it does it."
Cloud's planet was sick. "A parasite," he murmured.
"Aye, matey."
The situation was too somber for Cloud to chuckle at the sudden pirate accent.
"I was exploring this part of your galaxy when I discovered your planet. I was only in orbit for about a day when your planet reached out and disabled my thrusters." To himself, Sephiroth murmured, "This has never happened before. It registered me as a threat, and still does."
"You said it was sickening you."
"Yes," was the curt answer.
Cloud watched the hypnotizing light show a moment longer. Perhaps it was like typing. He belatedly realized he was leaning against the alien's shoulder, still cocooned in the wing. He stepped away and gently pushed at it until he was free. "I'm going to make breakfast. Do you, uh, eat?"
"Without access to regular transfusions of mako I must."
"Do you eat that big tank of it in your ship?"
"I slept in that," he said, and sounded scandalized. "Let us hope it doesn't come to that. I will eat your human food."
Cloud retreated to the kitchen. It was full of his mother's touches still. The spices were where she liked them, with her favorites towards the front.
There were a million possible questions. Cloud focused on the easiest as he cooked, flipping bacon and scrambling eggs—what did Sephiroth's species eat when not in their usual form? As he heated leftover rice and poured them some juice he imagined the horrible gelatinous Sephiroth from yesterday plunging a cheeseburger into the depths of his body.
Humor was the only way he'd avoided a second mental breakdown, honestly.
Sephiroth gathered all the electricity balls into his hands and morphed them into one big one when Cloud told him to join him. It hovered on the desk; looking at it made Cloud uneasy. He awkwardly plated their food and settled in at the table across from Sephiroth.
It was… exceedingly bizarre doing something so normal with someone so strange. Sephiroth looked silly at the table with his knees bunched up and his wing taking up a portion of the room. The wall tile was yellowed and had a mini image of a basket of fruit in each square. Hideous.
Cloud demonstrated with the fork and scooped up some rice and egg. He chewed, Sephiroth's eyes lingering on his lips, and swallowed. "It tastes good to me," he said, a little defensive.
Sephiroth copied him. The fork looked silly in his huge hand. "Oh, Cloud," he said.
"What."
"This is—magnifique. Mag. Nifique. That language has many fun words. But yes—what is this called?"
Cloud pointed at everything and told him, as Sephiroth sampled it all. "You would not believe the things I have had to eat in my lifetime," the alien said. He told Cloud a couple of them—wriggling bugs as big as this house, small balls of sentient carbon and sulfur, the equivalent of a sandwich but all innards of a great ocean beast on a giant of a planet three galaxies over. There were worms that simultaneously ate themselves and shat out a child, which would eat itself and shit out a new child every ten seconds. He'd eaten one of those.
"Have you been to lots of places?"
"Thousands."
"Bacon and eggs is really great compared to all that?"
"Some have had better. It is rare species have such sophisticated taste receptors, though, so eating as a human is enjoyable."
Cloud rudely watched Sephiroth eat for too long. It was fascinating. "On this planet we labeled M3A-6 I attended a feast. I had these long tubes running from my thorax to these pools of slime. It was polite for everyone to take the first sip together. That was probably the best food I have ever had… though Wutai…"
Sephiroth glanced to the side. He twirled his fork in the rice uselessly. "Wutai had good food as well," he finished.
Soon after Cloud said, "I just don't even know where to start. I have so many questions about you and what you've seen and what's out there."
"You will have time to ask them. The damage to my ship is worse than initially thought."
A few hours later Cloud poked his head into his office. Sephiroth was seated again, playing with the floating lights. He paused and looked down at his lap as Cloud leaned against the doorway.
"I believe I am having a belated reaction to realizing I am trapped on this planet," he said. "I would like to be left alone."
"Oh." Cloud took a step back. "Okay. Find me if you need me."
With Sephiroth occupied, Cloud had to entertain himself. What did he usually do? It was hard to remember. It was hard to remember what anything in his life had been like two days ago when he hadn't known about Sephiroth or other aliens. To be fair, he hadn't been doing much living anyway.
He laid around on the couch. He sat on the porch with his notebook. Like always, he got less than a paragraph written before he had to close it. Cloud went for a walk. He toured the edges of his property. Animals had once been here; he'd grown up alongside a dozen different ones, pigs and cows and chickens. All abandoned now.
The spaceship looked even weirder in the daytime. It didn't belong. It, like Sephiroth's multidimensional hair, looked like a different image slapped onto an existing one.
Still things everywhere. The fires were out, the embers having finally hit the dirt. Still the same hole in his property, and the same green sleeping tank.
Cloud wandered home and went to bed, because there wasn't much else to do.
"…am impressed…fortitude…"
"—other than a few instances of hostility—"
"…cross-referencing with the human internet… hair common in northern regions… very yellow…"
"…standards of beauty in his culture, he seems to align with quite a few ideals. His culture places emphasis on…"
"—I, at least, with my new human brain, find Cloud quite beautiful."
Sephiroth's voice was low and rumbly. Cloud had noticed that right away. The sound of it had only woken him up slightly despite being so close. Cloud's eyes opened fully as his brain registered the last bit.
"He is awake," Sephiroth narrated into the orb above his wrist. "Humans do not glow or shriek to signify this. The benefits of this are obvious. Cloud is rubbing his 'eyes' and looks unhappy." Sephiroth lowered his wrist an inch. "Cloud, are you unhappy?"
"What the fuck, Sephiroth," Cloud groaned. He melted boneless into the mattress. "Watching people while they sleep is creepy on Gaia."
"My apologies." Sephiroth looked a little chastened but he didn't leave. He was leant casually against the far wall.
"I'm not wearing any clothes," Cloud growled, "Get out."
Sephiroth tapped the orb. "Those in Cloud's culture are concerned about modesty—an interesting trait for a species to have. I was wondering why I transformed wearing 'pants' and a 'jacket' when they offer little additional defense."
Cloud got up on his knees to look more imposing, bunching the blankets around his waist. "I am sorry, Cloud," Sephiroth said, "But this is very exciting. Forgive me." To the wristband, "Cloud is embarrassed. Blood is rushing to his face and chest and his heart rate has spiked. The feelings he's broadcasting are confusing."
"Stop reading my mind!"
"I'm not," Sephiroth snapped. "I fail to see the value of the modesty coveted by those in this part of G-32x." He peeled back the elastic waistband of his borrowed pants and peered down, perhaps to see what Cloud was hiding.
"Ugh, no—"
Cloud's words cut off with a choke. Sephiroth had let go of the waistband but they crept down anyway. Something was slithering out of them.
A yellow and blue tentacle crept over the edge of the fabric. It pushed down, and another appeared. "Oh my god," Cloud said, when the fourth and final tentacle emerged.
Where Sephiroth's dick should have been was a cluster of four stubby tentacles. Each looked thinner than a normal dick but were about that long. Cloud laid back down in the bed, suddenly exhausted.
"That is not what I have."
"No?"
"…No." Cloud rolled over, putting his back to Sephiroth. It was a risky thing. The alien had such unbelievable presence; the hair on the back of Cloud's neck stood on edge. After a moment the bed dipped.
"Cloud."
Cloud rolled over again. Sephiroth sat on the edge. When Cloud just watched him, a bit wary but not telling him to go away, he scooted closer and sat cross-legged. The tentacles had covered themselves back up.
"I am sorry," he said. "And I'm not sure what exactly I'm sorry for, but I feel regret regardless."
Cloud sighed. They sat and laid there for a long, awkward minute. "It's alright," Cloud eventually muttered. "You don't know how humans work, and I haven't taken much time to explain."
"No." Sephiroth's fingers turned to twisting tentacles and back. "It isn't your fault. I am… not good at this. At assimilating. My friends, Genesis and Angeal, they have always been the social ones. They would know what to do in this situation, even with the crash. I confess I am… lost."
Cloud actually felt bad for the guy. He reached out, touched his knee. "Yeah, well, me too. I never really thought about what I'd say to an alien. And I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not the best with people either."
The corner of Sephiroth's mouth quirked. "For the first few conversations between our species I feel they have gone rather badly."
Cloud snorted. "No kidding. We've been…freaking out so much it's like we're talking at each other and not to each other." Sephiroth glanced around the room, clearly struggling, so Cloud said, "Maybe we should start over."
"I would rather not have to relive the crash."
"Well, it's not like there's anything left to break in this place."
"…I am Sephiroth. I am a Jenovian. My home planet is Reunion. I am stranded on your planet and need help."
"I'm Cloud Strife. Human. Welcome to Gaia. I don't know how useful I'll be, but I want to help."
Sephiroth smiled. Cloud held out his hand, and after some gesturing Sephiroth took it.
Cloud lay on his side and propped his elbow on the mattress, hand supporting his head. "I want to know more about your species. I don't know much about you."
"We Jenovians are mighty," Sephiroth said. He sounded so proud. "Our empire spans H38104 to the outer reaches of W7702."
"Does everyone look like you?"
"We are all a million different forms between us at once—but when we are in our resting forms, yes, we look similar."
"It's really neat, the transforming."
"We are seamless copies of any species in the universe. It is indeed neat."
Cloud raised an eyebrow. "Seamless?"
Sephiroth seemed confused. "We look exactly alike."
Cloud laughed (and it felt good to do that). "Hell no we don't. Uh, wing."
Sephiroth looked unimpressed, so Cloud pointed out their other differences. He even shrugged mentally and palmed his cock, moving the blanket and showing him hey, no tentacles.
"Cloud. I have been creatures as big as your entire planet, and those as small as your germs. Some have had a million legs and others lived at the bottoms of oceans so deep the pressure would crack my ship's hull. I hardy notice these small differences."
Small differences. Cloud had to laugh again. The guy just didn't get it. But if he had been a thousand different creatures, maybe he wouldn't either.
Sephiroth told him about Reunion, his homeworld. Light shows, always. Mako rivers. Some of the most advanced technology in the universe. Paradise. He told him about Jenova, the very first of his kind.
"The entire universe trembled before her. She trailed destruction behind her… and laid the path for our empire to follow."
"What happened to her?"
"It is unknown. It is likely she is still exploring parts of the universe otherwise undiscovered." The smile in Sephiroth's voice, the pride in his eyes—he thought so much of her, a real member of the species elevated to battle-goddess in the years past her reign.
"Jenovians have a big military?"
"—Yes," Sephiroth said shortly. "Immensely strong."
"Is… Gaia in danger?"
"No. Not at this moment at any rate."
It was a foreboding answer. Cloud rolled onto his back, comfortable in his nakedness now (the guy was an alien—he didn't give a shit), and stared at the ceiling. What if instead of one ship, with one energy monster… there were thousands? And they were coming with the intent to kill?
"I have not always been a scientist," Sephiroth said. Cloud looked over.
"This is only my fifth expedition off-world in this capacity."
"But you've been to thousands of places?"
It took some time for Sephiroth to respond. "This is my fifth expedition that is not a military operation, where the goal of visiting is not to conquer the planet in Jenova's name."
There was not a whole lot Cloud could say to that. Sephiroth, sitting behind him, suddenly seemed bigger… his teeth sharper, his eyes more predatory, his wing demonic and not angelic.
"Guess that explains why you're so out of your depth."
"I am still figuring out what to do and how to interact with natives when I go places without orders to kill."
Cloud thought, if things were a little bit different… I could have been killed when I investigated that crash.
Sephiroth's arms turned into long, suckered tentacles. Cloud jolted a bit as one draped across him for a moment before it shifted back to human arms. Cloud was starting to understand it happened when he was nervous or agitated. "Genesis and Angeal are very good with people. Those two have never had these problems I do when meeting new species." Cloud could hear what Sephiroth was not saying: They would know what to do in this situation, and do it better than me.
The tentacles appeared and disappeared again. "I have talked enough. Tell me of your life, Cloud."
Cloud would have preferred to talk about anything other than his life. He rolled onto his stomach and pillowed his head on his folded arms. "Isn't much to it. I live here alone. Try to write. Ride my bike or the truck into town when I need things."
"Humans often life in familial units. Where is yours?"
"…My mom's dead. Died seven months ago. This was her house. I came back from the city to live here afterward. Dad abandoned us when I was a baby. I tracked him down to see if he'd come to her funeral but he told me to my face he didn't care about her, or me. So that's my family unit."
Sephiroth tapped the orb above his wrist, probably searching the internet to see what a funeral was and things like that. "Oh," he said, after a pause.
Then, in a testament to how hard he was trying to listen to Cloud and not talk at him as he tried to gather enough information to satisfy his own curiosity, he changed the subject.
"Why don't you tell me what it is like being human?"
They ate ice cream in dripping cones outside in the summer heat. The sun was setting. Sephiroth adored his dessert. Cloud told him about growing up here, in Nibelheim, when things were good. He'd been happier then. Cloud skipped over the tense years where he grew frustrated with Nibelheim and his small-town life and tried to join the military. He'd ran away and joined up anyway when his mom objected. Cloud told Sephiroth about Midgar, what it was like living in the biggest city on the continent. He skipped how he'd never actually made it into the military and was too embarrassed to come home and see his mother, too. And now she was dead, and he couldn't even if he wanted to.
There were so many wonderful things about being human, though. The oceans of Costa. Warm hot chocolate after snowboarding. Friendship (even though Cloud didn't have too many of those anymore). Sex. Puberty, as awkward as it was. The satisfying conclusion to a good mystery novel like the ones Cloud wrote, or had before his mom died and he realized he'd spent his whole life a coward.
And Sephiroth listened to him—he really did. He made comments and asked for clarification, and asked even more questions.
Cloud nearly fell asleep again out there, staring out at the inky black of the fields. He bade Sephiroth goodnight.
"Sleep good," Sephiroth said. It should have been well but Cloud did not correct him. He smiled, growing fonder of the alien.
"Sleep good too."
The next morning Cloud tried to make a game plan. "So we've got big things to do. Fix the ship. Figure out this 'anomaly.' If Gaia is sick I want to help. And you've got something else."
Sephiroth looked up from his bowl of cereal.
"You're fixing my house."
"…Cloud. I know very little about human architecture—"
"You learn everything else pretty quickly. You read my entire book in like an hour. You already know the names of all Midgar's mayors. You can learn to fix some damn windows and the roof."
They frowned at each other. "Fine," Sephiroth said. "I'll fix your commorancy."
Cloud rolled his eyes; that time may have been intentional and not an ipsuchip glitch. "I'll get new windows from town and you can install them. You can sweep up the glass that's everywhere while I'm gone."
Sephiroth clearly thought the task was beneath him, but Cloud held firm. He agreed. The morning air was cool on their faces as they trudged out back to the second barn that was the garage. The sun warmed Cloud's face. The breeze held a promise of great heat later in the afternoon.
Fenrir, Cloud's motorcycle, was here. Currently the bike was undergoing some work—not because anything was wrong with him, but because Cloud's hands got restless with the lack of typing or penwriting these days.
Cloud climbed into the old pickup his mother must have driven into town by herself during all those years he was hiding from her in Midgar. He popped the hood and let Sephiroth look under it at the machinery. When he came around and leant into the cab he said, "…I am still learning to not be ethnocentric, and to judge each species on their own merits and not compare it to mine."
Cloud snorted at the passive-aggressive insult. He covered his hand with his mouth with his hand until the smile faded. "Yeah, okay, I get it, Jenovians are really advanced. I'll be back in a bit. Don't destroy my planet while I'm gone."
"I wouldn't dream of it."
Rumbling out of the barn, Cloud was on his way. Nibelheim proper was forty minutes away one way. Cloud rolled down the windows so the roar of the wind would distract him from his thoughts of his mother making this exact trip. The reactor in the distance grew larger and larger as he approached. Reactor towns—other than Midgar and Junon—weren't good for much. Cloud hated the people of Nibelheim. The older ones glared at him, the boy who'd abandoned his mother and was back now that she was dead.
He ran his errands quickly. Money from book sales paid for most things (Cloud was rather successful, and had a popular mystery trilogy about human experimentation and courtroom backstabbing). His mom paid off the large family home years ago, and Cloud only paid for food and utility bills.
At the grocery store Cloud wandered around more than usual. He'd been eating the same meals for the past seven months here. He used to enjoy cooking… he grabbed some new things for Sephiroth's sake. At a clothes store downtown he got Sephiroth some better fitting pants, and less-tight underwear too. Cloud thought of those four independently moving tentacles in Sephiroth's pants and chuckled to himself alone in the middle of the store.
The rest of Gaia was awake on the ride home. The sun warmed his left arm, resting on the windowframe. Cloud saw birds fly by in big flocks and small mammals on the plains scurry by. A bee buzzed into the cab and drifted off after a minute. Gaia was not just the humans' home. If the Jenovians had come for war… there'd be a lot to answer for.
Sephiroth swept up the glass in his bedroom and picked everything else up off the floor in his absence. Some of it wasn't in the right spot, and some was moved… the alien snooped. Cloud didn't really mind. The guy was insatiable for everything human.
There was a lot to replacing a window, they learned. Sephiroth's fingers danced through electricity as Cloud watched how-to videos online. When they finished their research they somberly turned to each other, tools in hand.
The window trim and jamb extension had to be removed, same with the guide track. The tracks and jambs and stops all kind of looked the same to Cloud… Sephiroth, who had boasted the day before that nuclear physics was the stuff for infant Jenovians, quickly figured it out.
Cloud lounged on his bed and watched him work. He'd gone on those errands and done his duty for the day; he didn't have the spoons for much else.
"I do wish I could have gone with you," Sephiroth said.
"No you don't. Nibelheim sucks."
"But I am curious about human culture."
Cloud sighed. "Sorry. I know you are. Although you might think the differences between us aren't all that noticeable I promise you everyone in town would run screaming if they saw you."
"It would not be the first time."
Sephiroth's frequent narrations into his wrist computer amused Cloud. "Cloud has me doing menial tasks. I believe it is a ploy to stop me from returning home to Reunion. Perhaps Cloud is an undercover agent for the Behemoths I encountered on Q1x Alpha."
"Hey," Cloud called, "It's because you're the asshole who crashed in my backyard and blew them out. It's your fault."
"Cloud has called me a colloquial term for the human part of the body that relaxes to allow waste to escape. I forgot to document the waste-removal process; it was quite traumatizing the first time."
Who knew, after everything, he'd be able to laugh this much? Who knew the being responsible wouldn't even be human?
As Sephiroth repaired Cloud's house over the next few days, they shared stories. Cloud told Sephiroth of his awkward first dates and the courtship rituals of those in this part of the world, which Sephiroth found 'fascinating.' Sephiroth had been birthed specifically for the military; it was all he knew.
Cloud saw the cold look in his eyes sometimes. Sephiroth's military background was all over him, even though his military was almost inconceivably different. War didn't change much.
Once Cloud brought Sephiroth lunch to find the guy naked, each of his dick tentacles holding a nail because he'd run out of hands. After nearly pissing himself Cloud held out a hand below them, and the tentacles released them into his palm.
"I didn't realize they were this, ah, dexterous."
"I've always most enjoyed transforming into species with tentacles. They feel much more familiar to me than these arms and legs."
One lazily curled around Cloud's finger. Cloud rubbed his thumb curiously over the small suckers, the size of the eraser on a pencil. They weren't sharp or rough—just soft, perhaps a little sticky.
Sephiroth sucked in a breath. "That feels—nice."
Cloud jerked away his hand, embarrassed. He'd forgotten that those were, well… dicks. Sephiroth's eyes were hot on him as he moved to the side, prepared to pass over the nails when requested. "Is this where your species has its sexual organs? Curious, then, the modesty surrounding these parts. Humans are fascinating."
"Shut up." Cloud held out a nail and gestured at the bookshelf Sephiroth was supposed to be fixing.
It was not all home repair, though. Sephiroth spent several hours a day making the lights dance around Cloud's home. He researched everything humans had on mako. Some of the earliest writings were about it. It had always been here, after all. While the vast majority sat undiscovered underground and was only accessible in the past half a millennium, when technology advanced far enough to mine and process it, there had always been natural mako springs around the globe.
Some cultures saw mako as an evil, poisonous force. There were many folktales about monsters and spirits that embodied its malice.
Others thought mako was the essence of the planet that would save them. Statues and shrines existed out there in the world to uphold its glory.
There were stories of those who had fallen into natural mako springs and died, and stories of those who had done so and survived—who had even come out healthier than before, or stronger, almost superhuman.
Cloud never thought much of mako. It was just… there. It was as normal as water or trees or oxygen. To think that it was on other planets too… to think it made his planet alive, that it was the essence of energy, the elusive 'dark matter' scientists on this planet had been searching for for decades…
He liked to listen to it. Cloud didn't always know what to say. Sephiroth seemed to understand now that these revelations could be overwhelming to Cloud. Sometimes they'd stretch out on the couch (and Cloud kind of liked how Sephiroth's legs were so long; they always hung off the side Cloud was resting against) and Sephiroth would tell him everything he'd learned that day. Cloud would be quiet, processing this, occasionally making notes in his notebook. Sephiroth didn't press him for input if Cloud wasn't feeling it.
They spent time outside, at the ship. Sephiroth's favorite time of day to work on repairs was during sunset. They would eat an early dinner and go out there, working as the shadows got longer and the fields orange, then pinker, then bluer, and then black.
Cloud really wasn't much help at all considering the technology wasn't anything that would occur naturally on Gaia for another three thousand years (according to Sephiroth, anyway. Cloud took everything he said with a grain of salt, because he liked to show off more than Cloud was sure even he knew). So, as Sephiroth worked Cloud would spread out a blanket nearby and relax.
Sometimes he napped, and would wake when Sephiroth gently shook him. He'd kneel and crouch over Cloud, that hair draped over Cloud like all the stars in the universe were floating feet away. Sometimes Cloud read a book. He hadn't touched one in a long time, but Sephiroth was going through the books of his house during his 'waste disposal' time, and had recommended some of Cloud's own untouched books to him.
And sometimes… Cloud wrote.
The first time he finished a whole page in his notebook—a whole page—Cloud had to put his pen down. He'd wandered away from the ship's wreckage and sat far out in the field by himself. He'd wrapped his arms around his shins and stayed there until the sun set over the mountains in the distance. Sephiroth had not commented on the dried tear tracks on Cloud's face, and had even experimented with baking to make Cloud dessert when they returned.
Three weeks after the crash, it was getting a little easier. Cloud lay on his stomach, knees bent up and his ankles locked in the air behind him. The notebook page was filled with scribbles and crossed-out sections, but there were three other filled pages before the current one. Occasionally Cloud looked up at Sephiroth and watched him as the words floating around in his head formed into coherent sentences.
Most of the time Sephiroth stayed in his human form as he tinkered with the ship. Tasks like picking up scattered metals and moving things could be done with human arms. When he got more technical though, and had to interact with what was left of the ship's fried mechanics, he transformed back into his regular form.
He was like that now, a giant jelly blob occasionally walking on countless tentacles back out of the ship and around it, but mostly staying inside. He was more clear than green now as he went through his mako stores and survived on human food.
Cloud focused his attention back on the notebook. He'd started a simple short story. It was about—surprise—an alien crash-landed on a strange and bizarre planet. It was from the point of view of the ship, though, feeling fear and pain on the impact, and loss as its inhabitant wandered away into the unknown landscape. It was silly and it was no-stress, which was the point. This wasn't going to his editor who still emailed him sometimes asking about the manuscript for his next novel. Not even Sephiroth would see it unless he snooped again, and Cloud would hide it well.
It was just for his eyes. Even that had seemed overwhelming these past seven months—writing anything at all had gone from his life's passion to debilitating and anxiety-giving. So many things gave him no pleasure anymore.
The ship experienced separation anxiety and was pleased when its owner returned almost every day to perform repairs. Cloud reached the bottom of his page, closed the notebook, and wandered closer to the ship. It was getting too dark to keep writing anyway. He'd brought a small lantern with him once but the bugs were drawn to it and he'd gotten bitten.
(Sephiroth then transformed into a mosquito to yell at the bugs who had bit Cloud. Sephiroth returned with the wildest of stories—the bugs, not being very intelligent, didn't have any grasp of things like time or philosophy but they apparently had 'marvelous' views on the energy of the planet and the lifestream.)
Sephiroth was inside. Cloud ducked his head and climbed aboard. His worn sneakers slid on the harshly inverted floors. He scrabbled a bit and grabbed at a glossy black surface jutting out from the ceiling. "Hey, Sephiroth," he said, climbing back towards the tank. Sephiroth was there, in all his massive, circular glory. The back panels were removed all along the interior. The whole thing glittered and shifted, like Cloud was on LSD like in college again.
Sephiroth drifted towards him. It was kind of hypnotizing, watching all the tentacles appear and disappear, appear and disappear again. "Thought I'd check in and see how it's going."
Sephiroth got right up to him and Cloud let go of the thing he was clinging to, backing up a few feet. Sephiroth continued to approach, Cloud's neutral expression turning into a deep frown.
The outside of Sephiroth's body felt cool to the touch. Like gelatin when it's been sitting too long in the fridge and forms the tough, rubbery outside coating.
Then Cloud's hands plunged into Sephiroth's body as the alien got close, too close. The rest of his body quickly followed as Sephiroth surged forward and swallowed him up.
Cloud almost said what the fuck but bit it back before he could get lungfuls of alien ooze. When he realized he could breathe, after a couple seconds of holding his breath, he really did say it, "What the fuck?" It came out muffled and incomprehensible.
The breaths were shallow but he could make them. He floated, suspended in Sephiroth's body, as the alien exited the craft and scuttled back towards Cloud's blanket. He managed to turn over inside him, his hands swishing through like he was treading water. The electric pulses swimming inside Sephiroth raced away from his fingers; it was impossible to touch them.
Cloud wasn't sure how he knew it, but suddenly he was positive that the reason Sephiroth was evicting him from the craft was because if he touched any of those glowing panels in the back he'd be crispier than the crud on the bottom of the oven. He slid out of Sephiroth's body with a grotesque wet slop and landed on his blanket, dry as anything.
He stared up at the huge, looming alien. "Fine," he said. "Just hurry it up—I'm bored out here."
It was… hard to believe this thing was Sephiroth, the guy who was quickly becoming Cloud's friend. There was no way to nod but Cloud got a sense of: alright. A tentacle grew from the closest side of him and brushed against Cloud's cheek before he drifted back towards the craft.
"Bizarre," Cloud muttered, and wondered what the spaceship thought about all that.
Two days later Cloud finished his short story. It wasn't his best work, not even close, but it felt good to put in that last period of the last sentence. Cloud flipped to a new, fresh page and wandered in off the porch to the office where Sephiroth was making the lights dance, as usual.
"What's a good thing to write a short story about?"
"Capitalism," Sephiroth answered. "As far as economic systems go, that is one of the most heinous I've seen."
"I was thinking something a little more… lighthearted. I'll save the heavy topics for a novel."
"Romance, then."
"Yeah?" Cloud shuffled closer. Sephiroth's wing nabbed him as soon as he was close enough and pushed him close to the alien's side. Cloud wasn't sure if it was always conscious or not… but Sephiroth did that whenever possible. "Didn't think you were the romance novel type."
"I have been reading everything my brain cells can absorb," was the curt answer. Sephiroth harshly poked an orb and it exploded into dozens of beautiful, twinkling lights around the room. He waved his hand and they all coalesced again. "Some of it has been much better quality than others."
Cloud laughed, thinking of the cheap paperback romance novels his mom read when he was a kid. There was a box of them in the attic Cloud had gathered after the funeral. "Yeah, some things in the romance genre aren't so great. But that goes for any genre. I've read some terrible mysteries in my day."
"You are an author, Cloud," Sephiroth said (and the way he said Cloud like Cloud Strife was the only human on this planet always made Cloud feel funny). "Surely you think differently from some of the humans on this planet who are not authors."
"Maybe. I'm more creative than some, I guess. Or I was."
Sephiroth ignored that last sentence. "I would like it if you thought like an author for a moment."
"Okay." Cloud frowned and lowered his notebook. He idly brushed his fingers over the feathers of the wing. Big and broad and black. Soft. The flesh underneath was leathery and strong. "Shoot."
"Shoot," Sephiroth repeated. "Coot, Loot, Fruit. Pardon. Say this was one of your mystery novels. An alien has crashed. Part of this planet is rejecting him and rejects his spaceship—and this is unnatural. There is a parasite here, possibly something I have never encountered, and I am an expert. What is our first course of action?"
Cloud thought. His arm draped over Sephiroth's shoulders as he eyed the lights, still now that Sephiroth was focused on him instead. "We should… theorize about the nature of the parasite," he said after a moment. "That's the weird variable—everything hinges around that. We'll pick a course of action once we decide what it might be capable of."
"We know it is siphoning off mako."
"Is that mako going to anything? Have you found evidence of high levels anywhere else on the planet?"
Sephiroth spent a few minutes fiddling with the lights. "There are some places with higher levels… but nothing abnormal, as far as I can tell. I would say that whatever it is… is storing this energy inside itself." Sephiroth sounded puzzled.
"Okay. What can do that?"
"Jenovians."
"…Yeah? And?"
"And Jenovians. I told you before—as far as we know, my species is the only one known in existence that can absorb mako, especially at these levels, and process it into energy."
"Is there any chance…?"
"No. I am the first Jenovian to explore this galaxy. Of this I am certain. There have been no mission logs, no data trails, nothing. I am the first."
"Okay." Sephiroth was agitated; his fingers turned into tentacles. Cloud worked his hand into the muscles of Sephiroth's right shoulder. He kneaded them and leant a little more of his weight against his side. "Maybe it's an unknown species then."
"Living in your planet's core? In your mantle somewhere? Poisoning your lifestream?"
"Maybe. What if it's storing the energy not inside its body but inside some kind of…box?"
"That would be a big box, Cloud."
"Work with me here. Some kind of container. If it really is some species—maybe more advanced than you—it could be anything. Could be processing the energy into something else."
Sephiroth sighed. "It would be impossible to detect. I could scan for metals and compounds to make up this 'container' but the inside of your planet is rich in all of those. There would be no way to tell."
"Hey. Sephiroth, hey." Cloud got the alien's attention—he'd been frowning off to the side, a dangerous look in his eyes. "We got step one. The rest will become clearer, even if it's not clear right now."
"You are right. Thank you, Cloud."
"Yeah." Cloud squeezed Sephiroth's shoulder. He then gave a gentle tug, and Sephiroth abandoned his lights for the rest of the evening.
Part 2/9 of my Cloud's Birthday Week 2k16 challenge on tumblr. Thanks for everything, folks.