Title: Change the World – Or Just Cloud
Author: Blue
Characters/Pairings: Implied Cloud/various
Word Count: 615
Author's Notes: Random fic generated offa doodle spree we went on in which sack-Aerith decided she wanted to turn the world gay, Cloud found out Tifa was homophobic and had to be comforted by Sephiroth who gave him a "special" hug. I'm reasonably sure it was Red's idea...

"I wanna turn the world gay."

"Come again?"

Not without considerable confusion, Cloud turned to his friend, hoping he'd misheard or that Aerith meant "happy".

"You heard me. I want to turn the world gay."

"Happy?"

"Homosexual. Well, maybe bi for reproduction purposes."

Very worried now, Cloud put down the glass he was drying and regarded Aerith with a frown on his face.

"And why would you want to do that?"

Maybe if he could fathom her reasons, he could talk her out of it. She'd do it too; Cloud was certain she could find a way. After that thing, that time with himself, Vincent, Cid, and a lot of whiskey and whipped cream, he never took the luxury of assuming things said in passing by Aerith were just things in passing.

"Because it'd be hot."

"Why?" Cloud asked, knowing that he was about to embark down that long, slippery downhill slope marked 'Conversations I Should Never Have Had.' Once the saviour of the world, always the saviour of the world.

"Really Cloud, how can you ask why something's hot? It just is."

"I don't think gays, or lesbians are hot..."

"For example," Aerith continued, clearly ignoring Cloud as she spun on her bar stool. "Think of your tryst with Rufus. You can't deny that was hot. Remember when he got drunk and tried to do that thing with his tongue? Yup, even Barret was definitely staring."

Cloud remembered and a delicate blush crept across his pale cheeks that was barely visible under the dim lights of Tifa's bar they were babysitting.

"That was because we were all really drunk."

"And then," the young woman went on, paying no attention to the blonde's excuses. "Then there's that time we walked in on you and Kadaj. It was hot enough Vincent started to spontaneously nosebleed."

Cloud groaned and wished he had just let Aerith go on with her plans of mandatory homosexuality. Yuffie's scream of... whatever one felt on walking in on a scene like that... was something he generally tried not to think of since it made his ears hurt. Even worse was the photo Cid had snapped with his camera of Cloud with his ass in the air, Kadaj spread beneath him.

"You remember those videos Zack sent me?" Aerith probed with the air of a runaway freight train. "I liked them. Heh, all my friends thought I had the best porn–"

"Aerith!" Cloud's face was a beet-red. Yes, he remembered those tapes very well. Just as well as he remembered that night the Soldier 1st had chained him to the bed and proceeded with hours of the kind of fun Cloud had actually been underage to have participated in at the time. And Zack had captured every glorious moment on tape – which he had mailed to his old sweetheart. Cloud had destroyed the tape when Aerith told him of it... He wouldn't put it past the young woman to have made copies. Many copies. Which she might have distributed...

This was why Cloud generally tried not to think of being gay. It brought to mind far too many terrifying blackmail possibilities he would rather not consider. Ever.

"Now who else have I seen you with?" Aerith was clearly under no such compunction to abstain from certain recollections. Cloud decided it was time to point out the flaw in Aerith's logic and end this nightmare ride of bad reminiscences.

"But Aerith, you said me, not other guys. So maybe you shouldn't turn the world gay."

A hard gleam entered the brunette's eye.

"Why Cloud, I do believe you're right... I shouldn't bother with the world. I just need to make you gay."