A/N: Super important author's note this time, y'all! At least for one of my dear readers.
Wolfyhound, I want to make sure you know that I hear you. I am so sorry for how hard things have been for you. If you EVER need support, please let me know. You can PM or review me here all you'd like, but anons on Tumblr will allow me to respond to you more quickly! You can find the link to my Tumblr in my author's profile! (I'm assuming you'd prefer to stay on anon, but I'd welcome knowing you personally too!) I kept your review private rather than posting it on the page itself, because when you chose to share your story with others, I want it to be your choice and your empowerment. I'm proud of you for staying strong, for recognizing history repeating in you and stopping it, and for reaching out. I know none of that can be easy for you. Thank you so much for contacting me when you were having troubles, and I hope that our fanfiction community has provided a worthy escape for you to gather your thoughts. All my love to you!
And to all of you, my darlings, you are not alone. If you need me, I am here, and I will always try to be helpful for you.
Trauma warnings pick up again for this and the next chapter, especially in regards to scarring. As ever, please keep yourselves safe from triggering content!
Disclaimer: As always, I do not own FFVII or any of its subsidiaries! Please support the official releases!
Chapter 7
Cloud stood before the mirror, holding eye contact with himself. He forced his breathing to be slow and even as he steeled himself. It was the first time in a long time he'd taken more than a glimpse at himself and managed not to panic. He'd decided that morning that he needed to know how badly disfigured he was. He was sticking with his decision.
In ways, it was better than he'd thought. The scars on his torso were ugly, there was no doubt. Phoenix Downs were never meant to replace cures. But while he was staring at the layered feathery marks that rested over his heart from his resurrections, he could almost pretend the other scars weren't there. That was not the case with the loss of muscle that was clearly obvious, even from his peripheral vision. The feather marks were indistinct and faint—difficult to discern one from the other—but Cloud knew there were four of them. I wasn't the sort of thing one forgot.
"It's okay," he whispered to himself, feeling silly for the self-given pep talk, but finding himself in need of it. "It's just scars. Everyone has some scars."
'Except Sephiroth.' His mind supplied, as grim as it was unhelpful.
Cloud shook off the thought, wrapping his arms around himself defensively. He could feel his ribs. He needed to do a better job of gaining back the weight he'd lost. There were just too many memories waiting to choke back his appetite for him to gain any ground. For a moment, he forgot himself and glanced down at his chest. The stark pale scar streaking up past his folded arms to his clavicle caught him by surprise, despite the fact that he had known it was there. He clenched his eyes shut, trying to breathe.
He knew he had more important things to think about—knew that he had a whole set of new traumas that needed facing and things to be grateful for, but all he could think was what Sephiroth would think. Sephiroth, who had so often kissed Cloud's chest and murmured over how smooth it was. Who had smiled down at Cloud, his own pale skin unblemished despite his work as a General. And now here Cloud was, covered in ugly scars. How would Sephiroth ever be able to look at him with anything but sorrow and pity now.
He slid his eyes back up to the mirror, and forced his hands away from where they were covering him. The mark of the deep, ugly cut that had allowed Hojo's hands so deep inside him dominated his chest. The burn scars where electrodes had stuck were hardly noticeable in comparison. The place where the injections that had burned through his veins were administered wasn't obvious, but Cloud knew that up close there would be puckered marks where needles had jammed under his skin.
"Horrible," Cloud whispered as he stared at himself fixedly, unable to remove his gaze from the ghastly scars covering his torso now that he'd laid eyes on them.
"Cloud?" asked a low voice from the doorway.
Cloud jerked back from his study of himself, grabbing a towel off the rack swiftly to cover his chest with. His hands shook as he pressed the light cover over his marred skin. In the doorway, Sephiroth lifted his hands in quiet surrender, worry written on his face. Cloud hated that look of concern as much as he relied it. It meant Sephiroth loved him, of course, which was always going to be a good thing. But it also meant that he was still hurting. That Cloud was still causing him pain.
"I'm sorry," Sephiroth murmured. "I didn't mean to intrude. Did I startle you?"
"Seph," Cloud whispered. "I was just, um... Just finishing up. I'll be out in a little while."
"Alright," Sephiroth replied softly, giving a small nod. He hovered in the doorway, as though waiting. Cloud shifted uneasily.
"Could I maybe have some privacy?" Cloud muttered.
"What you said," Sephiroth replied, rather than commenting on Cloud's request. "Is it your scars?"
Cloud twitched, tensing. He held the towel a little closer. His fingers hurt from clenching it too tight.
"That's what I thought," Sephiroth murmured, walking forward slowly. Cloud took a step back from him.
"Don't," he muttered, averting his eyes.
"I won't do anything to expose you," Sephiroth promised, brushing his fingers over Cloud's hair. "I understand if they are hurting you. Or triggering memories. You don't have to be ashamed, though. Not for any reason."
"They're hideous," Cloud found himself saying. "You liked me the way I used to look."
"I like you no matter how you look," Sephiroth promised, cupping Cloud's left cheek gently.
"Don't just say that," Cloud muttered, turning his face away from Sephiroth's gentle fingers. "You... They're bad. I'm all skinny and scarred, and you're probably just going to yell at me for being worried about what you think of me when I should be worried about recovering, but—"
"I'm not going to yell at you," Sephiroth replied, his hand lowering back to his side after Cloud rebuked it.
"Besides," Cloud whispered. "It's just another thing that makes it that much more obvious how far I am below you. You don't have any scars."
Sephiroth went still for a moment, his eyes going distant. He spoke only after a long while, his voice soft and distant.
"Do you know why you scar, Cloud?" He whispered, his voice low. "Human cells survive by replicating themselves. Copies of copies. Usually it's a calm, slow process. The body can take its time perfecting the replacements. When you're damaged or hurt, your body responds in panic. It replicates the cells you need as quickly as it can. It tends to just...Pile them on. Like a bandage. Over time, the unnecessary ones tend to fade, but some of the extra imperfect cells remain. That is all a scar is—your body bandaging what was once a wound."
"That doesn't change anything," Cloud whispered, looking down. "It's still ugly... It's terrible."
Sephiroth went still, his brilliant green eyes lowering and tracing over the tiles of the floor. Cloud watched his chest rise and fall under his shirt as he breathed, waiting for him to leave, as he'd requested. He knew Sephiroth would try to argue, but he also knew he wasn't wrong.
"It is just a mark," Sephiroth argued softly.
"It's never going to go away, though," Cloud replied, shaking his head, trying to ignore the way his hands shook on the towel he was holding close. "I'm always going to have this thing on me, and you'll see it, and-"
"Cloud," Sephiroth interrupted. "I need you to wait here a moment."
Cloud stared at him, startled by the unorthodox interjection. It was not at all part of Sephiroth's usual script. He never walked away from their arguments, no matter how small. He watched the man sweep out of the room with a flicker of silver hair, waiting with ill-concealed anxiety for his return.
Sephiroth returned with a red marker. Cloud wasn't sure where he'd gotten it from. He hadn't noticed it around the house. but he supposed every house ought to have a marker somewhere. He watched as Sephiroth stepped in front of the mirror and pulled off his shirt, marker still in hand.
"The difference between us," Sephiroth whispered, "Is not that you have been hurt and I have not. It is that you cannot see my scars."
Cloud realized what Sephiroth was about to do a moment before the heavy tip of the marker touched the pale, perfect skin just below his collar bone and traced outwards. The violently red mark was stark on the otherwise pale and unmarred expanse of skin. Cloud gaped, a hand half-raised to stop Sephiroth from marring himself. Sephiroth's eyes stayed fixed in the mirror as he pulled the marker free of his skin, taking a slow breath. Cloud watched the man's eyes trace over the mark he'd made on his reflection. Then Sephiroth's marker descended again.
This time it struck out over his stomach, a sharp slash of the ink that left Sephiroth's handsome muscles with a line across them almost as long as Sephiroth's forearm. The marker struck again, and this time with a line that went straight down Sephiroth's forearm. This one he dotted, and Cloud shivered at the implication. He'd seen marks like that. Sephiroth wasn't just drawing injuries. He was giving Cloud a map of what had been done. A wound at his chest, a wound at his stomach. On his arm, a dissection
The marker struck again and again. Cloud found himself shivering as Sephiroth's map grew. He watched the dotted lines appear over and over. Watch the memory of injuries flash through Sephiroth's eyes as he added puncture marks and slices. Cloud could not help a shallow gasp when Sephiroth lifted his hand, his expression fixed, and drew a sharp line across his cheek. His lips twitched into a faint sneer as he stared at his reflection. He dragged the marker over the corner of his lips. It pulled down his lower lip as he made the heavy mark, leaving a red stain as bright as blood on his pale lips.
He stared into the mirror a moment before the sneer turned into a snarl as he lowered the marker past his jaw. He dragged a dotted line across his throat, his breath hitching at the touch. Cloud watched the tendons strain under the caress of memories.
"Seph," Cloud whispered. "Seph, enough."
Sephiroth did not listen. He added a dotted line at the corner of his eye, extending over his eyelid. Cloud shuddered at the implications of where Hojo's scalpel had gone, his eyes burning with tears as he watched the man he loved disfigure himself. He moved forward, calling the other man's name again, softly. Sephiroth's eyes were distant—fixated. Cloud caught his hand mid-way through adding a mark at the base of his jaw, making the marker twitch as he stopped it's terrible motion.
"It's alright," Cloud soothed softly, the towel he'd covered himself with discarded and forgotten. "It's alright, Seph. I understand."
Sephiroth stared at himself in the mirror. His breaths were shallow, but steady. Cloud could not help but watch the rise and fall of his chest—the way the lines he'd drawn on himself shifted as the skin moved over muscle and bone. It was a terrible picture that Sephiroth had painted him. He held on to the man's wrist, even as Sephiroth moved the marker away from his skin.
"It is not," Sephiroth said softly, after a long while of simply breathing. "It is not that I have not been hurt. It is only that I do not scar."
Cloud had nothing he could say in response. He lifted onto his toes and pressed a kiss to the mark on Sephiroth's jawline—the only piece of his face he could reach easily with Sephiroth facing the mirror distantly, ramrod straight. The moment his lips touched Sephiroth's skin, the man let out a slow breath and turned into the touch. The next time Cloud kissed him, it was on the lips. He felt the marker touch his own chest, caught between them, but ignored it completely. He closed his eyes into the contact, winding his fingers through Sephiroth's hair. He felt the once-General's tense muscles slowly settle—felt the moment Sephiroth released some of the tension that had held him so stiff he was trembling.
Cloud pulled back slowly, running his fingertips lightly over Sephiroth's cheekbone, tracing the mark there.
"Don't cry," Sephiroth whispered, his eyes fixated on Cloud's face.
Cloud hadn't even realized he was. He sniffled and wiped the back of his hand over his cheeks, wiping away the tears. He tried not to stare at the patchwork that his lover had turned himself into. The drawn-on scars painted a gory picture of Sephiroth's past. He tried not to think about what the dotted lines had been for. Especially the one across Sephiroth's throat that looked like it ought to have killed him.
"You shouldn't have done this to yourself," Cloud whispered, blinking back more tears and sliding his hands over Sephiroth's side, tracing the drawn-on bite marks. "You didn't have to."
"I could not put it in words," Sephiroth replied after a moment. "I have never been able to."
"Still," Cloud whispered, stepping forward to press his face against Sephiroth's chest. "Still…"
"Did it help?" Sephiroth asked softly.
"Maybe," Cloud shook his head, pressing his forehead against Sephiroth's warm chest. "I don't know. I don't even care about that right now. I just…"
His voice broke, and it felt like his heart was squeezing inside him. He clenched his teeth to keep from keening his sorrow aloud, and burrowed his face against Sephiroth's chest, his fingers resting over the lines that streaked down his shoulders. He pressed kiss after kiss to the usually invisible scars, trying to ingrain them in his memory.
"Oh," Sephiroth whispered, lowering a hand to rest on his back. "Oh, Cloud, I did not intend this to draw attention to myself. It is only that I do not want you to feel alone. Not in your scars or in what he did."
"Why didn't anyone help you?" Cloud whispered.
"No one knew," Sephiroth replied softly. "No one could. Or they'd have been…" He trailed off, averting his eyes. They were no longer as distant as they were when he was marking himself, but they still looked glazed and foggy.
Cloud stared up at the look and felt quietly sick. The stony look that Sephiroth so often held looked different with the red color slashing violently across his pale skin.
"Let's get you cleaned up," Cloud whispered after a moment. "If I can smell the marker on you it's got to be making you lightheaded by now, Mr. Enhanced Senses."
"You do not have to joke," Sephiroth's wide hand cupped his cheek, and he drew him into a soft kiss. "I will clean up and rejoin you soon."
"I'd rather stay with you," Cloud placed his hand over Sephiroth's, leaning into the warm contact. "If that's okay."
"I would never turn down your presence," Sephiroth whispered. "If you are comfortable with staying."
"If you don't mind all this." Cloud whispered, gesturing weakly to himself.
He regretted the words instantly. Sephiroth's brows twisted and his eyes lowered guiltily. Cloud saw the look of failure in the man and mentally scolded himself, shifting forward to carefully cup Sephiroth's chin in his own hand.
"I know you don't," he said softly to the man. "I do, though. It's… It's hard to think of it from your eyes. I just see how… How thin I am, and how stark the scars are."
"You will regain your muscle mass," Sephiroth said firmly. "And your scars will fade."
"And until then, I'm going to look like I just popped out of a prison camp or a horror movie." Cloud muttered bitterly.
"And I do not?" Sephiroth asked.
"No," Cloud murmured. "Never. You look like a warrior."
"That is what you look like to me," Sephiroth whispered. "You look like the only person in the world who has stayed. Despite everything, you are still with me. You still care. You still worry. Even after all that has been done to you. You are as much a warrior as I, Cloud. In my eyes if not in yours."
"Come on," Cloud rested a hand over the dotted line down Sephiroth's center. "Shower. I don't want you to have to think about this every time you look in the mirror."
They turned the water on as hot as it would go with the old water-heater in the cabin's basement. Sephiroth carded his fingers through Cloud's hair as Cloud soaped up the red lines on his skin and rinsed them off over and over, dimming the lines, but unable to remove them. Sephiroth took over to wash his face, and Cloud watched him scrub at the lines without having to see where they were. It made his heart ache to know how very specifically Sephiroth remembered every mark.
He looked over his lover's legs, and tried to breathe through the knowledge that if he had time, Sephiroth could probably cover those long, muscled legs in scars as well. That if he could reach, he might cover his back in them as well.
It wasn't a conscious decision that drove him to press his face against Sephiroth's sternum in the middle of the shower. The very thought of the hurt his love had endured drove him to hold him close. Sephiroth didn't protest. He just let out a slow breath and wound his arms around Cloud and held him in return. Cloud could feel him breathe, their hold tightening with each inhalation.
They stood wound together until the shower ran cold. Sephiroth turned it off with a foot, and Cloud had to laugh at the utter ridiculousness of the move.
"I didn't want to let you go," Sephiroth muttered almost grumpily.
"You're adorable," Cloud responded. "I can't believe you drew all over yourself in permanent marker. You'll give yourself ink poisoning like that."
Sephiroth scoffed at the very notion, and Cloud nuzzled even more deeply into his damp skin. For a moment more they were still, then Sephiroth stepped carefully away, drawing back the shower curtain and yanking a towel off the rack to wrap around Cloud's shoulders.
"You're starting to shiver," he explained softly, pulling his sopping wet hair over one shoulder to wring it out into the shower. "It is cold with the water off."
"You're warm, though," Cloud muttered.
Sephiroth gave him a half smile and stepped out of the shower, wrapping his hair into a turban with one of their rather scant selection of towels. "I will be warmer with both of us dry."
Cloud shivered briefly despite himself, and rubbed himself off swiftly with the towel. He didn't have any clothes cleaner than the ones he'd been wearing—Despite Zack's delivery, they still had to wash them by hand—so he pulled his pants back on, sighing to himself. He'd wash the clothes he had again that evening. If nothing else it would appease Sephiroth's unease with dirty things.
He looked up, watching Sephiroth from under the spikes of his damp hair. The tall man was looking at himself in the mirror, a weary look on his face. As Cloud observed him, Sephiroth lifted a hand to drop a delicate touch to his own neck, tracing over the dotted line there.
"Seph?" Cloud whispered. "Would you… Leave your shirt off?"
Sephiroth jerked his hand away from his neck as though he'd been burned, and Cloud quickly averted his eyes, pretending he hadn't been watching. There was a moment of silence before the man spoke again.
"I will if you will," he murmured softly.
"But—"
"I want to learn your new scars as I have learned every inch of you," Sephiroth murmured. "And I can only imagine you would like me to stay shirtless so that you can learn my old scars. We may as well combine our efforts."
"Will you let me touch?" Cloud lifted his head to look at Sephiroth, the towel still draping over his shoulders, held closed by his hands over his chest.
"If you will," Sephiroth glanced once to his reflection before returning his weary look to Cloud. "Then I will reciprocate."
Cloud bit his lip, clenching his hand a little tighter in the towel that guarded his scars from sight. Then he let out a slow breath, blinking back tears, and let the towel fall open, leaving his thin chest bared before his lover. He averted his eyes, rubbing silently at the mark on his wrist that despite all the ugliness of his scars was still the most shameful to him.
Sephiroth bent slowly before Cloud, tilting his head to press a soft, warm kiss to the center of Cloud's chest, where they two top parts of the Y-shaped scar met. Cloud let out a shaking breath at the tender touch, and tried to fight back memories of watching hands sink inside him past the parted flesh.
"I might be sick," he whispered. "Just to warn you."
"If you need to, that's alright," Sephiroth said in reply, looking up at Cloud from behind heavy, dark lashes. He always looked tired—his eyes a little bloodshot no matter the time of day. The stark red color of the dotted line arching over his eyelid matched the blood vessels with disturbing precision.
Cloud felt the sickness recede slightly as he took in the look of Sephiroth's face with its drawn-on scars. He lifted a hand carefully, tracing lightly over the marks. Sephiroth closed his eyes under the touch, pulling back after a moment of being caressed.
"The living room is better suited to such investigations." He said softly, his face averted.
He looked wounded, and Cloud felt rage rise in the place of sorrow. Rage at the man who had turned his beautiful, powerful lover into someone who could have such a look on his face. Just for a moment, he wished that Hojo was alive again so that he could destroy him all over. He shivered the thought away, and nodded to Sephiroth, trying to summon a smile for him and almost succeeding.
It was obvious that Sephiroth was far from relaxed as they walked into the living room. Their fingers tangled together gently to keep them connected as they moved. Sephiroth always prowled when he was tense—a motion too smooth to be considered stalking, and yet distinctly defensive. Cloud watched him, and felt his unease slowly melting in the face of Sephiroth's own uncertainty.
"You didn't think this through, did you?" He sat lightly on the couch next to Sephiroth, perching lightly still facing his lover.
"This was not exactly my plan, no," Sephiroth murmured after a moment, fiddling with the towel he'd wrapped his hair in until it came apart and his hair tumbled in wet disarray down his back. "I may have panicked slightly. It had never occurred to me that your scars would bother you."
"Wouldn't they bother you?" Cloud asked.
Sephiroth looked down at himself and gave a helpless shrug, his own fingers lifting to trace over the drawn-on puncture wounds on his side. "I suppose. But I have never considered it before. It is just one of the things that is impossible for me. I cannot cry, and I cannot scar. It makes it difficult to tell how I should feel about either."
Cloud almost commented on the perks of being a soldier, but held himself back. The look on Sephiroth's face was anything but grateful. The blond bit his lip, staring at the distant look in his lover's eyes. He couldn't quite name it. Regret was the word that came to mind, but it didn't quite fit. Pensive reflection, perhaps. Cloud shook away the thought and let out a breath. He didn't need to know exactly what Sephiroth was feeling.
"So," he asked softly after a moment of silence and separation had passed between them. "Can I touch?"
"Yes," Sephiroth replied, giving a solemn nod, the strange look fading to be replaced with his usual stony calm. "So long as I may do the same."
"I'm alright with that."
The first touches were fleeting and delicate. A careful slide of fingertips over each other's bodies. Cloud traced the faded red marks on Sephiroth's arm carefully, and tried not to let the touches brushing over the burn scars on his chest bother him. His skin was sensitive, and goosebumps raised wherever Sephiroth's fingers traced. He felt sick feeling that tender touch on his scarred flesh, and he tried to force his attention onto his lover's marks.
He swallowed, stroking his fingers over the red marks on Sephiroth's arm, trying to focus on them. His panic subsided as he focused on his touch on his lover, replaced by a kind of terrible awe. Everywhere he touched there was another mark to touch. A dotted line across his forearm, a thick slash across his pectoral, the dots over his collarbone...
"There are so many," Cloud whispered after a long moment, when he couldn't handle the silence.
"They are not so numerous," Sephiroth whispered, his fingers splaying over the wide scar on Cloud's front. "And as I said, they will fade."
"I mean on you," Cloud whispered. "There are so many, Seph. Gods..."
His eyes burned with tears, and his voice was choked. He saw Sephiroth's brows twist in worry, but he couldn't say anything to relieve that worry. Cloud knew he should have been concerned about Sephiroth's touches on his thin, ugly body, but from up close the size and density of the patchwork marks on the Soldier was overwhelming. Cloud shook his head and leaned forward, sliding out from under Sephiroth's fingers to press his face against the man's warm chest.
"You don't need to cry," Sephiroth whispered. "I'm alright, Cloud."
The words just made it worse. He sounded so concerned. So confused. Cloud shook his head, trembling against Sephiroth's chest, his hands pressing gently against his lover's sides. Even with his eyes closed he felt like he could still see the terrible slashes of red staining Sephiroth's marble-perfect flesh.
Eventually, Sephiroth just wrapped his arms around Cloud and rubbed circles on his back as Cloud shook and sobbed against him, crying for both their pain. He couldn't stop thinking about the fact that Sephiroth could never have cried over these marks. It was so horrifically unfair, Cloud thought, that his beautiful, handsome lover had gone through so much suffering, and had never been able to release that pain in such a basic human way.
"Oh my Cloud," Sephiroth whispered, drawing the blond into his lap and curling around him. "I never know what to do when you cry."
"I'm sorry," Cloud whispered. "I wish I could have been there for you. I wish I could have carried you out of there like you did for me."
"Don't," Sephiroth whispered, his voice sharp for a moment and his hands tightening. Cloud went still briefly under the fierce touch, then relaxed as Sephiroth did, the ex-general's wide hands smoothing over his back gently. "Don't say that like I was on time to help you."
"You were though," Cloud whispered. "You saved me."
"I could not save you when it mattered," Sephiroth whispered. "If I had the skill to escape at all, I never should have let him touch you in the first place."
"Idiot," Cloud snapped, sitting back to glare at Sephiroth through his tears. "Don't you get it? If it wasn't for you I wouldn't be here. I might not always… I might not always react the right way, and I might be broken and scarred and ugly, but that's so much better than not being with you."
He barely made it through the words before his voice failed him, leaving him sitting in Sephiroth's lap, sniffling and holding back tears. Sephiroth gazed at him from bloodshot eyes accented by streaks of red marker. Cloud waited for his judgement, swallowing through his misery. Then Sephiroth let out a slow breath and sat forward enough to press his face to Cloud's chest.
"Whatever else, I am glad that you are here," Sephiroth murmured after a moment. "And if you truly feel bad for not saving me," he hesitated, as though struggling with the words that needed saying next, "then please do not. You have saved me, Cloud. In more ways that I can bring myself to tell you."
"I love you," Cloud whispered, cupping each of Sephiroth's cheeks in a hand, running his thumb lightly over the pale remains of the draw-on scar across his cheekbone. "And I'm sorry I get so wrapped up in my head I forget to say it sometimes."
"You have a lot to think about," Sephiroth murmured softly, stroking Cloud's hair gently. "I do not begrudge you taking your time to process. And when you feel like yourself again—and you will feel like yourself again—I will still be right here."
"And you say you're not good at things like this," Cloud whispered, pressing a soft kiss to Sephiroth's lips. "I won't freak out anymore. If you touch my scars. It...Might be nice. To feel something gentle there."
Sephiroth gave him a half-smile that curled the red mark across his lips, tilting into the soft touch on his cheek. "It has been for me."
Cloud let out a soft sigh, sliding his hands back into Sephiroth's hair as the silver-haired man leaned forward to ghost a kiss across his scarred sternum. He closed his eyes, focusing on the feeling of the gentle lips caressing his skin. He let Sephiroth shift him, putty under the warm hands of his lover. He lay back on the sofa at the tactile urging, letting Sephiroth kiss and nuzzle and stroke over his chest, covering the ugly scars with marks of affection. Cloud shivered at the touch of Sephiroth's cold hair trailing across his skin, stroking his fingers through the damp mass as Sephiroth showered him in love.
"My turn next." He muttered.
"Hush," Sephiroth's lips curled in a smile even as he replied. "One thing at a time."
They spent the evening on the sofa, kissing each other's scars and exchanging soft, kind words. Sephiroth was asleep long before Cloud, his hair spilling off the sofa, still drying. Cloud lay across his lap, tracing gentle lines back and forth over the marked scars on his lover's collarbone.
"I won't ever ask you," he whispered to the man as he felt himself sinking into sleep, "not after all this. But I wish I knew what happened to you."
"That," the soft voice of a woman whispered, "I can do for you, my poor abused child."
