Pastthe Forgotten Present

I own Raven and the entirety of the other people you don't know. Muahaha. Seriously. No one else. I'm too poor to be sued for anything.

I am a yaoi fangirl, but the two main characters of this fic are straight. But worry not, I will have my yaoi yet... maniacal laugh

Chapter 4

My poor table. I finally get it fixed after Sephiroth's little escapade. (I made him repair it. Amazing what leveling a gun at someone's crotch can get you, whacked-out demi-god or no.) And now, it's gone to bits again, courtesy of the blond waste of pixels before me. Cloud fucking Strife in all his emo-tastic glory is lying in a pile of wood shards and what's left of my table. Sure, I have my .357 about an inch from his face, but that doesn't make it any better. I've hated him for a while, but this makes it real, instead of just about how Squeenix made him look and act. Now, it's because he broke my damn table and interrupted my attempt to get some much-needed nookie. Oh yeah, I want him D-E-D DEAD.

"If you have a brain in your skull, you will keep your mouth shut, regardless of who is standing behind me." He just glares at me, like he has a reason to. Little shit. "Yes, that's Sephiroth. No, you will not fight him. If you do, I will have a legally okay reason to pull this trigger." Oh, do I want to. Then, he gives me a reason. Yay.

In my nearly thirty years of life, I've learned that men can be awe-inspiring, cute, wondrous creatures… until they open their mouths.

"Not planning to destroy this world, too, are you, Sephiroth?" Then they're idiotic, worthless, freakish cannon fodder. Cloud and Seph… well, mostly Cloud, start a screaming match. Through his yelling, met with Seph's cold teasing, I snap.

I can't fucking do this. My life is starting to suck again. Someone kill me now. Please? I don't care how. I'll fucking pay you to make it go away. Just make it all disappear: My moronic millionaire brother, my soul-eating job, the fact that I'm turning thirty alone, that I haven't heard anyone tell me that I've done ANYTHING but look at fucking corpses right in a little over three years, 'I love you' in twice that without wanting something from my brother for it, and now I have two freaks from freaking video games about to fuck what little I have left of my sanity all to hell. Now it all comes to the rub, my snapping point.

"BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP!" Oh, yeah, I'm pissed. No, it's not P.M.S. I just have a virulent case of My-life-is-eating-me-alive syndrome. "Sephiroth! You're a freaking GENERAL. Act like one, for God's sake! Stop egging him on!" Is that… shame in his eyes? Holy hell. Unfortunately, once I get on a roll, I keep going. Nothing short of a tranquilizer stops me now. Those are not fun. "YOU!" I round on Cloud. Evil-Bitch-From-The-Ninth-Level-Of-Hell Mode is in full gear. "Are you BRAINDEAD? I tell you to NOT pick a fight with him, and what do you do? YOU PICK A FIGHT. I'm not your goddamn mother, either of you. You're grown men. Act at least better thanchildren. No cracking Jenova jokes, choco-ass. I have a gun in my hand and I will shoot you."

I feel a hand on my shoulder. It must look like I'm utterly loony, screaming at the top of my lungs at them. Seph just smiles down at me. Heh. His freak-out killed people, mine was just screaming. I do that whole breathing cool down thing I have to do when I lose it, (shows how many times I've done that) but it seems God does not want me sane. Or out of jail.

The doorbell rings. Good. Great. Fan-fucking-tastic. This is just what I need to send me to the loony bin once and for all. I put the gun away in the safe with its fellows and answer it. Whoever is behind that door better be bringing food, a raise, or something equally awesome, or I'll hurt them. Badly.

Because God hates me, my least favorite neighbor greets me with her annoying squeal of a voice. Bianca is 23, blonde-with-inch-long-brown-roots, 'hot' and a total dipshit. Here, let me show you. It may be stereotypical, but that's her. There's nothing new about her, not even in the dirty sense. Even her boobs are old. Probably crapped out tires stuffed in there, for all I know.

"I heard yelling and got scared." If THAT scared her from down the hall, she hasn't seen anything yet. The next she puts in a whisper. "Then I heard two guys. They sounded hot… Can I meet them?" I want to take out my gun and rid the earth of this Darwin Award in the making. (A/N: much loves to whoever knows what those are!) Future generations will worship me for it.

Most blondes, fake or real, I meet are smart, witty, and generally easy to get along with even if you're a social cripple like me. Bianca is just exceptional proof of why there are dumb-blonde jokes.

"………… You're joking, right?" She's stolen most of my boyfriends, so there's no goddamn way she's meeting Seph. Cloud, on the other hand… "You know, never-mind. I'll let you meet him. Hey, Cloud, c'mere." He deserves every STD she's got. This is SO much better than just shooting him. Less mess, more pain. Hooray for nosy sluts. Well, better her than the bible-thumper across the hall. He would not let me go this easy before converting, absolving, and then verbally crucifying me.

And like I'd let her know there's more than one. Pfft.

"What the hell do you wa-? Hello." He's bewitched, probably by the two cantaloupes in her too-small shirt. Though, I can't imagine why, living with Tifa and da-boobs-o-doom and all. I motion behind my back for Seph to stay out of view. Mine. At least for now.

My plan is working swimmingly. She's flirting with him in that come-get-me-I'll-totally-do-you way she always has, and he's so going for it. I won't put here what they say, because if it made me want to swear off sex even with Sephiroth, I doubt you want to read it. Oh, wow. Three minutes into meeting each other and she's offering to show him her apartment and he's accepted. HOORAH! Cloud, you are SO going to itch tomorrow. And I will laugh. I will laugh long and hard.

Once they're gone, I lock the door once more and turn back to Seph. I'm confused by why he looks angry. Maybe how he looks like he's going to eat me, and not in the fun way.

"Any particular reason you wanted to keep me hidden and not him?" Ouch. Was he jealous? Oh…crap. Wow. I thought he wouldn't want within ten feet of someone like Bianca…

"Because she's a slut and he deserves to get an STD or two... or ten. I wanted to be rid of him for a while, anyways." I hope he buys that. It's the best I can get without sounding like I'm high.

"That's not everything, was it, Raven?" He didn't. Da-… Wait. Did he just say my name? No 'Miss Soma' like he did at the mall? This is getting weird. Nevermind the fact that I like how he says it, but that's really cliché, so forget it. "If that was all, your motioning wouldn't have been so frantic." Wow. He's good. And really close, but let's not focus on that, shall we?

Now comes the hard part. Admitting I feel anything at all is hard for me. (Well, if you haven't figured 'why' out yet, you need to learn how to read.) Much less admitting that I feel something for someone I met two days ago. That's just HARD. And a slight bit stalker-like.

"She's been the person the last few..." I don't want to call them lovers, because there was no love on their side, just stupid, infantile greed. "Boyfriends have cheated on me with. I only send a guy to her if I hate them." Hate them very much… or am very drunk. Either one works, really.

He got closer, backing me into the door. That scent of the woods has wafted back into my nose, and evidently into my brain, making me have really, really wishful thinking… if 'wishful thinking' can possibly categorize these. I'd put it more under 'waking wet dream', but hey, whatever works.

"Nothing else behind that?" He smirked, making my mouth water. "Nothing to the… opposite effect?" Hot DAMN. You, stop that before I tear off your clothes and ravish you on my floor. I would, too. I'm that weird. And he's THAT hot. Of course, you all knew that already, or you wouldn't have read this far.

We stare at each other for a few moments, a little close for my nun-like comfort. He has that amused smirk that is all at once irritating and body-meltingly sexy.

Then we hear this.

"OH MY GOD! IT'S GREEN!"

We both blink a few times, as if trying to register if that really was whom we think it was. Once we seemed to have come to the same conclusion, a glance is shared between us. The glance turns into a staring contest. We hold for about half a minute. I'm the first to crack, laughing so hard it hurts. Sephiroth tries to hold it in, but then he, too, falls. After a few minutes, we have to hold onto each other for support we're laughing so hard. My laughs have turned into inconsolable giggles.

"How… how is it green? That's REVOLTING." Good choice of wording, there.

"I told you she was a slut. Though that IS a new development." He looked… confused. "It wasn't as obvious before." That didn't help. He still looked confused.

"I thought that was HER saying that…" That set me off again. I replied when I could breathe normally once more. Oh, god the IMAGE…

"Was he like that back at Shin-Ra?"

"So the stories told." Well, sucked to be Cloud. Then I realized I was still firmly in his arms. In my mirth I had let my guard down. Fuck. This isn't good. I tried pushing away, but he kept a firm hold. Yeah, trying to get out of a SOLDIER's hold might pose a few difficulties.

"Not so fast."

Well, that was fun to write. I tried pushing to another page, but the plot bunnies were attacking my brain, so I had to cut it here, just to make you all squirm.