Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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In the bright days, when the world was young, when Minerva looked upon her children and smiled in delight at what she had wrought, there was no need for speech. There were hands, and there were bodies. There were the gentle touches of affection. The rough hugs of comfort. There were the long looks of love. And it pleased her deeply.

But she was not, and never had been the only god. And the others, the bright ones, saw her quiet humans listen to the wind, and they smiled hungry smiles. For monsters have always been hungry, and humans have always been food.

The first sirens were born on the waters, for Minerva’s humans swam less gracefully than they ran. And for many days, she could only watch as her treasures followed the wind’s sweet music and drowned in the frothing hungry waves.

When they came to her, arms outstretched, she answered.

Minerva gifted them with voices. And with their voices they created words, and language. Warnings and stories and songs of their own. And Minerva watched them with pride, turning the weapon she had given them to defend themselves into a new way to love, a new way of affection, a new way of comfort.

But still the brighter ones hungered for them. And her humans were mighty and brave, but the brighter ones were not always fair.

At last, her humans were at a brink. They huddled together around the little fires they built, whispering their stories and comforts so that the night might not mimic their voices. In these nights, the eldest woman came to her, wrinkled hands outstretched, her gifted voice cracking and trembling with age.

“My goddess,” she prayed. “You have given us so many gifts. Please allow this old woman the strength to protect her children.”

Minerva thought of the awful monsters in the dark, and their gifts made for destruction. And she knew that to give her humans more than she had might lead them down the same path. But that, she decided, may yet have been better than extension. And perhaps, if they were as good and as kind as she hoped, it could still be prevented.

“Grandmother,” she answered. “That gift which I have given you shall I change. To those with souls of iron, those with clear eyes and hearts deep as oceans, I shall gift the power of truth. That which you say, that which you mean, so shall it be.”

The grandmother returned to her huddled fire. And she said ‘This fire will keep us safe.’ And this she meant, and so it was.

Thus the first bard was made. Many more followed after. And Minerva sat back, and hoped that which she had wrought would not mean destruction.

“Ladies and Gentlemen!” The face on the TV was yelling. “You’ve waited, you’ve lifted your voices and your hands, and here we are! Counting down to the final competition round of Midgar Star, the show where you decide once and for all: Who Keeps Midgar Rocking!”

Sephiroth kept his eyes down. His expression neutral. The woman applying his makeup darkened his eyeliner with another coat. Kohl dark on pale skin. He knew the color palette. Knew he’d be shining under the lights. His heart beat empty in his chest.

“Before we begin our countdown show of our favorite moments, let’s meet our finalists!”

“Lift your chin,” the makeup artist instructed, and Sephiroth did. Kept his face relaxed and passive while she sharpened his cheekbones a little further with precise motions. The TV was reflecting in the mirror and he stared without seeing it.

“From Migar’s underbelly, the Dark Horse band of the competition, Avalanche!”

The screen flashed to their band photo, the superimposed lens flare a jarring contrast with the photograph, all grit and grime. They were not made for a sparkling backdrop or a shining stage. But there was no doubting their power. The words, the music, it rang True through rough voices and rougher music. Perhaps truer for its imperfection. They were filled with conviction, and even through the camera lens, even through the distortion of screens, their bardic power remained potent. It had gotten them further than they should have gone. Much further than Shinra wanted them to go.

Their singer stood at the front of their photo, his arms crossed defensively, showing lean muscle and the wolf tattoo on his shoulder. He was glaring at the camera, blue eyes hard, his piercings gleaming dull silver. His bassist was grinning to the side, rakish and vicious under his feathery dark hair. His clothes were in tatters and a bruise blossoming on his cheek, as if he’d been fighting minutes before the photograph. Leaning against him was lead guitar, a woman with a sweet face and a gentle smile. She wore pink and white under her leather jacket, but she held her guitar like the weapon it was. The keyboardist flanked the guitarist on the other side, her dark eyes fixed and her hands lifted before her, as if they’d caught her cracking her knuckles. Looming behind them all was their drummer, his missing arm lifted, with its drumming prosthetic firmly attached, pointing skyward.

Sephiroth didn’t know them. Not really. They’d been competing for months now as the competition dwindled, as they passed round after round of test. More than once he’d caught eyes with the blond singer. More than once the man had tried to approach him. But Sephiroth…

The screen dropped them abruptly, their photograph flipping over and over. And then Sephiroth’s stomach dropped, because they were still using his publicity photo.

“Your favorite and mine,” the announcer was saying, “The band SOLDIER, fronted by Shinra’s own Sephiroth, the demon of Wutai. They say he could kill you with a single word, and yet I can’t help hanging on every word he says!”

“Part your lips,” the makeup artist instructed, but Sephiroth couldn’t focus anymore.

The picture still showed the three of them together. He felt his heart thundering. His head swimming. Genesis and Angeal, still beside him, flanking him on either side. The soft smile on Genesis’s face, the humor in his eyes, he remembered taking that picture, remembered…

“Of course,” The announcer was saying, “The tragedy that befell our competitors is hardly a secret. We can’t imagine that tonight’s performance will be easy on the remaining—”

Sephiroth stood, turning away from his shining reflection, from the tv, from the affronted makeup artist. He walked away without a word, though she called after him.

He couldn’t risk speaking. Not ever again. Not except from the carefully crafted scripts he was handed. Those that had been proofread by a hundred eyes each. That had been checked over and over, to ensure that he wouldn’t kill through them. It wouldn’t do to publicly broadcast a killing word, after all. It would be a PR nightmare.

He almost ran into Avalanche as he stormed away. He halted in his steps, watching as the guitarist–Aerith, he remembered vaguely—ran a hand through Zack, the bassist’s hair, tugging and straightening his haphazard spikes into something that seemed in better order. Watched as the drummer Barret burst out laughing at something Tifa the keyboard player muttered to him. Watched as their singer, Cloud Strife, stepped away from the group towards someone.

Sephiroth recognized Genesis, of course. Anyone would, even with his bangs pulled protectively over one side of his face. Even with his voice ruined and cracked as Sephiroth knew it was. Even with the hunch in his posture and the tremble in his hands.

It was a trap, of course. The one he’d known Shinra would spring. He hadn’t realized who would be chosen to whisper the poison in Cloud’s ear. Who would be working the spell that broke his confidence. Some part of him was glad, that Genesis still had the strength. He had always been a master of venomous words. But as he watched Cloud pale and balk, he only felt sad, and tired, and sick. The blond drew away, slipping past his band with a wave of his hand to keep them at bay.

Genesis started to turn towards him. Sephiroth fled.

“Why don’t you sing?” Genesis asked when they first met, young and bright-eyed and going to war. “Hollander said you never do. Are you tone deaf?”

“No.” Sephiroth had muttered, annoyed by being forced into company. He didn’t need a band to go to Wutai. He didn’t need support. He resented it. Resented them. “Singing leaves you vulnerable. Opens you to attack. Speaking is a true warrior’s way.”

“Perhaps there’s room for more than one combat style,” Angeal had said, hand lifted, trying to play peacemaker before the feud could truly begin.

“Song is the gift of the goddess,” Genesis had snapped back. “To disdain it is to disdain her. I’ll prove you wrong.”

“You can try.” Sephiroth had said. Angeal had only sighed, already acting too old for his age to counter-balance their petty squabble.

If only it had stayed so petty.

The theaters on Loveless street were some of the oldest buildings in Midgar. They had support structures beneath the plate that functioned as extra storage space, dressing rooms, sometimes even living quarters for the staff there. They had been added to, edited, modeled and re-modeled. They were the underground tunnels of the bard’s world. Genesis called them The Catacombs.

That was where Sephiroth escaped to. The path was as familiar to him as it had once been terrifying. When they were just back from the war, still bruised. When the words ‘bleed’ still weighed heavy on his tongue, from when he’d screamed it in true anger to a battalion of Wutaian troops who had injured Angeal. He’d watched as the arteries of those within earshot split under the weight of his word. Watched the ground soak through with his instruction.

And then they’d brought him home and put him in a shining white costume and pushed him onto stage with hastily memorized lines, a thrumming back-beat, and his only friends billed as his backup dancers and support singers.

It was always doomed, he thought as he wound his way through the dark concrete hallways underneath the stage. He could still hear the pulsing music, distantly. He checked his phone. An hour till they called him.

He slumped against a wall, feeling despair heavy in his heart. His tongue felt wrong in his mouth, dry and awkward and awful. He tasted blood. If he opened his mouth, if he spoke, would they see the blood on his teeth? Would it leak past his lips? Would they finally understand that he was no idol, no god, not one of Minerva’s bards but one of the Bright Ones monsters?

He was startled from his thoughts by the sound of a shaking breath, catching in the empty hallway around him. He’d thought he would be alone down here but…

He pushed off the wall to go before someone found him. Before he could, he heard a shaking voice, trembling as if restraining tears. It pulled at his heart so hard he almost lost his breath. Almost gave himself away.

“No one and nothing,” the voice sang softly, tremulous and watery. “No one and nothing and always have been.”

The melody was low, almost tuneless. Rough and raw in a way that Sephiroth recognized instantly as the bard from Avalanche. The blond singer with the hard eyes and the aching voice. Cloud. Sephiroth hesitated, his hand still on the wall. The words must have been Genesis’s. A poison made for a young man from nowhere, with nothing to his name but one competition that no matter how well he performed in would grant him nothing but second place.

It had been rigged from the start, and everyone in Shinra knew it. After all, the funding for the show had to come from somewhere. Sephiroth had no illusions about the fact that he was military propaganda incarnate.

“Nothing and no one,” Cloud sang again, his voice a whisper in the empty halls. “And yet here I am.”

And Sephiroth heard it then. Heard the swell of music that appeared for some bards. He’d heard it happen with Genesis twice. With Angeal once. It was rare. It was Truth. It was… private. He should have left. But the music coiled around him, surprising and enrapturing. Not thumping bass and wailing guitar, but a cold, lonesome wind instrument. Something old. Something that spoke to his very bones.

Cloud sang.

The sunlight shines, the crows still call
Before the night begins to fall
My heart is cold but in the black
I know I cannot turn my back
Nothing and no one
No one and nothing
But what is the wind to the impartial sea

Sephiroth shuddered, his eyes falling closed. There was Truth in the words. The sort that drove monsters away from fires. And it was a truth that he wanted. He could feel it sinking into his chest, latching on hard. He felt it calling him. No one, it said. Nothing. Weapon, killer, what are you.

Cloud sang on.

In brightest days, grandmother cried
Will your children be denied?
And who was she to speak out thus
Without her words we fade to dust
No one and nothing
Nothing and no one
But still the goddess heart she won

Sing, Sephiroth’s heart cried. Sing, sing, the music is empty. Sing, he is lonely. Sing with him.

He bit his tongue. He tasted blood.

Cloud faltered.

But I am not she, no-one’s savior
I am no god and I hold no god’s favor
I am not…

He faltered. Faded. Sephiroth felt it slipping away, the spell cracking at the edges.

I…

His voice broke. Shuddered. Sephiroth’s heart followed. Genesis had worked his magic well. The bard’s heart was a fickle thing. Without it, without the certainty, the power died. And Sephiroth felt it dying, like a bird in the crosshairs. Like blood in the water in a world full of shark’s.

And Sephiroth couldn’t stand it.

“Don’t stop.” He whispered into the echoing call, catching the edges of Cloud’s fraying spell. He felt it latch onto him, overwhelm him, like the tide, till he was drowning in the music in Cloud’s mind. The haunting call of the winds, the rise and fall of a heartbeat not his own. Sing, his heart screamed, sing sing sing. But he could not. He never had. It was dangerous. And yet…

Cloud gasped, and the music shuddered and lurched.

“Don’t stop,” Sephiroth repeated, a plea more than it was a spell. And for once, he was not turned away.

I am not a warrior bearing the light
But though I will fail, I know I must fight
Nothing, nothing
No one, no one
Only myself
Only me

The music faded. Not joy, but resolution. Not victory, but a question. Not quite a curse, but not a cure either. The last solemn notes of the wooden flute faded.

“Um,” Cloud’s voice whispered, not singing now, only rough as if from crying. “Are you… That is… Sephiroth?”

“I’m sorry,” Sephiroth said in reply, the words carefully chosen. Do no harm, speak carefully, he has been hurt enough already.

The was a long pause, then Cloud’s voice drifted through the halls again.

“Are you here to curse me too?” He asked, sounding tired.

Sephiroth closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall in exhaustion. The music had drained him. The attachment. He wanted…

“No.” He said after a long moment. “Please do not…” He hesitated. Chose and re-chose his words. “I hope you will forgive Genesis,” He said instead, not a command, not even a desire. He kept his voice flat and empty. “He is unwell.”

That rang true enough, but it was not a curse or a blessing or an attack. It was only true.

There was a moment of silence that seemed to stretch years. Sephiroth almost retreated. Then quiet footsteps approached. He held his ground, waiting.

Cloud stepped around the corner, his eyes dark with eyeliner, smudged from tears. His expression was tense and suspicious, but there was still that raw, glowing edge to him. That thing that drew Sephiroth every time he sang. The truth that rang through an imperfect voice.

“You look exhausted.” Cloud said after a long moment, confusion crossing his face. “Why are you down here”

“I wanted to be alone.” Sephiroth said before he could think to stop himself from answering truthfully.

“Sorry,” Cloud muttered. “I didn’t think anyone would—”

“No,” Sephiroth shook his head, stepping off the wall slowly. He felt the glitter and makeup on his cheeks tug lightly as he spoke. Knew he was a shining false idol to Cloud’s rough-hewn truth. “It was not…you I was escaping.”

Cloud’s lips quirked up at the corner in a charming half-smile.

“You jumped in my song.” He said, with an edge like happiness in his words. “I didn’t think you were the sort. You’re always so distant on stage.”

“It was beautifully sung.” Sephiroth suddenly felt that he didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he crossed his arms over his chest, trying not to stare to blatantly.

Cloud was silent a moment, then he hummed softly, not musical but thoughtful. His hands hooked into the deep pockets of his pants, and Sephiroth envied him. His performance clothes never had pockets…

“I’m still planning to beat you,” Cloud informed him, rather bashfully. “But… Thank you. For helping me through the end there.”

“It was a good song.” Sephiroth brushed some of the glitter off his shoulder with a little scowl. “I’m only sorry I couldn’t bring you a stronger resolution.”

“It was resolution enough.” Cloud nodded to himself, leaning on the wall as he sized Sephiroth up.

Sephiroth didn’t know what to say to that. He cleared his throat after a moment of silence.

“I should—”

“What happened?” Cloud asked, interrupting him. “You’re different from the last time we saw you. We heard there was a problem, just like everyone else heard. That Genesis lost his voice? When he talked to me up there I could smell decay on his breath. That’s not…”

Sephiroth flinched. And he knew this time Cloud would have seen it. He couldn’t bring himself to care. His hands tightened around the neatly tailored lines of his white jacket.

“Sephiroth?” Cloud asked, worry clear in his voice.

“They forbade us to talk about it.” He whispered. “They’re making him work with me still. Making him do dirty work like poisoning you now that he’s no good for their idol narrative.”

“No good?” Cloud asked, a deep frown on his face. Sephiroth faltered, inspecting him, but he was whole. Healthy. Not sickening under his words.

“The last time I heard him sing he could have enchanted stars,” Cloud said after a moment more of silence. “What happened to him?”

“I did.” Sephiroth replied, the heavy truth of it tearing from him like a wound. He wondered if there was blood in his mouth with the admission. It was on his hands, he knew. Though it could never be seen.

Cloud stared, but he didn’t balk, or run. And Sephiroth…

Sephiroth had been SO alone. And he could hear music in his heartbeat. Something brutal and awful and ugly that had twisted him his whole life. So he let it carry him, careful not to let his words turn against anyone but himself.

“He hated being second fiddle. He was the one with an artist’s soul. The songs that weren’t provided by HR he created. He could sing down the stars, you’re right. He could have if he’d been anywhere but beside me. I don’t even remember what he said after the last round of competition. He was angry, and he made me angry too. I shouldn’t have let it happen. I should have watched my words.”

“What did you say?” Cloud asked, not quite matching his meter, not quite deepening the spiral of drums and anger, but close enough that Sephiroth knew he heard it.

“I told him he would rot without me.” Sephiroth hissed, feeling the acid on his tongue still. “And I left.”

The drums stopped. Cloud sucked in a breath, the implications setting in for him already.

“I didn’t mean to mean it.” Sephiroth whispered wearily. “I didn’t even think about it. Angeal found him the next morning, half dead.”

He closed his eyes against the memory of it. Against walking into Genesis’s dressing room to apologize and finding Angeal with Genesis cradled in his lap, trying to sing the life back into him, trying to stop the damage Sephiroth had done from taking any more from his friend.

“It was an accident.” Cloud said, his voice dull and soft.

“What sort of man am I,” Sephiroth whispered. “To mean such a thing even for a moment?”

“You’re like everyone else on earth.” Cloud said at last with a shrug.

Sephiroth yanked his eyes up to him, scowling hard.

“I most certainly am not.”

“You think no one’s ever hurt someone with words before?” Cloud shrugged roughly, his nose scrunching and his brows furrowing. “Anyone with as much power as you have could channel it to the wrong thing. Frankly it’s a wonder he survived. I think that’s proof enough that you didn’t intend to hurt him.”

“Cloud—”

“Have you tried to heal it?” Cloud asked, barreling over his words.

“I can’t.”

“Have you tried.”

“I wasn’t made to heal.”

“You’re a bard.”

“I’m a weapon. I was made to destroy not to cure. All I bring are death and pain and—”

“Stop casting that!”

Sephiroth froze, staring at Cloud. He hadn’t noticed the drums in his ears.

“How long have you been putting that spell on yourself?” Cloud asked, a sort of angry disbelief in his voice.

Sephiroth didn’t have an answer. He swayed unsteadily, and Cloud’s hand, nails painted black, caught his arm carefully.

“How long have your bosses been putting it on you?” He asked instead, and Sephiroth couldn’t answer.

“I can’t.” He finally whispered. “Even if I knew how to heal, he won’t talk to me. He and Angeal. They’re gone.”

Cloud was silent a moment, watching him through hard, makeup-darkened eyes.

“If only,” He said slowly. “You had access to a microphone and a stage where you’ll be so amplified no one can’t hear you.”

Sephiroth was still a moment. For the first time in a long time, the heavy beat of his heart didn’t feel hollow.

“I don’t know how.” He whispered, but it was less a curse now, and more a plea.

“I know a tune,” Cloud whispered. “But the words will have to be yours. I can teach it to you. And the band… Well, I’ll have to ask Barret. But I think they’d be willing to help.”

“Your drummer?”

“Uh, yeah? He’s the leader of Avalanche. I just sing for them.”

“Ah… You… Would do that for me? It will probably get you kicked out of the competition.”

“It will probably get you in worse trouble than that.” Cloud said. “Besides. We both know Shinra was never going to let Avalanche win this. What do you say?”

Sephiroth looked down at the floor, taking a slow breath.

“Help me.” He whispered. “Please.”

“We don’t have long,” Cloud whispered. “Learn fast. And remember–It will have to be your words.”

“So that’s what’s up.” Cloud whispered to his bandmates, arms around the shoulders of Tifa and Zack as he huddled in to whisper to them. The crowd outside was ramping up, their idle chatter turning to excited yelling. “He nearly killed his friend, I taught him a healing spell, and we’ve gotta back him up. You guys in?”

“This is gunna piss the hell outta the Shinra.” Barret rumbled.

“So you’re on board?”

“Bet your ass I am!” Barret roared. “Zack, Aerith, your first priority is music backup. Tifa, you’re with me, we’re gunna get ‘em hooked in and disable whatever they’ve got cued up for him. Cloud, get that son of a gun he’s healing as close as you can.”

“Uh, how?” Cloud asked, frowning.

“Dunno,” Barret said. “You’re the guy with that lead-singer vibe. Use that. Or your nail bat, whatever works.”

“Barret!” Cloud hissed. “Drop the nail bat thing, that was once.”

“It’s good of you, Spike.” Zack said warmly, ruffling Cloud’s hair. “We’ll back him up. Just like we would you.”

“It’s a better use of this stage than anything else we could do.” Aerith agreed softly.

“I’m so glad you trust us enough for this.” Tifa agreed softly, her grin turning from soft to wicked in an instant. “Now. Let’s go subvert this musical travesty into something actually worth doing.”

“Sorry about the prize money,” Cloud blurted. “I know we all could have used it.”

“You kidding?” Zack asked. “Once we get out of prison or whatever they do to us after this, we’re going to make a fortune going on the road together.”

“Har har, no one’s going to jail, Marlene’d be lonesome.” Barret rumbled. “Get moving! We’ve only got ten before they put him out there.”

Cloud broke from the group with a wordless shout that his bandmates echoed. He straightened, looking over towards the other side of the wings.

The crowd roared dimly in the distance. Sephiroth met his eyes from across the way. Cloud could hear the war drum of his heartbeat. He nodded firmly to him, and saw Sephiroth suck in a breath and try to center himself.

He’d never seen the Demon of Wutai look nervous before.

Zack sauntered over to one of the sound techs, striking up a friendly conversation while Aerith used her patented ‘I’m not a threat’ technique to sit on the floor and pretend to do breathing exercises. He pretended not to notice her patching her guitar and Zack’s bass in.

He didn’t have time to watch Barret and Tifa work their particular magic. He had his own task to handle. He squared his shoulders and started for the dressing rooms.

He heard Genesis before he saw him. The thready, soft sobbing through a closed door. He bit his lip, trying to work out his play. He looked down at his hands, rough with hard work, black nail polish that Tifa had helped him out with, studded bracelets and forearm guards. Right then. He knew what play to go with.

Cloud squared his stance, took a deep breath, and kicked down the door.

The face that jerked up to glare at him was not alone. The other figure was huge, imposing, clearly instantly furious. Cloud had forgotten about Angeal somehow. But his angry gaze stayed fixed on Genesis, on the unseeing eye and ruined skin on the right side of his face, the bangs pulled away from his destroyed face out of the public’s view. Cloud grit his teeth, taking a sharp breath.

“What the fuck—” Angeal started

“Nothing and no one,” Cloud snapped before Angeal could continue, before he could let sympathy and sorrow for Genesis’s injury overwhelm his determination. “Right? That’s what I am?”

“Get out.” Genesis snarled, and Cloud could almost smell the rot still on his breath from the doorway. He ignored it.

“Did they write you that script to ruin me like they write your songs?” He asked sharply.

“Leave,” Angeal ordered, squaring up, protecting his friend.

“You’d steal my voice like yours was stolen?” Cloud asked, righteously indignant. “Do you hate me that much?”

Genesis stiffened.

“What do you know?” He growled, the rasp low in his throat.

Cloud straightened at the challenge. But then their world was drowned out by the cheering. The clapping. Cloud turned, his heart sinking instantly in worry. He hadn’t realized it was so close to time. There was a buzz of static. Someone objected briefly. Then the cameras were on and rolling. Cloud caught just a glimpse of Sephiroth squaring his shoulders and walking onto stage.

“There’s no time.” He said, his hands clenching. “Get up.”

“What?” Angeal seemed more honestly confused now than outright angry.

“Get UP.” Cloud demanded, reaching out and gripping Genesis’s arm. The man screamed outright, but Cloud didn’t let him go. He dragged him out of the room, even as Angeal grabbed his hair to stop him. Shoved Genesis forward, so Angeal had to hurry to catch him, to keep him off the ground. And then it was enough. They were close enough. Because everything seemed to stop as they all caught sight of Sephiroth walking onto stage.

He moved with the air of a martyr, a slow walk, his hair flickering. It was done half-up, making him look younger. Softer. The first pounding beats of his music played, then cut off roughly as whatever Barret and Tifa had done took root. Genesis and Angeal froze, staring at him.

“What,” Angeal whispered again.

Cloud pushed past them, moving along the wings, eyes on Sephiroth as he stepped up to the center of the stage, hitting his mark. He stood there a long moment, just staring out at the crowd. When his eye slid right, they found Cloud’s gaze in the wings and held it a moment. Then he took a slow breath. Cloud could hear it shaking.

When he nodded, Aerith began to play.

The tune slipped off her fingers easily. She had been the one to teach it to Cloud, while she mended a tear in his knee. She’d sworn him to secrecy on its origins lying with her, but she’d taught him how to perform it all the same. With him, it could do a little. Mend a bruise, soften pain, scab a cut. Under her voice it became as if some wounds had never occurred. Barret said it was thanks to her song he hadn’t died from his arm’s loss.

When she played, it felt like the ground would swallow you. As if the world was crying out through her guitar. It was nothing like her wild, free, delightful runs and riffs when she played with Avalanche. It was old and powerful. Drawing on something so deep in the earth and in her that there were no words for it. And perhaps someone should have come and stopped her. Perhaps they would have. But she played so softly, so gently, that there was no soul not enraptured.

When Zack’s bass slid in to join her, it was a natural combining. A grounding. A humanizing element in an otherworldly spell.

They both trailed off to await the voice. Cloud watched Sephiroth swallow in their echo. Watched his eyes slide over to Cloud’s looking for help.

“Sing,” Cloud whispered with the air of command, and his order joined the song. Wrapped around it, around Sephiroth. And he watched Sephiroth accept.

With…

Barely a whisper. Sephiroth swallowed. Tried again.

Within—

He sang, his voice trembling, his sorrow palpable. Cloud held his breath for him. Sephiroth took a deep breath into the echoes of the music, Cloud felt it quiver and strain. But the spell didn’t shatter. Not yet.

Within me is an ocean
Deep and dark and wild
And it would drown you
It would drown you
It would drown you in the dark

Cloud shivered. Gasped a breath. Tried not to be part of the spell. He had to stay outside. Stay on the side with Sephiroth as the spell wove over the whole crowd. A man was frozen with his hand over controls. He had them. Cloud hoped the words that chose him were right.

And sometimes I will wish it
Wish all the worst for you
For if you were in the darkness
I would not be alone

And I know you are drowning
I know I dragged you down
You are tangled in the water
Red in blue and brown.

I know I made this thing of you
Please still take my hand.
Reach back and I will help you
I will not let you drown.

I beg you
I beg you
Reach back

Cloud saw it when the first person reached. A man in the crowd, silent and still till now. His hand jerked out and upwards, compelled by the words. Not his fault, but not Sephiroth’s target. For a moment Cloud thought that would break it. But then Sephiroth was straightening, and the music was changing. No longer Aerith and Zack, though they were playing. Something other. Something else.

And that was when the lights started.

They were green and swimming, sunbursts in the air of the theater. They coiled around Sephiroth, growing from the ground at his feet with the swell of sound that accompanied him. It was a sound of voices. Voices not heard in a thousand years from those not far far out at sea.

The voices of Bright Things.

The hands in the audience kept raising. Lifting. And Sephiroth closed his eyes, extended his hands, and sang. The lights spiraled out from beneath him, spread all around the auditorium. Then Cloud watched as they tore through the roof, tore out of the building, finding cracks and doorways.

The people watching, Cloud realized. People out in the world watching, raising their hands.

He turned to Genesis. Turned as Sephiroth sang, wordless now, strange and ancient. Siren, Cloud’s thoughts repeated over and over and over. Siren, siren, siren.

Genesis was staring. Still and silent. Standing curled around his middle. Cloud was watching when Sephiroth, unreal, beautiful, turned towards the man he’d sung for. He watched as Sephiroth reached out a hand, pleading. Forgiveness, his song begged. Forgive me. Let me help you. He didn’t need the microphone anymore.

And for a moment, for a terrible moment, Cloud was certain Genesis wouldn’t reach back. That his pride would doom him.

Then Angeal was there, an arm wrapping around Genesis’s back. And he took his hand. Met Genesis’s working eye. And they lifted his arm together.

The green was on him at once. Swirling, churning, as Sephiroth threw his head back, his song tearing from him, tearing through him, the same as Aerith’s healing song but MORE. And Cloud watched the green swallow Genesis whole, binding to the terrible scars on his body.

“Cloud!” Aerith called through the music.

Cloud jerked his head up, looking across the way. Aerith’s guitar was abandoned, and Zack’s bass too.

“It’s too much for him!” She called to him, barely audible over the song.

Cloud looked to Sephiroth. Saw the glow in his eyes. The strain on his face. But he wouldn’t stop. Cloud knew it. He wouldn’t stop until every pull was gone. Until he’d reached back to every hand reaching out. He could feel it in the music. This was a man who’d never healed before, and he couldn’t tell one ache from another, couldn’t restrain himself now that he had the capacity. Cloud stepped out onto the stage, feeling every inch of his impotent humanity. He knew he was seen then. Knew he was alone. Sephiroth was giving everything, hands outstretched as the goddess.

And Cloud pushed his way into the ancient song.

Breathe

He sang, not shattering the spell, but trying to shift it. His command was swallowed by the ancient song, but Sephiroth’s eyes turned to him.

Breathe, now, breathe

Cloud sang again, stepping slowly closer and closer. The green parted before him. He stepped into the spotlight with Sephiroth, reaching up to take his hands. He felt it at once, the immense pull. The immense drain.

All worst wounds are healing now
All the cuts are scabbed
So breathe
Breathe
Set it down

All the scars feel softer now
All the pain subsiding
Calm the ocean
Damp the tide
Breathe
Breathe
Breathe

Sephiroth sucked in a breath, eyes fluttering shut. His hands closed around Cloud’s, holding him in return. The song faded. Swelled. And then the ancient song was gone, and it was just them. Just the two of them on stage.

Sephiroth opened his eyes softly, just a sliver, just a glimmer of color. And then he was sinking to his knees. Cloud sank with him, holding on, drawing Sephiroth against him as the man crumpled forward, till his soft silver hair was draped over Cloud’s tattered clothes.

A beat later, Cloud heard Sephiroth heave a relieved, exhausted laugh. A beat after that, the crowd exploded.

They may as well have been a continent away for all Cloud and Sephiroth cared.

A moment later someone was racing out, and Cloud tensed to stop them. To guard the man whose soul had touched his twice that day. He wouldn’t let them hurt him for this. But the redhead who dropped to his knees by them was no threat–one eye pale and unseeing but no longer swallowed by the smell of rot.

“Tell me he’s not dead,” Genesis whispered, his voice rich and beautiful once more.

“He’s not dead.” Cloud said, for himself as well as Genesis, shifting to give Sephiroth to his friends as Angeal came to join them. “He’s alright.”

But Sephiroth wouldn’t let go of him, so Cloud gave up trying to move him. Gave up as the announcer stumbled through that there would be a break. That the judges would need to deliberate on what this meant for the competition.

“To hell with your competition!” Genesis snarled at him. “Just get out of our way and close the damn curtain!”

“You heard the man,” Barret growled, pulling the curtain down with a strong yank as Aerith and Zack went out to join their huddle on stage.

Cloud looked down at Sephiroth where he lay in his arms, pale and sweat-soaked and beautiful. For a moment he thought he saw a glimmer of scales along the side of his face. Siren, he thought again, and held him all the closer.

“Cloud,” Sephiroth whispered into his shirt. “Sing with me again soon.”

“Nothing could stop me,” Cloud whispered back as he watched Sephiroth’s eyes fall closed in exhaustion. “Nothing in the world.”

And it was True.