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Edge never really gets winters. It's not the seemingly forever summers of Costa Del Sol, not even close, but even in the depths of months Cloud remembers would have had him bundled head-to-toe in Nibelheim, it only ever gets cold enough to be just this side of chilly. It's a fresh kind of frigid, the kind that makes you want to breathe deep and play pretend at puffing smoke.
Everyone here lives by the sun: up at crack of dawn and all sheltered away by dusk. Night is more his Nibel blood's speed, the sleeping sun leaving behind a cold drop with a suddenness only the desert can muster. Darkness invites monsters to prowl in earnest, and the nightly winds kick up lungfuls of dust; even with the steady installation of Reeve's solar lamps and the gentle crawl of life reseeping into the land over the years, it’s still not very safe. Cloud is strong enough (stupid enough, if you ask anyone else, which he doesn’t disagree with) to be out and about after nightfall, but it’s only him and the seedy types who really try to push it.
So it’s that slow setting in of evening that really gets Seventh Heaven hustle-bustling—as much as a ramshackle shanty town like Edge can manage, anyway. It’s a labor of love, warm lantern light chasing the weariness from the windows, illuminating the Wutai-bell strung door Yuffie insisted on and Cloud’s third attempt at a welcome mat, which only passed Pretty Inspection because Marlene got fed up enough to help that time. It makes a ruckus, brings in worn out workers and the neighborhood watch: patchwork people all coming in for a drink and a bowl of whatever's on the stove that night, courtesy of Barret.
Tonight’s a special night, though.
He rolls up in the dimming orange light, the sky still lighter than when he left Kalm. He revvs the motorcycle loudly before he makes to park in the garage. The door is bursting open before he even stalls the engine.
"Cloud!" Marlene rushes him, jumping up the footpeg to sit behind him in a cling. Cloud is well-used to bracing against her sway and only has to catch her a little bit. Denzel is a foot behind her, falling a tad as he's shoved back by Marlene's flailing foot into Cloud's side.
"Hey! No fair," he whines and makes an indignant sound that means Marlene definitely just stuck her tongue out at him before looking up at Cloud, eyes sparkling. "You're done right? Can we start? Tifa said you'd be back so we could start!"
The garage groans open, revealing Barret, tall and fond, shoving the door up with one hand. "Think we gotta wait for close-up, kiddo. We ain't kicking anyone out on solstice."
"Daddy, look! I won!"
"Only because you cheated—"
"I did not—!"
Barret whistles light and easy, nothing like the shrill piercing ones he used to ring out for attention. "Atta girl 'Lena, but let's let Denzel get ride-in next time, y'hear? Denzel can help drop the door," he says, which makes Denzel perk up, pleased to help out with adult things and forgetting all about his lost race. Barret musses a hand into Cloud's spikes. "Get a move on, chocoboy."
"Yeah, chocoboy!" Marlene kicks him from behind.
Cloud sighs and obediently rolls forward, Marlene whooping the whole short drive in. It’s the kids’ favorite, since right now Cloud’s pretty sure Barret will kill him if he dares give in to their pleadings for a real joyride. Marlene’s hopping off as soon as he cuts the engine, yelling something about getting Tifa, and Denzel’s running after her, probably for revenge, and then it's just him and Barret.
"Was starting to think you went and died out there,” he says. It doesn’t sound like the accusation it might once have been. “Don't need more mako pollution."
"Mmph,” Cloud says. “Maybe you wished.”
A snort and a big hand in his hair again. "Nah. Real sucky gift that would be, divvying up your shit for solstice. Way too much to scrabble over."
"I'm writing it into my will," Cloud scowls, ducking away. "Barret Wallace gets none of my shit." He thinks for a moment. "Barret Wallace gets whatever's in my dead body's pockets," he amends.
Barret whistles lowly. "Don't make me feel bad, Spikes. I've seen your pockets."
Joke's on him. Cloud has an arrangement with the local crows: he leaves them the monsters he can’t salvage, they hang around and, if they feel generous, bring him back weird and occasionally useful bits and bobs picked from the wastes. Or possibly the irradiated ruins of Midgar, considering how much they stink. It’s a good relationship, and so they're the ones who actually get first dibs on his corpse if he finally manages to get himself killed the normal way.
Barret doesn't need to know that though, so Cloud shrugs. Barret clicks his tongue and gives him a shove just strong enough to make him sway before looking a little soft.
“Made your rounds?” and Cloud hears the unsaid question.
Make your peace?
It's a ritual, of sorts, between them. He's better now, better at staying present and better at stepping away when he needs it, and Barret's no longer a man of demand in his peacetime; there are things not for the children to bear, things that stay between them and the clarity having once hated the other gives. Maybe he should be offended at the dramatics from someone who sees him back every time, but this is Barret and he's Cloud. This is something that can only exist here, without the weight of "once upon a time," when he'd cracked and couldn't play a role that was always Barret's.
Cloud hums. “I promised,” he says, which isn’t really an answer. Barret nods anyway.
“Go on and git. Kids were bouncing off the walls waiting around for your dumbass.”
Barret herds him out to the bar proper. It’s loud and abuzz in a way that manages to be pleasant, knocks away the melancholy.
Solstice is an important night, the longest of the entire year. It's a time of cheer, anticipation, the Planet making her final round before the days will start getting longer again, so they stay up through the entire night to wait for sunrise.
It was also something of a trial, a last hurrah, at least in Nibelheim. Families all together bundled in the same house, making enough merry to forget the raging cold and the preying wolves. To see each other through and, failing that, see each other for the last time.
If you made it through the longest dark, then you were ready to survive the rest of them.
The patrons clearly been celebrating for a while, happy, sloshed, and full over what looks like Barret’s famous Corel stew. Tifa’s behind the counter doing a fancy trick with the shaker as he catches her eye. A brief flicker crosses her face before she gets that gleam she does when she’s about to tease him somehow. Knocks out a pour as she loudly announces, “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”
Multiple faces turn his way, raise their drinks in his direction as he comes in. Some of the older faces lean back and groan good-naturedly; him coming back in the evenings like this usually marks the end of whatever Happy Hour Tifa has running and heralds the nightly wrap-ups. A few people glance an amused eye at the kids, clearly very eager for celebrations and getting fawned over. Their hands are suspiciously crumb-covered.
It’s a little silly, but it’s embarrassing that they know something’s going to happen, that they're being chased off by all the affection. It’s strange in a warm way though, not like how it once was of dejection and empty alienation eating him whole. It’s thoughtful, careful, happy to step away and give them privacy. It still makes him want to hide a little though. Too awkward.
He ends up sidling over to Tifa, who knocks his hip and flaps an apron in his face. She looks a little far away despite her mischief as she turns to ring their makeshift scrap bell.
“One free round and a bowl to-go before we kick you out!”
Somehow he gets roped in with passing out bags of soup at the door, people going by him in a blur and wishing them all a happy solstice. None of them pat him or hug him the way they might Barret or Tifa, which he appreciates. By the time everyone is gone, dusk has already slipped all the way in, the sign flipped to "closed."
Denzel and Marlene bounce with hopeful eyes.
"Now?"
Tifa smiles.
"Now."
It takes the five of them (three of them, once the kids get distracted) to clean the bar. Floors are mopped, tables wiped, dishes done and blasted with a little wind magic to dry them fast. Barret heckles him for his choice in table rearrangement, which Tifa traitorously does not protest. It's probably the most annoying part, setting up the bar for their play at a dinner when they know quite well they're all going to end up sticky on the floor anyway, but it makes it feel real somehow.
More like a family.
He catches Tifa’s eye as he shoves the last two chairs into place. “Marlene, Denzel,” he calls, and they perk to attention from where Marlene seems to be trying to smother Denzel with a booth pillow.
“Yeah?”
“Could you grab Aerith and Zack for me?”
The two nod with the seriousness of two knights having taken up a great mantle. It makes him warm and a little sad.
Tifa slips in beside him with a gentle nudge as they go, dutifully setting down a pair of plates and passing him a handful of spoons. They weave around each other, the clinks of cutlery on ceramic the only conversation held between them over the rhythm of small feet on the stairs.
This is the way they are now, wordless but present. No longer binary stars spiraling towards collision under the weight of expectation. It was a hard lesson learned, the two of them bound together by hurt for so long that they cut each other on the edges.
A heavy warmth comes to stand at their back as they finish, Barret's thick arms wrapping around the two of them from behind. Cloud rests a hand where skin meets prosthetic—Barret's fully-flesh arm is always for Tifa—and leans into the hold.
It’s a Nibel tradition, giving the ghosts a place at the dinner table. Tifa and Cloud might be the only two people left in the world to pass it down.
Marlene and Denzel come back, a pair of flowerpots cradled in their arms. They're simple looking things, courtesy of Nanaki, painted with Cosmo Canyon's traditional designs. In them, shocks of yellow: a lily, soft and smiling, and a daisy, standing proud.
They’re special things, must be. Cloud found them outside one day, miraculous so far from the church. He knows flowers are supposed to have seasons, but these ones seem ever-blooming, and there’s a thrum like a tune in their sway. Zack and Aerith, reaching out to him and making their presence known.
They deserve to be present too.
Marlene steps forward first, straining a bit on her tiptoes to set Aerith's pot down on the table. She only gets a little bit of dirt on her face, which Barret wipes off gently with a thumb. Denzel places Zack with a similar sort of reverence before winding under Cloud's arm.
It’s a pretty picture, the two sitting side by side in wait for a meal. Cloud knows if he turns around, he'll see three similar places set at the bar with a photo between them.
There should be a lot more spots, but they'd run out of room if they tried.
“All set to see the others, hm?” Tifa says to no one in particular. Barret snorts, hunching down to shake them all in his hold, gets the girls laughing and Denzel protesting.
“Yeah, we’re all looking pretty fine t’night, just waiting on our loud-asses.”
“Vincent’s not loud!” Marlene says.
“He dresses pretty loud,” Denzel muses.
Barret barks a laugh, the kind that uses his whole chest. "You should say that to his face, little man. I wanna see his eye twitch."
Tifa presses against Cloud for a moment amidst the distraction. There's thanks in her expression, a warmth and a little loss. He gives her a little headbutt to make her laugh.
Nibelheim is gone now. This is all they'll ever have.
"They're going to be late…"
"Maybe they got lost?"
Tifa shakes herself and eyes the door. The bells ring cheerily over the wind. "I lit the front up really well tonight. Hopefully Yuffie won’t use the windows.”
There’s a thunk and a very muffled “ow!” from upstairs. Somewhere in the distance they can hear loud swearing and an engine speeding close.
Cloud hums. “She used the windows.”
“You put that there on purpose!”
“You jumped through my window!”
“The sign said closed! And anyway, who puts their arm collection under a window? I could have died, y’know!”
"Yuffie," Tifa sighs from where she's standing with the kids, both of them at rapt attention with an unhidden glee. Yuffie, for a lot of reasons, is their favorite, which is not something good for Barret's blood pressure.
Cid looks some strange combination of amused and constipated, particularly dusty. He'd come in by the time they'd managed to untangle Yuffie from… everything with Nanaki and a bouncing Cait Sith trotting behind, the former crossing to sit primly next to Cloud on the floor. "You jumped off a moving vehicle, girlie! Hell's wrong with you?"
Yuffie sticks out her tongue. "Your driving make me barf!"
"Swim here yourself then! See if I do anything else for your ass."
Cloud scritches his fingers through Nanaki's mane, absorbing the bickering. It washes over him, fills his head comfortably. Avalanche has a tendency to never shut up, which makes the other voices, the ones who speak in sugared tones of suggestion, hard to hear. It's grounding, makes him feel real.
"Didya know they're decked out all winter-fancy in Costa Del Sol? They don't even get snow!"
"The solstice is a celestial event, Cid. It's not like we get snow either."
“It’s the principle of the thing! Nonsense about bundling tight and winter ghosts like it's not hot as balls. Where are they even getting the pine trees?"
"Aren't you a whole engineer? How are you this thick?"
"You are not arguing about this now it's been fifteen minutes put that down—"
"Hm," Nanaki rumbles under his hand, drawing his focus over the din. "It always surprises me to realize I have missed this quite dearly."
Cloud nods, scratches behind Nanaki's ear a little harder and gets a pleased huff. "Are you okay in Cosmo?"
"It is a trial," Nanaki admits. "I at times would rather do little else but stalk through Rocket Town with Cid. But it was entrusted to me."
"Don'tcha worry lad, he's not e'er alone," Cait Sith swings around off his moogle into Cloud's face, his plush face happy as always. "We're working 'round the clock and learning a right deal. You'll never believe, but our good friend might be on his way to getting himself hitched—yeouch!" Nanaki snaps his jaws at the cat's direction, bristling heavily.
"Enough of that. Deneh has always been a friend and nothing more," he growls. "Where is Reeve? All this time I spent with his doll, and he won't visit in the flesh."
"Oh you know, busy busy. WRO and all that. He sends his regards quite sweetly though!" Cait Sith pulls at his cape with clear anxiety. Cloud ponders if Reeve just didn't want to get bitten. Or bullied.
"Well," Cloud says instead, patting Nanaki's flank. "I'm rooting for you."
An earflick. "...Thank you. It means very much to me."
The memory of a boisterous laugh saying I'm your back-up, Spike! and an arm around his shoulders comes to him like a breeze, makes him snort. "Maybe I can be your hype guy. Your wingman."
Nanaki eyes him as if measuring Cloud's sanity. "Even just joking about that brings me dread."
"Ya think a fellow cat'll do it?" says Cait. "I'm right charming!"
"No." Nanaki sits up crossly, and if he could blush, Cloud’s sure he'd be bright red. Brighter red. As it stands, Cloud’s leaning away from his lashing tail so as not to get burned. He stamps a paw. "You will have no part in any courtship or otherwise I may ever engage in."
"Hey, what are we talking about over there!" Yuffie's voice rings across the room. She's showing off her rolling materia tricks to Denzel, who blessedly is using a normal ball to practice.
"Girl cats," Cloud deadpans.
"Oh yeah, Red's looking for p—"
"Language." Vincent, seemingly there the whole time, fwips the edge of his cape over Yuffie's head, stifling her with it.
Denzel yelps and drops his ball. "When the heck did you get here?" He's looking between Vincent and the door with suspicion, the bells still tinkling bright and unmissable with each minute sway.
Vincent blinks slow, paying no attention to Yuffie's muffled indignance as she struggles. "Language."
“When the hell did ‘heck’ become a swear?” Cid shouts. He’s rummaging under the bar, likely for his tea stash, Cloud thinks. Cid won’t drink unless he has tea.
Barret squints."Hold up, did you come in through the window too?"
Yuffie bursts out of Vincent’s hold with a dramatic gasp like she'd been starved of air for years. "You totally did!"
Vincent does not answer, which is probably for the best.
“Okay!” Tifa claps. “We’re eating now!”
It’s very clearly a measured and mildly desperate announcement. Now that everyone's here, it's better to get all the food out of the way before they inevitably somehow cause a scene entirely in private.
No one actually bothers to sit at the table, lounging any which way on whatever available surface. Yuffie refuses to sit on an actual seat (Cid watches with a hawk's eye to make sure she doesn't spill all over where he's spiking his whiskey with tea) and seems keen on getting tastefully shitfaced the way only the newly of-age can. Barret sits large and out of place with the kids, Nanaki lies on the floor cracking into the bones Tifa sweetly saved from the broth, and he's even nice enough to share them with Cloud. Vincent and Cait seemingly commiserate over not being particularly able to eat, the former due to dead taste buds and the latter due to being a robot.
It's nostalgic in a way, reminders of nights crammed in inns or camping out with a meal between them.
Bitter, because he can see the ghosts flickering in and out of the festivity.
"It was around this time of year we all came together for the first time, y'know? About the time of year when the world almost ended."
Cloud sits next to Zack and Aerith, murmuring. The plates in front of them are full up with a little bit of everything, sitting otherwise untouched next to Cloud's own.
"I couldn't bring myself to give your parents their gifts in person," he says. "I hope you'll forgive me for that."
They don't reply. Cloud doesn't expect them to.
"This is what you wanted, right? What you hoped for all along. Peace like this. You were both always smiling." He traces their petals. "I promised I wouldn't let myself stay alone. For you and them. For myself."
In the other side of the room, the kids are rummaging through boxes, joy so alight on their faces it makes him ache. Cid looks nonchalant as he explains he just "had some scraps" and decided to make the beautiful plane model in Denzel's hands out of boredom. The slant of his shoulders gives him away though, which Barret is nudging him with his foot for with a shitty grin. Marlene laughs as Cait Sith plays jack-in-the-box with all the spare paper, shiny and, Cloud knows, deeply rare nowadays.
"Would you be happy with that?" Cloud asks.
A sudden gust of wind whistles outside, jingling the door's bells in a chorus of gold.
Yuffie grins from over the bar. "Looks like we're blessed tonight." Her voice is the same blasé cheer as always, but Cloud can see her eyeing him with an uncharacteristic softness. "That's what the bells are for, in Wutai. Don't really know how to translate it, but we're inviting lucky things."
"Happiness," Vincent says. Cloud didn't realize it but he's there with a hand on Cloud's shoulder, light yet grounding. "Cleansing. It’s very appropriate. "
Vincent has the look he always has when he's come back from visiting Lucrecia, as well as the look that says he knows Cloud can see it. If anyone understands, it's him.
"Hm," Cloud says. "Could use more of that then."
Vincent scrutinizes him, gently cupping the back of Cloud’s head for a touch and nodding.
"Oi!" Cid calls. "Quit it with your emo brooding when we're talkin' about healing nonsense."
Cait Sith kicks his legs. "It's a great time to read your fortunes!"
"If the fortune is you cleaning up after your own ass then yeah, it is!"
The kids fall asleep sometime around the halfway point in the night. Barret puts Marlene to bed while Cloud gathers up Denzel and does the same. Their gifts pile on their dressers, and the peace in their features is quite a change from their excitement to last all night.
("Good attempt for their age," Cid says.)
("Weak!" announces Yuffie.)
The drinking ramps up without the young impressionable minds in the room. They've all agreed no gifts except for the kids—it would be frivolous with the state of things—but if Cloud slips a coat away for a little while and it comes back with its tears patched up almost imperceptibly, that's his own business. It's not like he hasn't noticed the mysteriously appearing tools and trinkets on innocent counters. Cloud tries not to think about how all his friends might be crows, which only succeeds in making him wonder if his real, actual crow friends would feel betrayed.
There's some kind of terrible hot chocolate competition courtesy of, strangely enough, Barret, who's lost control of his inside voice and started singing very loudly. He's adamant about his Corel Cocoa Brew being the best drink ever, which Tifa, bartender and drink specialist of the bar Barret lives in and also more than a little tipsy, takes deep offense to. Cid, also a drinker of fluids, says put your money where your mouth is! So they end up competing, which would have been fine if they weren't sloshing their brains out, but as it stands there's a mishap with the sugar (it should not taste like salt) and one instance of way too much pepper powder. They all try it anyway, except for Nanaki who they aren't sure can have chocolate at all and are too afraid to ask at this point. Even Zack and Aerith get little cups set next to their still-full plates, and Cloud can imagine the way they would have lit up at how terrible it is. Privately, Cloud thinks his own recipe is probably the best as he laps gingerly not to burn his tongue.
Over the night, Cloud spies his friends each go off to the side to sit by Aerith, talking quietly. Even Zack gets a few visitors, which he would probably really like. Cid leaves him a bottle of beer, though he has the good sense not to pour it into the soil. He also hands one to Cloud on his way back before pulling him into a hard noogie. Cloud still appreciates it.
At some point they're sitting on the ground outside the bar, Barret and Yuffie's croons fighting the roosters' songs for dominance and Cid's cigarette lighting up his features. Nanaki curves at Cloud’s hip, a solid warmth in the chill. Vincent perches on a chair just behind them, cape shucked to the side and for some reason or another burying Cait Sith in a swamp of red. Tifa's on Cloud's other side, Aerith's pot in her hands to match Zack's in his own.
The sun tiptoes over the horizon, a greeting in pink and orange overtaking the stars. No one but the birds speak as the light creeps over their faces.
"The longest night of the year, now past us once more," Nanaki says. His tail flicks with happy embers.
"All brighter from here," Cid grins.
Aerith and Zack rustle with the breeze, leaves sounding a little like laughter.
Yeah. Brighter like always.