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Sephiroth had never been that into parties. But when the Restoration Committee threw a Christmas party and invited him, Cloud, and Zack, he was willing to go.
Of course, he had to make a spectacular entrance, and he teleported him and his friends right into Merlin’s living room. That was startling, but everyone quickly adjusted. Sephiroth would be Sephiroth, after all.
Cloud had his own startling moment a bit later, when Aerith made a remark Cloud had never thought he’d hear.
“Well,” she said with a smile and a wink, “it looks like you two are my mistletoe’s first customers.”
“Huh?!” Cloud gaped at her, looked to the highly amused Sephiroth next to him, and up at the offending white plant dangling above them. “What the heck did you put that there for?!”
“So scenes like this could happen,” Aerith said.
Cloud resisted the urge to facepalm. “Yeah, not gonna happen,” he retorted.
“Really, Cloud?” Sephiroth smoothly interjected. “It’s that abhorrent to you?”
Cloud flamed red. “No, that’s not it! I mean . . .” He frowned. “Do you want to do it?”
Sephiroth shrugged. “I’m not opposed to it. Of course, if you’d rather not do it with an audience, that is completely understandable. I don’t believe in making a spectacle out of something that should be privately meaningful to the participants.”
Cloud frowned, considering Sephiroth’s words. On the one hand, he didn’t want to do it just because it was now expected of them. On the other hand, he wanted everyone to know he wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed. The rumors continued to fly about them, as they knew would happen, but that was alright. They loved each other. So what if some people didn’t understand exactly how they loved each other?
“We’re doing it,” he said at last, and reached to put his arms around Sephiroth’s neck.
Surprised but also pleased, Sephiroth bent to meet him and drew him close.
Cloud had told Sephiroth that if he had known a kiss would save his life after the fatal stabbing from the poisoned knife, he would have done it. That hadn’t been necessary, but Cloud’s feelings on the subject were still the way he felt. Of course, this wasn’t any kind of a life-threatening situation, but they could use it to celebrate what they had found together. They had gone from Cloud trying to kill Sephiroth for imagined wrongs to Cloud unable to deal with Sephiroth laying dead.
I love you . . . so much. Let them see. Let them figure it out wrong. I don’t care.
And Sephiroth responded.
I loved you even when you were on the rocks with me. Thank you for being open-minded enough to finally see the truth.
They drew back, Cloud staring at Sephiroth in amazed awe, Sephiroth looking back with a touched smile.
“Well,” he said, “that wasn’t bad at all.”
And whereas once Cloud might have snorted and been mortified by Sephiroth’s flirtatious comment, now he just smiled too.
“Yeah,” he said. “It wasn’t.”