interstellar5555 | Ao Guang

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Ao Guang

Who: Cloud Strife and Yuffie Kisaragi
What: Cloud and Yuffie go to the opera.
When: A day after Ghost Quest, evening
Where: The Grand Opera House
Warnings: Nothing yet.

Cloud tended to be indulgent when it came to fashionable lateness, because that was the sort of thing a pop star ought to do; but he arrives early this evening, and stands waiting where the building lights illuminate him vividly. He'd been preparing for the date as soon as he'd asked her, simply because fussing about his outfit was better than lying about on top of his bed holding his head in his hands and feeling physically sick with rage.

He gets recognised by a teenage girl entering the lobby after her parents - something that would have delighted him a couple of days ago, before he'd risked his life to save a kidnapped ghost, before he saw a man transform into a fox before his eyes, before he'd been told that the memories were real. Now he just plays along. For once, he really doesn't care, and it's an awful feeling.

"It's sooo funny when you send all those Tweets where you're really pissed off!"

He poses for a selfie with her. And for another selfie, with her imitating his pose. She tells him she's excited to see the new Nuclear Parliament lineup in action. She compliments him on his outfit (head-to-toe dark purple, even the Docs and jewellery), but tells him it looks silly for him to be wearing sunglasses when it's dark. He pushes them further up his nose and tells her that a truly stylish person is able to get away with anything. She tells him he's her spirit animal in salt and he assures her that he has no idea what that means. None of this is fun any more.

He scans the road ahead - Yuffie, where are you?

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Yuffie pauses, answering before anything else.

"I'm pretty sure I jumped you first. If I remember right." She says, shrugging. Somehow that's not too surprising to her. That's the sort of thing she's begun to expect of other Yuffie. She's nodding as he asks about the way he talks and looks, because she knew all of it. Every single bit. She'd seen him, she'd heard him, she knew him.

The second he does the impression, Yuffie's eyes widen and the person she'd seen with the little girl snaps into place.

"Barret!" She says suddenly, and she grabs his hand with her other one as well, hopping up on her knees in her seat, so excited to remember. She can see him in her head, and it's like she can hear his voice, and it's like the gap in her head and her heart where he was supposed to be fills up.

"How could I forget Barret! Oh my Gawd. He- Barret and his kid. His kid! "

She's giddy as she talks, so happy to have some kind of context, for the memory she'd had when she was with Kido, the little girl from her memories, she'd been so ready to meet her, because of how much she'd heard from her dad while they were gone, how much they'd all heard. "Marlene! I remembered Marlene, when I was with my friend, I remembered her. "

"His kid!" Cloud says, and he grabs at his head because this is starting to hurt. It's like his mind is vomiting the memories out - contracting in all his senses to force it out. He wonders if it's possible to flashback yourself to death.

He grunts, and catches his breath, nodding at Yuffie to indicate he still needs to think about it, and putting his eyes back on the opera. He'd never really understood the point of serialism, but it fits his mood now - whirling strings and a gorgeous golden soprano, ebbing and swelling in atonal skits. Beautiful colours and textures, telling an obscure and painful tale.

"His kid," he says, after a while. "There's a house filled with flowers. Barret's in the bedroom, tears just streaming down the scars on his face. And Marlene - I can't remember, but she said, 'I bet she likes you, Cloud'. Cloud - Cloud." He realises what he's just said. "I'm Cloud there too. I've always wondered why I picked that as a stage name, it's not cool at all." And he clenches his hands into fists, suddenly feeling a deep sense of failure. "The girl she was talking about. She - I don't remember. But I was missing her."

Yuffie watches him carefully, because sometimes when she feels all wrong and things go green it's hard for her too. She's tended to zone out, more. To lose track of her thoughts or just lose her train of thought, a little like the world spinning under her feet. The fact that it hurts him worries her and she settles back into her chair next to him, leaning on his arm and watching him with much more interest than whatever is going on down below them.

She knew he was going to miss her too, but suddenly it just hits her full on again. The girl she's been remembering. Her smile, her laugh, her eyes. That's the first thing she remembered, the first thing of the other Yuffie she'd known. It bubbles up inside of her and burns in her chest.

"She...I think she's the one I miss, too. I didn't remember her name yet. But she's...It's gotta be the same girl." Yuffie begins to play with the bracelet at her wrist. She's worn it for months, now. Until a little while ago, she didn't know why. But it's for her. She knows it is.

She's so important, and Yuffie can't remember her name, though she remembers her warmth and the way her voice sounded even if she doesn't know words. She remembers how she smelled, like flowers and rain. What it felt like to hug her. All of those things, are like they were something she'd promised not to forget. Like something she'd never wanted to lose.

After a moment, she pauses, and looks up. Now that she's closer she can actually tell where he got smacked, and it makes her seethe again. She's going to do something, she doesn't know what, but it will be pretty violent.

"So. Are you gonna tell me how you got hit in the head, or am I gonna have'ta start guessing cause I'm not a great guesser. Just ask Maxxie."

Edited 2016-02-08 03:45 (UTC)

Cloud opens his mouth and closes it. He wants to ask if she remembers anyone else here; if she's seen Barret in person. He wants to ask her if she remembers what was on his arm too - what had they been? Were they soldiers? And for a second, a swirl of notes from the stage hits his throat and lifts him; he realises he's thrilled by the prospect of becoming a being from another world, in a single magical inspiration. A process so simple that he hadn't even thought of it when inventing characters for his videos. Who knew destroying everything about the way the world looks and feels would be as easy as thinking about it? But then the horror seizes him again. He's entitled to a life himself. He doesn't want it to stop.

When Yuffie asks him what had happened, the horror takes over completely.

"I fought them," he says. "We got Stella out - " his eyes widen with fondness at the mention of her - "but other than that we lost. We had disguises on, but they didn't work for a second. We ended up in a place where they hurt us and tried to tell us it was our fault." His voice trembles - intellectually, he doesn't believe it. Emotionally, he does. "It's hard to think about. Don't make me think about it. I don't know how much more my mind can take."

"It's okay." She has something of a lopsided, barely there smile when she says it. She doesn't know how much more she can take either. It's got to all be fine in the end, but they aren't at the end yet, are they?

"This guy came to me and asked me to help his friend. So we did. Went in attacked the bad guys. We kicked their asses, totally."
Yuffie is all false bravado and tough words. It's easy to be proud of saving Octave. Of helping Baryl. She'd known him for all of a day really and she could already tell from his time in her head that she liked him. He'd been so willing to do anything for his friend. She can get behind that. "We almost made it out, too."

"And then- Ah-" Yuffie tenses, and it's like it takes her a moment. She takes one deep breath, and then two, and three. Her breath sped up like it had when she'd been talking to Terry about this. It takes her what feels like forever, though was really only a few extra seconds at most, but she continues talking. "She got us. Baryl and Octave got out. And that's what's important."

She has to believe that. She doesn't say who 'she' is, but she hopes it's obvious. Even if Santiago is nowhere in sight, she terrifies her.

"We got hurt. Some of us had to watch-" Yuffie cuts off, looking up and away to avoid tearing up because she hates it.

"But everybody lived. So."

"It's the same for me," Cloud says, grateful she was there to put it into words, to help him see through the fog. He pulls her closer to him. She is so good at letting him remember. "The names are different, but..."

He really doesn't like talking about this. It's like the details keep slipping from his grasp while he finds words to pin to them. He keeps feeling like he needs a little more time to understand what it is that happened, a little more time -

"Yuffie, you don't remember anything else important about me?" he asks, changing the subject. "If there was anything, you'd tell me, right?"

Yuffie's tucked in against him and so that's the only thing that saves her from being caught.

She closes her eyes for a moment.

That city, burning. The look on his face when it was all there, wide eyes staring at everything disbelieving. His voice, asking why he was doing what he was doing. The girl was smiling, and Yuffie had been screaming, they'd all been screaming, trying to wake him up. He was the reason she'd known anything was wrong at the party.

He was probably why Jamie was still alive.

But still, who wanted to find that out. He already seemed so shaken. She didn't want to imagine how bad it would be to tell him this.

Yuffie turned her face in against his shoulder.

"You're Cloud Strife. You're my friend." She says quietly. "And you're the reason I was there for any of it at all."

It feels like an honest answer, even if it's not the most honest answer she could give. She knows that one day, she'll have to tell him. Or he'll remember. And she'll see that look again, the one where he looks young and wide eyed, and sad and she doesn't like that it's one of the things she remembers best when she knows there is so much more.

"I'll let you know if I remember, okay?" Just a little more time. That's all she wants.

"Mm. I know you would."

And Cloud nestles into her, turning his eyes finally to the stage. As the dragon costume undulates and writhes, he wonders if it really matters that everything is hopeless, because he has at least one person who's trying to understand. He wishes he could help her meet the real Cloud, the one she remembers, but -

I never lived up to being 'Cloud'.

His ears hiss. He is a battered sword and a ragged uniform hanging from shaped flesh and absolutely nothing else. There's a crown of petrified branches above his head, holding something beyond its death - he is diminished, dedicated, inverted; all his defiance and hate flipped upside down into obedience and -

He freezes for a second, then takes Yuffie's face in his hands and stares into her eyes, trying to look cool and serious.

"Yuffie, I just thought of something," he said. "It's incredibly important that we start making out now. That is, if you're..."

There is a pang of guilt that rises up that she's not entirely sure what to do with. She's doing the right thing, right? He shouldn't have to face that yet. Things are so bad, they're gonna get worse. She doesn't want to be the one to have to tell him those things are what he's got to remember. It's bad enough they're both missing her. But she know it gets worse. Her nightmares prove that much.

She's startled when he gets her attention and holds her face like that, and she looks up at him, worried about what it is. Yuffie is fully expecting it to be something actually incredibly harsh or important or something and so her face probably shows it. She's confused for all of one moment before she pauses, tips her head, grabs the front of his shirt, and puts on a sort of air because she can.

"Well, I guess if it is incredibly important then we're just gonna have to."

She manages to tease for all of one moment before a grin breaks across her face.

His stomach's already skipping around in his insides, uselessly - and then when her hands grab onto his shirt and her nails graze his chest, the dragon on stage rears up on its hind legs to a glorious swell of brass and he knows the feeling. He squirms in his chair. She's beautiful and she's into him and she's beautiful. Is it his turn? Okay. Okay, he can remember how to do this. Okay.

He swallows, licks his lips.

"Let's go!" he announces, face gravely serious. Then he gives a little half-shrug and moves in towards her mouth with a kind of frank carelessness - he wants to show her he can't be bothered with all the messing around but he is, actually, in charge and a master of what he's doing.

Still, for all the flash, the performance can't change the telling gentleness of his hands on her face. Like he's holding something in them that was so precious, and could end the world.

She's still grinning, when he actually goes to kiss her, looking up at him like she's still just so happy to see him at all that she can't stop smiling, her eyes darting from his eyes to his mouth.

This version of Yuffie, the one she knows best right now, is used to going after what she wants and she wonders if that other her, the one who knows Cloud better, if she's used to that sort of thing too. She has no idea. Sometimes she gets little glimpses of that Yuffie, and all she knows is, she likes what she sees. That has to mean something, right? There's something infectious and giddy in her chest, like she's going to throw back her head and laugh. It's kind of great with everything being as horrible as it's been lately, it's nice to just feel something else, something better.

So when he takes more time than she really wants him to, Yuffie uses the front of his shirt to pull him in closer, directing the kiss from something careless to something more intentional. She definitely kisses harder than she means to at first, forceful and a little like she's just attempting to drag him along after her, but after a moment pulls back enough to take a different angle, and go for something sweeter.

Cloud does a little bit of playfighting when she yanks him, grunting in alarm and pretending to try to shove her away, before letting her pull him in. His whole body flushes with the thrill of her looking at him like he was gorgeous, and he moans, more comfortable with her taking the lead. Like any other person who wanted to be famous, he fed off being adored.

Being intellectually honest with himself, he usually likes the long-haired, otherworldly, ravishing type - Yuffie wasn't the sort of girl he'd usually go for. He'd mistaken the other Cloud's feelings for a kind of love-at-first-sight, but as his memory became clearer he realised the other him had loved her differently. He could recall the incredible love he'd felt for her in that one moment upside down under the petrified thorns, but it had been along with everything else on the planet; he'd cherished every last thing and person on it as part of himself and the universe and life itself. It had been a real shame that he was going to have to -

No, he tells himself, pushing back the memory. Ultimately, he's not really interested in what the other Cloud thinks. He likes her as she is now, as this - she had his sense of humour and she was smart and ridiculous and unashamed of how awesome she was. She was wonderful whether or not he remembered her.

He pulls back and looks at her through his blond eyelashes.

"Did the real Cloud ever kiss you like this?" he asks, trying to do it in a sexy voice.

Edited 2016-02-15 18:41 (UTC)

When he's pulled away Yuffie pauses, seeming to think about it. Most of it's just for fun, teasing because there's something about this that makes her feel like she's won something she didn't even know she was attempting to win. She likes that feeling. She has no idea what it's connected to, but it's there. She doesn't let him get very far, still holding him in place, because that's what she does and she likes her control.

"You know, I have no idea." Her smile is broad and a little bit ridiculous, like she's a breath from breaking into a giddy sort of giggling. She's fantastic, right now. Being as close as she is, it's easy to take another quick kiss before she thinks about it too much.

"If other Yuffie never took advantage of this then she really needs to think about her choices."

Then there's a beat as she suddenly seems to hear what he said for real and process it and it's like the green behind her eyes flashes forward again. To Cloud, it will just look like her eyes slide of focus, seeming to disconnect from her body for all of a moment.

Maybe one day you'll meet the real 'Cloud'.

When Yuffie snaps back into herself it's like she's coming up for air, startled and eyes wide, breathing hard and half panicked.

He hadn't expected her to think about it - he knew that the real Cloud probably hadn't. It hadn't been a question for her to answer - it had been a dig at him. Now he'd decided he liked her for what she was now, the thought that she might like the other version of himself better than him made him tingle with jealousy. He's aware that that's an insane thing to think and doesn't care.

He kisses back, enthusiastic, tender. With his eyes closed, he feels her body stiffen in alarm in his arms.

"What is it?" he asks, holding her shoulders. "Sorry, did I do something wrong?"

"No. No. It's-" Her voice is pitched slightly higher than it was and she still looks half distracted, like she's possibly seeing something else or seeing double. It's all confusing to her and her brow is furrowed as she thinks. It's like the green is still sparking behind her eyes, and she can't quite shake it off. The other Yuffie, the one Baryl said she really was, that girl was angrier even than she was about everything, and she didn't even know why.

Not again. This isn't fair.

When she looks back up at Cloud again she almost seems to notice again the fact that he'd been hurt, her focus drawn to that first and foremost. When people she'd cared about had been hurt before, she'd known, somehow that she could fix it. And now with that other her so close to the surface she knows it again.

"I-" She starts, and then can't seem to find the words, she holds out her hand between them, looking at it like she doesn't recognize it somehow. Then she closes her fist and her eyes and it's a little like she lights up from the inside, like they both do, glowing around the both of them for a few moments, barely even lighting up the walls of the box. Anyone who saw would probably think it was a camera flash or the light of a phone. It's gone as quickly as it appeared, the light shifting away from them and blinking out.

When she opens her eyes she's focused and suddenly it's like so much of her doesn't hurt that did.

"Oh holy-"

" - shit!" Cloud finishes for her, though he wasn't actually trying to. He lets go of her, pops his sunglasses back on and leans out of the box to check there wasn't some bored teenager staring up at the two of them, but all he can see is his own eyes reflecting back at him off the lenses - the glow brighter than it had been before. When he ducks back inside to take his glasses off, his hand brushes against the place where he'd been cut, but there's nothing there.

"What just happened?" he asks her, having to consciously restrain the volume of his voice. Staring into her dark eyes, he touches his ear, not knowing what he'll find - it's in one piece, like usual.

"What was that?"

Edited 2016-02-17 00:58 (UTC)

Yuffie's pauses, and she reaches up, touching where his ear is back in one piece. Her eyes are wide and stunned. Her eyes flick up to his and the bruise that had spread across half her face seems to have retreated to just the split on her cheek, half healed. More importantly it's so much easier for her to breathe than it was. She'd gotten so used to her ribs hurting it had just been part of her.

"Me. That was...That was me. I did that? ...I did that." A smile breaks across Yuffie's face suddenly. "Holy shit."

"I don't know how I-" She stops and starts again. "....That....weirdly explains a lot."

Maybe this is why she knows bits and pieces of medical information, why she was so sure she and Jamie would be fine. This is a part of her. It's something she can do.

"You did that?" Cloud repeats, eyes wide and bright as moons. He has no idea if it's because of something they did to his brain, in that murky sequence of images and feelings and invasions which he can't quite get his head around, but - he sits back down - this is just too much. For a second, it shows on his face - he looks like he's annoyed with her for bringing up this kind of madness just when he's beginning to enjoy himself, when he's too tired to carry on. Then it falls away, replaced with a curious sort of concern.

It's like his ear. Even though it hurt he just hadn't been able to stop touching it.

"What did it feel like?" he asks her. "Did it hurt? Did it make you feel powerful? Whatever you did to me, it felt... good. As if, for just a second, I was able to stop."

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Ao Guang

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