Tag: cloud strife

tomowowowo:

tomowowowo:

boomchickfanfiction:

April OTP Challenge
Art by @tomowowowo
Story by @boomchickfanfiction

(Previous Day: D&D AU)

Day 10: Historical Romance AU

• *Please note today’s story contains an abusive father and husband. Please proceed with caution if this is a subject that is painful to you!*

There are days in a life that are never left behind. Days that rise with consciousness every morning, that settle in at the bedside every night and loom there. Days that a mind picks up and turns over and over and over, like a polished gem, or like a strange bleached bone. There is something in the texture of them, something in their feeling, something in their content that makes them impossible to place back on the ground and walk away from.

The mind gets addicted to the feeling of them, and will keep them tucked away always, running their fingers over the curves again and again and again.

The day the nurse came in a frenzy to Sephiroth’s room to tell him his mother was ill was one of those days.

It is part of the texture, their unexpectedness. For all the fear and discomfort and confusion and joy that followed the events of that spring afternoon, it was the quiet calm of the morning that clung to Sephiroth’s mind like tar. It was the fresh air, too cold for a perfect spring. It was the birdsong outside his window on the estate. His quiet morning spent reading letters from his father’s business partner’s, drinking his first cup of tea, and feeling at peace.

It was contentment that day taught him to fear. Contentment, for in its wake the pain and horror of finding his mother sick and delirious in bed and the nurse weeping glared all the brighter. All peace had fled him in an instant as he took his mother’s hand. Asked if they had sent for the doctor. Stared down at her dazed eyes as she looked up and did not know him.

He learned to fear contentment that day. He kept that fear, like a found bone tucked away beneath his pillow.

Rotting.

And yet there was a jewel too that day. Something smooth and lovely and strange. Something he felt he should have put down, because he had found the bone of his mother’s illness, and it seemed wrong to keep them both. Seemed wrong to taint one with the other.

But he kept the jewel anyway. The sight of the young man in his room, who had been free to leave his work hours ago, stoking up Sephiroth’s fire to keep his room from freezing in the chill spring night.

The surprise on his face when Sephiroth entered, having expected to go unnoticed in his act of kindness.

Sephiroth, still feeling out the porous, painful, jagged fear had been unable to resist the unexpected softness.

“Good evening,” Sephiroth murmured, too tired by far for politeness, and yet trying. “Are you here after hours for any reason?”

“I meant no disrespect sir,” the man said, voice soft and uncertain. “Only my mother said the lady of the house and fallen ill, and that you had stayed by her today. I thought a warm room when you could rest…”

“I take no offense,” Sephiroth said. “I would ask you forgive my ill manner. It has been a trying day.”

The man was quiet a moment, uncertain. For a moment, Sephiroth thought he would leave. He did not understand the fear he felt in that.

“How fares lady Crescent?” He asked instead, soft and worried.

“Does it concern you?” Sephiroth asked. He closed his eyes when the servant flinched, and lifted a hand to forestall any apology or groveling. “I do not ask out of cruelty. Only that I have seen a good many shows of concern poorly intended today.”

He thought of his father cooing and clucking by the bedside, and felt ill.

“It concerns me only in that she has always been kind to my mother, sir.” He said after a moment, watching Sephiroth in worry. “And to me as well. I do not know where we would be if not for her generosity in taking in a widower with no name and her son to serve in such a house as this.”

“Such a house as this indeed,” Sephiroth muttered, hating every inch of it in that moment for having not kept his mother from harm.

“Sir,” the young man said, taking a half-step forward. “You look pale. Please, sit a while before you fall? I will leave you in peace.”

“I would that you would stay a little while.” Sephiroth said, sitting heavily on his bedside. “And I would have your name.”

“Cloud, sir.” He said. “Cloud Strife.”

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*sniffling* I teared up a lot in this one TTATT I GOT SWOON BABY YOU’RE INCREDIBLE

afternoon reblog!