Chapter Four: Duet con Trio: Part Two

Sephiroth checked himself one last time before entering the bar, pushing a stray piece of hair behind his ear. “Hello,” he said by way of greeting.

Cloud, Tifa, and Zack all turned towards the tinkling bell and Sephiroth’s deep voice. “Hi,” said Tifa, speaking first when the two men remained silent. “Welcome to Seventh Heaven. Can I get you something to drink?”

Sephiroth shook his head. There was no way he’d let alcohol lower his inhibitions around Cloud. Especially when he looks like that, he thought to himself, giving Cloud an appreciative once-over. “Thank you for the offer,” he said graciously. “Cloud, are you ready?”

Zack glanced at his friend to see his reply, and frowned to see Cloud’s customary blank expression plastered across his face. He sighed. Looks like I’ve got a lot of work to do, he mused.

Cloud was just praying that he’d make it to the car without incident. For the love of everything holy, there’s no way I’m going to survive this, he whimpered in his mind. “Yeah,” he said tonelessly, grabbing his music bag from the counter, “let’s mosey.”
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He followed after the silver-haired god, trying to keep his eyes above Sephiroth’s waist, but failing miserably. He just couldn’t keep his focus off the way the silver ponytail sashayed from left to right in perfect unison with the man’s hips. Cloud groaned softly as he thought about how difficult the next few hours would be, and suddenly heard Zack’s voice in his ear.

“Amen,” he said, and Cloud could hear Tifa giggling in the background.

“For the love of everything holy,” muttered Cloud, “will you please shut up?”

Sephiroth glanced back at him, and Cloud hastily mustered up a half smile. Great, he thought, not even in the car yet, and he thinks I’m a nut.

As they stopped beside Sephiroth’s car, Cloud was temporarily jarred out of his state of panic in order to fully appreciate the dark green machine. Whistling lowly, he remarked, “Nice car.”

Sephiroth looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. “Thank you,” he said in a slow drawl, and Cloud felt himself blushing again.

“I—I mean, it’s a Jaguar XKR, right? The latest model,” he stuttered.

Sephiroth lowered himself into the car, and Cloud did the same, marveling at the fact that he was actually sitting in a Jaguar, nevermind Sephiroth’s Jaguar. He thought about that for a moment, and very nearly came in his pants.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sephiroth looking at him. Embarrassed, Cloud snuck a quick peek downwards before answering, “I’m sorry, what?”

Sephiroth started the car and pulled out of the lot. “I said, yes, it is, and then I asked if you are a car aficionado,” he stated.

“Cloud, this is very important. I want you to take that, and run with it,” said Zack urgently in Cloud’s ear. “Run like you just saw me n’ Tifa doin’ it on the bar at Seventh Heaven.”

“Eww! Zack, that’s gross,” yelled Tifa, and Cloud felt rather inclined to agree, if the tiny bit of throw up in his mouth served any indication.

“Um, yeah,” Cloud finally said aloud. “Cars—anything with an engine, really, they’re my passion. I work in a mechanic shop, and I customized my motorcycle myself. With some help, of course, but mostly it was me. I could tell you pretty much anything about any car, no matter the make or model,” he finished proudly, still blushing a little.

“Really,” said Sephiroth, raising an eyebrow, “then tell me about my car.”

“What do you want to know about it?” Cloud boldly challenged, and then wondered immediately if he’d gone too far.

“Transmission,” said Sephiroth calmly.

“6 speed automatic,” Cloud replied with no hesitation.

“Engine type.”

“Supercharged AJ-V8 Gen III direct-injection.”

“Layout.”

“Front engine, rear wheel drive.”

“Zero to sixty.”

“4.6 seconds.”

“Body type.”

“2 door, 2 seat GT coupe.”

At this point, Cloud figured that if the rest of the night’s conversation was this easy, he should have talked to Sephiroth ages ago. He heard Zack laughing in his ear, and knew the blue-eyed brunet had thought the exact same thing.

Sephiroth looked to him with narrowed eyes. “Displacement, horsepower, and torque,” he said quietly.

“5 liters, 510 bhp, and 461 ft.-lb.,” he replied easily. “Do you really doubt me?”

Sephiroth smiled and shook his head. “No, I actually find it rather refreshing,” he said, and Cloud’s blush returned.

“Oh,” he said simply, too much in awe to say anything else. Sephiroth? Finding him refreshing? Dear goddess, what had the world come to?

As the car fell prey to a parasitic silence that made Cloud more nervous with each passing moment, Zack came to the rescue. “As him where he lives,” he said partly out of curiosity, partly because Cloud needed to say something, and partly because he wanted to know how long his friend would suffer this particular brand of torture.

“So, uh, where do you live?” Cloud thought his voice sounded like a megaphone in the silence of the car. Not even the radio was playing.

Sephiroth spared him a quick glance before replying, “On the outskirts of Edge. Uptown.”

Cloud could hear Zack whistle low in his ear, and couldn't help but agree with the sentiment. Uptown Edge was the most expensive area in the city. Even the shittiest apartments there made a decent house in Central Edge look like a slum. Great. Just what his clumsy ass needed, an expensive apartment to completely destroy.

“That's nice,” he murmured, and turned to stare out the window for the remainder of the trip, which proved surprisingly silent.

Back at the bar, Zack carefully covered his microphone before whispering to Tifa, “This is going to be a little harder than I thought.”

Tifa glanced towards the ceiling and let out a doleful sigh.
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With each floor they rose, Cloud could feel his heart sink deeper into his stomach. By the time they reached their destination, apartment 11A, the penthouse suite, he was pretty sure his heart had been thoroughly digested by the churning acid in his stomach.

“Wow,” said Zack in his ear. “I mean—shit. Wow.”

And Cloud whole-heartedly concurred. The apartment was decorated in a modern theme, black, white, and silver the prevailing colors. Glass end-tables with black metal frames held lamps designed in abstract shapes, a massive white sofa faced an even bigger flat screen TV hanging on the wall, and if he wasn't mistaken, a set of double doors at the far side of the apartment opened onto spacey balcony.

“You're not helping,” growled Cloud lowly still feeling the need to berate his friend, even if he agreed.

Sephiroth glanced back as he held the door open. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” Cloud quickly said, following Sephiroth into the apartment. “Nice, um, place.”

Taking off his coat and holding out a hand for Cloud's own jacket, he replied without quite meeting the blond's eyes. “Thank you. Would you like something to drink?”

“No, I'm fine,” lied Cloud, dropping his bag onto the floor and shrugging out of his jacket. As he handed it to Sephiroth, his fingers brushed against Sephiroth's hand, and he dropped the jacket in shock.

“Sorry,” he hastily muttered, bending over quickly to retrieve it. Properly handing over the jacket to Sephiroth, he noticed the man had a severe frown on his face. “Sorry,” he repeated, “I'm a little—clumsy, whatever.” He tried to arrange his features into a mask of indifference, but had a feeling he was failing miserably.

Sephiroth let out a sigh, but his expression remained unchanged. “I'll go get you something to drink,” he said quietly before disappearing into the kitchen.

Cloud was grateful Zack had at least waited until the man had left the room before exclaiming, “Holy shit, did you see that? Tif, did you see that?”

The blonde slapped a hand over his ear. “Ow,” he complained.

“Of course I saw it, Zack, I'm staring at the same screen you are, silly,” replied Tifa.

Cloud hear Zack whooping in the background. “Way to go Spiky! Nice move there,” he congratulated.

Cloud moved as far away from the kitchen as he could and checked the door before hissing, “Move? What move? Now he probably thinks I'm this big, fat, clumsy cow! A big, fat clumsy cow who can't look him in the eye and has serious mental deficiency! What the hell kind of move is that?”

A move only a cow makes, a small voice inside his head replied sorrowfully.

He was met with only silence for a few heartbeats as Zack and Tifa exchanged glances. “Well,” said Tifa, “you're not fat.”

Cloud distinctly felt the pain of any chance he had of attracting Sephiroth being violently torn from his sobbing self. “Hopeless,” he muttered desolately, slumping onto the pristine white couch. “Completely hopeless.”

“Pardon?”

Cloud's eyes snapped open at the sound of a voice not distorted by technology. “I-I mean, n-nothing,” he stammered, heat rising rapidly into his fair cheeks. He looked around the room at anything but Sephiroth's face, trying to save what was left of his dignity.

“Relax,” whispered Zack in his ear.

Sephiroth held out a glass of water. “Here,” he said.

Cloud accepted the glass, grateful that he didn't see any signs of confusion or amusement on Sephiroth's face, and downed half of it in one gulp. In the back of his head, he wondered mildly if there was any way to drown oneself in a glass filled with three inches of water.

Sephiroth never took his eyes from Cloud's face, and when he was finished with his water, he said, “I suppose we can begin now?”

Hastily wiping a few drops from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, Cloud replied, “Yeah, I guess so.”

Sephiroth immediately turned around, picked up Cloud's belongings, and made his way to his music room. As he opened the door, he realized Cloud was not behind him and muttered just loud enough for him to hear, “I know I am good, but I cannot play both the flute and piano at the same time, Cloud.”

The blond only stared at him like a dazed chocobo, having gone into shock the moment Sephiroth had uttered his name. “Cloud,” said Tifa in warning, “move.”

Her voice brought him back to his senses, and he hurriedly set the empty glass down on the table, making sure there was a coaster beneath it. “Of course,” he mumbled, brushing past Sephiroth into the music room, heart beating so fast he figured his risk for a heart attack just quadrupled.
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Sephiroth silently followed behind the flautist, closing the door behind himself and sliding down onto the bench behind the baby grand piano. “You can sit over there...or stand, if you prefer,” he said, motioning towards a music stand set up beside the piano.

“I prefer standing,” Cloud murmured, setting his music upon the stand and opening his flute case. He could feel Sephiroth's stare boring holes into the back of his head as he put together his instrument and tried to ignore it. Gods, where was his Cool Attitude when he needed it? Apparently, at home with his Common Sense. They were probably having tea together with Life the Bitch, he mused, stupid, damn, evil...

“Damn,” swore Cloud softly after a few minutes. The soundproof room was reverberating with the sounds of Sephiroth practicing scales and particularly tricky fingerings, so the silveret missed the slight curse.

Zack, however, did not. “What's up?”

“I knew I should have taken a few extra minutes to polish this thing,” Cloud muttered. Hastily improvising, he stuck his hand underneath his shirt and began quickly fisting up and down the metal of his head joint.

“Uh—um, okay?” Zack laughed nervously and stuck a hand behind his head. Covering the microphone with the other, he called out, “Yo, Tifa? Is it normal for him to be giving his instrument a hand job?”

Cloud sighed in annoyance. “I heard that,” he mumbled. Lifting the joint up to eye level, he glanced at it for a moment before popping the end into his mouth, taking care not to drool into it. After a moment, he pulled it out and started polishing it again.

Sephiroth finished his few minutes and turned around, intent on asking Cloud whether he felt it necessary to tune up, or if he imagined himself some god of perfect pitch, but the sarcastic comment died on his lips as he observed the blond's...awkward behavior. From the way Cloud's back was angled towards him, it honestly looked as if he was...but surely he wouldn't...

“Cloud,” Sephiroth stated, rather than asked.

“Yeah,” the blond replied distractedly.

“What are you doing,” said Sephiroth.

“I'm just—I needed to polish my head,” Cloud replied. He popped the metal back in his mouth.

Back at Seventh Heaven, a giant fragment of Zack's soul died. “Please...please tell me you did not just say that,” he groaned.

“Wha—...oh, shit,” Cloud cussed as the double entendre finally hit him, and he spun around with a wild blush on his face and his head joint in his mouth. “Issh nah—” He quickly pulled the joint from his mouth and tried to explain. “I mean, my head joint, not—it gets stuck if I don't—and it—I needed to—and I didn't have a cloth or anything, so—I just used my shirt—and spit is a lot less messy than oil to keep it—so it goes in easier and doesn't get stuck—” He trailed off as Sephiroth held up a hand to stop him.

“Far be it from me to prevent you from your pre-practice rituals,” he drawled, “even those as...strange...as performing fellatio on one's instrument.” He let a hint of a smirk slip across his face and then disappear.

Cloud didn't know who he wanted to kill first, Sephiroth or himself.

“Can we just get this done with already,” he grumbled, shoving his head joint onto the rest of the flute with a lot more force than needed, wincing and muttering a quick apology to the instrument.

“Hm,” said Sephiroth, “very well,” and he played a B flat so Cloud could tune, though he really needn't have bothered, because, as usual, when the flautist played his note...

I'm always in tune, Cloud thought to himself. “Okay,” he said, regaining his composure for the first time since they'd gotten out of the car. “Let's do this.”
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Two hours later found one Cloud Strife with his face between one Sephiroth Crescent's legs, with said silveret's hand on the nape of his neck and his caressing voice in his ear, saying, “I think I should take you home now, Cloud.”