A Halloween FFVII Oneshot
Art by Tomowowowo, find the full illustration at" boomchickfanfiction dot tumblr dot com slash post/101397017579/deer-and-lord-a-halloween-ffvii-oneshot-art-by "
Pairings: Sephiroth/Cloud, mentioned Zack/Aerith
Rating: Actually nice!
Author's Note: It's a double event! Happy Halloween, followers!

"What do you think he'll be?" Cloud whispered from where he hovered at Zack's elbow. He shouldn't have been at the high-class party. He wasn't a Soldier yet, after all. But it turned out that Zack's preferences held a lot of clout with the company lately.

"I dunno." Zack said with a shrug. "But they always dress him up as something. Bet he won't be as scary as I am!"

Cloud glanced at the muslin wrapping wound around Zack that turned him into a 'mummy.' He looked over the gaps in the wrapping that left inappropriate amounts of skin bare. Then he sighed and shook his head.

"You're headed down to see your girlfriend right after this, aren't you."

Zack grinned at him, his teeth left completely clear by his cheap costume, his blue eyes glinting in delight. "She's going as an angel. She said I gave her the idea!"

He pointed at himself as though he were some genius, instead of the moron who'd fallen through Aerith's ceiling and mistaken her for a celestial being.

"I still can't believe you talked me into dressing up like this." Cloud muttered, fiddling with the vest that only halfway covered his bare chest.

"You've really filled in over the past year! You deserve to show it off." Zack laughed. "And the fawn look suits you!"

"Did you have to paint spots on me, though?" Cloud muttered.

"Well you are still a teenager." Zack teased in reply, ruffling Cloud's hair, careful not to dislodge the headdress Cloud was wearing with its antlers and wide deer ears.

"Jerk," Cloud grinned, ducking out from under the hold. "Don't you have people to schmooze with?"

"Nah, I brought you along so I would have someone to talk to who won't ask me to do a new ad campaign."

"Sephiroth wouldn't ask you to."

"No, he'd just give me all his missions and go back to staring out the window." Zack muttered, rolling his eyes. But the words were almost fond this time instead of bitter and angry. Cloud leaned against him, heartened by his friend's good mood.

They looked up together as the crowd in the room gave a collective gasp. There was a hoard of people clustered around the entrance, and Cloud could see flashes going off from photographers gathered there.

"That will be Sephiroth." Zack chuckled. "You should have heard the commotion back when he showed up with Genesis and Angeal back in the day. People fainted."

"I might still faint." Cloud whispered, only half joking. "Think he's a vampire? He'd make a good one."

"Nah, too generic. They love to go all out."

"They? Don't you mean he?"

"If he gets any say in his costume I'd be surprised." Zack's voice had turned suddenly grim. "He doesn't get any in his uniform. It's part of the spectacle, you know? Make the General pretty enough, and people don't care what he does so long as he looks good doing it."

"You're being depressing." Cloud cautioned.

"Some things are worth being depressed about." Zack replied, giving him a little shove. "Ready to go see how hot your boyfriend looks?"

"Don't say that so loud!" Cloud hissed. "It's supposed to be secret."

"Come on, Antler-brain. No one's paying the two of us any attention at all." Zack slung an arm around Cloud's shoulders, leading him toward the door. "I'm curious too. Let's see if we can get a peek between photo ops."

Cloud let himself be dragged along. It was better than getting wasted with the guys in his barracks. At least this way, even if he couldn't talk to Sephiroth, he could see him. And Zack was welcome company. They didn't get to hang out much outside of training, after all.

"You wanna toss them out of the way with your stag power?" Zack asked, tugging lightly on one end of Cloud's antlered headband.

"Don't mess with it, it took me forever to get it on right." Cloud complained. "And you're the one with super strength."

"Eh, I do alright but—"

Cloud didn't hear the rest of his words. The crowd parted and Sephiroth strode through. Cloud's first, almost incoherent thought was that his robes looked like nighttime itself. They swirled around him with every motion, gauzy and light, but dark as midnight, flecked with stars. He shone. His hair fell about him, His bangs braided back in arches that connected to a long braid behind his head. Black wings like lace arched behind him, gleaming with a metallic sheen. His eyes fixed on them, and Cloud could not have escaped that gaze if he tried.

Unearthly green swirls like the lifestream itself gleamed on his face, iridescent and shining. The black crown regally gracing his silver hair seemed to embody winter—bare branches twisting over his head, flecked with jewels. Strands thin as spider silk wove in and out of the ornate assemblage. His lips curled ever so slowly into a smile, his head tilting as he observed Cloud.

Cloud fought back the irrational urge to drop to his knees. Sephiroth looked like the god of night. He shone in his regalia, more covered than his usual clothes allowed, but somehow seeming bare and raw and powerful despite that. Cloud swallowed around a dry mouth.

Zack laughed beside him, and the spell was broken.

"You're a fairy!" Zack cried in delight.

"I am a Fey." Sephiroth replied with an aristocratically arched eyebrow. "Fairies are for children. The Fair Folk are beyond that."

"You can say whatever you want about it, but you are definitely a fairy." Zack grinned, striding forward to clasp hands with Sephiroth, his tattered costume looking even more ridiculous in comparison to Sephiroth's regalia. Despite that, cameras flashed again.

Cloud took the moment to compose himself. He knew he would be blushing behind the white spots Zack had painted onto his face. He took slow breaths, trying to study Sephiroth surreptitiously even as he did.

"Cloud." The glorious General's low voice rumbled in greeting.

Cloud lifted his eyes to meet Sephiroth's gaze, and only barely managed to gasp in a breath to reply "Sir."

"Good to see you." The man offered him a hand to shake as well.

Cloud froze for a moment. He was so used to being greeted warmly by the man, as a friend and lover. But he'd expected to be ignored, this night. He'd expected to be a nobody, not to be greeted as a friend in front of the press, president, board members, and everyone. Apparently that wasn't what Sephiroth had in mind. His brain caught up, and he stepped forward quickly, trying not to let himself blush about his silly getup with false deer hooves and fuzzy pants and all.

He gripped Sephiroth's hand, and smiled up at him. "Good to see you too." Cloud replied, following Sephiroth's lead of familiarity.

Cameras flashed, and he tried not to let his smile falter at that. He heard someone mutter 'oh, now that's a good look.' He knew they meant the costumes, but it still made his hand twitch under Sephiroth's touch. The fey man smiled at him wickedly in response, and Cloud suddenly realized why Zack had been so eager to buy him such a nice costume when his own was just a simple mummy. He was a prop for photo ops.

"Sir, is this one of your Soldiers?" Called one of the reporters.

"He soon will be." Sephiroth replied smoothly, turning towards the voice. Cloud took the chance to observe the intricate stitching over the back of his costume where his fairy wings joined the back of his robes.

"Do you think you could stand together for a few pictures? Your costumes are well matched."

"So long as Strife doesn't mind being kept from a rousing game of bobbing for apples with Commander Fair."

"We have apple bobbing!?" Zack cried in puppyish delight.

The reporters laughed as though they thought the words were genuine, but Cloud saw the calculation in Zack's gaze. Saw the small smile that followed the grin, and the wink he shot in their direction. Cloud closed his eyes for a moment, and thanked his lucky stars that he had someone like Zack Fair for a wing man.

The dancing started before the press conference was done, but by that point Cloud was glad to be whisked away by young ladies to dance on the floor. Sephiroth let him go with a lingering look, then turned back to answering questions. "Who are you wearing?" And "Can we expect any new interviews with you?" And "Have you given any more thought to writing the memoir of the war?"

Cloud almost hated to leave him, but he didn't know how many more of the intrusive questions he could smile and blush his way through. It had been enough to make him squirm.

He was no great dancer, but he was passable. He managed not to break any toes, and smiled at the girls he danced with. They were nice, he thought. And he was grateful for the chance to breathe and do something he was good at, unlike interviews and press.

When he was whisked out of the arms of a young lady into a strong hold, he was laughing even before he registered Zack's face grinning at him out of even-messier-than-before mummy wrappings.

"May I have this dance?" Zack asked playfully.

"You are a brat!" Cloud muttered, but there was no resisting as the First Class Soldier whisked him out onto the dance floor.

"At ten o'clock, he's going to escape." Zack whispered into Cloud's ear, leaning close to murmur it.

"How?" Cloud asked in reply. "And how has he not murdered anyone yet?"

"Years of practice." Zack commented with a grin. "Don't try to escape with him, he's going to be too flamboyant for that. But you'd better be outside in the garden 'getting some air' at about ten. If you get my drift."

"Zack, you are the best friend in the world." Cloud whispered, grinding their dance to a halt to squeeze his friend close in a hug. "Thank you."

"Hey, don't thank me. I'm abandoning you after this dance. I've got an angel waiting, after all."

"Have fun." Cloud said fondly, giving Zack a final squeeze before releasing him. "I'm just going to grab some punch. Circulate a bit."

"Ten o clock." Zack reminded with a smile. "You don't want to miss it."

Cloud stood in the garden from ten o' five onwards. As soon as he was out of the media spotlight, people had stopped paying so much attention to him. He'd shaken some hands, and introduced himself once or twice. He'd lied about how well he knew Sephiroth to three separate reporters by that point, telling them 'I'd hesitate to call him a friend...' Though technically that was true. They were far beyond friends.

He watched the lights in the windows of the Shinra building, leaning back against a concrete enclosure that held one of the few bushes on the grounds. It was a rather poor excuse for a garden. He knew from experience that most of the plants were plastic re-creations of biology and not actual life.

He was starting to get bored, shifting on his aching toes where he stood. The special shoes looked great, like dainty hooves, but they'd left him walking on the balls of his feet all night long, and it was starting to wear on him.

Then fog poured out of the building and all around him, thick and unnatural and dense. He heard gasps and he gave a soft smile to himself. The dense white mist filled the garden within moments flat, and Cloud fixed his gaze on the raised platform that joined the ballroom to the garden via long, curving staircases.

Through the fog-filled doorway strode Sephiroth. He must have vanished into it within moments so far as the onlookers could tell. His black robes billowed around him, and his face paint gleamed in light that flickered from his own eyes. He leaped off of the platform and into the garden in a fluid motion. He landed just a foot from Cloud in a billow of silk and silver hair, crouching a little before straightening before him.

"My fawn." He purred. "Will you accompany me a while?"

"You are so dramatic." Cloud whispered fondly.

"They respond better to drama than to reality." Sephiroth bent to press a solid kiss to Cloud's forehead. "Come. Before they decide to get a 'scoop' by following me."

Cloud looped his arm through Sephiroth's following him at a trot, his false hooves making the softest of drumming sounds on the pavement as he tried to keep up with Sephiroth.

"Did you have fun?" Sephiroth asked softly.

"Well," Cloud hesitated, then settled for, "I liked getting to see you dressed up in person, at least."

Sephiroth gave a small smile.

"I hate them too." He whispered. "But I enjoyed your costume as well."

"Maybe we could go somewhere more private to enjoy them?" Cloud suggested after a moment, as they came into sight of the plate stretched out before them, glowing green in the light of the reactors.

"I think that sounds like a wonderful idea." Sephiroth whispered, turning to face him with a wild sort of hunger in his darkly-lined eyes, and a pleased smile curling his lips.

Sephiroth lifted his hand to kiss it gently, his lips soft against Cloud's knuckles. Cloud tucked his chin, gazing up at him in pure adoration. He lifted his free hand to catch Sephiroth at the back of his neck, careful not to mess up his costume, and drew him down to catch his lips.

They kissed for a moment, and Cloud closed his eyes in pleasure, feeling the cool fog that had followed them from the main building curl around them affectionately. Then they parted, and stared for a moment, basking in the light of one another.

"I owe Zack for this." Sephiroth muttered, sliding his finger over the arch of Cloud's antler.

"I would suggest we go meet him and his girlfriend, but I don't want her to feel bad about how much prettier you are."

"I am not pretty." Sephiroth scoffed. "I am dangerously beautiful."

Cloud snickered, pressing his forehead briefly to the dark embroidered fabric covering Sephiroth's chest. He held there for a moment, feeling Sephiroth's breath under his head, and feeling the man's hand rest lightly on his back. Then, without a word, they parted, leaving only their hands twined together. They slid back into the employee's entrance of the building, leaving the artificial fog curling in their wake, shining green with the reflected light of Midgar.