“What happened this time?”

The concern in Aerith’s voice was clear, but the hug she gave Sephiroth was gentle, squeezing him around his shoulders. She couldn’t bear to leave him, her hands lingering on his arms, squishing his small frame with affection. “It’s okay, actually. I’m not going to make you tell me.”

Sephiroth’s eyes were closed tightly. He was soundless save for his slow and measured breath. He patiently waited for her to hug him again, for her to bring him back into her comforting warmth… But he’d never, ever admit it. Instead he’d wait, basking in the friendly rays of her affection. They felt pleasantly alien in contrast to the rest of his life.

“Do you want to show me?”

Sephiroth didn’t answer her. Aerith rubbed Sephiroth’s arms like he were a small dog, but he still appreciated her subconscious gestures meant only to comfort him. It was the only time that he found himself enjoying being treated like an animal. Aerith treated him as though he were something small, fragile, like a much younger child than he actually was. The way that the scientists and Hojo treated him made him feel like he was something dirty, inexcusable, something unforgivable that had earned its place at the end of a scalpel or a surveying needle.

Sephiroth silently stared at Aerith with watery eyes, ones that still faintly glowed, within them laying the proof that he was something profoundly othered, different in a disgusting, disturbing way. She met his questioning, nervous look with a smile, a real, genuine one that made the ice of his veins melt, softening his frozen heart.

Aerith was profoundly beautiful in every way that he was not. She was the real thing that he was meant to resemble—the traits that had backfired when absorbed into his genetic makeup were obvious in all of her actions. She was like the forest in the way she was so alive, bursting with thoughts and creativity. She was like the gentle winds of the sky in how all of her body was made of soft, smooth slopes and curves, her hair slightly wavy, curling in delicate loops at the edges. She was like water in how her emotions were deep, undulating in every action, freely shared—even in complex, heavy emotions like love, she could be an unending stream, a strong river of determination destined to reach its partner.

Sephiroth was ice, a cold, deadly thing. A being who stung, designed to slowly plunge all that Aerith represented into a lifeless nothingness. Where Aerith’s magic was white, a healing harmony, his was a sick, diseased black, only capable of chaotic destruction. 

Aerith was so colorful, even in this dark place, this pathetic excuse for a room that was nothing more than a glorified prison cell. Her skin was marbled with faint freckles, blushing pink. Her ruby rose lips were so warm, smiling under emerald eyes that glittered like the memories Sephiroth had of the leaves of trees, shining as though they were transparent behind the evening sun.

Sephiroth was pale, sickly from the constant flow of strange drugs that Hojo’s men forcibly pumped into his system. His body lacked coloring except for the dark blue of his thick veins that cracked around his faint muscles, his hair bleached a chalk white, as colorless as untouched snow. His eyes had large, dark circles—he could never rest, not unless he was lucky enough to be soothed by Aerith before he tried to submit to sleep—and the startling color of his bestial, crescent-slitted eyes stood out with an artificial intensity, solidifying his surreal, fabricated body—a testament to how this fabrication could hardly withstand itself, let alone a world so determined on rejecting him.

Aerith brushed his hair with her fingertips, the heat from her palms reaching him across his cheeks as she swept the long strands behind his ears. The simple gesture made him feel as though he were being carved apart in a way that only she could break him down, but it didn’t feel terrifying or miserable. For the first time in a long time, in her love, he felt sorry for himself, feeling the holes in his life where he’d wished a mother had loved him so kindly, so tenderly, so unconditionally. He leaned into her touch, tears silently rolling down his cheeks. Aerith was kind enough not to mention it, not wanting to wound his pride; she merely brushed the pads of her thumb into them as they fell, wiping them from his face.

“It’s okay,” she cooed, letting him come in closer to her as he always did, welcoming the silent way he would slowly crawl towards her embrace like an abused animal. “It’s alright. You’re okay.”

Sephiroth let Aerith guide him to her chest, letting her bring her arms around him to shield him. The damp coolness of this cell transformed into a place that felt more like a home from within the folds of her arms, like the nicest place in the world. 

Aerith found the new scars that crisscrossed his back, thick raised white welts that she knew from touch alone must have looked a lot worse a few days ago. Her heart ached with sorrow at their predicament, wishing she could rescue him from his fate. But they were both children, trapped in the maw of ShinRa’s gruesome experiments, deemed essential by the top brass, guarded by the sharpest in all intelligence. She was only eight, and by careful observation the pair had determined that Sephiroth had to be ten or eleven—what could such children hope to do to escape their fate as lab rats?

To make matters worse, even if there were chances for Aerith to run away on her own, her mother was often held hostage from her, a reason to force her to stay and behave. A reason not to kick up a storm when she had to watch Sephiroth, the friend she loved as dearly as a brother, endure the horrible experiments that were visibly transforming him and his body. The cracks in him were visible to Aerith. The coiling darkness that rushed to fill these deep wounds had a lasting and devastating impact on his psyche.

Sephiroth admired the wall of colored drawings that he and Aerith had made together, watching the color of a world he had come to recognize less and less now that his training and the procedures he was forced to endure had intensified, worsening in ways that he could never begin to explain to Aerith no matter how hard he tried. 

“I promise,” Aerith whispered. “I’m going to find a way to get us all out of here.” She squeezed Sephiroth’s shoulders in a way that made him turn to face her and her declaration. “This won’t be forever. I’m a Cetra, and you’re… well, you! And my mom is really, really strong—we just have to keep fighting!”

Sephiroth thought of arguing with her, but the comfort of their dream washed over him, soothing him. If only he could suspend his disbelief. He tried to imagine the many pictures of nature and the world outside that Aerith had described to him, all secondhand information from her mother. Even though Aerith and Sephiroth were so different in an impossible number of ways, at least they dreamt the same.

And that was a comfort.

“Yeah.” Sephiroth hugged Aerith, lying to himself that such impossible dreams were achievable, pulling her closer. He wasn’t sure how much time they’d be permitted together, but he wanted to make it count.

“You’ll have to show me those flowers you always talk about.”