I just found this, and...yes. *deep, relieved sigh* Yes.
Speaking as someone who is asexual, you approached this beautifully. It's a misunderstood and unknown sexuality, but it is a sexuality, and dear gods but I can imagine it happening with Cloud, for exactly the same reasons that you mention in this fic. His puberty and sexual development were derailed like whoah, and maybe he was going to turn out asexual at the end of it even if things had gone normally.
The idea of physical contact being scary is also true to form, at least in my case. Even now I'm very, very leery about touching in general, though I'm lucky enough to have found a totally platonic cuddle-buddy who I can go to in order to spend hours snuggling with.
Thank you for writing this, and for writing it so well.
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Speaking as someone who is asexual, you approached this beautifully. It's a misunderstood and unknown sexuality, but it is a sexuality, and dear gods but I can imagine it happening with Cloud, for exactly the same reasons that you mention in this fic. His puberty and sexual development were derailed like whoah, and maybe he was going to turn out asexual at the end of it even if things had gone normally.
The idea of physical contact being scary is also true to form, at least in my case. Even now I'm very, very leery about touching in general, though I'm lucky enough to have found a totally platonic cuddle-buddy who I can go to in order to spend hours snuggling with.
Thank you for writing this, and for writing it so well.