Archive of Our Own ^beta

Cloud is so beautiful, he thinks.  Every day, every hour, and every minute, he finds his thoughts wandering to Cloud.  He doesn’t know the word for what they are—not yet, at least—but he knows Cloud flushes deep crimson when he says mommy, even across their mental link, so he settles for Cloud when he really means mate.

It’s not just Cloud’s beauty that leaves him stunned, however.  And it’s not only his scent, though he does smell of heaven and sunshine and soap and flowers, of milk and sweetness.  There’s a distinct static when they touch, so unlike the surging dread that had plagued him all those years ago, in his other life.  When Cloud approaches, he fears loss, but he does not fear needles or strange medicines or being thrown into a cage with a monster five times his size and no weapon.

Nothing has ever belonged to him before, he thinks, tracing his lips over the column of Cloud’s throat and wondering how much more of Cloud he can take.  What would his blood taste like?  Would Cloud read him a bedtime story?  His quiet voice, a little raspy around the edges from their exertions, is better than any music.  Better than any dream.  Better than the picture of his fake mother; he doesn’t need her anymore.

When Cloud embraces him, everything else falls away, like ashes flying from a pyre.

Nothing else has ever been his—not his clothes, not his materia, not his weapons, not even his body.  Here, in the slick-soaked nest they’ve built, it’s all Cloud’s, except for Cloud, who is entirely his.

Mine.

Once his rut is over, his mind should be clear again, but Cloud’s voice is still there, and the static, too; he’s so self-conscious that Cloud can hear him.  Is this what they had meant?  Alphas and omegas, sharing a bond?  It’s quiet, at first, but the sound is remarkably clear, almost as if Cloud is speaking with his mouth closed.  

It’s a relief that Cloud doesn’t dream so much anymore, and the images are gone, but he fears disturbing Cloud with his own anxieties.  This is a two-way street, isn’t it?

It’s okay, baby.

The end of Cloud’s nightmares must be a sign—of what, he doesn’t know, but every morning that he wakes up with Cloud in his arms is a blessing.  For the first time in his life, he starts each day free of Shinra’s obligations, but in the clarity of these ordinary moments, he begins to wonder if Cloud will ship him off somewhere to work or to live elsewhere.  They awaken with the sun, kissing before their eyes even open.

Perhaps it is all just temporary; the lifestream will reclaim him from what feels like a distant fantasy.  He had always dreamed of a mother, of unconditional love, of a life away from the Company, but it had all seemed impossible.  These, after all, are the things of fairy-tales, the books he had been beaten for reading so long ago, and the gentle glory of Cloud’s skin against his serves only as a reminder of what he might lose one day.  

Nobody has ever wanted him for anything save his endless capacity for bloodshed, and in the days following the end of his rut, he finds his heart caught in his throat.  His stomach swoops, like it had the time the professor had thrown him out of an airship to see how quickly he would heal from the injuries.

But he doesn’t land now.  He just watches Cloud, even as the cold fear of free-fall suffocates him, even as he fears the collision, and he gasps around his words, withdrawing from Cloud’s mind so as not to distract him from his work.  

He cannot look away from Cloud, his omega, his lover, his mother, his savior.

Cloud, the most powerful warrior Sephiroth has ever seen, who bears the evidence of his triumphs in the white-lightning scar tissue across his sternum and the instinctual form of his body when they find monsters on the road.

Cloud, with his pursed lips and his heavy-lidded eyes, looking up at his alpha first thing in the morning.

Cloud, careful with his words and even more careful with his touch, squeezing Sephiroth’s hand softly before moving closer, waiting for a response and acquiescence, which Sephiroth is all too pleased to give.

Cloud, who goes about his days as if it all never happened.

And the next night, when he follows Cloud to the bedroom, nearly sick with worry that he’ll be told to leave, it happens again, and Cloud is all wanton need and gentle comfort.

It’s slower this time, a delicate dance of sorts, and he can only hear the hammering of his heart in his ears and Cloud’s voice over the telepathic connection: it’s okay.  I promise.

Come here.

I’ll take care of you.

He hadn’t noticed the sound of Cloud’s voice that first time, too distracted by his own terrifying, essential need and the hushed hue of Cloud’s many sighs under his touch.  With each pulse of Cloud’s heartbeat under his fingers, around his knot, he had worried he would close his eyes and wake up eighteen years ago, preparing for battle.

But there he had remained, and here he is now, walking over broken glass every time he takes a breath.  Another alpha will come, like that awful Vincent Valentine, or Cloud will go to his friend’s birthday party and decide he likes them all much more.  Sephiroth has no right, he has no right to be here, to take, to steal, to cling to Cloud like some kind of demented freak.

And he clings all the more tightly, grinding his hardness against Cloud’s clothed heat, mouthing at his scent gland as if he doesn’t have enough of him yet.  

Cloud, for all his cool, for all his calm quiet and the confident lean of his hips when he speaks with customers, is so . . . affectionate.  

He thinks this must be the right word, and he even looks it up in the dusty old dictionary in Cloud’s office, tracing the words under his trembling fingertips.  He thinks of the shape of the letters, l-o-v-i-n-g, t-e-n-d-e-r, as he traces his hands along the graceful arch of Cloud’s back, up the pale, fuzzy hairs on his nape, along the sharp angle of his jaw and the surprising flush of his cheeks.  

Cloud looks away, though his chapped lips curl into a tiny smile; he allows the exploration, lacing his fingers through Sephiroth’s other hand and stroking his thumb across Sephiroth’s palm.

In the garage, in the living room, standing behind Cloud at the stove, he knows he’s too close, invading Cloud’s life, but Cloud does not protest.  No—every time, he leans in closer, scenting honeysuckle and sweat-smell under leather, and Cloud’s mouth doesn’t move, even as he offers a greeting.

Hey, Seph.  

That’s new, too.  They first discuss it in the secret quiet of dawn, with his face buried against Cloud’s neck.  They couldn’t possibly be any closer, intertwined in the tangled cotton sheets, sticky with Cloud’s slick and his release.  Breathing heavily, he is uncaring of the mess, and he squeezes his fingers over Cloud’s ass, over the small of his back, as if he might vanish from his grip at any moment.

“Who’s Seph?” he mumbles, lapping at Cloud’s scent, which is practically dripping from his gland, or at least it’s perfuming his sweat in the last days of summer.

Cloud pauses for a moment, ghosting his fingers over Sephiroth’s hair, even as he squeezes fiercely around his knot, milking him as they catch their breath.  

“It’s a nickname.  You don’t like it?”

Sephiroth—I’m Seph—feels the terror rise, even as he scents Cloud, even as he tries to wiggle his hips a little deeper and he adores Cloud’s muttered fuck and his quiet, rumbling laugh.  The callused fingers tracing circles over his shoulderblades are the only thing tethering him to this time, to this planet.

“I’ve never had a nickname,” he whispers.  “No one gave me one.  Well, not really . . . you know.”

Specimen S, he thinks; the phrase comes to him automatically, and Seph feels rough fingertips dig into the tensed knots of muscles across his back, willing him to relax even as he fights the numbness in his extremities and the dark edges of his vision.

It’s just so hard to believe it’s real.  

Idiot boy.

Useless.

Freak kid.

“That doesn’t count,” Cloud snaps, his voice suddenly sharper than it’s ever been. 

“I—”

He can’t think straight; he feels Cloud’s foot trace a line up his calf as Cloud moves closer, releasing his most calming pheromones, lulling Seph to a drugged sort of peace.

“Seph, you’re here,” Cloud says, and Seph knows he’s right.  They’re connected; perhaps it’s the alpha–omega tether, but he’s never heard of a psychic link like this.  Others had spoken of being able to sense their mate, or knowing when they are in distress even from miles away, but  Cloud’s words of kindness ring so clearly in his head, like a church bell alerting him to worship.

Seph?

He lets his breath align with Cloud’s, even as Cloud milks him dry, even as the tension in his shoulders dissipates under Cloud’s fierce strength, and he’s secretly thrilled. 

“Nobody ever called me that before,” he manages to say.  “I like it.  Thank you.”

“Are you sure?”

He nods, unable to find any other words that won’t send tears spilling over his cheeks, and he feels Cloud’s lips against his, plush and sweet, followed by tiny licks of tongue against his.  He’s still hard, even without his rut, and between the clicks of their teeth and the slide of their messy mouths, he hears Cloud’s voice in his head.

Seph, you’re not him.

The reverent curve of his omega’s mouth around his precious new name thrills him perhaps even more than the way Cloud allows him to come so close, even more than the fact that Cloud raises no objection to sitting side by side in silence on the couch each night; Cloud tallies his receipts and Seph reads his advanced planetology texts, though his eyes tire easily from the tiny print, and he can feel Cloud watching him as he squints and leans closer to the page.  

Or Cloud runs his hand up Seph’s thigh, even as the television blares in the background, and Seph can’t think about anything but the poisonous gleam of Cloud’s eyes and the sheen of sweat across his clavicles and the milky, sticky scent of his slick as he parts his thighs and guides Seph to kneel before him and taste it.  

That weekend, following a particularly sweaty fight with a behemoth, they return late in the afternoon, and Cloud starts heating up their dinner while Seph goes to the shower.  

When he reaches for the shampoo, he feels Cloud slip in behind him, sliding strong arms around his waist.  His nipples pebble against Seph’s back, and his mouth is a holy curse against the scent gland at the juncture of Seph’s neck and shoulder.  There are soft hands, sharp teeth, distilled pheromones of honeysuckle nectar and milk, too much heat and steam to think straight about anything but the feel of Cloud’s palm ghosting over the head of his cock as it bobs against his abdomen.  

For a moment, the breath is punched from his lungs, and he wishes that Cloud wouldn’t shower at all, would just stay dirty so he can scent him all day, savor the way their pheromones merge.  He turns around and lifts Cloud by the thighs, pressing him against the tile wall; Cloud laughs as though nothing has ever been wrong, and Seph wants to believe him.  

That evening, Seph puts the dishes away as if he’s always lived here.  As Seph watches Cloud scoop mint chip ice cream into little bowls for them to eat outside, he notices the disappearing bruises from the tile against his back, and his guilt only comes when he realizes that he likes it.

I hurt you.

Cloud turns around and offers him the larger serving with a shy smile, and they eat it together on the porch as they watch the fireflies fade into the night.  

He doesn’t know if he likes mint chip.  He’s never had ice cream before.  

He decides he likes it because Cloud likes it—because it’s wonderfully sticky on his breath when they kiss under the stars.

At noon on the hottest day before the fever of summer breaks for good, Cloud is standing in the kitchen in cotton shorts and a sleeveless shirt; his hair nearly droops with the humidity and there’s a little drop of mustard at the corner of his mouth.  He’s still holding his sandwich when Seph licks it away, and they spend the better part of a half an hour kissing and touching, as if time stands still and there isn’t anything else they can do.  

Seph sets Cloud on the kitchen counter, their lunch long forgotten, and he follows the firm, guiding movement of Cloud’s hands: touch me here, he seems to say, and here, and here, and here.  

The lazy slide of Cloud’s tongue against his addles every thought in his mind, and he can’t even worry about returning to the horror of eighteen years ago when the most beautiful SOLDIER on the planet wants to teach him how to kiss, how to please him properly, to bond in the way that only an alpha and an omega can.  

At the onset of his rut, it had all been so foreign, and his arousal had always been dealt with so shamefully before, when he had been the subject of the professors’ speculation about breeding more SOLDIERs and compatibility with an appropriate omega.  But Cloud can teach him more than all of them combined, guiding Seph’s by his hands and with the voice that strikes him crystal clear in the center of his mind. 

That feels really good, Seph.  Just like that.

He is already more devoted to these studies than he had ever been to Shinra.

The bite marks he leaves on Cloud’s inner thighs fade almost immediately, but he holds tightly to the sound of Cloud’s voice in his mind, harder!, and the shape of his mouth around three of Seph’s fingers.  Even when Cloud’s fingers are tight around his forearms, even as Cloud pleads with him for more, more, Seph is afraid to touch with anything less than worship.  

His hands have only shaped violence, but Cloud himself is violent, too, killing monsters with the practiced ease only a SOLDIER could possess.  Seph finds himself watching, more than a little aroused, when Cloud leaps into the air, unconstrained by gravity or the strictures of Seph’s own training.  

His body moves like water, instinctual and gentle and unstoppable as the monsters are sliced to ribbons before they even realize what’s happening to them.

Here, Cloud urges Seph to hold him down, to bite him, to grip his thighs bruise-tight and fuck him back and forth over Seph’s thick knot until it threatens to rip free from his brutal, lovely heat.  When Seph feels it tug so dangerously, he drinks up Cloud’s moans, precious water in the desert, kissing him so gently he can taste every one the tears that spill down Cloud’s cheeks.

Thank you, Seph, Cloud says.  Thank you, baby.

Cloud is sincere, or Seph hopes he is—but the fear remains.

What have I done?

“You’re different from him,” Cloud murmurs one afternoon, tinkering with the interlocking mechanism of his sword.  “You’re Seph.”

“We’re the same person, though.  And you still won’t tell me what I did.”

“What he did,” Cloud corrects, reaching for the needle-nose pliers as he peers over the magnifying glasses he wears.  “And no—I don’t want you to feel guilty.”

guilty

Cloud’s thoughts are quickly sealed, even as his gaze flicks to Seph.  

“Alright.”

It’s not alright.  He’s determined to earn his keep and prove his goodness, even if he does not believe in it; Cloud can’t possibly know how many Seph has killed, how much he enjoyed being good at it with nothing else to stimulate him and no other way to earn a reward, and if his older self has done worse—well, he doesn’t dwell on it.  

That evening, when Cloud is out making his last delivery, Seph puts himself to work, scrubbing at the grout in the shower so hard the plastic brush snaps in half in his hand.

He panics when Cloud lets him sleep in and he awakens to the mid-morning slant of light and the smell of coffee and toast.  He knows he’s not supposed to eat bread, but he savors it anyway, loading it with salted butter and lemon curd.  When he accidentally drops a piece on the floor, sending crumbs everywhere, he flinches; he’s back in the lab, where a spilled glass of water would’ve earned him an exploratory surgery or an extra mako shower.

Yet Cloud, beautiful Cloud, just wipes it up with a rag and squeezes Seph’s shoulder before placing another slice of bread in the toaster.  He says nothing, but Seph can hear it.

We’re safe, remember?

It’s hard to remember.

Reeve’s birthday party is a special kind of ordeal.  Vincent had mentioned it, and the two weeks pass in an anticipatory haze. Seph has never been to a birthday party, and two days before it is set to occur, Cloud leaves without any packages, without any assignments, and doesn’t return until after dark.

Seph waits; picking at his fingernails and staring out the window.  The television doesn’t calm him, when he goes for a long run, he thinks of Cloud with each step—how much faster, stronger Cloud is than him, how superior.  

The dinner he prepares for himself tastes like shame in his mouth without Cloud to make sure that he finishes it.  It tastes suboptimal; the cream sauce isn’t necessary, and the meat is too fatty, too rich.  He should’ve eaten something lighter, calculated according to the professor’s regimen, and when he feels sleepy, even waiting for Cloud to come back, his skin crawls.  

He should train.  Or read.  Or go on a mission.  

Or he should kill something.  It’s easy.  It’s much easier than waiting.

Idle hands are not, they’re not, he can’t—

Needles pierce his skin and mako fills his mouth.

But it’s just Cloud, returned from his trip, wrapping his bare arms around Seph’s shoulders.

“They said they want to meet you.”

“They know me too, don’t they?”

Cloud’s thumb rubs circles over his bicep—

yes

—and he shakes his head.  “Not you.  The other one.”

“Cloud,” he starts, struggling over break in his voice, “are you ashamed of me?”

“No.  Of course not.  I . . . it’s complicated.”

Seph hates this.  He hates that he agreed to go, hates that they’re even having this conversation, hates that Cloud would even speak to other people without him.  About him.  About whatever it is that he did.

“Years ago, everyone knew you.  Now, it’s like we’re meeting you again for the first time.”

He wants to know what that means, but he doesn’t want to hear the explanation—not tonight, not when it feels like Cloud might slip through his fingers and abandon him, as though the lifestream might swallow him whole again and take him away from the only good thing that has ever been his.  

Mommy is good at explaining things.  Seph just doesn’t always understand.  

Cloud allows him the mercy of ignorance, and when he falls asleep that night, with his stomach hollow and his heart filled to bursting, the last thing he sees is Cloud’s controlled, contorted smile hovering above him.

I’m sorry, he hears, like a funeral bell.  

He doesn’t dream here; some mornings, he awakens in a frightened mood, with shadows chasing him and his heart thundering in his chest, but he can’t recall any of it, and Cloud brings him coffee and patience and new clothes.  

“They’ll call you Seph too.  It might be a little loud, but we don’t have to stay too long.”

He doesn’t want to share the name.  He doesn’t want to share anything.

But he wants Cloud to be happy, so he nods.

They’re in bed, and Cloud’s mouth tastes like raspberry jam.  Seph finds himself tracing the freckles on Cloud’s shoulders, outlining the gash of a scar on his chest.  Cloud’s enhancements have him healing remarkably quickly, but this one is thick and raised, jagged around the edges, particularly at the top.  Seph tries to imagine what could have done this, but Cloud’s hand settles over his own.

How did it happen? he wonders.  

Cloud looks at the ceiling, but when Seph touches it again with Cloud’s fingers laced in his, he knows.  He knows all too well the shape of the blade he favors; he knows that Cloud wants to see him use a different weapon these days, and he even knows that the other marks on his shoulder, his abdomen, fainter than this one, came from the very same weapon.

His voice raspy and strained, Cloud thanks him when Seph kisses it as if to heal it.  

He’d heard of mothers doing this—kiss it and make it all better—and he thinks of how Cloud’s kisses have changed him, too, made him all better.  

When his fingers sink into Cloud’s dripping, inviting heat, he hears obscenities tumbling through his mind in a language he cannot understand.  Old Nibel, apparently, Cloud’s first language, and Seph wonders if he can find a book to help learn it, even as he plunges a fourth finger into Cloud’s cunt and circles his thumb over Cloud’s swollen clit.

It’s okay, Cloud says, before he trails off into incomprehensible madness, punctuated with a staccato thank you and a hurried yes.

Even as his nails draw blood across Seph’s back, he nods; the wounds heal before he even comes, gushing over Seph’s hand.  

After a shared shower, Cloud gives him a new set of clothes to wear.  Today, Seph must dress like a civilian, and it feels wrong.  Most days, he wears a sleeveless top like Cloud’s, with leather gloves, heavy pants, and tall boots; he dresses practically for the reality of their work, traveling around vast swathes of the continent at a speed that probably would have gotten them arrested in the Midgar he once knew.  

Cloud doesn’t typically wear a helmet, but he insists that Seph does, and through their bond, where his arms wrap around Cloud’s body, he can nearly feel the wind running through Cloud’s hair, as if it’s his own.

But today, he wears a shirt with buttons and a light jacket, with cotton pants and sneakers.  The clothes are so loose and soft that it almost bothers him, and he asks Cloud for scissors so he can cut the tags off.  Cloud simply does it for him, running the flat of his thumb over the seams before snipping carefully once more to ensure that the offending material is entirely removed.

He fidgets as he waits for Cloud on the porch, and he’s already imagining coming home and putting this all behind him.  Isn’t he supposed to bring a gift?  To his surprise, Cloud emerges in his usual clothes, nearly all leather paired with the zippered top that Seph loves so much.  He likes to snatch the zipper between his teeth before latching onto Cloud’s—

“Ready?  We don’t have to stay that long.”  

Cloud has a package under his arm in moogle-print wrapping paper, and the ride to the bar is way too short.  He wants to stay on the road forever and ride away from civilization and anyone who would look at Cloud.

When they’re parked, Seph can hear the sound of glasses clinking and people laughing inside.  Standing stock-still, he watches Cloud walk away from him, clutching the present.  After two steps, Cloud turns around.

“Don’t worry.  They want to meet you.”

But he doesn’t want to meet them.

“It’ll be okay.  We’ll go home after the cake, alright?”

Home.  Our home.

Yes, that’s right.

Cloud nods and leads him inside.  They’re early, 

The party is less than a horror-show, though he dodges a lot of questions.  

“So, right outta the lifestream, huh?” the pilot asks, clapping him across the shoulder.  “Well, alrighty then.  Can’t say I understand it, but welcome back, I suppose.”

Tifa, the owner of the bar, whispers in Cloud’s ear before approaching Seph, and she sticks out her hand.  Seph isn’t used to these types of greetings; in the lab, he was to avert his eyes, and in the rank and file, he was made to salute.  Her hand is soft in his, but he doesn’t know what motion he’s supposed to do, so he just holds it for a moment and looks at the floor.

“Seph, right?  Cloud told me about you.  I’m sorry, you’re just . . . different than I remember.”

He doesn’t know her, of course, but she offers him some cider and a seat away from all the commotion.  The ninja moves with startling speed, but she immediately loses interest when Cloud tells her Seph isn’t carrying any materia.

“I guess that’s probably for the best,” she mutters before returning to the rest of the group.  

The red . . . well, Seph isn’t sure, but he looks like something the professor would have adored.  The creature, Nanaki, sits with him, content to watch and enjoy the atmosphere.

That makes one of us.

Barret eyes him warily, but Cid tosses him a smile or two.  Vincent eyes him from afar, and when he wishes to speak with Cloud, he apologizes for disrupting them, though Cloud and Seph are simply sitting side by side with Nanaki close by, observing as Reeve slices the cake.

He detests the way Vincent leans in to speak to Cloud, scenting of alpha and smoky pheromones; he can’t stand the way Yuffie puts her hand over his arm when she inspects the materia in Cloud’s bracer and points at Reeve, blindfolded and aiming for the dartboard.  In the nerves in his hands, in the thrill of murder that never leaves him, he feels the clasp of sick, roiling jealousy.  

Maybe it’s the cider, or the heat, but is nearly ill, and vomiting had always been punished in the labs.  SOLDIERs don’t get sick.  

Barret brings him a slice of cake, and Seph eats it so quickly it burns in his chest.  He wants another one, but he’d rather pay attention to Cloud.  The rest of them are kind enough, giving him his space and chatting about their work and their adventures.  Vincent’s apology feels short-lived, even if it’s sincere, and Seph can only envy them.  They have known Cloud for years, and Cloud’s little grin, the one Seph thought he had saved for him, betrays it all.

Cloud is his.

He’s known Cloud for barely a month, and the easy intimacy he has with these strangers, these ordinary humans, has him reeling.  He can tell that Vincent is more than a man, but the rest—they aren’t SOLDIERs, they aren’t special.  Why does Cloud adore them so?  Why does Cloud smile when they laugh, why does he allow them to hug him?  Why can Barret pull him close and ruffle his hair—Seph’s omega’s hair?  What worth do they have?

But he sees it.  

They don’t push Cloud to say more than he wants.  

They are kind to Seph, asking him about the books he’s been reading lately, whether he would like to visit Edge, what he thinks about the latest episode of Sorceress Knight, the show that is Cloud’s guilty pleasure.  A hot rush of shame fills him, leaving his heart lurching, when he feels the sincerity.  Alpha, omega, beta, whatever—they forged a bond, and Seph is no more than a filthy voyeur, peering in thanks only to Cloud’s grace.

Perhaps they adore him, too, but when they ride home, Seph squeezes him so tightly around the ribs that Cloud has to remind him to relax, and Seph fucks him so hard into the mattress that Cloud tears the sheets to shreds in his hands.  

Gasping as he leaves fingertip bruises around Cloud’s hips and the small of his back, Seph wants to carve his shape into Cloud, to claim him and fill him so no one else ever can, to mold this man around his cock so nothing else will ever satisfy him.  He hates that he likes the marks he leaves, and he’s shaking like a leaf when he finally spills into Cloud.

Before his knot goes down, he is nearly asleep, putting his mind to the task of replacing the image of Cloud with his friends with the better image of Cloud’s face in profile, grimacing and teary as Seph had pounded into him just moments ago.

“They all liked you, by the way,” Cloud whispers against Seph’s temple, kissing him in a way he doesn’t deserve.  “Well, they didn’t hate you.”

“Maybe they should.”

He wants to hate them so badly, too, but Yuffie had offered him the frosting off of her cake, and Barret had even said sorry at the end, calling him kid in a way that wasn’t too condescending.  You’re alright, kid.  

But none of them could see the dark thing coiled inside him, though Cloud had surely seen it, the serpent in the marsh, fearsome and guided by animal instinct to leave nothing alive.  Cloud has discipline with this bizarre telepathic thing they share, but Seph can’t control what pours out of his mind, racing and circular and raw.  Even in their most frenzied moment, now, tangled and bloodied in the sheets, Cloud’s thoughts reach him only when intended.

But Seph is observant.  After years in the labs, he had learned how to tell the weather without seeing a window from the layers of clothing the scientists wore, or the time of day by the smell of the decaf coffee, or their moods in the gleam of their watchful eyes behind smudged eyeglasses.  

He doesn’t know all of Cloud’s tells just yet, but he’s so much more fascinating; the quirk of his eyebrow or the fold of his arms betray his confidence and his curiosity, and the sweep of his eyelashes and the tensing of his fingers when he scents the air reveal his desire.  And it is desire, and it’s for Seph, not for the rest of those inferior, useless nobodies who dared to—

It’s okay, Cloud reminds him, licking Seph’s scent gland to calm him, though Seph doesn’t believe it and he isn’t anywhere near soothed.    

“Having friends is a good thing, Seph.  You know that, right?”

“I have you,” he mutters darkly.  “I don’t need other friends.”

“That’s different.  I promise they’re safe for us.”

He doesn’t understand why, but the warmth in Cloud’s voice is enough for him to let it go, at least for tonight, and he winds himself around his omega so tightly that if Cloud tries to leave—or even move to the other side of the bed—he will wake up and be able to stop it.  This is his security system, far more secure and necessary than the Shinra-issued microchip he’d borne for so many years.  

On his first day in Cloud’s house, he had dug it out of his shoulder in the shower with his bare hands, clawing at his skin and sobbing when nothing bad happened once it was removed.  Nobody had swarmed the building, nobody had come to take him away.  

He had watched the tiny metal chip swirl down the drain with the blood from his shoulder, and with his belly overfull and his shoulder already knitting itself back together, he had wept in the first hot shower he’d had in weeks, thinking of Cloud’s stern look and the sweetness of all the food on his tongue, prepared just for him.

A few days later, after practicing his katas in the yard and watching their laundry flutter in the breeze, an idea comes to him.  Cloud brings him a glass of lemonade, and he drinks it greedily, unconcerned with the way it drips down his chin.  The professor can’t say anything now.

Cloud is unarmed, but Seph finds himself asking before he can stop himself.

“Will you spar with me?”

For a moment, the only sound is the snapping of the sheets in the wind as they threaten to fly away from the line.

Cloud refuses at first, returning to the house without a single word. 

They don’t speak of it again, but a few days later, when he would ordinarily be going to make deliveries, Cloud hands Seph a wooden practice katana.  

The garage is large enough to fit two vehicles, but it stores only the motorcycle; the rest houses an arsenal that the SOLDIER program would have envied.  Seph never touches the weapons or materia, taking only the components of the fusion blade that Cloud offers to him on their outings.  But today, Cloud takes the training weapons from the garage and leads him out to the field behind the house, where the chocobos sometimes roam.  

“First touch only,” Cloud says.  “You ready?”

Seph salutes, but he doesn’t like the look of the weapon in Cloud’s hand anymore.  The hilt of his own false blade feels foreign in his hands, and his feet can’t find the right position on the ground.  All the same, he raises his weapon above his shoulder, shifting the weight between his hips to compensate for the new weapon.

But Cloud falters when he watches Seph slide into his stance, and when Seph begins his attack—

you fucking bastard, i’ll—

—Cloud closes in so quickly he appears to teleport across the distance, and Seph’s weapon splinters with the force of Cloud’s strike.  The follow-up blow of the flat of the sword to Seph’s ribcage, quick as levin and stronger than any spell he has ever felt, sends Seph flying across the yard and crashing into the fence.  

Splinters of wood fragment in his palms, piercing through his gloves, which makes it difficult to push himself up from the ground.  Around him, the world is blurred, tilting on its broken axis, and his diaphragm seizes. 

Cloud is half-frozen; his thoughts spill over.

Sephiroth?

When Seph sputters a bit of blood out of his mouth, Cloud’s trance ends—

no no no shit 

Seph wheezes, staring up at the empty blue sky, and he hates Cloud’s expression—brow furrowed, eyes wide as saucers, lip trembling.  

“What’s wrong?” Seph rasps, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.  That’s inconvenient, but he’s certainly had worse, and he feels so alive, bleeding like this with Cloud above him.  “I’ll be fine.”

Cloud casts an unnecessary curaga, which must surely drain his mana, and he helps Seph to his feet and slings an arm around his shoulder.

“I could have killed you,” Cloud whispers as they walk back to the house.  “We’re not doing that again.”

“You . . . fought me . . . before,” Seph manages.  “You knew exactly what I was going to do.  That was amazing!”

Cloud’s laugh is low and false, undercut by the scent of sickly fear seeping from his glands.

“I’m sorry, Seph.  Call it . . . training.”

“Can you teach me?” he asks, when Cloud sits him down in the kitchen and fetches tweezers.  “Can you show me how to move like you?”

“No” is Cloud’s only answer, and the wall rises in his mind as he sets to work removing the splinters from Seph’s hands.

When he finishes, Seph leans in, pressing his nose to Cloud’s neck even as Cloud tries to carry him to the bed; the distress is palpable, and Seph purrs against the gland, hoping to return it to bright, creamy honeysuckle.  Even after another excessive curaga spell, some of the bruises to his ribs are too deep for Cloud to see, so he can’t fix it with magic.  

Mommy, stay.

He snatches Cloud’s wrist when Cloud goes to leave him.  The sun hasn’t even set yet, and Seph is still trying to memorize the feeling of Cloud’s bare hands against his, where the wounds had tried to close around the splinters, where Cloud had left deeper cuts just to extract all the wood and leave him pure.  Seph had watched Cloud’s face the entire time, relishing the pain, and when Cloud had wrapped his torso with a compression bandage and packed it with ice, he had nearly missed it.  

Go to sleep.  It will feel better in the morning.

Cloud is right.  He always is.  He’s untouchable, an angel, Seph’s most beloved.

“I’ve had worse, Cloud,” he rasps.  But it’s a front—the bruise is deep, likely on the bone, and Cloud’s strength had been remarkable, even with a sword meant for trainees.

His gentleness is all the more shocking, then, as he kisses Seph’s forehead and leaves him alone in the settling dark.

Cloud brings him his dinner in the bed that night, and he helps him brush his teeth and comb his hair, as tender as the mother Seph had always wished to meet.

When Cloud slides into the bed, he stays at the edge, allowing the sheets between them to grow cold.

Despite the pain, Seph bridges the gap, wrapping his limbs around the older omega in his methodical, secure routine, and if each breath and each shift of Cloud’s body sends pain through his lungs and his ribcage, all the better.  

The next day, Cloud doesn’t work.  He makes a few calls in the morning, apologizing for the delays with the deliveries, and he casts yet another healing spell.  Seph already feels fine, but Cloud is careful, probing at the purplish mark spreading across Seph’s ribs.  

“What’s your favorite food?” Cloud asks, perched on the edge of the bed.  “What do you want for lunch today?”

“I don’t have one,” Seph replies.  It’s a straightforward enough response; he likes whatever Cloud makes, whatever is available when Cloud will share it with him.  

Cloud shakes his head.  “Of course you do.  Something you like better than anything else.”

“Not really.  How about . . . you tell me yours?” says Seph, sitting up and leaning his forehead against Cloud’s shoulder.

“Nibel wolf stew,” Cloud replies, so matter of factly, as though it’s an easy question to answer.  “The way my mom used to make.”

“Then make that.  It will be my favorite too.”

“You can’t get Nibel wolf meat out here unless you order it from a special distributor,” Cloud says.  “You really don’t have a favorite food?  What about your favorite color?”

“Blue, I suppose,” he says, distracted by the endless shine of Cloud’s eyes.  “If I had to pick one.”

“And if you had to pick something to eat?” Cloud suggests, running his thumb over the back of Seph’s hand.  “Let me take care of you today.”

“Anything you make.”

Cloud pinches the bridge of his nose, then, but he doesn’t raise it again, and Seph is already trying to imagine what Nibel wolf would taste like.  

“Cloud?” he asks that afternoon, when Cloud is reading one of his motorcycle magazines with his feet in Seph’s lap.  

“Hmm?” Cloud glances up, his smile nearly saintly; his foot is cool in Seph’s hands as he massages the muscle.  “What is it?”

“When is your birthday?”

“It’s already passed this year.  Why?” 

He digs his knuckle into the arch of Cloud’s foot, enjoying the little intake of breath, the drip of his pheromones.  “Oh.  Maybe I can make your stew for your next birthday.  Reeve got his cake, so you can have your stew, right?”

Cloud snorts.  “Sure.  It’s August 11—well . . . wait.  That’s the day you arrived.”

“They didn’t throw a party for you?” he asks.  What kind of friends are those?

“I didn’t want one.  Honestly, I forgot about it until you asked me just now.”

“Next year,” Seph murmurs, kneading the muscle just a little too hard, “we should have a party.”

“Oh?” Cloud breathes, his eyes glittering.  “You wouldn’t mind inviting all those people?”

“I didn’t say who should come,” says Seph, bending to kiss the top of Cloud’s foot even as he snakes his hands up Cloud’s legs.  

“What about you?  When’s your birthday?” Cloud’s voice is strained, tempered by the feeling of Seph’s hands over his thighs, spreading him open.  The magazine falls to the floor as Seph slides those legs over his shoulder.  Contorted like this on the couch, his ribs scream, but he doesn’t care.  He likes it when it hurts.  He likes the little damp patch forming at the juncture of Cloud’s thighs, visible through his pants.

“I don’t have one,” Seph replies.  

Cloud inhales sharply, distracted.  “Then we can share mine.  We’ll . . . ah, we’ll have a party next year.”

Seph likes the idea, but he’s too busy to speak, so he says nothing and unwraps Cloud, carefully stripping away his clothing like a precious gift offered just for him.

When fall comes, Seph is pleased to see that Cloud still wears the same sleeveless shirts he always does, as if the new chill in the air can’t reach him, and he has no shame in admiring the shape of Cloud’s muscles.  Seph is nearly the same height as him, but Cloud has a bulk he envies and touches at every opportunity.

But with the changing of the seasons comes another change, quiet at first and then so loud Seph isn’t the only one who notices.  One afternoon, on their way back from a delivery, he feels Cloud accelerate around a bend, a little reckless even for him, and they make it home in record time.  Cloud parks the bike outside, not even bothering to open the garage, and when he walks into the house, his steps are uneven.  He walks like the scientists did when they reeked of alcohol, but Cloud smells sweeter than ever.

By now, Seph is perfectly attuned to Cloud’s signals; he can read the little shifts of his shoulders in their infinite meaning, can parse the twitching of his nose and the slant of his brow.  Today, when Cloud slumps into his chair in the kitchen, gulping down water and cradling his head in his hands, Seph knows something is wrong.

SOLDIERs don’t get sick, he knows, though Cloud had assured him that they no longer need mako treatments.  Seph feels better than ever, now that his ribs have healed from the failed attempt at a pretend fight, but he can’t look away from Cloud.  What if he’s dying?  

What if his mommy leaves him forever, just as everyone else ever has? 

“It’s just a headache, Seph,” Cloud says, but Seph doesn’t believe him.  His scent is brilliant and nearly suffocating in the tiny house, but when Cloud goes to shower, he doesn’t invite Seph with him, and he closes the door all the way.  

Seph watches the door for the entire hour that he’s inside, listening for every possible noise, and he realizes he should be preparing dinner.  But when Cloud emerges, pink and fragrant, he brushes Seph off and stretches out on the couch, insisting that he isn’t hungry, that Seph shouldn’t worry so much, that he’ll get up soon.

But he doesn’t.  In fact, Cloud can barely sit still, pressing himself between the cushions and rubbing his pheromones all over the fabric, and Seph doesn’t hear so much as feel the searing, green pain in Cloud’s mind as it leaps across the room and hits him right between the eyes.

—the fuck?

“Cloud?  Are you okay?”

“It’s just a headache,” Cloud says a little too quickly as he peers over the back of the couch, his eyes a strange green.  “It happens sometimes.”

“SOLDIERs don’t get sick,” Seph responds, stirring the pot of soup over the stove.  It comes from a can because he doesn’t know what else to make without Cloud’s guidance, but he has to do something.  “Or we’re not supposed to.”

“That’s Hojo’s bullshit.  We’re human beings.”

Bullshit?  To be fair, the professor has been wrong about a lot of things.  Sugar, for example—Seph can eat it just fine, and if anything, he’s faster on his feet and more energized than he had ever been back in the Company.  

And sleep had been a major point of contention in his old life; sometimes, after kissing Cloud awake in the early morning, Seph allows himself to fall back asleep, dozing well past the sound of the chocobos, and nothing bad ever comes of it.  He likes the lazy stretch of his limbs after a long lie-in, and with nobody to prick him with needles and strap him to a gurney, there are no consequences save the good ones.

But a headache?  That’s new.  That’s not right.  Cloud isn’t dehydrated; Seph has made sure to monitor his water intake.  And he has been eating regularly and sleeping well, safe in Seph’s arms.  It could be a deadly illness, or something unknown, and Seph is entirely out of his depth.

Cloud barely eats any of his dinner, nibbling at the bread and pushing away the soup; the harsh static of their connection buzzes when Seph takes the bowl from his omega’s hands to save the rest for later.  He’s back in bed just past sunset, and Seph joins him once the kitchen is finally tidy.  It’s the least he can do, after all.

At night, Cloud tosses and turns, thrashing in his sleep, though his mind is a pure void.  A sharp kick of his leg jolts Seph awake, and he leans over Cloud to turn on the bedside lamp.  

In the dim light, he can see the glass of water on the nightstand is empty, and Cloud is dripping in sweat.  In fact, he’s nearly burning where his skin touches Seph’s, sharp and fiery like stepping into a shower that’s a little too hot.  It’s not enough to stop Seph, though, and he buries his face against Cloud’s shoulder and inhales deeply, savoring Cloud’s scent even in his illness.  He allows himself this brief moment before he walks to the kitchen to refill Cloud’s water.

When he shuts off the tap, he hears a noise.  Something outside—maybe an animal?  The chocobos sometimes wander off from the farm, but they rarely ever do so at night.  Seph, determined to watch over Cloud, knows every sound—the air conditioning, the electricity, the rustle of the wind in the trees.  This one is new, he’s sure.  There’s an unusual scent, too—something like berries, or a forest, or ripe summer.  It’s not Cloud, but maybe it’s his illness.  Seph sniffs, but it vanishes as quickly as it had come.

He peers out the window above the sink, but there’s nothing in the yard—just the light of the moon and the emptiness of the field.  

There it is again, the sound of something moving through the grass, smooth and liquid.  Trying in vain to pinpoint the source of the sound, Seph runs between the windows, but there’s nothing.  The door is secure and he can tell through their link that Cloud is still fast asleep, though Seph can practically feel his warmth radiating all the way from here.

Shit, the noise is even closer now.  Seph hears the hinges of the front door creak, but he doesn’t see it open or close, and he’s assaulted by the thickness of summer filling his nose.  

In the space between his breaths, there’s a man there, his long, silver hair illuminated by the cold moonlight.  A man or a demon, perhaps, from Seph’s vantage point; he’s huge, taller than the doorway, but he had moved with a speed Seph has only ever seen from Cloud.

Cloud!

He’s unarmed, but he positions himself with his back to the bedroom door.

“Don’t make me kill you!” he shouts.

The stranger just laughs, his voice low, and the warning does nothing to stop him from approaching.

“I didn’t expect to see you here, though I suppose it makes sense,” he says, taking each step slowly.  His pace is deliberate, not borne from fear but from confidence; he’s at least a foot and a half taller than Seph, and the strange design of his uniform reveals a muscular chest.

“He called to us from the lifestream.  Like summoning a god from materia.”

Even as the man encroaches into his space, the shadow of his massive body filling the tiny room, so unfitting, Seph looks around, hoping against reason for a way to fight back.  But there are no weapons in sight; everything is stored safely in the garage, and the closer Seph gets to the bedroom door, the more distance he puts between himself and the knives in the kitchen.  Not that they would do much—the stranger’s eyes shine in the dark just like Cloud’s, like his.  They’re the eyes of a SOLDIER.  

And that face, lit by stripes of moonlight through the blinds, is so . . . that’s not possible.  No.  He balls his hands into fists at his side.  One good hit—that’s all he needs, one decent hit, and Cloud will wake up, and it will be two against one.

“If you are thinking that you can stop me, know that you are mistaken.”

“Cloud!” he shouts, though his voice is weaker than he would like it to be.  “Wake up!”

“We aren’t enemies, you know,” the man says, standing directly before him.  There’s no use; his leather-clad hand is heavy on Seph’s shoulder, spanning half his upper back, as he gently moves him out of the way and continues his march towards the bedroom door.  

“I’m simply here to see my omega.”

mine

no

He knows it won’t work, but he has to do something, and he lunges forward, growling.  It’s no use—the SOLDIER’s arm is as thick as two of his, and when he holds Seph away from his body, gripping him around the wrists, Seph can only kick his legs uselessly below him.  He thrashes, shouting, and he thinks, he hopes he can hear Cloud’s movements inside.

“Let go of me!” Seph shouts, but the man just stares at him, studying his face with a curious calm.  It seems easy, the way he lifts Seph clean off the floor, and he doesn’t even flinch when Seph lands a solid kick.

Seph can barely think straight, assaulted by Cloud’s scent, even through the door, and the stranger.  It must be him, and he looks so . . . it can’t be.  His hair is too long.  The hair of the man in Cloud’s dream.  He’s too tall.  It makes no sense.

But when has any of this made sense? he wonders, letting himself go limp in the man’s grip.

“I thought you would have more fight in you,” the stranger sighs.  “But if you would leave my omega to suffer through his heat, then . . . I’ll have to take care of him myself.”

With one mechanical sweep of his arm, he tosses Seph to the floor and pushes into the bedroom.  

Seph is quick behind him, but the sight he finds in the bedroom leaves him paralyzed.  The moon shines right upon them, and the glory of his silver hair pools all around them as the stranger presses his nose to Cloud’s scent gland, and Cloud  makes a noise Seph has never heard before in his life, something between a moan and a purr, reverberating deep from within his chest.  And he says the word Seph has longed to hear ever since Cloud first found him in the church.

“Alpha,” he whispers.  “Sephiroth.”

When the stranger, not Seph but Sephiroth, licks Cloud’s neck, the noise he makes is beyond description, and Seph can’t find it in himself to be angry.

This is his enemy.  Cloud had said he had known him in another life, and Sephiroth’s body fits around Cloud’s like a puzzle piece, like another half of a whole, the moonlight upon his starry eyes.  To Seph, Cloud has always been larger than life, a warrior of a man, but now, in Sephiroth’s arms, burrowing closer under the curtains of his hair, he’s so tiny.

“He hasn’t been taking good care of you, has he, puppet?” Sephiroth murmurs.  As he kisses the hollow of Cloud’s throat, Cloud runs his hands through Sephiroth’s hair as though he’s hypnotized, and even standing at the foot of the bed, Seph can see how his pupils are blown so wide his eyes are nearly black.  His toes curl in the sheets, the very toes Seph has massaged so many times, and the scent of his heat rolls off him in delirious waves.

“He’s let you suffer so terribly.  Or I should say, I’ve let you suffer, haven’t I?” The place where their bodies meet is difficult to see, obscured by shadow and silver hair and the stinging blur of Seph’s tears, but he can’t look away from the way their hips curl together, synchronized in the way only an alpha and omega can ever be.  “We’ll have to take care of that now.”

I’m sorry, Mommy, he thinks, unable to contain his humiliation, and Cloud shakes his head immediately, thrashing in Sephiroth’s arms.

“No, no—he’s—”

Sephiroth watches Seph from the corner of his eye, smirking even with his mouth so close to Cloud’s scent gland, but he doesn’t let Cloud escape.  The bed seems so small now, and it had already been in such disarray.

“He’s what?  Go on, puppet.”

“Come here, Seph,” Cloud chokes out.  He lowers his voice, turning back to Sephiroth.  “Please.  He didn’t know.”

Sephiroth laughs against Cloud’s sweat-damp skin, but he doesn’t react when Seph forces himself to put one foot in front of the other.  With each step, he’s closer to the horrible scene, worse than anything he’s ever imagined about being taken away from Cloud, from this beautiful life he’s had for less than a season.  Cloud looks up at him, more gorgeous than ever, pleading and flushed and needy in a way Seph has never seen.

His body is bare under Sephiroth’s, and he’s just wearing his thin shorts as he always does at night.  Even in the dark, even under the sea-sick motion of their bodies, Seph can see the way his slick glistens on his thighs and across the black leather, tight over Sephiroth’s—

“It’s okay,” Cloud says, reaching a hand up to pull Seph close.  This doesn’t make sense, it can’t be okay, this man did something so horrible that Cloud’s friends, the ones Seph thought he hated, wouldn’t even speak of it.

But he loves the way the static courses through him when Cloud’s fingers lace through his.  Everything is right.  Everything is right.  Nothing has ever been wrong.

Reunion? he hears, coursing through his veins like so much morphine, luring him down to the edge of the mattress, and it’s Cloud’s voice, but it’s an echo across every single nerve.

Nothing has ever gone wrong in his life.

Cut it out, Sephiroth!

There’s more static, nearly painful, but Seph moves closer still, hating himself for every movement of his body, every treacherous pulse of his arousal, even with the demon of his future pulling the strings.  It doesn’t recede, 

Something flashes over Sephiroth’s face, then.  Seph has never been able to read the expressions of others, and he’s never bothered to study his own.  He can’t quiet parse it, but those emerald eyes, his mirror image, grow wide before his mouth curls into a sneer.

“He can’t hear me, can he?” Sephiroth murmurs, and it’s not meant for Seph’s ears, though he can’t help but notice the way Sephiroth’s hands trace their way down Cloud’s torso, up his back, under the hem of his shorts.

“No.  And stay out of my head, too,” Cloud snarls, twisting in Sephiroth’s grasp, even as he keeps his hand in Seph’s.  

“So he doesn’t know?” 

Seph can’t help it.  This is the only home he’s ever known, and he will not let this intruder rip it away from him.  “Know what?”

“I can tell you were sleeping here.  There’s only one bed.  And yet you abandoned our omega in heat, in the worst of his suffering.  I expected better from you.  From myself.”  Sephiroth shakes his head, though his disappointment is a mockery; his black-clad fingers splay wide over the span of Cloud’s thighs, digging in deep.

“Let go of him,” Seph says, but he can’t put any force into the words.  He can only watch, relishing the fact that Cloud still hasn’t let go of his hand, even as Sephiroth shrugs off his armor and his coat and winds his way around Cloud like a massive, sculpted serpent, nipping at his shoulder, leaving little marks that fade as he sinks his teeth in over and over again.  

“I said, don’t touch him.”

“I’ll let Cloud be the judge of that.”

Cloud doesn’t reply; his eyes are dark, and his mouth falls open as Sephiroth surrounds him.  

“Hmm, Cloud?  I can hear you, even if he can’t. I clawed my way out of the lifestream for you before, and you had no objection then.”

Cloud’s thumb traces circles over Seph’s palm.

They’re so beautiful together.

More beautiful than me, Seph thinks, bringing Cloud’s hand to his lips.

“And this time, I smelled you,” Sephiroth breathes, Cloud’s shorts halfway down his thighs.  “All the way from the lifestream.  How badly you wanted it.  How desperate you were for me.  How your body called for our reunion.”

Seph can’t stand it; he knows he’s lost, but he has to try, and Sephiroth is immovable under his hands.  He tries to put himself between them, but he can’t deny it.  That punched-up scent filling the room, the berry-blush over Cloud’s lips and cheek, and the radiant, intoxicating warmth of his skin—all unmistakable symptoms of the omega’s heat, and yet Seph had known nothing of it.  

He’d believed Cloud’s flimsy excuse of a headache, had fretted over soup and a good night’s sleep like some idiot child, and now his omega, his omega, the one he’d die for, is—

“Oh, puppet,” Sephiroth laughs.  “He doesn’t know you killed me.”

“Don’t listen, Seph,” Cloud whines.  “Don’t pay attention to him.”

“He hasn’t given you a mating mark, but I have something so much better.”  Sephiroth smiles at Seph, calm and pale, before leaning to lick a long stripe over the scar on his sternum, the heart of Seph’s home, the evidence of everything right and wrong in the world, and Cloud’s voice sharpens into a wordless cry.

Seph loves the sound, purring as he presses a kiss to Cloud’s knuckles.  He doesn’t want to know about death; he wants to hear more of this, and he wants Cloud to whine over and over, even if it’s not for him.

mommy?

With his other hand, Cloud grabs a lock of Sephiroth’s hair and pulls hard, so hard Sephiroth groans as he lifts away from Cloud’s chest.  His hips rock against the side of Cloud’s thigh, and Cloud spreads them in the way Seph always loves to see.  This time, he’s soaked, and the wet patch below him is staring Seph in the face.  He’s never seen Cloud so worked up; even in their laziest mornings, in their blurriest nights, Cloud bites his lip, preferring to encourage rather than to plead. 

baby, come here

Seph doesn’t know which he likes more, though he likes the way Cloud’s sharp teeth curl over his lip as he snarls at Sephiroth, winding silver hair around his fist.

But Sephiroth is only encouraged, purring even as Cloud tugs again and again, even as Seph takes Cloud’s fingers into his mouth, bruising green static and stars.  He’s afraid to come any closer, even when he hears Cloud’s chant in his mind, even when knows the words are meant only for him. 

please please please baby

“We’ve been neglecting you, Cloud.  You must be so tense.”

don’t listen

“Look,” Sephiroth sighs.  “Look at what we’ve done.” 

His hand, so large it nearly encircles Cloud’s muscled thigh, parts his legs just a little more, and Seph can see the way Cloud flutters around nothing, gushing slick with each breath—

it’s okay

—dripping over Sephiroth’s gloved hand, which traces the outer curve of his puffy, pink cunt before withdrawing.  It’s a cruel ghost of a touch, almost nothing at all, and Seph feels the shudder run through Cloud as it echoes in his head, in the static in the fingers under his tongue.

“But you like the pain, don’t you?”

Cloud’s thoughts are scattered and sparkling, like light through a prism, like his slick in the moonlight, but now that Seph really listens for it, he realizes—Cloud isn’t distressed.  He can scent arousal, confusion, shock, and even guilt, but this is not true fear. 

“Soon, it will become unbearable,” Sephiroth murmurs.  He leans close to Cloud, but his eyes are trained on Seph, even as he drools around Cloud’s fingers, intoxicated and empty.  This time, when he speaks, Seph knows it’s meant for him.

“And when you are at the peak of your suffering, we’ll take care of you.”

Seph is ignorant to so many things, but not to the moods of his omega.  He has never taken the initiative and has always followed Cloud’s guiding step in their pas de deux, but he wants to see Cloud be led, for once—and it seems Cloud wants it too, his body and his mind, reaching for Seph’s as deliberately as the hand he’d used to pull him closer.  

Seph knows distress and fear, had felt it shrieking in his cells when they had tried to fight in the yard, and this couldn’t be further from it; no, Cloud is desperate, slicking obscenely around nothing, even as Sephiroth’s long, thick fingers squeeze his thighs, press at the edges of his sex.  The squelching of leather against his soft, dripping cunt has Seph harder than he’s ever been in his life.

He is fixed in place, as if he’s been hit with a petrify spell.

“Are you simply going to watch?” Sephiroth teases.

what do i do

“It’s alright,” Cloud manages.  “Come here, baby.” 

Seph ignores the way Sephiroth laughs; now, he only wants to obey his omega.  He slides closer, and he takes a moment to tear off his shirt, though it pains him to pull Cloud’s fingers out of his mouth—and it pains him even more to see that hand moving over Sephiroth’s forearm, raking deep red lines across the polished marble of Sephiroth’s skin.

mine

“He must feel so guilty for not telling you,” Sephiroth says, even as he leans back in towards Cloud’s scent gland.  “See what he did to me?”

“Shut up,” Cloud mutters.  

hurts

His impatience is clear; his fingers are like a vice around Seph’s wrist, and with all Cloud’s strength, Seph finds himself sprawled alongside Cloud, tracing a hand over his chest and looking up at Sephiroth on the other side of his omega.

The other alpha points to his stomach, and from this angle, Seph can finally see it, the massive scar of what must have been a broadsword’s killing blow.  He can’t look away, and he wishes he could’ve seen it happen.  It’s his fate, or maybe it’s not; despite all his efforts with Cloud’s textbooks, he can’t explain what has brought him here, and he certainly can’t explain existing alongside his older self.  Whatever future lies ahead, he doesn’t care unless Cloud is there, and if it means his death, he will welcome it with open arms.

Cloud’s cunt clenches around nothing, and it pains Seph to wait; without Sephiroth, he’s sure he would’ve knotted Cloud five times by now, but he hadn’t known, and Cloud hadn’t said, and what if he kills Cloud?  What if Cloud’s heat hurts him?  What if it’s all for nothing?  What if this demon is—

“You think he’s afraid of you?  Perhaps you should be afraid of our darling omega.”  Sephiroth holds Cloud’s chin, turning his face towards Seph.  The dark length of his fingers around Cloud’s face is horribly arousing; Seph can only imagine doing this himself, with his own gloves, maybe with Cloud’s hands tied, and—

it’s okay. just fuck me

His eyes are far from innocent, and freckles under his flush are stars across his skin.  

“We should be afraid of what he might do if we don’t meet his demands.  Kiss him.”

He deserved it, Seph decides, and Cloud laughs at their private communiqué, pulling Seph close for a kiss.  His lips taste sweeter than mint ice cream, better than the hottest day of summer, softer than the light of dawn over Cloud’s face.  Nothing has ever been so awful or so wonderful.

He can feel Sephiroth watching, his face cloaked in shadow; his eyes are there, the same eyes he’s seen in the mirror every night, with his longer fingers over Cloud’s throat, teasing those ripe scent glands to terrible overripeness.

Everything is alright.

Cloud’s hand is at the front of Seph’s pajama pants, and he hadn’t realized just how hard he was.  But Cloud, beautiful Cloud—

Nothing has ever gone wrong.

His kiss is more teeth than lips, seeking something Seph hopes he knows how to give, even as he thrusts hopelessly into Cloud’s hand.  Sephiroth’s other hand, free of its glove, settles over the nape of Seph’s neck, and he’s too enamored with Cloud and the breathy whines he swallows over kiss-swollen lips to push Sephiroth away.

“Tell us, Cloud,” says the voice of the demon beside them as he lets go of Cloud’s face.  “Is he really enough for you?”

please

Cloud’s teeth are sharp, and when Seph tastes blood, he can’t help but press against Cloud’s hand, needing something so much more; his hands settle over Cloud’s waist, his thumbs approaching Cloud’s nipples, which immediately stiffen, sending green static through his consciousness in the most frightful way.

Cloud is in heat, and he should be fine, but he’s trapped in Sephiroth’s dance.  The cold hand on his neck is nearly bruising, and the touch of an alpha on his scent gland should feel wrong, but it doesn’t ; it feels like he when he touches himself in the shower because he doesn’t want to bother Cloud, when the water has run cold and he’s thinking about what it would feel like if Cloud would hit him and—

more blood

“That’s it.  My poor, sweet puppet.”

Cloud breaks the kiss, and Seph is delighted to see the blood on his mouth; no omega has ever been so terrifying, he’s sure.  

“Don’t call me that,” he says, nearly spitting with the force of his words.  His body betrays him, however, as his hips thrust against the tormenting touch of Sephiroth’s hand over his thigh.  He chases it, but Sephiroth is firm.

“Then tell us.  What is that you would like us to do?” 

Cloud looks into Seph’s eyes, even as a thin line of blood and spit still connects their lips.  Seph doesn’t mind.  No, he loves it; he’s under Cloud’s violent spell and he never wants to be anywhere else.

tell me

fuck me—knot me—take care of mommy

“No,” Sephiroth snarls.  “Say it out loud.  I can tell when you’re speaking with him.”

please, seph

Focused on Cloud’s face, Seph can’t see it, but he hears it and feels it, the delirious, slick sound of Sephiroth’s huge hand landing a slap right across the flat of Cloud’s pussy.  Convulsing in Seph’s arms, Cloud shrieks, but his hand squeezes even more tightly over Seph’s cock, and his psyche nearly sings.

please!

“Say it.”

Seph wants to wipe away Cloud’s tears, huge and glittery over his reddened face; he wants to protect him from any pain.  

But he can’t.  The desire is his desire, their desire, and Cloud’s nipples start to leak a little under his thumbs.  He can’t, he can’t help it, and he can almost imagine it’s their first night together again, private and lush and impossible.

“Mommy, just—”

“Seph,” Cloud gasps, “don’t—”

“Oh?  Mommy?  Is that what he calls you?”  Sephiroth’s voice is like ice, and he leans so close that Seph can feel his hair brushing over his shoulders; he wonders if he would look like that with long hair, like the visions he’d seen in Cloud’s nightmares during their first weeks together, but he cuts it every week.

He would stop cutting it if it means that he can see Cloud like this again.

And again.

“I like it.”

And again—Sephiroth brings his hand down over and over, not even waiting for Seph’s reply or Cloud’s compliance.  No, Seph realizes; they only want to see Cloud pushed to the brink.  

It’s the only act of worship that makes sense.  

He wants to be jealous, too, but he’s not.  They’re his fingers, or they will be one day, and he’s transfixed as he watches Cloud’s folds gush honeysuckle-sweet under the fleeting blows, so desperate that it runs down the sheet and he feels it fever-hot against his leg.  

However this temporal anomaly works, that’s him spanking Cloud; he can’t feel it, and no matter what has passed between them, whatever violence they’ve inflicted upon each other, Sephiroth’s—Seph’s—endless devotion is, after Cloud himself, the only real thing that has ever truly belonged to him.  He latches onto Cloud’s nipple, drinking everything Cloud has to give, and he isn’t disappointed when Sephiroth follows suit. 

The brightness of his scent and the taste of his milk have Seph tugging off his pajama pants, though he can’t stand to separate himself from Cloud for too long.  When he seals his mouth back over Cloud’s hardened nipple, he gazes up, and Cloud is smiling.  The pain must be immense, but with blood on his teeth and green fire in his eyes, he’s beaming.  His mother is an angel.

“Seph, that’s it,” Cloud breathes.  “Touch me.”

Sephiroth leans back, sitting on his heels, though his mouth is damp and he takes a moment to lick his lips, watching them both.  He’s still wearing his leather trousers, but Seph tries to look away from the way they’re so tight.  Sephiroth is so much larger, and Seph feels embarrassed without his pants on; that size difference must—

“Well, you heard him, didn’t you?” Sephiroth says.  “Show me how you would take care of our mommy.”

Seph’s throat is suddenly dry; Cloud is naked underneath him, and he’s naked too, and it should make sense.  It should be so simple, but the bright green of Cloud’s eyes in the dark makes it more complicated than it ever has been before.

He brushes his palm over Cloud’s sticky chest, uncertain of what to do next, and he allows Cloud guide him to nuzzle against his neck, the safest place on the planet.  Mommy tastes exceptionally sweet today, like nectar from the flower, and he could probably be content with scenting and holding Cloud like this forever.  If he could shut off his mind and live as Cloud’s servant, never separated from his body or his spirit, he could be satisfied.

But Cloud isn’t so patient.  His nails trace sharp, stuttered lines over Seph’s shoulders, and his hips chase the friction of the air and the memory of Sephiroth’s brutal attack.  Though Cloud tries to hide it, gritting his teeth so hard Seph can nearly hear it, his agony seeps through every line of their connection.

What do I do?

“Or perhaps you’d like Cloud to tell you himself?” Sephiroth suggests.

Seph looks up from Cloud’s scent gland, which is infinitely more interesting than the demon, and he’s surprised to see Sephiroth is simply sitting and watching.  He doesn’t move, though his gaze traces the line of Cloud’s body before settling on Seph.

“Go on, Mommy,” Seph whispers, too desperate to be ashamed anymore.  “Please tell me what to do.”

Cloud snatches Seph’s hand and presses it over his slit; his movements are frantic, and Seph feels Cloud’s fingers slide in alongside his for just a brief moment.  He’s feverish, and he’s remarkably tight.  Sephiroth is right—they’ve neglected Cloud so terribly, and the way he squirms in Seph’s arms, clawing against the sheets as he fucks himself on his hand and Seph’s, has Seph reeling.

All the while, Sephiroth smiles.  He’s so close now that Seph can scent him, even over the cloying sweetness of Cloud’s slick, but Seph pays him no mind.  If Sephiroth wants to kiss Cloud’s stomach and his hips, Seph won’t stop him.  

First, he has to prioritize taking care of his omega.

He bites his lip as he feels Cloud’s clit stiffen under his thumb.  Cloud jolts in his embrace, snarling a little, which is fascinating.  It’s another sound Seph has never heard, and he wants so much more of it.

But when Cloud manages his words, Seph must change his course.

“Fuck me or I’ll kill you,” Cloud breathes.  “Please.”

“Good boy,” says Sephiroth, biting at the soft, pale expanse of Cloud’s thigh as his hair spreads over all of them in shimmering waves.  He’s dangerously close to Seph’s hand, but he has to focus.  “Go on—do what he says.”

Whether he means to kill one or both, Seph does not want to know.  He only wants to die at Cloud’s hand, and it would be so simple for Cloud to do it, but he doesn’t want it to be tonight.  

Running his fingers through the slick on inner Cloud’s thigh, Sephiroth muttering to himself and closes his eyes as he tastes it, rutting against the mattress.  He’s still wearing those stupid leather pants, but it’s a distraction, Seph thinks; his omega needs him and nothing else matters.

Seph busies himself with kissing Cloud, soothing him, grooming him, getting closer; he’s worried about if he’s doing it right, though Cloud has never once complained.

Seph slides behind Cloud, lifting tanned legs to spread over his own.  All the while, Sephiroth leaves slick, bruising kisses over his milk-streaked stomach, his scar, his thighs, the outlines of his teeth that vanish as he moves from one place to another.   

In their most secret hours, Seph has always favored holding Cloud like this, sitting on his lap, with Cloud’s head falling back over his shoulder; he can explore every part of Cloud’s body, worshiping it all, wondering how such a compact person can conceal such divine power inside of him.  To hear their delivery clients describe it, Cloud is the strength of the planet, and tonight, lifting Cloud by his hips, he knows it’s true.

Cloud is more powerful than any living creature, and Seph hsa touched himself on more than one occasion thinking about it, recalling the way his arms flex when he does push-ups alongside Seph in his training, the way he kills monsters in the blink of an eye, the way he had nearly killed Sephiroth with a practice sword, and the way he stretches in the morning, pulling his abdomen so taut that Seph can’t help but wonder what it would look like stuffed full of come.  

Tonight, he doesn’t have to wonder.  

Cloud wastes no time.

In fact, when Seph holds him up, fucking against his slick folds even as Cloud’s legs are limp, Cloud doesn’t hesitate to grab Seph’s cock and line himself up.  In one smooth motion, he seats himself fully on Seph’s cock, and Seph can almost ignore that Sephiroth is present.  Every cell in his body, every star in the sky, they’re all here, in the glorious pressure of Cloud around him, tighter than he’s ever been.  

good boy, right there

He had slicked so beautifully that Seph thought he might be more relaxed, but Cloud has never felt so strong.  Seph can barely keep his eyes open as he tries not to knot inside of Cloud right away, even though Cloud surely needs it, and Cloud’s mouth slots against him, salty with his own blood, a lighthouse in the storm.

Cloud’s hand rests on his cheek while the other rests on Sephiroth’s forearm as he holds Cloud tightly by the waist and thrusts up into him, slowly enough to make Cloud sob with the pain of it.

“I think Mommy likes it,” Sephiroth says, and Seph doesn’t want to look down.  Sephiroth can do what he wants, but Seph will be a good boy, he’ll give Cloud exactly what he deserves, and he inhales deeply through his nose as he lets Cloud take what he needs.

But Sephiroth is undeterred; spanking Cloud’s thighs now.  They’re glancing blows, not enough to stimulate but enough to bring hateful curses to Cloud’s bloodied lips, bubbling into Seph’s mouth and his mind, foreign and beautiful.

If he tries to ignore the sound of Sephiroth’s hand and he focuses on Cloud’s heat around him and the way the head of his cock nearly reaches the head of Cloud’s womb, he can almost imagine they’re alone.  

But now, he can feel the mattress shifting under them, out of sync with the gentle rhythm he sets as he sinks himself into his beloved Cloud.  Cloud is so blissfully tight, tighter than he’s ever been, and Seph worries he might hurt Cloud as he carves him open.  He can feel cold fingers under Cloud’s hips and, strangely, on his own.  The callused heels of chilly palms send a shiver up his spine as Cloud’s thighs open over his, but the delicious press of Cloud’s tongue and the even lovelier thrill of their shared connection remind him of his purpose.

good job baby

They’ve never discussed it, and it’s nonsensical, but he wants so badly to sink his teeth into Cloud’s neck and mark him forever.  When he pulls away from Cloud’s mouth, he kisses the line of Cloud’s jaw, the outline of his swollen, angry scent gland.

mommy wants it too—

He hears Cloud loud and clear, but before he can do anything about it, Sephiroth’s voice cuts in.

“How lovely you are together.  It almost makes me jealous.”  

Seph doesn’t want to hear it, but Cloud squeezes around him with every word.  He leaks pheromones and slick, enough that Seph can feel the slide become easier.

don’t worry  

When Seph looks down, he sees Sephiroth staring right at him, the demented mirror of his desire; if only his own fingers were so long, so deft, he thinks.  Sephiroth traces tiny circles around Cloud’s clit, and if his touch lingers a little too long over Cloud’s stretched hole, perilously close to the place where Seph slides into him, Seph tries not to think about it.  

After all, Cloud likes this.  He likes all of it, and after the unceasing stream of slick coating Seph’s thighs, the jumble of Cloud’s mind is the clearest evidence.

“But I don’t have to be jealous of myself,” Sephiroth whispers, tossing his hair over one shoulder; the ends tickle against Seph’s leg.  His breath is cool—wait, what?—as he leans in, and lapping at Cloud’s clit, which has Cloud swirling his hips and pleading for more.  

His breath is cool, but his tongue is static as it traces up the vein on the underside of Seph’s cock, the same static as Cloud’s touch, green and numbing and right.

Everything is right.  

Nothing has ever been wrong.

Seph doesn’t want to knot just yet, but it’s impossible; on the few occasions Cloud has used his mouth on him, he loses any sense of control, and he always comes too quickly.  Cloud seems to like it, though, reassuring him and holding him close, reminding him that it’s okay to feel good, whispering to him with that pretty, glossy mouth, kissing him so he can taste his own release.

But this is different.

It’s so much worse.  He tries to think about pleasing Cloud, and he lets his hands wander, stroking Cloud’s chest and along his arms the way he likes when they watch TV together at night.  

“C’mon,” Cloud hisses.  “More.”

What more can he give?  And for that matter, what more can Sephiroth give?  He laps at Cloud’s clit with remarkable fervor, staring up at Seph, and even with his mouth at work, Seph can tell he’s grinning.

“I said more,” Cloud gasps, reaching down to pull Sephiroth up by his hair.  “Now.”

“Of course, Mommy,” Sephiroth replies, his voice calm as ever.  Seph stills his hips for just a moment, unsure of what’s to come, but Cloud demands exactly what he wants.

Their kiss is nauseating to watch, but it’s beautiful, and Seph runs his tongue over Cloud’s scent gland as he watches from the corner of his eye.  He thrusts slowly into Cloud, but when he hears more flicker across his mind, then MORE like a scream, he knows Sephiroth can hear it too.

In a blur of limbs, Sephiroth arranges them the way he wants; Seph is guided onto his back, and he clutches Cloud around the waist, unwilling to let him go.  There are no questions anymore, only answers for Cloud’s little pleas and curses.  His growls earn him a few hesitant thrusts, and his scratches over Seph’s forearm earn him soothing kisses over his neck and cheek.

It makes no sense until he feels something much larger than Sephiroth’s tongue pushing at Cloud’s entrance.  

“No, it won’t—”

“Our Cloud is more than capable.  It’s what his body needs,” Sephiroth offers, smiling with too many teeth.  

Is it true? he begs.

More is the only answer he gets before Cloud’s mind is a pure green blank.

Cloud is so tight already that it shouldn’t work, it shouldn’t fit, but Sephiroth is patient; he strokes his fingers in delicate, gentle circles over Cloud’s clit, just the way Seph knows he likes when he’s tense, and Seph can feel the blank of Cloud’s mind darken when the head of Sephiroth’s cock slides in.  Seph, even propped up on a pillow, can barely see it, but he can feel Sephiroth’s length slowly sliding in against his.  From the matching vein to the scent, it’s all his, everything is theirs, and why should he be jealous?

Cloud belongs to him.

“Fuck,” Cloud hisses, and the tears on his cheek are luminous green in the dark.  

Sephiroth’s eyelashes flutter, and his fingers dig dark marks into Cloud’s thighs as he holds his legs up and apart.  Around them both, something inside Cloud opens up, as if he was made for both of them, as though he’s needed everything terrible and wonderful all at once and nothing has ever gone wrong.

Cloud’s ragged breaths quicken when Sephiroth hits against the entrance to his womb, where Seph can just barely reach from this angle; he holds Cloud even closer, nearly squeezing the breath from him, but he doesn’t care; he needs all that Cloud has, and he knows more than he’s ever known anything that Cloud needs it too.

good boy  

Finally fully seated inside Cloud’s cunt, Sephiroth groans above them, a punishing angel.  He braces himself against the headboard with one hand, setting a tormenting pace; the head of his cock, trapped in Cloud’s heat, carves an unearthly shape against Seph, hollowing Cloud out with each thrust.  With one flick of Sephiroth’s hand, Cloud gushes around them, soaking them both in honeyed slick.  His voice is nearly gone, but his body folds in on itself and he tightens in an impossible way around them.

Seph nips at Cloud’s neck, desperate for something to return him to reality, to keep him from popping his knot.  He can feel the bulge of Cloud’s stomach under his quivering hand; he can’t be jealous of the shape of Sephiroth inside of him, claiming Cloud for them both.  Can Cloud really take two knots?  It seems—

“Mommy wants more,” Sephiroth rasps.  “Don’t you?”

Cloud, trapped in the afterglow, seems to shake his head—or perhaps he nods, but it’s hard to tell with the way Sephiroth slams into him.  Under them both, Seph tries to match his rhythm, but it’s sloppy, and Cloud is so wet, but he won’t fail, he won’t slip out and leave Cloud unsatisfied.

“We’re going to breed you now, Cloud.  We know exactly what you need.”

A cold feeling of dread runs through Seph, but he doesn’t stop.  He won’t.  He can’t.  Cloud needs him.

“You know,” Sephiroth continues, “if I had found you when I was his age, I would have fucked you pregnant and never let you go.”

“Stop talking,” Cloud mutters, nuzzling back towards Seph, scenting his hair and pressing a damp kiss to his temple.  “I said . . . more.”

“By all means,” Sephiroth replies.

“If he doesn’t want it—”

Seph, stop—

“Are you sure?” he whispers, even as he can’t help pumping his hips into Cloud’s delicious heat, can’t help chasing the friction of Sephiroth’s shaft against his.  “We want to help.”

“It hurts,” Cloud whines.  

“Then we’ll make it all better for you,” says Sephiroth, bending at the waist and kissing his way up the scar on Cloud’s chest.  

Seph is lost, unable to keep his pace steady as he ruts against the soft, firm entrance to Cloud’s womb, unwilling to lose even an inch of contact.  He never wants to let go, and he imagines biting Cloud, consuming him, watching his blood spill out.  Is this the instinct the professor had always mentioned alphas would have?  He’s thought it before, but he’s never heard such filthy words out loud.  

When Seph blushes in bed, when he comes too quickly with Cloud sprawled open beneath him and looking over his shoulder, Cloud says that it’s natural; it’s what alphas and omegas do. Cloud is never wrong about anything.  How could he be? 

“Please,” Cloud whispers.

Now, Cloud squeezes around them, and Seph can’t hold back.  Unbidden, his knot swells—slowly at first, but he slides in just a little deeper, sealed right against Cloud’s cervix, with Sephiroth nestled alongside him.  

Cloud cants his hips, keening and chasing the friction of the knot.  The rhythmic pulse of his cunt is too much, and Seph feels himself spilling over and over; it drips down, joining the impossible mess beneath them, but it’s not nearly enough for Cloud.  Rocking gently into him, Sephiroth is silent when his knot begins to catch at the edge of Cloud’s stretched hole; Seph can feel it, nestled right against him, anesthetizing him to everything but the glory of Cloud.

It must be the heat, or the reunion, or whatever Sephiroth has said all along, because the look on Seph’s face is like his, a smile so wide it hurts the muscles of his face.  He isn’t used to it, but he doesn’t mind the pain because it’s all for Cloud.  For mommy.

Cloud doesn’t stop moving; he claws at them both, holding their hands over his stomach.  They each hold one of his hands, right over the place where they pulse stream after stream of alpha come inside him.  Seph can feel the swell of their combined seed in his womb, even as Cloud pleads and swears and leaves their hands bloody. 

“Here.  More,” he snarls.  “Stupid alphas.”

“Don’t worry.  We’ll give you more,” Sephiroth reassures him, though his voice has an edge to it.  “We just want to take care of you.  Isn’t that right?”

Seph nods so hard he wonders if his head might snap off, and he only stops when he feels Cloud’s mouth chasing his scent gland, biting him so deeply he knows it will take.  

Except for where their bodies meet, Seph is insensate, and his mind succumbs to the shared emptiness of Cloud’s when he feels Cloud’s teeth sink into the most sacred place.  

Nothing will ever feel so good as this and nothing else will ever matter.  Even Sephiroth’s voice, rambling about how lovely and fertile Cloud is—no, even the feeling of Cloud’s body embracing his enemy as Sephiroth bites him too, it’s all fine.  He is lost in Cloud’s thrall and he wants nothing more than to match Cloud and Sephiroth’s rhythm, to sate his heat and serve him in eternity.  

Together, Cloud says.  Not reunion.

Seph doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t need to.  Mommy knows everything.