Work Text:
Cloud had the room in the library to himself. He had closed the blinds, locked the door, settled into the plush chair. Cameras weren’t in the rooms of the library, mainly due to the administration not wanting the classes recorded. It worked in his favor, a slip of quiet privacy whereas back in the apartment he would never have any.
Not quiet enough to hear Professor Genesis Rhapsodos’ voice clearly in his earbuds. The smooth, rich melodic rise and fall of his words caressed Cloud’s brain, tickled his senses, sent goosebumps along his body and heat to all extremities.
Who would have thought that poetry reading was such a turn on??
Who will believe my verse in time to come
If it were filled with your most high deserts?
Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say “This poet lies;
Such heavenly touches ne’er touched earthly faces.”
Another reason Cloud picked the library after the graduate classes: it remained unlocked but empty. No one could interrupt him as he pulled closer the tissue box complimentary to every room close while his other hand unzipped and undid the button of his pants. Closing his eyes and palming himself, he hissed softly at how hard he already was, swiping his thumb across the leaking head of his member.
He could pretend it was Genesis himself reaching into his pants and stroking him, all while reciting words of love and adoration to a stranger in his ear.
So should my papers, yellowed with their age,
Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be termed a poet’s rage
And stretchèd meter of an antique song.
But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice—in it and in my rhyme.
It was his favorite fantasy, a guilty pleasure. Just seeing portraits of Genesis hung around the Arts and Letters building sent thrills along his body. Sometimes he caught himself staring at the portrait in a daze, eyes glazed over and lips parted over shallow breaths. The professional portraits took on an erotic, sultry veneer in those moments, as if Genesis was staring at Cloud from the paint, beckoning him with those sharp blue eyes, an invitation.
“Nnhaa,” he sighed, shrugging his pants down further and freeing himself into the cool library air. In his ears, Genesis’ voice ramped up in its passion for poetry, the intensity of pouring emotion out. No wonder his audiobooks and such were always checked out. Cloud’s eyelids fluttered, rocking his head back as he increased his rhythm, rolling into his own hand.
He couldn’t be the only one that did this. Right?
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
“Prof…” Cloud gasped, feeling himself throb against his palm. He felt a breath on his ear, a warm breeze. “Profess….” He kept himself as quiet as could be, knowing the rooms weren’t entirely sound proof. The tension in his chest practically sucked the breath out of him anyway, rolling his hips upward in desperation for release.
So he stopped.
It was a typical thing he did, edging himself before stopping. He wanted the experience to last, and the slick feeling of sweat under his shirt sent more shivers down his frame. Hairs raised on the back of his neck, prickling his scalp. A faint trickle of drool from his panting lips cooled on his skin; his unoccupied hand moved to wipe it.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed.
Cloud opened his eyes to stare up at the fluorescent lights as he caught his breath. Instead, however, his breath hitched and caught in the back of his throat when it wasn’t the lights he saw above him. It wasn’t his hand on his dick. It wasn’t the recording in his ears waxing poetic about love to a stranger.
“Prof-“
“Shh.” Genesis crooned, putting a thumb to Cloud’s lips. “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee…”
Cloud’s own blue eyes opened wide, glancing around the room. Blinds were still down, the door was closed — but unlocked. Seeing his wandering gaze, Genesis slipped his thumb between Cloud’s moist lips. Like a Cheshire Cat, he smiled. “This is where I do my after hours work,” he explained. “I have a key.”
He squeezed Cloud, thumb running and pressing on his head. A short yelp preluded the orgasm he had denied himself earlier, his seed splattering in a mess against Genesis’s hand, both of their pants, and Cloud’s heaving chest. He rolled and thrust into the slick hand that continued to move and guide his length into fully releasing itself. Desperately, his lips curled around Genesis’ thumb, sucking on it as his eyes rolled back in his head.
What felt like an eternity later, but really must have just been seconds, Cloud slumped back into the chair with shallow, wheezy breaths. A thin trail of saliva followed as Genesis pulled his thumb from that mouth, his other hand from the flaccid length.
How dark Cloud’s cheeks grew as he fumbled and tried to stuff himself back into his pants. It was hard to do so, with his leaden limbs. Not only that, but as he looked up to try and form an apology, to lick his lips that were dry and soaked in equal measure, only to see Genesis licking his own hand clean.
It practically sent another jolt down Cloud’s body. The way those blue eyes were half lidded in that invitation, pulling his finger from his mouth with a pop. “But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, all losses are restored and sorrows end.”
Cloud nearly fell to the floor when he tried to stand, uncomfortably zipping himself up. He was half hard again, his breathing never regulated from before. “S-Sorry,” he said, scrambling for the tissue box.
Genesis flicked Cloud’s hand away from the box. “I’ll take care of it,” he said with a secretive smile. “Off you go, before people wonder.”
The substitute for theater by Shakespeare class had Cloud’s feet stuck fast to the doorway.
He had been dreading the day for two reasons: it was the due day for his final essay of the semester deconstructing King Lear, and Sephiroth was out on leave he had announced after spring break had ended. He said this with a keen stare at Cloud, who ducked his head at the time and shuffled awkwardly in his chair; Zack had to stop doodling in his notes to pat him on the shoulder.
“Take your seat,” spoke the substitute airily, waving his hand. Auburn feathered hair moved rather gracefully around as the one and only Professor Rhapsodos continued to write in a well-manicured white board script.
“Uh- right. Sorry.” Spurred to action, Cloud did exactly that, practically scuttling like a mouse to his usual seat where Zack was back at doodling mock scenes from the play he had been assigned: Romeo and Juliet.
“Surprised?” he asked when the blonde flopped into the seat and stared down at his bag by his feet. “Who would have thought Seph would get the Dean of Arts and Letters to cover for him?”
The Dean, Professor Genesis Rhapsodos, was a well-known name in the theater and literary world. He basically was the final word of law in publications about his wheelhouse. He even translated Chaucer out of Olde English into something with a modicum of ease understand. Recently his translation of Beowulf had earned him acclaim the world over. His current project with his top graduate student, a translation of the lost text of Loveless, constantly had the academic world in a stir.
“I should have skipped and just emailed in my paper.” Cloud winced as he pulled his binder out with the twenty-some-odd page final draft. “Would have saved some trees and me some embarrassment.”
“It won’t be that bad, Spike.” Zack chuckled, poking him with the eraser side of his pencil. “He has to be professional, after all.”
Genesis was also the reason Cloud applied to University of Junon. An inspiration, being a country boy raising himself along the rungs of cutthroat academy to the top. He drew in attention, many applicants aside from Cloud, and his dramatic readings were constantly sold out events and perpetually checked out on library apps.
The wooden floor of the room squeaked softly as he turned, kicking his long magenta coat back. A lone earring glimmered in the bright light of the room above them, blue eyes a bright shock amongst the rest of his person. He dressed much like the stereotypical bookworm, black turtleneck and comfortable slacks, though he like Sephiroth opted for tucking them into boots instead of daring to wear shiny, squeaky loafers. “No attendance will be taken today,” he said, melodic voice carrying across the small room and inviting immediate quiet. “It will be judged based on who turns in their essays, so go ahead and get in line to do that, before pulling out your sonnet books.”
Cloud’s throat went dry. So instead of passing their work up in a pile as Sephiroth tended to have them do, everyone had to get up? To turn them in? He swallowed and felt like razorblades were cutting up his throat. Noting this, Zack nudged him. “Want me to take yours?”
“Yes- no. No, it’ll be fine, like you said.” After all, if Cloud didn’t meet Genesis’ gaze at all during class, he wouldn’t have to risk being remembered as the student getting off to one of Genesis’ voice recordings by the man himself. “He has to be professional, so… so can I.”