Work Text:
‘I think we should give him another chance,’ says Tifa firmly, and Cloud can barely stop himself from rolling his eyes because, seriously?
Sephiroth, who is sitting quietly at the table with his hands folded and his eyes downcast in a parody of submission, smirks to himself.
Suddenly Cloud is on his feet.
‘I can’t believe you’re all falling for his bullshit!’ he cries, staring fiercely at the group of people assembled around the table with him.
Tifa just stares at him sadly. Yuffie looks away. Barrett sighs and mutters something about second chances under his breath. Reeve is silent.
In the end it is Vincent who speaks.
‘We have all done things we are not proud of,’ he says. ‘Sephiroth has suffered greatly throughout his life, and for some reason Gaia has decided to return him to us. If she has seen fit to grant him a second chance, and yet we cannot do the same, what does that make us?’
Sane, Cloud wants to say. Do his friends not remember the absolute devastation this monster has wrought?
But it seems they have all fallen for the ‘it was the voices in my head that made me do it’ excuse, so in the end he keeps his thoughts to himself.
*
‘Really Cloud, I’m flattered you want to stay so close to me, but don’t you have anything better to do?’ asks Sephiroth, and Cloud scowls.
The meeting concluded an hour ago and he’s not left Sephiroth’s side since. His friends may have forgotten what he’s capable of but Cloud certainly hasn’t. And he’s not about to let history repeat itself.
For want of anywhere else to put him, Sephiroth has been kept in an old safehouse while the group decided on his fate. And now that they’ve reached a conclusion (the wrong conclusion, thinks Cloud furiously), he’s returned there.
(The safehouse is far too nice a place in Cloud’s opinion - the bastard belongs in a cold, damp cell - but as with everything else related to this Gaia-awful mess, he was overridden.)
Sephiroth is now lounging on the couch in the living area of the house, every inch the arrogant, entitled prince.
Cloud’s scowl deepens. He leans back against the wall, arms folded, and says nothing.
Sephiroth smiles.
‘Oh Cloud,’ he says, and it almost sounds fond. ‘Your friends seem to think I’ve changed. Won’t you give me the benefit of the doubt?’
‘Go to hell.’
Sephiroth actually laughs at this, green eyes sparkling with a sort of delighted malice. Cloud is sorely tempted to run him through with First Tsurugi, second chances be damned.
For the next few hours Sephiroth pretends to peruse a book while Cloud continues his silent vigil. Every now and then he glances up from the pages, meets Cloud’s furious gaze with a condescending smirk, then returns to his reading.
After a while, though, Sephiroth tosses the book aside. He stands up and fixes Cloud with a look.
‘It’s been a long day. I think I’m going to have a shower.’
With that, he heads off towards the bathroom. Cloud stares at his retreating back in dismay.
Truth be told, he hasn’t given much thought to what 24/7 surveillance of Sephiroth will actually entail.
He certainly hasn’t considered the practicalities of things like bathroom usage.
But if Sephiroth is testing him - and he is fairly certain he is - then he isn’t going to crumble at the first hurdle.
If the bastard thinks that something as simple as a shower is enough to deter him, he’s about to be sorely disappointed.
Cloud stomps after him, grim determination etched across his features.
Sephiroth doesn’t seem to be particularly surprised when Cloud wrenches the bathroom door open and leans against the doorframe.
‘Really, Cloud,’ he purrs. ‘Is this truly necessary? I promise I’ll behave.’
‘I don’t trust you.’
Sephiroth smiles and begins divesting himself of his clothing. Plain grey t-shirt, sweatpants, socks. They drop to the floor one after the other.
And then, without a hint of shame, he hooks his thumbs in his underwear and takes that off too, and suddenly Cloud isn’t sure where to look.
He’d always known Sephiroth was buff - how could anyone not, when the man strutted about bare-chested and accentuated by artfully-places leather? - but being forced to confront it in such close proximity is… not something he is mentally prepared for.
Sephiroth isn’t just buff, he’s a fucking masterpiece. He cuts a gorgeous figure with his striking height, his finely sculptured muscles, and of course his perfect facial features.
Were he anyone else, Cloud would be hopelessly attracted to him.
But this is Sephiroth, he reminds himself firmly, refusing to let his gaze drop below the other man’s navel.
He tries to remind himself of all the terrible things Sephiroth has done in an attempt to distract himself, but it’s difficult to focus when the man looks every inch a god.
Sephiroth, meanwhile, steps into the shower. He’s so tall he has to be careful of the showerhead, and he fixes Cloud with a lazy smile as he turns the tap and lets the water cascade over his perfect body.
For a moment Cloud can’t breathe. He looks absolutely breathtaking.
Then Sephiroth is running his hands all over his body, massaging in shower gel, and Cloud has to adjust his posture to hide his body’s unfortunate reaction to the scene unfolding in front of him.
It’s just a reflex, Cloud thinks to himself, gritting his teeth.
Then Sephiroth looks him dead in the eye, grasps his cock, and begins jerking himself off.
Cloud, who has been adamantly refusing to look in Certain Places, feels his eyes helplessly and inevitably drawn to Sephiroth’s dick.
Gaia, of course it’s huge. And perfectly formed, like the rest of him.
Cloud has officially had enough. His idiot comrades have chosen to forget everything this lunatic is capable of, preferring to believe in redemption and fake apologies and convenient excuses. As a consequence, as the only one who hasn’t bought into this collective delusion, he has been forced to supervise Sephiroth to ensure that he doesn’t indulge in his planet-destroying tendencies.
And now Sephiroth, the monster, is taunting him. Torturing him. Pushing him beyond what anyone could possibly stand.
Cloud snaps.
In an instant he is in the shower alongside Sephiroth, still clothed, holding him against the wall. One hand is round his neck, the other pushing against his chest.
‘What the fuck,’ he hisses. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’
Sephiroth doesn’t seem to be phased by this.
‘What does it look like, Cloud?’ he replies, and in the next instant Cloud has tackled him to the floor, sopping wet and furious, his full weight pushing onto the other man.
‘How dare you,’ he hisses, and Sephiroth smiles serenely back up at him, his silver hair splayed out around him on the shower floor.
Suddenly Cloud is reminded of his previous problem, and that that problem is currently pressing firmly against Sephiroth’s midriff. There’s no way he hasn’t noticed.
‘Oh Cloud,’ breathes Sephiroth, and there’s a reverence to it. Cloud gulps. Suddenly all thoughts of the apocalypse, or Nibelheim in flames, or any of the bullshit of the past, are wiped from his mind.
He’s a teenager again, staring at posters of his idol and letting his head fill with aimless romantic fantasies that will never come to pass.
He’s a SOLDIER hopeful, touching himself at night in the barracks to forbidden thoughts of the General.
He’s Cloud Strife, Geostigma survivor and Gaia’s champion, and he’s finally admitting to himself the depth of the overwhelming want that lurks within him.
Sephiroth, meanwhile, watches this all play out. He waits, seemingly content to be held bodily against the tiled floor.
‘I hate you,’ says Cloud, and he means it.
‘I know,’ breathes Sephiroth in return. Their faces are so close. Water is dripping from the ends of Cloud’s hair onto Sephiroth’s face, but those inhuman green eyes don’t so much as blink.
The next moment Cloud’s self-control snaps beyond the point of no return and he is kissing Sephiroth like a man possessed. Sephiroth is kissing him back, forcing their faces together, biting down on his lower lip and making the kind of noises that Cloud has hardly dared to dream of.
He’s ripping off his clothes, made difficult by the fact they’re so wet but Sephiroth is helping, and despite his usually cool demeanour he’s clearly desperate for more. They both are.
Once Cloud is finally naked he resumes his position straddling Sephiroth, grinding their dicks together and trying to kiss the smugness off that beautiful face.
It’s not long before Sephiroth reaches around and starts fondling Cloud’s ass, his fingers drifting closer and closer to the centre until finally he slips inside, the intensity of Cloud’s pleasured gasp taking them both by surprise.
‘Fuck yes,’ moans Cloud. This may be his nemesis, but right now all he can think of is how perfect that finger feels, and how perfect Sephiroth is beneath him. Like this is all he ever wanted.
Then Sephiroth finds that spot inside him and Cloud’s thoughts dissolve completely to nothingness. He’s whining and panting and rubbing himself against the other man, completely overtaken by pleasure and lust and desperation.
Sephiroth continues to finger-fuck him, his other hand reaching down to grasp Cloud’s leaking dick. He strokes him off, and combined with the relentless assault on his prostate, it’s not long before Cloud is screaming in pleasure as his orgasm roars through him like a tidal wave.
But it’s not enough - it was never going to be - and Cloud sinks his teeth into the meat of Sephiroth’s shoulder as he continues to rut against him, his cum dripping from those perfect abs.
He bites and sucks at Sephiroth, leaving bruises and bite-marks in his wake. They’ll heal within minutes but he savours the desperate noises Sephiroth makes.
He’d expected his enemy to remain distant and aloof throughout this, if he’d had the forethought to expect anything at all, but this is beyond any of his wildest fantasies.
Sephiroth, it seems, is exquisitely sensitive and delightfully responsive. He leans into every touch and lets Cloud mark him with his teeth, making shameless noises of pleasure with each bite.
‘Fuck me,’ Cloud gasps brokenly, and Sephiroth wastes no time pushing him off and onto his hands and knees before resuming fingering him with a vengeance.
The next thing Cloud knows is that Sephiroth is fucking him open with both fingers and his tongue, and the very thought of his enemy licking his asshole combined with the overwhelming sensations has him gasping through a second orgasm, his cock spurting more cum against the tiles.
After an eternity - and yet no time at all - Sephiroth lines himself up with Cloud’s entrance and shoves. The noise they both make is almost inhuman. Then Sephiroth, for all his usual cool demeanour, is fucking Cloud relentlessly, desperately, wildly, and Cloud is helpless to take it.
‘I want to see you,’ he says, and then Sephiroth has him flat on his back and is pounding him against the floor, a wild look in his eyes and the water still cascading off his back.
Cloud can only stare back into those burning green eyes, held complete prisoner beneath the intensity of their gaze. We could have been doing this so much sooner, he thinks, and he almost wants to laugh at how right this feels. Despite everything they’ve done to each other.
Sephiroth is fucking him even harder now, and Cloud can barely believe it but he feels himself building towards a climax for a third time. He grasps his cock in anticipation but a bigger hand takes its place, stroking him mercilessly until they’re both gasping into one another. He feels Sephiroth empty himself in his ass, and Gaia, it’s never-ending. He’ll be dripping cum for days.
They slowly come back to themselves after a minute, or maybe a year - time has condensed and expanded somehow, and Cloud isn’t sure if they’re still in the same century.
He feels wrung out and used but in such a good way, his head nestled against Sephiroth’s broad chest, the other man’s arms draped protectively over him.
They lie like this for a while, the only sounds the continued trickling of the shower water and their gentle breathing.
‘So, Cloud,’ murmurs Sephiroth eventually. ‘Do you believe it? That I’ve changed for the better?’
‘Not for one minute,’ growls Cloud, and presses his lips against Sephiroth’s in a searing kiss.