Sephiroth finished stretching himself and slid a butt plug in so he'd stay ready. He doubted that Cloud would be cruel enough to simply omit preparing him, not if Zack had chosen him to be Sephiroth's new handler, but Zack's friend was young enough to be a virgin from what he understood, and so he might not understand the need to prepare Sephiroth. He shrugged mentally and made his way to the first room of his quarters, where he knelt in the required position for a change in handlers; forehead to the floor, arms folded behind him and ass in the air. Hojo had designed the position to display how helpless he was against his handlers, and make sure he was very aware of that; not that it was necessary, Hojo had already made sure he understood that on a bone deep level.
He'd timed it about right; Sephiroth's internal time sense told him he'd only been in position for three minutes when he heard Zack entering with Cloud beside him. Sephiroth had been almost shocked when Zack had asked him if he approved of being given to Cloud when Zack couldn't keep on fucking him without feeling guilty over this Aeris. It was the first time he'd ever had any choice over who his next handler would be, but he knew better than to tell Zack that. And he also knew this was the only way Cloud could achieve his ambition of becoming a SOLDIER, and Cloud was good enough to deserve the chance.
"Zack? What's going on?" Hadn't Zack told Cloud anything? "You said the General needed my help, but this doesn't make sense."
"Cloud...Sephiroth can explain better than I can, but first we need to do what we came here to do. You do remember what I told you to do and say?" He could feel the heat of Zack's body as the SOLDIER knelt beside him. "Look, I asked Sephiroth if he wanted you for this and he agreed. I...you can back out of this if you feel you just can't do this, but I don't know who else we can trust."
Sephiroth bit his lip to keep from protesting Zack's emotional blackmail; he wasn't being fair to Cloud, but he couldn't defy his current handler by contradicting him, especially not now. He only realised he was trembling when Zack pulled him into his lap, stroking his hair, and whispering soothing words to him, and he shut his eyes as he tilted his head back in submission.
"Well, Cloud?" Sephiroth could hear the blond kneeling opposite Zack and knew that he'd decided to go through with this. Zack laid a light kiss on his throat and handed him over to Cloud, who took hold of him a bit awkwardly, and Sephiroth did what he could to help while Zack spoke the ritual words. "I surrender this in trust to you; honour that trust as best you can."
Cloud seemed to hesitate and Sephiroth found himself shivering in fear that the blond would balk, nails digging into his upper arms until he felt Cloud's teeth scraping against his throat. Then Cloud actually bit down, hard enough that he knew he was bleeding, just a little bit, and Sephiroth moaned with arousal, blushing as he realised he'd let his needs interrupt his new handler claiming him. But none of his handlers had ever drawn blood before, not in this, or in using him either, except for tearing him by being careless, and that was a different matter. Zack made a faint sound of distress, but Sephiroth felt content in a way he never had before.
"I accept this gift and the honour that goes with it; I swear to treasure it as best I can." But Cloud didn't seem to know what to do next, although at least he'd completed the transfer successfully; Sephiroth could feel the growing need to be claimed by the blond to tell him that.
"I'll leave you two to sort this out then." Zack sounded uncomfortable as he stood to walk out. "Spike, you need to tell him to relax; he really is the best person to explain this to you. I didn't entirely get what Angeal was going on about, but Sephiroth managed to make me understand fairly quickly." Sephiroth's eyes flew open at that; he didn't remember Zack needing much explanation at all, it hadn't taken more than a few kisses to get Zack into bed with him, and all he'd really needed to do was ask when he needed Zack to take him.
"Umm, yeah, you can relax now sir." Cloud looked unhappy and uncertain and Sephiroth hated that. He firmly repressed the urge to flinch at hearing Cloud address him as 'sir', focusing on sliding off his lap and kneeling in front of him, resting his hands in his lap and bowing his head submissively.
"Please, don't call me sir, not when we're alone...not when it's just Zack with us either. Please."
"What do you want me to call you then?" Cloud's hand was shaking slightly as he reached to touch Sephiroth's cheek, lifting his head up until he was looking at his newest handler.
"Whatever you wish, just don't call me sir, and don't use my rank." It would make him feel like a whore if Cloud reminded him of his rank while he took him. "You know what Zack calls me, feel free to use my name if you wish, or if you can come up with a pet name you are comfortable with I will not argue with you." He couldn't...he might have managed to protest the way Zack moved his pet name of Seph from the bedroom to their everyday life, but he'd come to like that.
"Sephiroth?" There was a question in his voice and Sephiroth made sure to smile and look appreciative to hear Cloud using his name. "I don't understand why you need me. I mean I did terribly on the SOLDIER Exam, and I can't figure out why, I thought I'd done really well." Obviously his handler needed to feel more confident before he could ask for what he needed, so Sephiroth ignored the feeling of emptiness inside him to reassure Cloud. The emptiness wasn't growing painful yet, even though he knew it would fairly quickly, and making Cloud feel good would help keep it from becoming painful as fast as it could.
"Cloud...the results you got back were false." He paused to let that sink in and see how his handler would react. Cloud pulled his hands back from Sephiroth, clenching them into fists.
"What? Why?"
"Can I explain a bit about the standard process for making SOLDIERs before I get into why you were rejected? I think they falsified your results to keep you from trying again, so they didn't have to admit that not everyone can become a SOLDIER even if they're good enough to pass the tests." Cloud didn't look as if he would strike out at Sephiroth for what he was saying, and he knew that it wasn't the sort of thing Cloud would normally do anyway - besides, even if he did blame Sephiroth for what he heard Cloud couldn't really hurt him.
"Yes, please. You're saying I'll never be a SOLDIER, and that was determined when I was born, it didn't matter how hard I worked?"
"Not quite. Since Zack chose you as my new handler Hojo will have to find a way to make you a SOLDIER, even if it means modifying the process to work with your metabolism and how you react to Mako. The reason you were rejected was because you react too well to Mako for any of the five standard treatment regimes to work normally for you. Zack got the lowest doses available as standard, and he was a borderline case.
"You weigh less than he does, and you react five times better to Mako than he does. The treatment regime used depends on how well a candidate reacts to Mako and on his weight. Here's a little secret; I was given twice as much Mako as normal SOLDIERs do to make 1st class, even on the highest doses, except I hadn't even hit puberty by the time they finished treating me. If they'd waited until I was your age I'd have been rejected as too resistant to the effects of Mako." Of course not all of his improvements came from the Mako doses, and he was almost certain the need he had to feel connected at least to one person that Hojo had twisted and turned against him either didn't exist, or wasn't as strong in humans. "Anyone who Hojo had complete control over from conception the way he had control of me would have turned out as powerful as I am."
"I can't believe that." Cloud looked so disbelieving that Sephiroth couldn't meet that gaze, so full of admiration and faith, and he looked down to his lap again.
"Do you at least believe that you did as well as you thought you had on the other tests; almost as well as Zack did, well enough that if you reacted to Mako just a little bit worse than he did you'd have been recommended for accelerated promotion the way he was?"
"I...if you say I did." There was the just the hint of the self-confidence Cloud would need to come through what Hojo would do to him sane, and Sephiroth shivered as he felt the emptiness inside him growing. "Fuck! I've been keeping you here naked haven't I? I can wait while you put some clothes on."
It wasn't quite an order, but close enough that obeying would help stave off the feeling of emptiness. Sephiroth hesitated, then went through the door to the set of rooms intended for him to entertain his handlers in, passing through the dining room to the bedroom. But once he got to the wardrobe he found himself frozen in indecision when he looked at the outfits stored in it; he had no idea what Cloud would want to see him wearing. He could eliminate the uniforms Angeal had wanted him in, the ones with insignia from when he'd first been sent to Wutai; Cloud had never seen him wearing them before and he'd started at a higher rank than Cloud had at the moment. But he couldn't eliminate anything else and if he displeased Cloud it would hurt far worse now than it would after Cloud had completed his claim.
"Sephiroth?" The pain at realising how long he must have kept Cloud waiting sent Sephiroth to his knees, and he stayed there as he called back to Cloud, keeping his eyes cast down and turning towards Cloud as the blond entered.
"What's wrong? Why are you kneeling again?"
"I...you weren't angry that I made you come and find me?" Zack wouldn't have been, but all his other previous handlers would have, especially Hojo. "I thought you would be angry, and I don't know what you want me to wear. I...when it's just us...I'm supposed to kneel to greet you." And when the only other people were his previous handlers, but he could explain that later.
"Get up then?" Cloud sounded uncertain, but Sephiroth took the permission and stepped out of the way so he could see into the wardrobe.
"So I'm not confused in the future could you tell me what you would prefer to see me wearing?" He kept his eyes down, shivering a bit at his own presumption.
"What I'd prefer...are those women's clothes?"
"Yes...Zack's girlfriend, Aeris, has a thing for seeing men in women's clothes, and recently he started having me wear those things when he...had sex with me and recording it for her to make him feel less guilty about fucking me when he's in love with her." And in the last three months Sephiroth had been needing Zack to fuck him more and more often, because he'd known Zack was drawing away from him emotionally. And it had been the way he'd had to keep pressing Zack for his attention that way which had driven him away emotionally, the two problems feeding on each other in a vicious circle. "I...it was damaging our friendship." Perhaps showing Cloud how emotionally vulnerable he was would encourage the blond to open up to him a bit. "That was why he asked you to take over as my handler."
"Are you saying that my duties as your 'handler' are basically to sleep with you?" Cloud sounded angry, and Sephiroth shivered again, trying to resist the urge to fall to his knees.
"N-not exactly. You're supposed to be a way to control me. Fucking me is the way you need to establish and maintain our bond." He bit his lip, looking at Cloud nervously. "Please...I...it's starting to hurt...physically...that you haven't taken me yet." Perhaps kneeling would help persuade Cloud; it would certainly make it easier for him to handle how Cloud's anger was escalating the rate at which his sense of emptiness was growing. He didn't say anything else until he was on his knees, feeling distantly grateful that Cloud hadn't said anything yet. "As my handler you have a degree of control over me...it's almost complete in anything beside professional matters, but very limited when it comes to those...and you can give me orders on any matter if you do it the right way." It was only when the orders were framed in the right way that Sephiroth was actually compelled to obey, but he always found it easier to obey due to the way he'd been conditioned, except with professional matters, where different conditioning came into play, working against his instinct to obey his handler.
"Get up, please." At least it didn't seem as if Cloud was angry any more, and Sephiroth hoped this wouldn't mean he'd have to deal with mercurial mood swings from his handler as he obeyed. "Look at me." Cloud put his hand on Sephiroth's cheek, guiding him to actually meet his handler's eyes. "Is...fucking you the only option? And what will happen if I don't?"
"I...if you refuse to claim me properly I'll probably go insane, more than I already am...and the same thing will happen if you don't take me often enough to satisfy the bond. If I don't...please you...that way and you wish it we can do other things between times.
"But...I learned with Zack that those things...do nothing to satisfy the bond, they were just for his pleasure." There was a hint of anger in Cloud's eyes then, and he remembered how Angeal had reacted when he'd realised that Sephiroth hadn't known he could get any pleasure from sex until Angeal claimed him. "I mean...I enjoyed the other things Zack wanted to try as well...it's just...they didn't help with keeping me near sanity.
"I...don't know if I could...function...in any way if you decided not to take me when I needed it." Hojo had liked to make him beg to be fucked, raped according to Angeal, and the one time he'd refused to beg...Sephiroth couldn't remember what had happened, except he'd come to his senses in agony as Hojo was fucking him dry, and there'd been a lot of evidence the injuries were self-inflicted. "Just tell me how to please you, and I'll do anything you want." He didn't have any pride at all when it came to this, Hojo had made sure of that, and it had caused problems with his third handler, Nolan; he just hoped Cloud's fantasies didn't involve Sephiroth playing hard to get the way his had.
"I can't refuse you can I?" There was a hint of resentment in Cloud's voice, but not much and he stripped off calmly then lay down on the bed. "Go ahead, take what you need."
Sephiroth couldn't move for a moment, frozen by horror; this wasn't how it was supposed to be, he was supposed to please Cloud, not to have him submit to him like this. And...he was scared that this would set a pattern for the future, and he didn't want his times with the man he'd admired for the past six months to involve him effectively raping Cloud.
"I...Cloud...you don't really want to do this, and I..." He shivered, wrapping his arms around his body, trying to fight a chill that had nothing to do with the physical.
"I'd have preferred my first time to be with someone who cared about me, if you'd asked me to be with you just from desire, but I won't make you suffer because I was dumb enough to agree to do what Zack wanted without finding out what it involved." Cloud was sitting up now, looking at Sephiroth with concern in his eyes.
"Please, I can't cope if you don't want me to please you. What can I do to make this better for you?" He couldn't look at Cloud any more, focusing on the floor at his feet instead so he didn't have to. Sephiroth couldn't stand it if doing this for him, making his life easier and a little safer, hurt Cloud.
"Tell me how you feel about me. The truth, not just what you think I want to hear, what you think will please me." There was a hint of challenge in Cloud's voice and in his angry eyes, as if he thought the two things were mutually exclusive, but they weren't, not after what Cloud had just said.
"I...it's the truth, but...do you want to hear that I trust you totally? Zack wouldn't have given me to you if I didn't. Or should I tell you that I asked Zack for permission to approach you about a relationship six months ago but he said no, because you might feel obliged to submit to my...attentions, even if you didn't want them? I...asked again a month ago, but then Zack said you might think it was pity or something." So he'd been really grateful when Zack had suggested Cloud as his new handler, so grateful that he'd ignored the way Zack was smiling, even though it should have made him suspect that Zack had something planned.
"Do you mean all that?" There was a mix of hope and suspicion in Cloud's voice that tore at Sephiroth's heart. "Or is it just something you're saying to make me feel better about this?"
"You can ask Zack about it easily enough, but you ordered me to tell you the truth." His nails were digging so deeply into his arms that he could feel the blood trickling down his skin, but he couldn't feel the pain of the cuts over the pain from not being claimed by Cloud. Cloud sighed and held out a hand towards him.
"Good enough. Now come here; you're hurting." Sephiroth almost threw himself at Cloud, wrapping his arms around his handler's waist and pressing his face against Cloud's bare stomach. Cloud didn't say anything at first, just petting his hair gently, soothing Sephiroth's pain just a little, and ironically it was the slight easing of his pain that forced a whimper from his mouth.
"Shit, we're running out of time aren't we? What do I need to do?" Cloud sounded anxious, not really a surprise.
"You're not into pain are you? Either way." Being hurt, or hurting his lover, and he wasn't really aroused at the moment, barely half hard. "I...we took too long talking for you to take the time to find out what you like today...perhaps we can find that out next time you take me, if you decide you want to have me again before I'm compelled to seek you out to renew the bond? For now I can arouse you, then you can just take me." He shouldn't be taking charge like this, but...Cloud had invited it, and his handler wasn't doing anything.
"Go ahead then." Cloud kept on petting Sephiroth's hair as he took Cloud's cock into his mouth, focusing on the sensitive head to arouse him as quickly as possible. He virtually purred when Cloud wrapped Sephiroth's hair around his hand and pulled his head back away from him once he was ready, and willingly cooperated as Cloud pushed him to kneel on the floor by the bed, bent over so his body rested on top of it while Cloud kicked his legs open as wide as he could manage it. Sephiroth was thrilled that Cloud was treating him almost roughly, even if he knew that Cloud was too gentle to act like this under normal circumstances; that it was his concern for Sephiroth that led him to thrust into him without doing any preparation beyond pulling the plug out. He gasped in relief as the feeling of emptiness finally left him, and the only thing he could feel was the burning in his ass as Cloud took him, climaxing quickly.
Cloud turned him over then, forcing Sephiroth to contort his body awkwardly, probably without realising, and leaned forward to kiss him, pressing their bodies together, before pulling back, a look of dismay on his face.
"You didn't come...I'm sorry. What do you want me to do?" Sephiroth knew he had to ask for something to ease Cloud's obvious sense of guilt.
"Help me up onto the bed, lie beside me and stroke me, please." It was all he could bring himself to ask for at the moment; Zack would be disappointed that his years of coaxing Sephiroth to express his desires hadn't carried over to his relationship with Cloud, but how could they? He'd just been given to Cloud and he didn't have a clue about how to please him; he couldn't be sure Cloud really wanted to know what he wanted.
"Are you sure that's all you want. I...if you want we could do it the other way now."
"We couldn't." Sephiroth spoke quietly as Cloud helped him up onto his feet, looking away from his handler. "It's not safe to share lube. But if I might ask for next time?" He really wasn't supposed to make any requests, but...Hojo was the only handler who'd outright forbidden it.
"You want to top next time? Of course you can." Sephiroth gasped in shock as Cloud laid him on the bed, and managed to get his thoughts in order just as the blond lay down facing him.
"I...I wouldn't presume to ask that. I can show you how to order whatever supplies you want if it's something that would please you, if you aren't planning to limit our contact to the minimum needed to keep me sane. All I was going to ask was for you to be facing me next time you take me." He shut his eyes and nuzzled at Cloud's throat as Cloud put his arms around him.
"I'd like you to show me what to do, how to make it feel good for you." Cloud's hand slid between their bodies as he kissed Sephiroth, playing with his cock, stroking him to a swift climax.
"I'll try my best to please you then." It had never occurred to Zack to invite Sephiroth to take him, Hojo and to a lesser extent Angeal had preferred him submissive, and Nolan had wanted him to play the distant, demanding 'princess', so he had no experience of taking anyone. But he knew enough about how being taken felt and about what Angeal and Zack had done to give him pleasure in the act that he was certain he could make it feel good for Cloud.
"Sephiroth, do you really like sleeping here?" Cloud was looking around with a hint of disgust on his face, not that Sephiroth could blame him; the bedroom was positively decadent, and decorated far more lavishly than he preferred.
"I don't, sleep here that is. Not normally anyway. When I'm alone I sleep in the set of rooms through the other door from the first room. This is where I entertain my handlers. I don't know who designed it, but I almost never used it with Zack; he found other places until I was comfortable enough with him to let him into my normal quarters.
"If you want it redecorated there are forms for that as well. I...you have leave tomorrow, and so do I, since Zack made sure the right people knew he was giving me to you today, would you be willing to sleep with me here, and go over the forms with me when we wake up? There's a small leaflet telling you how to use the control you have over me, but it isn't allowed to leave these rooms." Sephiroth shut his eyes, hoping Cloud would be willing to indulge him and feeling absolutely pathetic.
"All right." Sephiroth's eyes flew open in surprise as Cloud kissed him lightly, then guided Sephiroth to lie under most of the covers, tossing the soiled top cover to one side. He relaxed into sleep shortly after Cloud had fallen asleep, not quite secure enough to relax that much while his new handler was awake.