Author's note: This story… is a mystery. But I hope some clarity is offered to you through this chapter. Onwards?

Aces of Asphyxiation

'Bad Blood'

Belt buckles – the clattering sound rung through his ears like a disenchanted bell, haunting and watery. Yearning built in his stomach, turning it into a churning rotisserie of anticipation and anxiety, muscles twitching. A sweet siren's call tugged him to the afterlife, though a body pinned him harshly, cruelly to the bed. A grimace twisted his features, confusion seizing his brain…

Until the entire world and its raunchiness… and all of its hideous, beautiful splendors melted away at his feet. They'd left the inn, he was sure of it. And he was sure he didn't want to belong to the inn and the world anymore.

But only for a slow, swirling moment. He could never be free.

His arm ached, his veins on fire, sharp stinging blasting through his nervous system like a bullet. His mouth worked, a desperate attempt to loose words lost to centuries past.

"Zack."

A gentle croak, the muscles in his throat constricting and contracting. A disgusting sucking noise greeted his ears, increasing the turmoil in his digestive track, followed by an even less attractive spitting sound. Tremors coursed through his lithe form, writhing through the channels of his body and attacking his lower lip, making it quake to a subtle degree. Ivory teeth dug into soft flesh, keeping his dark mouth from quivering, pain pulsating through his entire being, focusing like pure molten lava in his left forearm.

A cancerous terror swelled inside his heart, eating away at the memories that formed there, transferred from his brain and kept safe in the pumping atrium that kept alive. But now, now…

"Don't move."

It wasn't Zack's voice. It was a seductive whisper, a silky demand from the baritone beauty. It always had a faint ring of promise to it… a ring that went hand in hand with the idea of death. Cloud's gaze hardened, dying syllables failing to leak forth from his seemingly bruised diaphragm, fading out before creeping up his esophagus. His whole body tensed, brow crinkling in an expression of ugly pain.

"You're poisoned."

His head swam. Poison… poison? How far had it gone to make him forget nearly everything? His blue eyes settled on his aching forearm, a hiss shaking his whole mass. His gaze glued to his destroyed tissue, he felt bile rise in the passage of his throat. Smears of blood decorated his pale skin, Sephiroth's mouth covered with the sticky red liquid. He coughed, struck with the sudden realization that the silver-haired male had been sucking and spitting his blood into a small container, a shiver pinching his spine.

Cloud's eyes snapped shut instantaneously, squeezed far beyond their comfortably closed point. A sudden inhalation allowed his chest to rise in an almost painful manner, though negligible to the spikes throbbing in the bite marks covering his arm.

"Why…?" It burned to speak, tore his raw throat up, made him feel weak and vulnerable.

Mako green eyes stared up at him harshly, and through his closed eyes Cloud felt the man's stare as cruelly as his bites on tender flesh. He released a heavy, shuddering sigh, wondering if that would be classified as "moving".

Sephiroth's lips moved but there were no actual words that refracted from his mirror of a mouth – or not a language that Cloud understood, at first. A foreign tongue melding consonants and vowels together, like fleshing out something that didn't exist. But like a snap of the fingers his speech came back into the range of Cloud's hearing, and he responded slowly, a murky symphony spilling from his lips like the blood that painted around his mouth, slowly trickling. Trickling, trickling, trickling.

And Cloud could hear the sound of his swallowing engulf and envelop the room, the curtains and the wallpaper swallowing with him. His gasp was a desperate inhale, the words of his captor piercing his eardrums like a spike.

No.

No, no, no.

Why couldn't anything be right? The world, just a few days ago, had not been a dream realm that tortured him, run by Mad Hatters with silver hair and Alices with swords. Not with the beautiful people around him all wearing Cheshire Cat smiles and smirks, ready to devour his soul.

And the spitting echoed through Cloud's mind like a raucous thunder, a cacophony of mixed and jumbled sounds, much like an angry riot during a time of war.

And he felt himself slipping. And here he was, young again, feet dipped into a small pool with his hands on his knees, staring at the minnows that flitted through the water, darting this way and that.

"I wanna be a SOLDIER… wanna protect people. Wanna grow up and be strong…"

His toes splish-splashed in the shallows of the water, causing the fish to dart away, lake rippling. But it wasn't really a lake, was it? That was being generous. The pond was crystal clear, light, fresh… and all around him was so, so dark. All-encompassing, frighteningly dark… and yet he felt at ease, comfortable in the cocoon of night, eyes forever trained to the water.

And he kept hearing his own voice throughout the empty space, from age five and progressing onward through the years. He could pick out the different inflections in his tone, gradually losing its tender, boyish squeak and turning into a faint, pleasant tenor. It was odd, listening to his own accent, not having realized what sort of frequencies it had reached when he'd started at such a young age. It was… so innocent. But had it yet lost such innocence?

"I'll be big and strong… and daddy will wanna come back and see how much I've grown up. He won't care I'm sick… 'cause I'll be big and strong and fast. I won't be weak… not at all. And then mommy will smile again… more often."

Had all of those words really left his lips at some point in time? He couldn't really remember ever speaking of his father, not forming a strong connection or relation with the man who shared the same light blue eyes and blond locks as the young Cloud had. When he thought back on it, he barely remembered much more than that they happened to look alike… but recalled enough to know that it hurt not having a strong, guiding hand to keep his posture straight when he felt like falling. He'd always been a petty nuisance to everyone around him—to his mother for so many years, and to Zack… and now Sephiroth. He seemed to simply excel in the art of worrying others—though was Sephiroth really ever concerned? As always, he had no time to think about such things; though, in actuality, it seemed he had… forever and a day to ponder such delicacies of his companion's true nature.

Hey, don't you want to know where you are?

I'm… nowhere.

No, you're everywhere. Have a look around.

I can't see anything.

Just look harder.

It's all… black.

Oh, come now, you're not even trying, are you?

Who are you?

I've never been one for cliches, Cloud.

Wh-what?

I'm… you. Or more specifically, your poisoned brain. Do you really know where you are?

I…

I'll spare the details. This is where you live. This is where you've lived for… your entire life. Open your eyes, why don't you?

Another pair of eyelids fluttered open gracelessly, expecting a world still caked to the brim with decadent blackness, but instead met with a torrential downpour of flickering flames that doused the sky with their fire. His pupils soaked in the sight, devouring it in quiet disbelief, mouth working lamely to describe things in which his mind was hard-pressed to simply understand.

You like it? Remember this? Meteor. On the day you were born.

How could I… remember?

Because you remember everything.

That's not true…

Let me show you, then.

The fire melted across midnight black, crimson copulating with ebony, spilled across a yawning expanse of gasping stars. It faded away, delicately, as well… and all that remained was but a simple, sweet sunset. Cloud's mother smiled. Cloud's father gently held a baby, fast asleep and nestled in the cradling arms of dreamland, to his chest. They both seemed ever so content to watch the sleepy sun sink behind the willowy trees, waiting for the time it would rise again. The cycle of time.

Yet, the next day the sun never did rise. Not in the same way as the day prior… not as bright, as brilliant, as warm.

Cloud's father vanished without a trace.

I… I don't understand. Why… show this? Honestly!

This… is such a pity. Let me explain, if you will. Just take a moment. Let my words absorb into your mind. See the world for how it really is. Don't you know just what you are?

If you're me, I already know, don't I…?

You're getting the hang of this… but I'll offer you a juicy little tip.

…

You're not really poisoned.

What are you getting at?

This? Me? The place your mind has been stuck in? Crystallized fragments of the Lifestream… fused with pure strands of materia.

…

Speechless? I understand. But you will begin to see the true way of things in just… one… moment. No more confusion. Life, just as it is, for normal human beings.

And the real Sephiroth. You exist only for your past lives.

Cloud…

Cloud…

Meteor.

Any attempt to keep his feet planted firmly into the so-called reality his mind had conjured instantly failed, the world around him wrenched from view as soon as those words echoed across the darkened expanse of his memories.

"I'm not poisoned," came the weak, almost strangled cry, a furious sense of pain searing every inch of his muscle and tissue; just as violently as it came, however, it dissipated into a thin, tingling vapor that breathed across his thin frame.

"You know?" Lips moved against lips, Sephiroth's mumbled reply crashing into the wet cavern of Cloud's mouth. The blonde tensed, fingernails finding the soft plane of pale skin above him, digging in desperately. But what was it? Love, fear, hope… the lack of anything?

"Seph…i…roth." Moans of pain rattle from his tailbone through his mouth, head flying back to fight the clawing apart of his entire being. His very atoms felt as if separating, one by one… splitting apart. And then in pairs. And in dozens. "Help. Me."

"I'll make you whole again."

xxx

Blue eyes snapped open, centering on mako green spheres, glare pointed and precise. A waterfall of gold was thence tossed flippantly over one shoulder, the gems adorning his head tinkling in protest. By all rights they were supposed to sing, but the slender male always felt them screaming in his sensitive ears. A low hum met the atmosphere, a hissing sigh following in suit. Pale lips stretched in an imitation of a smile, gaze glimmering and almost translucent in comparison to the solid ocean that seemed to reside inside Cloud's wide, colorful irises.

"I don't 'fancy' anything. Especially not you."

"Perhaps I should drag you into the bedroom… and we can finish this dispute within the confines of tangled silk." A large, beast-like hand came to rest at his cheek, palm cupping his sculpted jaw-line, fingers massaging the bone underneath his pretty porcelain flesh.

A clattering stomp, almost resembling a smash, of his heel came down, digging into marble. Tapered fingers lashed across pale skin, fingernails like a stinging whip across Sephiroth's angelic features. Startled, watered down eyes blinked at a rapid rate, hand closing like a metal vice grip around his tiny wrist. A little trail of crimson welled up where Cloud's nails had swept across the fine line of his cheek, spilling down the length of his chiseled and sharp jaw.

"No." He bit, an outright refusal even as he'd essentially been trapped.

"It is not an option, nor a simple notion anymore." Picked like a perfectly ripe apple from a tree, Sephiroth maneuvered his other hand to slide down the arch of Cloud's back to push against the base of his spine, pressing him tight against his chest and sinking his teeth deep into the succulent tissue his bare neck provided. A gasp issued forth from the younger male, a sharp inhalation leading him into a sudden struggle, fists flying, nails acting as dangerous claws, attempting to shove his towering figure away (to no avail).

"Let go!" But the command was never heard, or perhaps simply never acknowledged, as that wide, smirking mouth pulled away from the wound he'd created and seemed to devour Cloud's, molesting it like molecules and atoms slip effortlessly together in a moment of sheer ecstatic love. Step, step, step. Muffled steps of boots had sex with the floor with every little pressure against its smooth surface. Cloud's heaving body, flushed with infuriation and lack of will to protest against the strange and brutal affections Sephiroth bestowed upon him, arched in a fashion that displayed his youthful flexibility..

Click, click, click. Like a horse is lead to water, the soldier was lead to a wall, his lithe body pressed against the solid, rocky foundation. The protests that left his mouth and echoed into Sephiroth's trailed off into moans, then further tapered into squeaks of embarrassed desire. One to tease, the rougher man's hands busied themselves roaming in places the smaller of the two had once not so much as allowed him to look at.

Material came off in strips, the foundation of his outfit neatly unraveling courtesy of Sephiroth's claws, destroying the handcrafted uniform he'd been particularly fond of only hours before; his intentions now called for a change in his actions, demanded he forget the world and focus on the body standing most… demurely before him.

"Sssstoooppp," the doll-like beauty gasped as teeth suddenly attacked and explored the world of his lower lip, stretching instinctually into his massive frame. The prickling in his back returned, reminding him that he knew what real love was like—telling him not to struggle for Zack's sake. And as if a cheap magic trick, a snap of the fingers and a whisper of 'Alakazam', the fight was gone.

"Say pleassssse," his cold, ethereal voice purred, rubbing aggressively against the nearly nude soldier that stood, knees threatening to give out, twisted in an unnatural angle, like some delicately crafted china doll. Cloud would never say please—it just wasn't in his nature to completely, willingly give himself over. It just wasn't something he did. Not for Sephiroth.

Deft thumbs snagged in the stretchy bands of Cloud's undergarments, peeling them away carelessly and with a certain sense of desperate, inhuman haste. The regal nobility had disappeared from his face, giving way to a bloodthirsty monster, bright eyes gleaming in a light that wasn't ever present. It made Cloud squirm, faced with an inability to so much as utter a semblance of an insult, oh so dreadfully vulnerable in his naked state.

A guttural moan broke through the passage of Sephiroth's mouth, one impossibly large hand tangling in purely blond locks and the other left to drift along his body and press into his thighs, settling between his legs to stroke teasingly at the sensitive skin there. His fully clothed hips gave the tip a rocking nudge, sending pleasant, electric shivers up Cloud's spine and earning a satisfied (if mortified) noise from those wet, pink lips.

"Nngh, at least… fuck me right," he breathed, body in a state of perpetual shuddering from the attentions Sephiroth laced across every inch of his heated skin.

"As you wish," came the hissing response, turned over like rotting sugar in his mouth. His hand abruptly stopped its course of action, two of those fingers flying up to shove into the puckered ring of his entrance, tracing the line of his so-called-lover's lips with his tongue, thick fingers probing against the hot vastness of his insides. The pink, spongy passage clenched against the intruding fingers, own delicate hands reaching to clutch at the fabric at the front of the brutal male's shirt, moans spraying quietly from his mouth, the bridge between pleasure and pain impossible to discern. Cloud's muscles tightened, tensing with every tantalizing, rough wiggle of those long digits. Fistfuls of his hair were pulled back, heartlessly tugged as the silver-haired beast continued thrusting with his hips, starting to match that same rhythm with his fingers.

They turned, Sephiroth's steps holding a graceless, harried not-quite-elegance to them, adding another finger as he whisked him off to the bedroom in quick strides, leaving the soldier unable to stand by the time they reached the doorway. Click, click, click. Fingers left their cozy home, the swelling warmth fading from Sephiroth's skin as it was exposed to the cool winter air. The pale body collapsed against the bed, unsteady, curling up amongst the sheets, caught between forlorn lust and a frantic desire to retreat. Noises leaked from his mouth in a broken stream—moans of neglect and shame and disgust, body decorated a fine shade of pink that blossomed up even the most sensitive crevices of his light flesh. Ivory teeth poked at his dark mouth, gnawing in indecision; the loud, thick 'whump' of clothes smacking innocent flooring greeted his overly sensitive ears, deciding to force himself to crawl across the bed and clutch at the blankets, attempting to cover himself with sickeningly swift movements, jerking the material over his entirely uncovered frame.

And all at once, his efforts had gone to waste. Long fingers ending in heavily coated, hardened ebony claws, tore away the blanket and rumpled the sheets in the process of pinning his slave to the plush, slightly firm sponginess the world of his bed provided. The jewels about his headpiece tinkled again, nearly forgotten until Sephiroth's hand chose to return to its position and almost timidly caressing it mockingly.

"J-just… get it over with," Cloud breathed, desire and anxiety coating his voice, syllables painted with both lust and dread. His eyes nervously flicked from Sephiroth's blindingly deep green gaze and to the oils he saw that pale hand extend and reach for, not realizing he'd been holding his breath until it caught in his throat and he released it in an extended, labored sigh. He'd grown somewhat disturbed at what seemed like his captor swallowing their means of lubrication, but as his thighs were separated and a liquid heat encased his member, in the middle of crying out he'd realized that Sephiroth had no intention of ever letting the oil slide down his throat. Nearly choking with his cries, Cloud's back arched dramatically, hips thrusting into the hole of hot pleasure in wild need, embarrassment clinging heavily to his small frame, oozing out of his body like sweat from his pores.

It didn't last long—stomach swelling pleasure became white hot agony as he felt a tongue slide against his entrance, teasing, using the last of the lubrication before deciding that mere spittle would suffice, replacing the wet organ with his pulsating member. Ankles placed carefully over sculpted shoulders, the slender male let out a shriek, quickly mingled with a choking gasp, body spasming from the pain and the force; he'd shoved and wriggled his way in with a few incredibly rough, rapid gyrations of his hips, clawing down the soft flesh covering his ribs while Cloud's fingers tore across his chest and shoulders in sheer anguish, each movement rocking his little body to a harsh degree. It wasn't for pleasure. It was a sudden, decisive punishment.

"O-oh g-g-gods!" Bodies, of course, didn't normally bend in the way Cloud's flexible muscles did, pressed chest to chest with the dominating, cruel tyrant. "St-o-oooppp!" Ragged breaths joined the conglomeration of noises, blood oozing out his passageway and trickling onto Sephiroth's thrusting, over-eager cock. His peripheral vision faded to white, blinded with the sudden fear of falling unconscious during this torture session, gasping wildly, writhing in an obviously useless attempt to get away.

Soon his wails faded to little whimpers of pleasure as blood eased the friction on his poor behind, the feeling of having his prostate hit sending shivers through him once again. Sephiroth's hands, having minds of their own, clutched at his perfect hips and kneaded a trail all the way down to his plump, squishy ass. Cloud's screams started up again, moans tangled in the countless array of noises as a mouth found one of his nipples and sucked fiercely.

"A-Ah-nngh!"

The screams built and built, his walls ever threatening to tumble down with each enthusiastic roll and grind of Sephiroth's body against his.

And he came. And again moments later when Sephiroth wasn't finished. And again. And again and again until his vocal chords didn't work and he lay completely still, slipping out of reality, unconscious body rocking with Sephiroth's movements several moments later.

But eventually, the older male finished and retreated, leaving the sweaty, soiled, sweet body draped across the sticky sheets.

Alone.

xxx

Cloud had to push the thoughts away, to rid them permanently from his mind, forget... the warning signals firing desperately in his brain. This was the real world… and he wasn't sick. Not infected… yet it still felt as if the world itself was trying its hardest to spread the youth in every little direction. Sephiroth would help him, could save him… loved him.

"Bring back Zack…" Choke, gasp, moan.

"He's gone." His voice, draped in silk and dripping with husky splendor, licked sensually across the lines in his lips.

"I love you." He didn't mean it. Cloud was suffocating in the bubble of his love.

"I love him," he breathed, brain choking.

"Only one, Cloud."

Meteor.

I can't choose.

The one you decide on lives…

And the other…

Author's note: Man, I suck at clarification. Reviews… maybe? Or… flames, I guess. Whichever you feel it deserves.