Kesskay asked: I dare you to write cloud introducing angeal to the actual sex game.
Angeal had only ever seen Cloud at a distance. His impression had been one of small stature, ridiculously gravity-defying hair, and a very put-upon, irritated expression. The last of these was probably due to the fact that Angeal had only ever seen him when they were both in close proximity to one Zack Fair.
He had gathered further intelligence through hearsay. According to his CO, Cloud Strife showed potential as a gifted swordsman and performed admirably in the written and technical aspects of his training, but was held back by his reluctance to trust and work together with the rest of his unit. According to Zack, Cloud Strife was the most adorable being on the planet and just needed a bit of encouraging to get over his shyness.
According to Sephiroth and Genesis, Cloud Strife was in possession of questionable material relating to the First Class SOLDIERs. Something which had still not been adequately explained in anything but vague hints and snippets of information gleaned from listening to his two friends bicker.
Sephiroth had suggested that Angeal ask Strife about the contents of the disc that caused so much controversy. It wasn't a bad idea.
Which was why Angeal now found himself stood in front of the infantryman's door.
Cloud opened the door and his eyes went wide. "Sir!" he saluted. His eyes darted to behind Angeal, looking for Zack. Zack was the only possible reason that a First Class SOLDIER would ever be visiting him. There was no Zack.
"At ease, Cloud."
"Yes, sir." He dropped the salute, but his eyes were still wide. "Uhm. If you don't mind me asking. Why are you here?"
Angeal heard the real question that Cloud was asking and chuckled. "You're not in trouble."
Cloud did relax a bit at that assurance.
"I've heard that you might be able to assist me. May I come in?"
Cloud had to wonder what he could possibly be able to help a SOLDIER with, but he stood aside to allow Angeal into his apartment.
His place wasn't much. It was part of a looming apartment block built by ShinRa, for ShinRa. It was close to HQ, not even further away than when he'd been in the barracks. And sure, it was small and cheap and everything was painted in that particular no-one-really-gave-a-shit-about-this-project shade of beige, but it definitely beat sharing his living space with a bunch of other grunts.
He'd never realised quite how small it was. Angeal seemed to take up half the living room.
"C-can I get you a drink or anything?" Cloud offered.
"Just a water, thank you."
It was three short steps into the kitchen to get a glass and fill it. When he returned, Cloud found that Angeal appeared to be inspecting his computer desk. Cloud placed the glass next to him, then sat himself down on the tatty, overstuffed sofa. "So, what can I help you with?"
"My friends inform me that you have a copy of a particular game featuring our likenesses."
Oh. Shit. That's what he was looking for. And the disc was in the computer, there was no way he could get it out and hide it without being noticed. Shit!
"I-I don't... I mean, that's not... it's just..."
Angeal gave the red-faced, stuttering infantryman an amused look. "You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"
It wasn't like there was any point in denying it. Cloud's brilliant flush told everything.
"May I play it?"
Cloud was glad he was already sat down, otherwise his legs might have given way in shock. "What?!"
"May I play it," Angeal repeated.
"Uhm. Did the cafeteria staff get the mushrooms in the risotto mixed up again?"
Angeal chuckled; that incident was pretty infamous. "You're not hallucinating."
"Oh. That's a shame."
It was clear from Cloud's dazed expression that he wouldn't be capable of formulating a coherent answer for a few minutes at least. Angeal took the liberty of seating himself at the desk and turning the computer on.
"Password?"
"...Sephiroth."
"You might want to consider changing that. You could hack into half the infantry member's files using his name."
The system booted up. It wasn't hard for Angeal to find what he was looking for; simply opening the computer menu revealed the game was there and ready to play. He started it up.
Cloud hovered nervously at Angeal's shoulder, watching as the main menu opened. "You could try it on hard mode," he suggested. "You get the best game experience doing it that way."
To be fair, it was the best game experience as far as Cloud was concerned. It also took a ridiculously long-ass time to get anywhere. Angeal would get fed up of it long before anything too incriminating popped up.
Angeal wasn't convinced in the slightest. "I think easy would be best."
Well, it had been worth a shot.
Easy was selected, and Angeal raised an eyebrow at the character selection menu before choosing to play as the computerised game version of himself. He tested out the controls, flicking the menus open and running in circles across the starting area.
"So what exactly do you do with this game?"
"It's... uhm. It's like... a dating sim, I guess? You can go around and have conversations with the other characters, and depending on what you say to them they'll either like you more or less. If they like you enough, you can go out on dates and stuff."
"That's it?"
"That's the very basics. You've also got your own stats," Cloud leant over and opened up the game menu, "here, see. You need to train and increase those to achieve mission goals and get promoted. It doesn't really matter on easy, 'cause you're already a First Class, but on hard mode you start in the infantry, and unless you get promoted into SOLDIER you'll almost never run into Sephiroth or Genesis or... or you, I guess."
Even being utterly mortified could not still Cloud's tongue when it came to talking about the game he loved so dearly.
"What do I do here?"
"You're on the SOLDIER floor. There- he just went into the training room. Sephiroth. Go talk to him."
Angeal got the hang of the game soon enough, and Cloud retreated back to the sofa to stay out of his way. And maybe because he wanted to be able to make a quick escape when the inevitable occurred. It really wasn't difficult to trigger one of the sex scenes on easy mode; that was why it was easy, after all. He had no idea how Angeal would react to that. Did he know? Did he have some idea about the true nature of the game? Or would it come as a complete surprise?
Zack talked about Angeal a lot. He said that Angeal looked scary and had a mean frown, but he was secretly a total softie. Maybe to Zack he was; nobody could resist those puppy eyes for long. That didn't mean Cloud was safe.
Angeal seemed to have settled in to the game for the long haul, and Cloud was getting antsy. And a bit hungry. He'd been about to start dinner before Angeal turned up.
"Do you want anything to eat?" Cloud offered.
"Mmhm," Angeal hummed in confirmation, his attention still very much focused on the game.
"Pasta and cheese sauce?"
"Sounds good."
Cloud left him to it.
He had got the pasta boiling and was just starting to stir the cheese sauce together when Angeal appeared in the little archway connecting the two rooms. Cloud jumped. For a big man he could be damn quiet when he wanted to be.
"I'm not imposing, am I?"
Angeal looked like he was actually concerned about it, enough so that he'd got up to come and check on Cloud. Zack would probably laugh and do a terrible impression of Angeal and say it wasn't honourable to burst into infantrymen's apartments and make them cook dinner for you.
"No, not at all, sir. It's fine. I'm sorry it's nothing any fancier, this was all I ever got to practice making in the barracks."
Angeal cocked his head questioningly. "The barracks are not supplied with cooking equipment."
"No... but there's only so much cafeteria food a guy can take. I snuck a kettle in there."
"A kettle?"
"Turns out you can boil a lot of stuff in one," Cloud said. "Boiled eggs, pasta, rice, some vegetables too..."
"In a kettle."
"It's not really easy or convenient. You have to keep reboiling it when it switches itself off, and topping up the water and stuff, and things like rice tend to froth. But yeah."
"Is that allowed?" Angeal asked, eyebrow raised. There was a hint of a smile playing at his lips, though.
"Probably not. I plead guilty to smuggling black market pasta onto ShinRa property, sir."
Angeal chuckled. "I won't hold it against you. I've had my share of cafeteria food as well." He nodded and took his leave, since the kitchen wasn't really big enough to hold the both of them at once. He figured Cloud didn't need any further distraction; the pasta was starting to boil over.
Cloud yelped and made a move to rescue his dinner.
He still wasn't exactly happy with the current situation, but he had to admit Zack had been right. Angeal was nice. It was freaking weird that he was in Cloud's apartment and had commandeered his computer, but Angeal did seem nice.
He was back to playing the game by the time Cloud emerged from the kitchen with two steaming bowls of pasta and sauce.
"Thank you, Cloud," Angeal acknowledged. It may not have been fancy, but the simple meal still seemed appetising. Angeal approved.
Cloud looked over Angeal's shoulder and blinked at the game's stats. Damn. He'd got his social link with Sephiroth that high already? "You're good at this thing," he said, indicating the computer screen with a nod of his head.
"Well, I have spent several years learning how to deal with these two. Real life is trickier, I can promise you that."
Cloud smiled. "Yeah. No convenient internet walkthroughs there."
Their meal was shared in mostly silence, broken only by the clicking of the mouse and Angeal navigated through some new exploit or other. But it was a companionable sort of silence. In fact, Cloud had almost allowed himself to relax when he heard a familiar and unwelcome strain of background music begin to play.
He almost dropped his bowl, and scrambled to save it. "Shit!" Cloud wasn't sure whether he was talking about the bowl, or his current life in general.
"What do I do in this section, Strife?"
"Shit," Cloud said again. He righted his cutlery on the coffee table. "That's... um. Maybe you should... I mean, I don't think... shit."
Angeal turned to raise an eyebrow at him. From Cloud's reaction, he had clearly stumbled upon the questionable content the game contained. It was no surprise that there was more to it. The dating sim part had so far been intricately designed, graphically pleasing, and almost rather sweet. Sephiroth would have protested the use of their image for such fannish indulgence either way, but there was nothing that would drive him to call it 'filth'.
On Cloud's part, he realised there was no way out of the situation. He was dead either way, either literally or of embarrassment, so he might as well get bonus points for telling the truth.
"After you date someone in the game, you can... uhh, take them to bed."
"I see."
"It's quite, uhm, detailed, so..."
"I'll watch."
"Okay," Cloud acquiesced. He couldn't help but stare, trying to read Angeal's expression as he watched the scene unfold. He didn't have much luck. Angeal had got a scene with himself and Sephiroth, and they were currently making out passionately, both of them shirtless. Game-Angeal pressed Sephiroth up against the wall, and Sephiroth made a noise that sounded like pure sex. They'd gone all-out on the voice actors as well.
Angeal breathed in sharply. "He didn't," he muttered, low enough that Cloud almost missed it. He suspected he was meant to have missed it.
"Sir?" Cloud finally interjected. "How can you stay so calm?"
Angeal smiled, but his gaze was still on the screen. "I did grow up with Genesis. It takes a lot to surprise me."
Until the next menu popped up, and both of Angeal's eyebrows raised. There was an option for knifeplay in this game? So much for the sweet dating sim. ...then again, he already knew Genesis had played at least some part in the development of this thing. He should have expected as much.
"...the stuff with Sephiroth and bondage is always really great," Cloud advised quietly.
"You're into this kind of thing?"
Cloud flushed bright red, but he nodded.
"Hmph. Zack's got himself a handful."
"Wh-what?"
The scene began to play in the background. Game-Angeal had Sephiroth by the throat, tightening leather cuffs around his wrists and ankles. Gaia, yes. Sephiroth always looked amazing in black leather, and this was no exception. Cloud's attention was torn between staring at the screen, tongue wetting his lips, and listening to what Angeal was saying.
"Zack's interested in you. Did you not know?"
"No... I always thought he had a crush on you. The way he always talks about you, and how he always gets so excited to be spending time around you, and he totally gets those puppy eyes every time he sees you..."
Angeal's expression looked about as bewildered as Cloud felt.
Cloud laughed, though his tone turned slightly strangled as he caught sight of on-screen Sephiroth being laid out on the bed, Angeal looming over him. The same Angeal who was currently sitting in front of him and getting confused over crushes. Cloud felt his groin twitch. He had to stop looking, or he was going to end up with the most awkward boner imaginable, but Gaia, how could he not look? That damn game.
Angeal had to have noticed his reaction. He glanced back at the screen, a flicker of... something crossing his face. There was most definitely distaste, and an unamused frown. But Angeal was still a man with needs, and the gorgeous image was stirring them. That damn game.
Easy to see why the lower ranks liked it so much. Although, some of it seemed a little... extreme. Cloud's wide eyes and parted lips were enraptured with it.
"You are into this kind of thing."
Cute, good-natured, and kinky. It was almost enough to make Angeal envious that his puppy had found him first.
Cloud tore his eyes away. "I'm sorry, sir!"
Game-Sephiroth's scream rang out as game-Angeal shoved roughly into him, turned tinny by the low-quality speakers but still inherently sexual. Angeal growled once and hit the power button. The screen went black.
"That's quite enough of that."
"I'm sorry," Cloud repeated, though it wasn't clear what he was apologising for. The game? Getting turned on by it? Angeal couldn't be mad at him for either of those things, though he would be having words with Genesis for condoning the development of this thing. Angeal was willing to turn a blind eye to much of their fandoms activities, but Genesis had gone too far in giving them the amount of information he must have done to have the game be as accurate as it was.
That scene with himself and Sephiroth... was remarkably similar to something that had actually occurred. Too similar. And Genesis had been there watching.
Angeal stood abruptly and Cloud jumped back, startled. SOLDIERs moved insanely fast. "Thank you for your help, Cloud."
Cloud's eyes quickly flicked back up to Angeal's face. The sudden change in position had granted him an eyeful of the bulge in the front of Angeal's combat trousers, which he was not staring at, no way, absolutely not. It had just been there, right in his face. No, bad turn of phrase. Although... he wouldn't have minded if it was in his face.
He took a breath. He had sex on his mind now, and it was totally inappropriate to be thinking about the First Class SOLDIER that way. That damn game.
Angeal's mouth was set into a hard line, but he spared a smile for the infantryman. "Next time Zack and myself are free, you are welcome to join the both of us. There's a burger joint below the plate that Zack is fond of."
Cloud's mouth opened and closed a couple of times. He'd wasn't dead, and he'd just been invited to hang out with a First Class. He settled on vigorous nodding.
"Good night, Cloud. Thank you for the meal."
"Good night, sir."
Angeal left the apartment enlightened, and finally comprehending Sephiroth's reaction to the disc he had found. Genesis was due a lecture on boundaries. And honour.
And then maybe he would borrow Genesis' copy of the game.
