Sepsis

Chapter 10

By Lyralina Sanzennine

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy 7 is property of Square Enix.

Sephiroth threw Aeris against the wall then moved with lightning-fast speed to pin her against it before she could slide down and collapse. His eyes glowed with tainted mako light just inches away from her face.

He was livid and Aeris was suddenly very, very scared.

"What. Happened. Last. Night?" He bit out. He struggled to control his flaring temper. All he had to do was move his hands, just slightly, to wrap them around her neck and end it all right there. He gritted his teeth against the urge and pushed down his black fury. Killing her now would render all the efforts of the past week useless.

She struggled to find her voice, knowing that he would not take it kindly if he thought she was keeping something from him. Bravely, she steadied herself and replied, "What do you mean?"

He narrowed his eyes at her and snarled. "Woman, you know very well what I am talking about!"

Aeris shook her head with quick, jerky motions. She was trembling in his grasp. His fingers at her shoulders tightened, causing her to cry out, more in surprise and terror than actual pain. "No, I don't! I mean, I can't," she told him, stumbling over her words. "How would I know what happened to you?"

Sephiroth's eyes drifted down from her face to sweep over the length of the rest of her body. She stood without a stitch of clothing on; the sheet she'd wrapped herself in had fallen to the floor when he'd thrown her.

He'd woken that morning slowly and comfortably, stretching like a cat before his senses managed to return to him. It was the first time he'd slept in who knows how long. That was unsettling in and of itself, but to come to consciousness as he'd done was ludicrous. Even in the days prior to his first death, rigorous military training has conditioned him to be able to wake within seconds, and without a hint of disorientation. Leisurely mornings were for weak human creatures, not the likes of him.

When he'd opened his eyes, he'd immediately noticed the sleeping woman wrapped in his arms. She was exhausted, with dark smudges beneath her closed eyes, locked in a deep and peaceful slumber. Her head was pillowed on his arm and her legs were still entangled with his. With her rich auburn mane fanned out behind her and the warm glow of the dying fire on her too-pale skin, she looked perfectly vulnerable.

He'd wanted to taste her again and with that thought, all the memories and experiences of the previous night flooded him. It had been too much – too abnormal and inexplicable, so he'd quickly extricated himself from her and fled. Fled.

She'd stirred slightly, but slept on.

Hours later he'd returned, composed but not calm. He'd turned the events of the night over and over again in his mind until all he felt was anger. He was furious with the Cetra girl and he was furious with the entire world and he was furious with the triple-damned puppet who'd foiled him time and again.

If his tumultuous mind had been quiet and he allowed himself a moment of honesty, he would have admitted that he was more than furious with himself.

As it was, he'd found the woman sitting close to the fireplace with the large, white sheet cloaking her body. The room was chilly; he'd neglected to add more wood to the hearth and now only glowing embers remained. She'd turned around at the sound of the door creaking open with an expression on her face that spoke of many things – fatigue, happiness, fear and apprehension.

She'd carefully risen to her feet as he stalked over to her. Each step he took made his fury more clear until she saw it for what it was but by then he was already in front of her.

So she was trapped solidly between the wall and his large, unyielding body. The cold metal clips of his coat dug into her flesh. The coy little bitch was being uncooperative, feeding his desire to punish her for her insolence.

"You don't know what happened to me, hmm?" He asked her, throwing her rhetorical question back into her face. He leaned in even closer to her, pressing the length of his body harder against her. One hand released her shoulder to wrap lightly around her neck, effectively stilling her. The other reached down to flick callously at the hard bud of her nipple, puckered from the cold. "Was it good for you too?" he asked, his voice both husky and vicious.

She stared at him in shock and even tried to struggle, but quickly froze when he tightened his hand around her throat slightly in response.

"You see," he continued, still glaring at her intensely, "I'm afraid I don't know what happened to you either. Did you have an orgasm?" He laughed. "I suppose I should apologize for being a terrible lover. I was very distracted."

Aeris pressed her lips into a thin line and valiantly fought down the urge to spit at him. Yes, she'd known that he was cruel, evil and by no means sane. And she'd known that she'd been stupid and naïve to do all that she'd done last night, but it hurt nonetheless.

"Why don't you tell me what happened, and then maybe I can tell you what you want to know," she gritted.

Sephiroth nodded with a smirk. "All in good time. Now, I asked you a question. Did you have fun last night?"

Aeris blushed furiously at his words, both from shame and anger. What had she been thinking? "No," she spat. "In fact, you were terrible."

"Now I know that you're lying. You're very bad at it," he told her, amused. "But I should warn you. There are consequences to lying to me. I would think carefully before doing it again."

Without warning, Sephiroth bent down and swept her up into his arms. Aeris shrieked as she suddenly found herself off her feet and facing the floor. Effortlessly, he threw her facedown on the bed. She lay sprawled there, dazed, for a second before she pulled her arms in and pushed herself upwards so that she could rail at the bastard.

But when she pushed, she found a large hand firmly against her back, the supple leather of his glove soft against her skin. He simply held her there, able to do little more than flail her limbs uselessly. He was sitting beside her on the bed, leaned over so that his natural weight kept her down. She struck out with her hand in a failed effort to punch him – anywhere. He caught her fist with his free hand and twisted her arm behind her back to immobilize her. She couldn't struggle. The pain lancing down her arm made it impossible. She held herself still with effort as she felt him transfer his grip on her fist so that her wrist was trapped between his hand and her back.

With her face buried in a pillow, she blushed and cringed at the humiliation of the situation.

Sephiroth ignored her. He was deep in thought, trying to find the words to describe what he'd experienced last night. It was useless. He'd already spent the morning attempting to recall and link to language what he'd seen and felt, but the effort had been in vain. It seemed to him that the passing of each minute further clouded his recollection. A part of him even thought that he'd somehow hallucinated the entire thing. If it weren't for the simple fact that he, Sephiroth, would never fall prey to such weaknesses of the mind, it would have been a better explanation than anything he could imagine the Ancient telling him.

He studied the woman intently. She was still except for the steady but agitated rise and fall of her body with each inhale and exhale. He would become a god soon enough, fully beyond the mortal needs and desires of men, but for now, he was still, in many unfortunate ways, mortal. And certainly, like normal men, sex and aggression drove him. He'd just allowed one to overshadow the other for all those years.

Deliberately, he raised his free hand to his mouth to grip the leather at the tip of his middle finger between his teeth. He pulled his hand from within the tight confines of the glove then carelessly tossed it aside, onto the bedside table. Aeris saw none of this with her face firmly turned away from him. When his fingertips brushed the hairline behind her ear, she tensed immediately, her body like a tightly coiled spring.

"What are you doing?" she asked. Her voice was muffled and tentative.

"Touching you," he answered, knowing it would infuriate her.

Aeris clenched her jaw at that. She turned her head so that she could glare at him with all the anger and disgust she could rally. "I can see that," she said. "Why?"

He lifted an eyebrow at that and looked at her condescendingly. His fingers traced circles over the back of her neck and down over the expanse of her shoulders. "Strange, that you should ask that. It's especially strange coming from the woman who was so assertive last night. Do you realize that if our roles had been reversed, many would consider that to be sexual assault?"

Her mouth opened in horrified shock to hear him say that. Without thinking, she tried to get up again, only to drop back to the bed as his firm hold on her arm made her cry out in pain. She turned away from him again in mortification and wished desperately that she wasn't so exposed or held so vulnerable. She wished that he would just leave and let her think for a moment and perhaps even die of shame alone.

When he'd returned that morning, she'd been lost in her thoughts, but she hadn't been awake for long enough to truly examine them as she needed to. There were too many emotions, all clamoring for attention within the confines of her skull. Like a thousand shouting voices in a single room, it had been impossible for her to properly listen to any of them.

Aeris was, in every way, herself as she had always been. Yet, she had changed, without question, and that really didn't make any sense, but at the same time, she understood in a way that could never be explained. Much like whatever Sephiroth had experienced with her. It was as if layers that she'd been unaware of had been peeled away, strip by strip, day by day, to reveal a little more of her.

It was with astonishment that she'd realized that being naked didn't…bother her. Not entirely, at least. She still desperately wished she had clothes, especially now, to offer her some small amount of psychological protection. But she had been without them for so long and he'd been with her through it all that it mattered so much less. If such a situation had occurred five years ago, before her death, she would have been paralyzed.

And him. On that subject she was nothing short of lost. She was both calm and accepting, but horrified with herself all at the same time. All the wrongness and the rightness clashed within her mind. But overlying all of that, she felt an undeniable and comfortable connection that they shared, and she wondered if he felt it too.

She wondered if it had been there before last night, or if the inexplicable, transcendental experience had somehow forged the bond.

But he was right, Aeris silently acknowledged. This…relationship…they now found themselves in was her doing. She had kissed him. She had touched him. She had initiated everything.

In that, she deeply feared that everything she'd ever loved would come crashing down around her in terribly broken pieces.

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Please find the rest of this chapter on mediaminer. the link is in my profile.