Okay, I've waited long enough to put these chapters up here, and you all have waited long enough for your smut! So, get prepared, because I'm dumping it all on you right away. And, just in case you didn't notice, I mark all my juicy chapters with (!)
Cloud wasn't sure what to do.
That in itself was not a new situation for him, but the task at hand seemed out of his range of ability, and he wished he could speak to Zack. The young man had been parceled off to enjoy some "vacation time" in Costa del Sol, though he had seemed less than pleased to be going. Still, as Cloud weighed the pouch Genesis had given him in the palm of his hand, he once more wished either Zack or Angeal—gone now, and gone for good—were here to tell him what to do, or even to take it out of his hands completely.
It was wishful thinking on his part. Had either of them been there, he still would not have given away responsibility for what Genesis had given him. It was part of his promise, part of his nature to obey—Genesis had instructed him to give the "gift" to Sephiroth, and Cloud could only ever do as he was told. To foist it off on someone else would put Sephiroth at risk for scrutiny and, possibly, investigation for complicity in Genesis defecting from Wutai.
Cloud held the pouch and took a deep, steadying breath. He'd not seen or heard from Sephiroth since he'd fled the man's apartment several months ago, and felt that he would be unwelcome at any cost, even as a delivery boy for his now-dead friend and self-proclaimed enemy.
Squaring his strong, rather broad shoulders, Cloud tucked the pouch into a fold of his uniform and strode to the checkpoint on the Officer's Floor with a confidence he simply didn't feel. The MP on duty there, a Master Sergeant, scowled at him when he approached, clearly ready to send the low-ranking MP on his way with a thorough ass-chewing.
"Master Sergeant," Cloud said, standing at stiff parade rest to forestall the man's tirade. "I'm here for General Sephiroth."
The man snorted with derision, the other Sergeant on duty joining him.
"Get out of here, private," he said, waving Cloud away. "I've pulled duty on this floor every three days for two years and the General has never had a visitor who wasn't in SOLDIER."
"I have a delivery for him," Cloud said, keeping his face blank and his posture rigid.
"Leave it," the man snapped, gesturing at the desk. "We'll see it gets to him…after we examine it, of course."
"But, Master Sergeant, I—"
"You wanna talk back to me, private, I suggest you do it from the front lean and rest," the Master Sergeant told him.
Cloud's mouth tightened but he shifted to do as he was told, ready to push all day long if it meant not having them rifle through something that was private in nature. He was half hoping that Sephiroth wouldn't even be home, putting off the inevitable for another day.
"Sergeant, are you screening my visitors?"
They all snapped to attention, except for Cloud, who kept himself braced on stiff arms. Thanks to his weight training, he could hold the position for quite awhile before tiring, and was determined to do just that.
"Sir!" the man said, obviously shocked. "This private is just jesting, Sir! He has no business being on this floor—"
"I believe I will decide who does and does not disturb me, Sergeant," Sephiroth said, his cool, bored voice stilling their protests. "Private Strife, recover and come with me."
Cloud got to his feet and moved past the glaring Sergeants with his eyes lowered, hoping they wouldn't see fit to take their ire out on him vicariously through his chain of command. He stared at the back of Sephiroth's leather coat as he followed the man down the hallway towards his apartment.
"You're lucky, I was just on my way in," Sephiroth told him, his tone neutral but not welcoming.
Feeling guilty for intruding, knowing he wasn't wanted anywhere near the great General, Cloud softly said, "I have something to give you, Sir."
"Do you, now?" Sephiroth asked, amused. He stopped at his doorway and crossed his arms, turning to face Cloud. "Look at me when you speak to me, Private."
Cloud looked up and focused on the apex of those straps that crossed Sephiroth's chest—token acquiescence. Nothing short of a direct order could make him look up into that beautiful, cold face to see the faint distaste there.
"What is it that required you breaching the Officer Floor?" Sephiroth asked. He knew Cloud well enough to realize that the boy must consider it dire indeed to risk returning to a place he'd fled from all but naked. Once more, he felt that growing respect for Cloud rear its head and waited for the boy to struggle the words out.
"I will tell you inside, Sir," Cloud said, and got that mulish, obstinate look on his face that Sephiroth knew better than to argue with.
"Is it private, Cloud?" Sephiroth asked, and his tone implied that, perhaps, Cloud had come to throw himself back into Sephiroth's bed.
The boy flushed, offended, and turned on his heel.
"Don't trouble yourself, Sir," he said, stepping away. "I'm sure it isn't important after all."
"Don't you dare walk away from me, Cloud Strife."
Cloud froze in his tracks, recognizing the dangerous purr for what it was. Sephiroth was a man who never forgot his position—it was over everyone else. Even in those rare moments of indulging Cloud's adolescent desires the man had never hesitated to pull rank on him.
"Don't forget who you are talking to, Private Strife," Sephiroth said, and was angry that it had so rapidly dissolved into discord. His natural arrogance had always assumed that, lacking the time to seek Cloud out, the boy would return to him of his own will. Cloud was a creature made for love, a creature that could not bear rejection and would return time and again in fruitless attempts to elicit the faintest of affections from those who spurned him. "Get inside."
Cloud turned slowly and stalked past Sephiroth, going no further inside than the foyer.
"Now," Sephiroth said, pausing to shut the door behind him. He locked it for good measure, not entirely sure that Cloud wouldn't flee as he had before. "What is it that you're so desperate to give me?"
Again, Cloud flushed, not missing the innuendo and ashamed that Sephiroth would think him so shallow, so useable. He fished out the pouch and held it out at arm's length, unwilling to get any closer to that large, predatory man, not wanting to be snared by his charisma and be left once more as a castoff.
"What's this?" Sephiroth asked, eying it warily.
"Sir, while in Modeoheim in search of Angeal, Genesis, and Doctor Hollander I was confronted by Genesis," Cloud said, keeping his words clipped and to the point. He was so angry he forgot to be self-conscious about his stilted habit of speaking, and the words came out smoothly, if not with an edge of angry heat. "He wanted me to give you this as his thanks for giving him a head start when he defected."
Sephiroth gazed at him with dangerous, half-lidded eyes, his face emotionless. He could have been carved of marble, he was so still—but it was the taut stillness of a cobra coiled to strike.
"Be careful what you say, Cloud," he finally murmured, the warning clear. "Such seditious and slanderous words could quickly end your attachments to ShinRa."
"The truth is what it is," Cloud said, still holding the bag out. He hadn't forgotten a single second of being in Sephiroth's home, in Sephiroth's bed, and the memories were as painful as they were sweet. He still had enough child in him to long for the man's attention, but enough jaded experience to know that such longing was futile. "Whatever you wish to do with it is no business of mine."
"What else, Cloud?" Sephiroth asked, watching him with those hooded jade eyes. "What else did Genesis bid you do?"
Cloud frowned, thrusting the pouch towards him impatiently as he answered, "Keep my secrets, Sir. He asked me to keep my secrets, for your sake and for his."
Sephiroth considered his words for a moment before taking the pouch from him, his gloved fingers light and graceful.
Once Cloud was unburdened of his task, he moved to the door and waited expectantly for Sephiroth to dismiss him.
"At ease, Private," Sephiroth murmured, holding the pouch in one hand, the other undoing the knots. He knew those knots, Genesis delighted in them—he'd made a study of tying knots as a child and it was a game he'd carried into adulthood, much to the consternation of his unsuspecting lovers…Still, it meant that Cloud had not attempted to pry, and that strangely pleased Sephiroth. "You didn't look, Cloud?"
"No, Sir," Cloud said, his displeasure at being detained apparent in the tone of his voice. "It's nothing to do with me."
Sephiroth, however, knew it had everything to do with Cloud once he finally got the pouch open. As well as knots, magic had been another passion of Genesis's, almost rivaling his passion for Loveless. He was one of the few men Sephiroth had known who could Summon without the aid of materia and had actually mastered several esoteric techniques that dated back to the mysterious Cetra. Inside the pouch was a small orb, a quarter of the size of most materia, and it glowed with a soft blue light not unlike Cloud's eyes in passion or anger. Sephiroth unfurled the coiled piece of paper upon which Genesis's flowing, dramatic script revealed, "My Dearest Enemy and Bitter Friend, Sephiroth—this should please your rather dominating side. I could think of no better thanks to you for keeping your word than to deliver into your hands a means to bind your Eromenos to you. I know that if you were to envy anything about me, it would be my ability to use magic for my own ends, and I give it now to you. Play nicely with your toys, Sephiroth, however unbreakable they may seem. Genesis"
Sephiroth hefted the small orb in his left hand, feeling its sluggish, sleepy response. Below Genesis's note were instructions for the orb's use—a way to brand a permanent mark of ownership on another human being. Sephiroth wondered how many of Genesis's devoted lovers had sported his mark, and how many of them had returned to him out of the mark's compulsive nature instead of honest desire. Then again, what did it matter so long as they returned? He knew Genesis would not have cared about the difference.
He looked at Cloud standing stiff and hurt and angry near the doorway, his young face tight with irritation and shame at Sephiroth's innuendos. Giving the boy time to lick his wounds had clearly not been the best idea, though Sephiroth had been too busy to do otherwise. Why would Genesis think he would want to mark Cloud as his own? Surely he kept his personal feelings better hidden than that?
A look at Cloud's taut, unhappy face let him know that he did, indeed, keep his personal feelings well hidden. Perhaps so well that Private Cloud Strife would rather step off of a fifty-storey building than allow himself to be touched again.
'Am I a joke to you?'
'You are not a joke to me, no—you are a possession, and I will use you as I see fit…and you will allow it because you have no choice in the end.'
A possession.
Perhaps Genesis was more perceptive than he'd realized.
"You might as well come away from the door, Cloud," Sephiroth told him, bundling the pouch back up and putting it securely into the inner lining of his long coat. "There are things we need to discuss, I think."
Cloud once more managed to faintly surprise the stoic, reserved General. He finally shifted those big blue eyes to Sephiroth's own and said with barely contained heat, "I think not, Sir."
And he began to angrily, efficiently unlock Sephiroth's door.