A/N; This is part of the Monster universe. Might be a little confusing if you don't read Monster, first.

Happy reading! Hope you enjoy. Rated M for SMUT.

Dark Bite of November

The vampires topside live a very different life than the ones underneath the plate.

Some of them are lords, hiding behind a rich veil of secrecy. These are the old ones. Most have lived for eternities, some on their thousandth life. The longer they last, the more powerful they are. They can compel and needle their way underneath human skin like a splinter under a nail. Most humans don't even notice they're locked in their spell until years later, when the vampire gets tired of them and unhooks them like a fish from a pole. Dazed and confused, the humans go back to their normal lives, mildly wondering about what happened the day before. What was I doing? They may wonder. Where have I been?

Their minds stay in a fog for a week or two, and then they acclimatize to daily activities. Most of these humans aren't changed or transformed into a monster, if only for the amusement of the vampire. The vampires like to watch them struggle to fall back into their life, and some vampires like to haunt. They like to appear again, in a room or behind them, cornering them and asking them, do you remember me?

We play with our food, Cloud, Sephiroth had told him, once, when he had a woman draped across his lap. She was bleeding from multiple holes along her neck, dizzy and smiling and drunk upon his compulsion.

Some vampires live not only on blood. Some live for the screams and the fear, the cold sweat and the tears.

Cloud fights with it. The older he gets, the greater his proclivities become. He needs blood, but he wants the dirty desires. He wants to peel apart flesh and bathe in the desperate fear of the women and men that cross his path. He wants his fill of their beating hearts, to feel and hear how fast they can race while he takes it all, takes and takes and takes.

Vampires look like humans. The world doesn't believe in them completely. Faith in the supernatural wanes and ebbs like the waxing of the moon. Some humans are intelligent. Some have noticed and seen the flickering of shadows, have heard the growls in the night, have experienced the chill when walking past the yawning black entrance of an alley. Midgar is the most notorious place for instances of abnormal horrors. The people under the plate are the most knowledgeable, but ofttimes are brushed off with little more than a scoff toward their superstitions and rituals.

Don't leave your house after midnight, some will say. Wear silver. Carry a dagger.

The visitors are the most vulnerable, and they are the easiest to pluck from the crowds.

People go missing every day, after all.

When he begins to spiral, Cloud thinks about Tifa. He waits until she enters the world again. He waits and waits and waits. He hangs on by the thin threads of his sanity. He abstains. Every year, he crumbles a little more. His determination begins to dry, dissolving slowly into nothing.

And every time he's about to snap and become that true monster—the one he promised her he'd never become—she appears.

She appears, and he's saved.

"I can't believe you killed Loz," Zack says, shaking his head with incredulity. "You are completely insane. Sephiroth is going to kill you."

Cloud and Zack sit in the open parlor of one of the topside mansions. Most strips of living are either these magnanimous structures above the plate or tiny, ramshackle cubes fashioned into four, thin walls underneath them. There is no in between in this world, and it has happened over the span of a hundred years.

Zack is still young—he's only a few centuries old. He is vibrant, happy-go-lucky, and optimistic. Even Cloud forgets that he is just like him—his heart stagnant and his blood thick and congealed in his veins.

"He won't kill me," Cloud states, drinking the liquor from his glass. He grimaces. It's vodka. He hates vodka. "I'm too valuable. Or he's too sentimental." He shrugs. "He's the only vampire I know to keep his progeny…close."

"True, but I dunno, man," Zack mutters, glancing around the room. "Seph has been…different these last few decades. When kin die, he goes a bit more bonkers than usual."

"Hmph," Cloud grunts, downing the rest of the vodka in one disgusted swallow. "Don't really care. Maybe the millennia are finally getting to him."

Zack whistles. "I just want you to be careful, Cloud. Sephiroth isn't going to take this lightly." He gives him a concerned stare. Cloud, tired of Zack's worry, looks out into the crowd.

Most of them consist of wealthy humans—businessmen, lawmakers, politicians, entrepreneurs. All either know one another or know about one another. The circles of wealth are not large, only containing a select few. Sephiroth holds parties like this at least once a week. It is a social frenzy for the humans. It's a feast for the vampires.

"I'm tired of Sephiroth," Cloud mutters, watching a woman laughing and twirling in the arms of a tall, lanky man. Cloud can smell her intoxication from where he sits. "He acts as though we're his sons. He's trying to dictate us. I'm not going to do that, anymore."

Zack sighs. "Yeah. I know. But ripping off heads isn't the way to go about it."

Cloud sneers a little. "I didn't do it because of Sephiroth," he admits.

Pausing with his drink, Zack raises his eyebrows at him. "Oh, is that right? Then why did you do it?"

The floors are polished and in a gaudy checkerboard pattern. The light fixtures are curvaceous and dipped in gold and cream, making the room gleam with the fat, incandescent lightbulbs. Velvet runners cover the doorway entrances, a deep, endless red like deliberate blood splatters. A musician is playing their heart out on the grand piano in the corner of the room, lilting behind the backdrop of a string quartet.

More and more laughter begins to fill the spaces of the room. Conversation echoes off the walls, and ladies and gentlemen dressed in their finest lace, houndstooth, and top hats begin to drag one another to dance. Enough alcohol has been spread around for a good time, and the inhibitions are lowering. In another hour, it will be a free-for-all for the bloodsuckers, taking their fill, and choosing their preferences.

"I did it for Tifa," Cloud says.

Zack lowers his glass to the table. "Tifa? She's back?"

Cloud turns his eyes to Zack, giving him a tip of his chin. "Yeah. Loz was going to kill her."

"You should have told me sooner," Zack says, his lips spreading in a grin. "Fuck Loz, then. He got what was coming to him."

Cloud blinks, a smirk forming on his face. "My same thoughts."

"So? Why aren't you with her?" he asks.

Cloud shifts in his seat. "You know why."

"Don't give me that bullshit, Cloud," Zack says. "How many times? When will it finally be enough for you?"

Cloud has no answer. He never does.

"Isn't it about time you found yours?" he asks, instead. Zack gives him a little frown, but it turns into a pout. His eyes canvas the room, and Cloud knows the exact moment he finds who he's looking for.

Cloud follows his eyes. While she is not from a rich family, she is always invited. She is simply a flower girl—that's what they call them. Flower girls. It's funny. Cloud's always thought it was a clever play on words.

She wears a dress, disguised within the bodies of the crowd. It is frilly with an ample train, light and lacy, the pink vivid and almost out of place. She is young—perhaps a few years older than Tifa. Her face is smooth and slender, her lips just as bright as her dress. Her eyes are green. They are the color of prairie grasses in the midst of spring.

Zack has loved her ever since he first saw her. Vampires get a rap for being disgusting deviants, cannibalistic and bloodthirsty and vile. But there is something to say about how much they feel. Heightened senses are one thing, of course, but it spans inside of them, too. Scents and taste and sight are all sharpened and otherworldly, but emotions are their own chains. They keep them tethered—be it love or sadness. When one hooks you, it is as though it drags you under a foot of quicksand.

It only takes one.

"I'll be back," Zack says, standing from his seat. He adjusts his collar, smoothing down his cravat. He gives a little smirk to Cloud over his shoulder.

"Think about it, Cloud. You've got to decide when it's enough."

He saunters off. Cloud sees the girl's eyes—Aerith, that's her name—catch onto Zack as he makes his presence known in the room. Her hands tighten in front of her, clasped against the tight corset of her bodice.

She is the most skeptical flower girl Cloud has ever met. She smiles at everyone, but Cloud can smell how she dislikes this place. And when Sephiroth would enter and kiss her hand, the tide of uncertainty would roll off her in waves. Ever since, Zack has gone up to her and talked to her, trying not to scare her away.

I'm the man of your dreams, he had greeted her, reaching out a hand. Nice to meet you.

She had merely looked at him. You're one of them, aren't you?

Zack slowly dropped his hand. One of who?

Don't be that way, mister. I know. I can tell. She tapped her temple. It's my job to know.

Zack stared at her, his eyes examining every curve on her face. She didn't shy away. She was a bold girl, Cloud remembers thinking. She never took a step back or blinked or shifted with anxiety. She had placed her hands on her hips and looked up into Zack's face, examining him with just as much scrutiny.

Tell me about that, will you? Zack asked her. Tell me how you see us, flower girl.

Aerith had blushed at his words. Zack held out his arm for her, and they walked along the room and around the grounds of the mansion.

Ever since, Zack has walked up to her each evening they hold a party. He holds out his arm. She takes it.

They walk. They only know each other while they meander and weave along steps and pathways.

The music is becoming more and more manic. The laughter is raucous and nauseating. The feasting game is about to start, and this is Cloud's cue to leave before Sephiroth awakens from his slumber—wherever he is and whatever he does. Cloud can't keep up anymore. Sometimes he paces for hours. Sometimes he sleeps in his coffin.

The other flower girls seem to be bracing themselves for the show. Some enjoy it. Not all are like Aerith. A lot of flower girls enjoy the bloodshed, always feeling blessed to be privy to this subsection of the world no matter how grotesque. They are the ones that bring the humans back from the cusp of the dead. When the draculs lose themselves to the euphoria of the blood, the taste and the feeling and the utter pull of what they used to be, the flower girls will bring the humans back to their life. With a touch or a kiss, they plant the seed of the soul back into their bodies. They help human life regerminate at the simple cost of their memory, either this night or the last—a chunk of their life's compendium for the chance at making new scenes thereafter. The husk of a person is their soil, and the girls rejuvenate their lives. Flower girls.

They only have this job for one reason. Too many new vampires will alert the Division. Absolutely no one wants that, not even the Division.

Cloud stands, and he swiftly makes himself scarce. It is almost midnight, and he's been waiting all day for the passage of time.

He slips underneath the plate, and he finds himself slithering down the slum streets to Seventh Heaven.

It is ironic the place she would live has the word heaven attached to it. It is his opposite in every way, but it makes so much sense that it nearly hurts.

He watches as the last patron leaves the bar, stumbling down the steps. He nearly jumps out of his skin when Cloud appears, climbing up the stairs past him. He starts to clamber away as fast as his drunken feet can take him.

As Cloud stands on the doorstep, he pulls his hood back, and he hesitates. Everything inside of him tightens with a diseased wanting. His desire is difficult. It is so maddening and suffocating, he must remind himself of the balm she creates for him. As soon as he sees her, he'll be okay. The anticipation before seeing her always heightens his emotions and his uncertainty. It is always the before that makes him wonder. She is everything he needs, but what is he?

He inhales deeply before raising his fist. He knocks rapidly on the door.

He hears her shuffling inside. He hears the steps her boot takes to close the distance between the bar counter and the door. He smells the waft from her skin and her hair seep through the wooden slats of the building.

As soon as she opens the door, he is assaulted by her. She is her own perfume and her own intoxication. Her hair is long and straight, and her skin is a pearlescent cream, and her eyes are always what get him—because how are they the color of his life's meaning? It is a trick of the world, and it taunts and mocks him, and he thinks it tells him every single time that he doesn't deserve her to be the one for him.

He can feel the reverberations of her gasp.

"Cloud," she says. "You're back."

Her lips shine from the bite of her teeth. He stares at her.

"Yes," he says. "May I…ah, will you invite me in?"

Her brows furrow before his question dawns on her. "Oh. You've never arrived after hours, before, have you?"

He smirks a little, glancing away before taking her in again. The amusement in her eyes glitter. He leans against the doorjamb, as close as the powers that bind will allow.

"Rules are rules," he says. "Your home. I'm never allowed unless you want me here."

"I always want you here," she answers. Her heart is beginning to pound like a drum, and he wants to touch it. He wants to scoop his hand under her ribcage and feel it beat against his palm.

"You do?" he asks quietly.

She leans on the opposite doorjamb, and it is so maddening—so maddening. She gives him a smile, and he feels the fuse in his stomach catch fire. It's only been two days, but the breadth of the hours are longer, and the width of the seconds are an indescribable ache.

"Of course I do," she tells him, her voice suddenly just as quiet. "So…won't you come in?"

The barrier lifts from the space between them. He feels it as soon as it happens, and his hands are at her waist, and his lips are on hers in a moment. Her surprised gasp turns quickly into a deep moan, and he is on fire, now. He is warm and then hot, and his craving is not blunted by the kiss. It is sharpened by it. It grows and grows as her hands touch him, as her tongue finds his, as her fingers press into his hair.

He is swallowed up by its ferocity. It consumes him, and he's inside of it's belly, and he is dissolving into nothing.

"Oh, Tifa," he hears himself say. "Let me love you, tonight?"

Her breath comes out in a stutter, and he realizes how he phrased his question—but he meant it, and he can't apologize for it. Not when her blood has settled on his tongue. Not when he's connected to her so deeply.

When will it finally be enough for you? Zack's words do not leave his mind. They haven't ever since he spoke them. Time is of the essence. It shouldn't matter for immortality, but it does. Time always matters.

"Yes," Tifa whispers brokenly. "Please. Love me."

Cloud slams the door shut behind him with a kick of his booted foot. He lifts Tifa in his arms, bridal-style, and Tifa chokes out a laugh. "Cloud, what are you—" she tries.

He cuts her off with a kiss, filling himself up with her giggles and her joy. It is all he's ever needed.

He deposits her gently on the bed and hovers over her, staring intensely at her body. Her arms are above her head, and her chest is heaving, and she shifts a little under his gaze. A shy smile appears on her face, dimpling at the corner.

"Um…I…" she starts, going to push onto her elbows. Cloud places a tender hand on her sternum, keeping her from sitting up.

"No," he says. "Let me."

He reaches down and peels away her skirt and shorts. He shucks away her boots. He curls a finger along the band of her underwear, and before she can say anything, he peels that away, too.

"Oh," she whispers, and it is so sharp and piercing in the air. Everything assaults him, and he breathes out a sigh of heavy relief. He bends down to kiss her thighs. He kisses the tops of them, falling to the soft, smooth skin along her inner thighs until he feels the pulse of her artery at the beautiful joint of her hip. The blood claws and rushes its way through her muscle and bone, and his teeth grow at the prospect. He shakes and sighs, his needs restless and disastrous.

She must know his hesitation. Her hand drapes into his hair then along the side of his face, and he leans into it, looking up at her.

"Cloud," she says. "I don't mind what you do to me."

His teeth continue to grow. "No, Tifa, I—"

"Please," she says, and her chest is still heaving, and her eyes are glassy and shining and such a darkened red. His teeth pass over his bottom lip. "I want everything."

His body turns rigid, and he can't control himself any longer. He groans and says, "I will give you all that I can."

He slips his teeth into the soft flesh of her inner thigh—one of his favorite parts about her, he decides—and her blood dribbles down his throat in a slow and steady stream. It is sweet and fragrant and nearly catastrophic. He feels it slide into his limbs like an electric current. He is careful not to puncture anything important. He remains in the territory that will heal quickly, that will bruise but not linger. Tifa drops her head and moans above him, her other leg spreading wider.

"Gods, Cloud, you make that feel…oh, oh I don't…"

Her hips rock, and he slowly takes his mouth away from her. Small bite marks are left behind, but they are delicate and meaningful. The blood shines but will soon stop, and the rich tang of it flutters all around him.

He cradles her legs underneath his forearms, and she is spread apart just enough for him. He dips his head forward and teases her skin with his tongue—and he wonders if he's found something better than her blood. He might have. He thinks he has. In his delirium from sinking his teeth into her skin and this, it must be all that he needs to survive a dozen lifetimes more.

He licks in deliberate and delayed strokes. He takes his time, learning her with the pad of his tongue, memorizing her texture and her scent and her taste and her feel, recognizing her gasps and her jerks, the way her hands clench the covers, and what touches make her fumble for a word or a breath.

This is better than the last time and better than the first time. He can't believe he's forgotten how this was years and years and years ago, separated by the centuries. It had been branded within him, back then, something so familiar and agonizingly tattooed into his memory. But it's better tonight, in this one moment, and he can't stop because he doesn't need to breathe. So he continues, on and on, holding her legs open and pressing his tongue into her folds while she begs him and begs him.

"Oh, Cloud," she whispers. "I—I can't…I can't…"

He moans against her, and she cries, her hips jerking a little. Her sensitive skin catches onto the blunt edge of his front teeth, and there is nothing to describe the sound she makes when it happens. He takes her clit between his lips and he sucks and sucks, gently and softly like a tease, and she raises her hands above her head, grasping at the bedsheets and her hair.

She begins to tremble. He doesn't stop. He can feel the ridge of her muscles turn into desperate, taut cords. Her whimpers become louder, roughened and tattered. She hangs on and lasts, her nails snagging against her sheets.

"Keep going," she breathes. Her voice sounds manic and lost. "Cloud. Let us—be—forever."

Her words force him to pause, but he can't help himself as he finishes her off, hearing the cry from her throat break in the air above them. It snakes its way along his skin. It traps itself in his heart.

"Tifa," he says, pushing himself up, moving his hands to come around her sides. He stares down at her, her neck and cheeks flushed and tinged with sweat, her eyes foggy and vulnerable and free. He wants her like this, always.

Forever.

"Tifa, I can't…" he tries. "Please, don't ask me to…"

She reaches up a hand, securing it around his face. They stare at one another for several long moments.

"I will ask you, Cloud, over and over," she whispers. "This time will be different. It has to be."

"Tifa, no, you don't understand," he says, and his fangs begin to tear through his gums in his desperation. "If you change…"

When will it be enough?

"If I change, what?" she asks. She sits up and wraps her arms around his neck. Their chests press together. She curls her legs around his waist, and he sits back, and her heat is suddenly encompassing all of him. He feels how wet she is, inundated by her scent and the glinting, blistering red of her eyes.

"You'll die," he answers, his voice roughened by the contrast of want and need and fear. They blend inside of him in a jagged swirl. He presses his forehead to hers, and his fangs poke the skin above his chin. "You always die, Tifa."

She shakes her head. "No, Cloud, that can't be true. I don't remember trying to change. I don't…"

"It is true," he says, and the words are thick. They are hard to expel from his throat. "No matter what we do. No matter how we try." He brings her ever closer, and she gasps at the feel of both him and the words. "I will never let you die again because of me. I will never give you immortality. I will not try."

Never. Forever.

How many times?

It won't be enough. It will never be enough, and time will carry on.

Her eyes line with tears, her mouth curling into a terrible frown.

"That can't be, Cloud."

He kisses her, and he wants to stem her sadness. He wants to take it away, forever. His mind is always surrounded by the absolutes. Never. Forever.

"Let me love you, now," he says. "Right now. For as long as I can."

Her hands claw into his skull, trapping his hair between her fingers.

His hands palm her waist. He pushes into her, becoming lost in the sensation. His desire blurs the edges of his vision, and his longing curves into the shriveled organ of his stomach. They are tethered together, eternally.

She will die.

He will wait.

Always.