Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Sephiroth’s eyes first landed on him, the thought occurred right away—that this darling blond twink would end up being the key to his undoing.

It takes restraint to stop his gaze from raking over him in a way that would be entirely inappropriate.

He’s uncommonly beautiful. Bright. Innocent-looking. And full of an admiration that makes Sephiroth ache with temptation—it would be far too easy to introduce him to all his sordid tastes, and that feels terribly unfair.

Someone so young and impressionable might not have the maturity to handle it. Not to mention the fact that it would also be highly unethical, given their power differential.

Besides, work and pleasure don’t mix.

“Tell me, what made you seek this specific opportunity?” Sephiroth asks politely, clearing his throat.

It’s no secret that plenty of students have expressed flirtation and interest, but Sephiroth has to deflect each time. Luckily, they’re all too young to end up in the local kink communities; the idea of one matching with his secret profile is slightly horrifying to imagine, even if his pictures aren’t identifiable.

“Oh,” Cloud says, cheeks reddening in an adorable manner, “I really enjoyed the book you wrote—Persuasion? It’s so interesting how you incorporated all these psychology elements in there. I learned a lot from it.”

Sephiroth smiles warmly. “I used to spend time with a neighbor who is a psychologist. A brilliant man. I would read the textbooks he had around, so I suppose those influenced me greatly.”

It just so happened that his early twenties coincided with the popularity of both pop psychology and the growth of social media, so his first book did exceptionally well, and lucrative book deals followed soon after, along with regular speaking engagements.

“It’s one of my favorites.” His eyes light up with an innocent admiration. “I’m not surprised that it’s so well-known.”

“In some circles, I suppose. Very niche. But I’m glad to hear someone in this tiny corner of academia appreciates it.”

The golden-haired angel in front of him fiddles with his bag nervously, tugging on a zipper.

All of this is rather flattering, even if compliments usually make him very wary. Cloud’s admiration appears genuine, and although that places them on uneven footing—creating an artificial distance—it’s still nice to hear some praise about himself.

Lord knows he never heard much of that growing up.

“Sorry, I promise I’m not trying to butter you up or anything,” Cloud sputters, “and I don’t know if I even deserve this position, but I’d be really honored to learn from you.” His pale, delicate hands present a hardcover copy of the book as his pretty lips continue to ramble nervously. “And even if not, could you sign my book? I thought I might as well, since I was meeting you anyway, and—”

With a chuckle, Sephiroth takes the book from him and flips through it briefly. To his surprise and delight, some pages are dog-eared, with various highlighter colors marking different passages on them.

“I don’t get asked for autographs often outside of book signings,” he says, scrawling a signature on the inside cover. “Only those truly passionate about marketing might, after a lecture.”

The other exception being random women who clearly hadn’t read it, but had seen his picture on the back cover, or perhaps watched one of his interviews. Slipping their numbers written on napkins that Sephiroth will take, politely, then toss into the trash after an event.

But that just proves his marketing techniques work.

Cloud swallows, his dainty pale throat bobbing. The sight stirs arousal beneath his trousers, and—

Sigh.

Sephiroth should just tell him no.

This is inviting trouble.

But it would be cruel to crush that hope, wouldn’t it? Since the boy clearly looks up to him, and views him so favorably.

A rejection would be unkind. Especially when it would cost Sephiroth nothing besides a bit of his time and knowledge.

Sephiroth presses his lips together. “I haven’t had a teacher’s assistant in some time, but it might be helpful. Let me talk to the administration and see how it goes. Do you need a tuition waiver, or…”

“No.” Cloud hesitates, blinking gorgeous blue eyes at him, a dark flutter of lashes. “I mean, it’s not an issue if there’s no stipend or anything. I just… would like the opportunity.”

How curious. Most graduate students apply for such things out of financial need, but a few are driven solely by ambition. Cloud comes across as genuinely passionate so far, although there’s a timidity that doesn’t seem to match the boldness of the request.

“I’ll let you know what they decide. Might involve a bit of paperwork—”

“I can help take care of any paperwork,” he says quickly. “Sorry, I don’t want it to be a hassle for you or anything.”

“Well, the lack of stipend would probably make things easier. Are you sure that you don’t need one?” Sephiroth returns the book to him, their fingers touching for a brief moment, sending an electric shiver down his spine. “Otherwise, they just need to register the credits.”

“I’m sure.”

From appearances, Sephiroth doesn’t expect Cloud to be someone who has ever heard the word no very often. He has the kind of face that would have most people bending over backwards for him.

Exquisitely pretty.

It’s one of the basic principles of persuasion, actually.

Something he’s quite familiar with himself—there’s a reason why beautiful people are used to peddle products. They’re more persuasive by default. Or, as described in his book, a positive first impression perpetuates a halo effect.

Once the halo effect is already in place, humans are prone to ignore any subsequent negative qualities which might arise.

“Well, I look forward to working with you, Cloud. Perhaps you can assist me with lesson plans before the fall semester starts?”

Sephiroth intends for it to be an actual mentorship, with plenty of work and tutelage involved. And his syllabus does need updating, with trends and technology always changing.

Control is what he does best—there won’t be any problem maintaining a purely professional relationship.

Though, of course, none of his previous assistants had been anywhere near attractive enough to serve as any sort of temptation.

So this will be an exercise in control.

“Thank you, sir. You won’t regret it, I promise.” Cloud’s heart-shaped face beams brightly after he lets out a sigh of relief.

Perhaps it’ll be nice to have some companionship for work, anyway.

“Please, call me Sephiroth.”

The summer heat permeates Sephiroth’s office in a thick, insufferable fog, and during the lull between summer break and the fall semester, the central air conditioning system lies dormant, so all the doors and windows stay open.

Classical music drifts in the air between them; something Sephiroth usually plays whenever he’s alone at work. There’s no one else here besides Cloud and himself, which is probably an unwise scenario for Sephiroth to place himself in, but it hasn’t led to any issues so far.

For the last month, their meetings have been productive, if uneventful. Cloud appears to genuinely respect him and his knowledge, and is enjoyable enough company to be around.

It’s been nice to have someone to talk to—many of the other professors tend to distance themselves from him, but that’s nothing new.

Cloud never talks about himself very much, though, and that leaves him very curious.

“What do you like doing?”

Startled, he looks up, a lock of blond hair falling against the side of his face. It’s difficult to not find him utterly stunning, and Sephiroth has to remind himself not to stare.

“Oh. I… don’t know.”

Whether Cloud is being shy or evasive is hard to discern.

So far, Sephiroth has made a deliberate, sustained effort to not express any interest. But that doesn’t mean it would hurt to be friendly. “No hobbies?”

“Not really, I guess.” Cloud pauses, then continues writing some notes, the flush deepening over his porcelain skin. Only from up close does the charming scattering of freckles become noticeable. “Sorry. I’m pretty boring,” he mutters with a small laugh.

“Not at all. I haven’t met many who show as much passion as you do. Surely you’re curious about people then too, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Marketing. It’s all about understanding people. How they think.”

Exquisite blue eyes like ocean waves gaze up at him. Hypnotic in their loveliness. “A lot of it’s manipulation, though, isn’t it?”

“You could say that, yes.”

“I guess I try to understand people. So that I’d fit in better.” Another faint laugh comes out with Cloud’s next breath. “It hasn’t really worked, though.”

Beauty compensates for quite a bit, but it still only opens doors. Sephiroth would know this.

“Perhaps that just makes you unique,” Sephiroth offers.

Cloud shrugs his small shoulders.

The answer eerily resembles his own reasons for studying behavioral responses. But that’s not something Sephiroth has ever mentioned in interviews.

“What about you? What do you like doing?” His voice is so young, bright and tinted with a faint raspiness.

He’s staring at Sephiroth so innocently that he can’t tell if Cloud is asking out of politeness, actually wants to know, or if there’s any flirtation to the question at all.

There’s a faint whiff of a crush underneath all the admiration, and Sephiroth’s never been wrong about that. Reading people is something he’s always been good at. It goes along with being a quiet observer, or outcast, said less politely.

If he were to answer honestly, his extracurricular activities are entirely inappropriate for general conversation.

“Cooking, sometimes. Reading.”

“Oh. That’s neat. I’m trying to get better at cooking, actually.” Cloud scratches the back of his neck, ears getting pink. “I don’t have a cafeteria card anymore, so.”

“Perhaps I’ll share some recipes, then. You’ll have to let me know what you like.” Sephiroth smiles involuntarily, then catches himself doing it, and pulls it back.

What Cloud failed to mention during their interview is that he’s enrolled in one of his courses.

So for part of the week, he’s a student like all the rest of them, and the other part, he assists Sephiroth with his undergraduate course.

The borders of their relationship begin blurring; becoming too comfortable. Cloud joins him for lunch often, although always under the pretense of discussing work or learning.

Once, he had shown up at the teacher’s lounge, looking for him, and Sephiroth walked into another professor trying to kick him out—

So he told Cloud not to do it again.

His desire to spend time with him has always seemed markedly innocent, however, and Cloud seems to simply crave some companionship.

There’s no real harm in that.

And if Sephiroth could admit it to himself—that company has filled a certain emptiness for him too; one he hadn’t noticed was there before.

“You lied,” Cloud comments, packing some of the presentation materials into a backpack.

“About what?”

“There were a ton of people asking for signed copies of your books.”

Sephiroth makes a sound of distaste. “I’m not sure how to explain this, but I’ve… somehow developed a fanbase of people who know nothing of my work.”

He wonders if Cloud noticed that they were mostly women. Though, of course, there were also men.

Cloud stares at the floor, hefting the backpack on, appearing to consider that. “Oh.”

He’s strangely unreadable at times. There’s an awkward, naive quality to him, but a distinct shrewdness too. It’s hard for him to guess what Cloud is thinking. Or what meaning can be found between the things he leaves unsaid.

“Well, guess I’ll see you on Monday, then. Thanks for letting me help you with your lecture.”

And it’s a mistake—Sephiroth knows it is—but the word comes rolling off his tongue anyway.

“Wait.”

Cloud glances up, starry-eyed in a way that feels perversely gratifying, when it doesn’t with anyone else.

And that’s probably only still there because he knows nothing about Sephiroth’s less savory proclivities.

“I’d like to hear your thoughts on what could be done better next time? While it’s still fresh on your mind? There’s a cocktail bar at the hotel across the street.”

Sephiroth is crossing a line. And he knows it.

The truth is, he just doesn’t want Cloud to leave quite so soon.

Or spend another evening alone. And Fridays are when he expects an irritating video call request from his parents—it would be a good excuse to avoid them.

Cloud’s lip twitches.

The regret fills him immediately.

This was a mistake.

“Sorry, that’s asking for more work, when you’ve done so much already.” A bead of sweat rolls down the back of his neck. “Ignore me, that was unreasonable of me to ask.”

Sephiroth’s heart skips a terrible beat in his chest. Waiting to see if this is something he can take back. What in the world was he thinking?

But Cloud just smiles widely at him.

“Sure. I’d love to.”

A very different side to Cloud comes out when he’s drunk, apparently. One that’s flirty. Bolder. Nearly extroverted, even.

“C’mon,” he chides, leaning a cheek on one palm, head tilted. “You can handle more than that, can’t you?”

The alcohol burns down Sephiroth’s throat as he finishes the shot. “I’m sure that I can. I don’t think my liver would be too happy about it, though.”

“You have two, it’s fine,” Cloud says with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“You’re thinking about kidneys.”

“Oh. My mistake.” Cloud stares at him rather shamelessly while downing his third shot, then slams it down on the table, yelling belligerently, waving at the bartender.

Sephiroth snatches his hand back, fingers wrapped around the slender wrist. The sensation of it sends a shiver down his spine; closing his fingers entirely around it. “I think that’s enough for you.”

“You’re not my dad,” he mutters, jerking his arm away.

“No, I’m not. But I doubt they’ll serve you any more than that.”

“Fine. Whatever. That’s good enough, I guess.” Cloud stares into his empty glass with forlorn eyes, a little pout forming over his lips. Then he rubs his stomach, frowning, and again, Sephiroth can’t get a read on things.

Does he usually drink this much? Cloud hadn’t struck him as a drinker at all, much less a heavy one—not someone who goes to social outings very often.

Then again, Sephiroth usually drinks alone, so why wouldn’t others?

Sephiroth summons the bartender again with two fingers, leaning over the marble counter. “Two ginger ales, please.”

Cloud squints at him with one eye. “I’m not a lightweight.”

“It’ll settle your stomach. Trust me.”

“It’s just gonna make me have to piss.”

Sephiroth sucks on his teeth, sharply, at the idea of that. “You are drunk, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Aren’t you?”

“I suppose.” Sephiroth’s judgment certainly seems impaired, since all sorts of unwise ideas are running through his mind at the moment.

A breathy rock ballad plays in the background, reddish lights bouncing off the silhouette of Cloud’s golden hair, granting him a devilish aura.

He’s utterly beautiful.

All those unwise thoughts drift through his mind like a school of fish, the flash of their bright scales momentarily distracting him.

“Why do you talk like that anyway?” Cloud asks curiously, taking one fizzy glass the bartender sets down.

“In what way?”

“Like… I dunno. An old man.”

Growing up, he’d never known how exactly to speak, to react, or how to do anything properly. Or so the rest of the world seemed to tell him.

Sephiroth smiles wryly. “I haven’t heard it put that way before. Does it bother you?”

“No.” Cloud shrugs. “It’s cute, actually.” He dips his head to sip the ginger ale from the straw, blowing bubbles into it.

“Cute?”

“Yeah.” Cloud looks up at him with half-lidded blue eyes, drunkenly and dreamily. “You’re cute.” A foot nudges against the leather of Sephiroth’s shoe, sliding up slightly against his inner calves.

This was a mistake.

“Cloud?”

“Hmm?”

He pushes the teasing foot away with his left shoe. “You’re drunk.”

“So?”

“You’re not in a sound state of mind.”

“Come again?”

Sephiroth lets out a long sigh, swiveling on the barstool, angling his body away from temptation. “You’re my student. And assistant. This isn’t a good idea.”

“And yet you invited me here,” Cloud points out. He stirs his drink idly, the ice clinking together. “So you’re saying that you have bad ideas.”

“I do.”

“I have a really bad one. Wanna hear it?”

Sephiroth pulls out his phone. “No. I don’t, actually. Are you near downtown? I can request a ride with two destinations if we’re headed the same way.”

This is far too risky for his liking. Too unprofessional. The power and age differential between them is too great.

A clear recipe for inevitable disaster.

Although he’s absolutely correct—Sephiroth had invited him, despite knowing all that. A pure moment of weakness on his part.

Cloud snatches the phone from his hands, to his dismay, slipping it into his pocket. Then he leans forward, siren-like, the sweet scent of alcohol emanating off his lips while a soft breath tickles the inside of Sephiroth’s ear.

“I see the way you look at me. Don’t act like you haven’t wanted me since the first day we met.”

A hot pulse throbs along the length of his cock, as if Cloud had murmured to it instead, twitching at hearing the soft syllables shedding from his lips.

“You’re not denying it.” Slim hands slide along the tops of Sephiroth’s thighs, slowly, back and forth. Resting painfully near his rising erection, thumbs tracing the perimeter around it. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

His own hands reach for Cloud’s wrists to pull them away, but somehow they find their way to Cloud’s tiny waist instead, fingers gripping the sides of it greedily, the tips of them nearly touching.

“You are,” he admits, the words falling out too easily past his hazy lips.

And Sephiroth had foolishly believed that his desire was well-hidden enough—since he had made a concerted effort to avoid expressing any interest, trying to discourage anything that might cause problems down the line. Like tonight.

Maybe he isn’t the only one good at reading people.

Maybe he’s not as good as he thought.

Cloud’s petal-soft lips graze against his own, a palm reaching down, inserting itself in the space between his thighs, and Sephiroth nearly forgets to move away.

“We could get a room upstairs,” Cloud murmurs, teeth running along Sephiroth’s lower lip like a knife; like a threat.

The nagging voice inside him drowns in the heady sweetness of Cloud’s warm palms and breath. Then it claws back to the surface, and his eyes lock onto Cloud’s, pushing him away.

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” The slender fingers press dangerously near the heat of his groin. “I can pay for it. Don’t need a sugar daddy.”

Sephiroth picks up his hand by the wrist, like he’s removing an alabaster spider, letting out a sigh.

“You’re too young for me. You’re drunk. And it’ll get me fired.”

Cloud shrugs. “Not if neither of us tells.” Then he leans in closer. “You should really take the offer before I change my mind.”

He must be in his very early twenties, but twenty-year-olds look like babies to Sephiroth nowadays. Too immature and inexperienced. It doesn’t help that Cloud has the kind of face and gait that could easily be mistaken for that of a teenager.

Which only makes Sephiroth feel even guiltier about being so attracted to him. Like he’s some kind of dirty old pervert.

“You were in elementary school while I was writing my thesis.” Saying that for himself, mostly, to remember why it would be so wrong to give in.

Cloud leans back, stirring his drink. “So?” He takes a slow sip. “I like older men.”

At that moment, Sephiroth’s phone buzzes inside Cloud’s pocket. Pulling it out, Cloud peers at it curiously.

“Who’s Hojo?”

“No one.” Sephiroth holds a hand out, demanding it back. “No one important. Don’t answer it.”

Cloud hops off the stool, a mischievous smile curving onto his lips, holding the phone behind his back. “Tell you what. Let’s go somewhere more private first, then I’ll give it back to you.”

“Cloud,” he warns.

But he’s already wandering off, towards a glowing red exit sign, slipping inside a side stairwell, the metal door closing behind him.

Sephiroth sighs, throwing a few dollars as a tip on the bar before following after him.

The stairwell is lit by cold fluorescent lights, painted in gray and white, scuff marks on the walls. It’s meant for fire safety and staff, not the general public, so it’s utilitarian and grim.

One level down, Cloud’s leaning against the wall, looking like an angel of sin in his skintight black turtleneck and dark jeans.

He’s sucking on a lollipop, the red crimson staining his pout and tongue. “Whoever it was stopped calling.” Cloud holds the phone up, offering it.

Sephiroth slowly takes each step down towards him, dizzy, and it feels like a descent to somewhere he can’t come back from.

The smell of artificial cherries wafts into his face as he takes the phone back.

Then the taste is on his lips, warm and soft, cherry tongue snaking in, brushing against the textured top of his own.

“Please,” Cloud whispers into his mouth. “I need this, please.”

Sephiroth can’t stop himself. It tastes too sweet, even if it’s forbidden fruit.

They’re entangled for a few moments, wet smacks and soft moans, with Cloud standing up on his tiptoes and grabbing the back of his neck, pulling him closer.

“You’ll be the death of me,” Sephiroth murmurs as they kiss blindly, hoisting Cloud up against the wall.

It’s hard to tell what’s happening for a few moments, hands and limbs and lips becoming a lustful blur, and before he knows it, Cloud’s already on his knees, pulling down a zipper, tucking Sephiroth’s rock-hard cock into the heavenly warmth of his mouth.

“Fuck,” he hisses.

It doesn’t seem possible, but he gets even harder inside Cloud’s mouth, twitching against the roof of it and leaking across his lips.

They’re pouty and red and glossy with saliva and pre, tongue running along the underside of his cock, hypnotic doe eyes just as wet, the pupils black with desire.

Cloud runs his tongue around the edges at the head, sucking lightly on the tip as his lips pop off it with a loud, lewd smack. The cool air curls over his length briefly, sharp and unpleasant.

Then the sweet, comforting warmth envelops him again, a hot throbbing throat welcoming his tip; cheeks hollowing as soft, muffled moans come out of Cloud, like he’s enjoying a favorite gourmet meal.

Sephiroth hadn’t expected him to be particularly experienced. Or at all. But the way he’s pulsing inside Cloud’s mouth diverges sharply from whatever pre-conceived notions he’d had.

Cloud suckles on him like the lollipop he had been nursing earlier, licking with just the right pressure in the right places, and a shiver of unease runs through Sephiroth as another soft, pornographic moan floats up. Both from the liquid-hot pleasure it sends to his cock, and the anxiety that someone could potentially walk in on them.

This time, his cock’s sufficiently warmed after Cloud’s lips come off it. Strings of saliva connect from the head of his cock to Cloud’s reddened lips, like the glistening, intricate webs of a spider. It’s painfully beautiful to look at.

“Am I doing well?” Pretty blue eyes blink up at him, a thin desperation somewhere within them.

The desire to please him has Sephiroth’s erection jumping again, twitching across Cloud’s finely freckled cheek. Leaving a shiny trail of wetness against his flawless skin.

“Yes.” Sephiroth swallows, closing his eyes.

Hands brush the silky slacks along the sides of his thighs. “Tell me how good I am.”

He takes the narrow, pale chin in his hand, tilting it up. “Good boy. You’re a very good boy.”

A shiver of relief runs visibly through Cloud, as if those were the magic words he had been waiting to hear.

Cloud then continues running his tongue along the length, teasing the trembling solidity of it, drooling along the slit on the tip before occasionally taking him all the way to the root, glancing up as he does.

Good heavens. It’s as if he has no gag reflex at all.

The sight of it is obscene: his angelic, pretty face stuffed full with Sephiroth’s hard, flushed, pulsing cock; rubbing it along his slender nose and slim jaw as he runs his petite, rosy mouth along the sides of it.

“Yes,” he groans out unprompted as Cloud wraps his lips around the head again, sucking as he takes in the length, over and over. “Please, god, yes.” Tongue teasing along the contours of the head, flicking against the slit as his balls begin tightening, twitching from the impending climax.

Slender fingers grip the fabric behind his knees, and Sephiroth groans again as he starts coming, spilling into the sweet heat of Cloud’s welcoming throat. Spurt after spurt released as pleasure throbs through his cock, shooting strings of white lace onto the waiting, bright red, cherry-stained tongue.

Cloud swallows him greedily, as if he’d hate to waste a drop, cleaning the traces left behind on his length thoroughly before tucking him back in.

Rising to his feet, Cloud licks along his own lips with the tip of his candied tongue.

Then he tiptoes again, lips barely brushing against Sephiroth’s own. “Thank you,” he whispers onto them.

Sephiroth can’t sleep.

This was a transgression. One he can’t take back.

There’s something strangely off about Cloud. Pieces of a puzzle that look like they fit together, but they don’t. His head throbs too painfully to think about it much.

Red flags everywhere, if he’d bothered to count them.

As if he’s using those same marketing tactics that Sephiroth wrote about against him. Waiting for them to develop a rapport, build trust, before asking for something.

Dangling it in his face like a limited-time offer. Presenting himself as something completely different: a bait and switch.

No—no, he’s just trying to blame someone else for this, but Sephiroth has no one to blame but himself.

It’s not even something he knows how to address.

Worst of all, he can’t get it out of his mind. The exquisite pleasure of it. How it felt to have Cloud’s hot lips wrapped around him, coaxing out all the pent-up desire that’s been building up for weeks.

For whatever reason, he hasn’t sought out any partners lately, or indulged in any play. Something about it felt too empty.

The cold seeps into his bones, aches forming tiny cracks within him, with a restlessness that knows no relief.

On Monday, neither of them addresses the enormous elephant in the room.

Cloud behaves, strangely enough, as if none of it had happened. He carries on as he did before: this sort of neutrality that maintains a purely professional atmosphere.

Not even a lingering glance. Nothing that acknowledges or hints at what happened.

Perhaps it’s because he realizes that it was a huge mistake too.

Or had Cloud been so drunk that he doesn’t even remember much of that night?

The more they ignore it, though, the more a certain hollowness carves into Sephiroth’s insides, burrowing into him with small tunnels of despair.

Finally, on Friday, Sephiroth decides to bring it up while they’re grading tests.

“Can you close the door for a minute, Cloud?”

“Why?” He looks up at him, startled.

“I want to discuss something with you.”

“Sure, but can we leave the door open?”

Sephiroth always leaves it open during the semester anyway; it’s just the smart thing to do, given that he gets hit on by students every year, and that also discourages them from being too forward or inappropriate.

Cloud’s insistence on leaving the door open, however, makes him feel as if he’d been some kind of perpetrator.

But hadn’t Cloud been the one who pursued him, after however many times he’d tried to discourage it? Gotten down on his knees and dragged them over that line?

“That’s fine. I wanted to ask how you’re feeling about continuing this mentorship.”

“Is… there a problem?” A test squeaks loudly through the scanning machine, and Cloud catches it on the other side, not looking at him.

He’s one of the few professors who still insists on using paper tests. Too many students try to cheat otherwise.

“It’s very important that this remains a professional relationship,” Sephiroth says, the words coming out tense.

Cloud stops before feeding the next test into the machine, biting his lip. “Yes, of course.”

Sephiroth sighs. He should’ve never been drinking with a student in the first place, and needs to take responsibility for that. But he can’t undo what he had allowed to happen.

“So it might be better for us to maintain some distance.”

“Oh.”

On the off-chance that someone in the adjacent offices might overhear, Sephiroth tries to keep it vague.

Perhaps it’s more that he can’t bring himself to say it.

“I’m sorry for not establishing better boundaries. And I’d like to, going forward, if you still want to continue with assisting me.”

Cloud feeds another test in. “Yeah. Sure.” Brows knitted together. His expression is tinted with discomfort. “I’m sorry for bothering you.”

Sephiroth’s heart aches strangely.

“You haven’t bothered me,” Sephiroth says, lips pressing together. “It’s not anything you did. The circumstances don’t work, that’s all. And I think it’s what would be best for everyone.”

“Right.” Cloud’s head dips, pretty blond locks obscuring his eyes. “I’m not… feeling very well. I think I’m gonna go home for the day.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Everything inside him aches. “Please feel better soon.”

He leaves abruptly without looking back, taking his belongings, and Sephiroth’s chest tightens at the sight of him walking off.

It’s the right thing to do, isn’t it? Given what’s already transpired, it’s the best he can do at this point.

Perhaps it’s unkind of him, but Sephiroth can see no good ending to continuing down this road. For either of them.

Like snipping the bud of a poisonous vine, before it all becomes too tangled, choking the life out of everything in its path.

The following week floats by like an overcast day: all the sunlight hidden behind a gray barrier.

Cloud doesn’t show up for lunches anymore, and he speaks less than usual.

It was only fairly recently that he had become much more talkative; but now, whenever Sephiroth asks anything, it’s as if he tries to reply with as few words as possible. Or asks questions of his own only when absolutely necessary.

If it’s the right thing to do, then why does it feel so miserable for them both?

After Thursday’s class, Sephiroth asks him to stay behind.

“Would you like to go somewhere for lunch?”

Cloud stares at him. “Thought you told me to keep my distance.”

“I didn’t mean that you couldn’t come by for lunch.”

“Then what did you mean?”

Sephiroth sighs, folding his arms. “I do enjoy your company, Cloud. I just don’t want to encourage things that… shouldn’t happen.”

Cloud scuffs the floor with his sneakers, face faintly flushed, eyes focused on the ground. “Right. Sure.”

“So would you like to go somewhere for lunch?”

“I’m not feeling very hungry,” he says, a note of sadness slipping into his tone. “See you tomorrow, I guess.”

Before Sephiroth can reply, he’s already out the door, like he couldn’t wait to get away from him.

Sighing, he watches as Cloud’s silhouette, dark against the afternoon sun, disappears down the halls.

Chapter Text

On the following afternoon, Cloud doesn’t show up at their regular meeting time, even though he’s supposed to help review this pile of essay assignments.

Sephiroth can’t blame him for being upset. Hurt feelings seemed inevitable, but letting things get this far has irreversibly amplified them.

Part of him fears that the hurt will turn to scorn; then to bitterness, and Cloud will end up using all those things against him.

A certain hollowness still haunts him, as if Cloud had filled a space that he only now noticed was empty.

At home, he logs onto his Kinkster profile. There are some pictures of his body, although with his hair tied up and his head cropped—he would be too easy to recognize otherwise.

A list of his likes and dislikes. His terms and conditions.

Clicking on the red notification on his DMs, Sephiroth peruses through a few profiles with waning interest.

Impersonal, physical—that’s what he wanted, wasn’t it? Encounters he could enjoy for an evening, and not have to think about again.

Not have to let anyone in again.

With a sigh, he closes the website.

Would it be immoral to jerk off to the memory of Cloud’s lips?

Would it be such a bad thing to allow it?

All he can be certain of is that this awkward limbo of Cloud being upset and perhaps hating him—it isn’t what he wants. It’s the last thing he wants.

The ring of the doorbell startles him out of his reverie. It’s rare, if he’s not expecting anyone.

“Who is it?” Sephiroth says into the door.

“Delivery,” comes the muffled reply.

“Sorry, I’m not expecting—” He opens the door, staring down at tousled blond hair and a set of magnetic blue eyes.

Cloud holds up a plastic bag with a brown paper one inside of it. “Do you like Chinese?”

He breezes past him without being invited inside, and Sephiroth turns to give him an unfairly hard stare, mouth downturned with frustration.

“What are you doing here?”

“Wasn’t hungry yesterday. So I figured we could do dinner tonight instead.”

Cloud then sets the bag on the dining table, digging out the paper plates and plastic utensils and packets of sauce.

“You can’t be here,” Sephiroth warns. He closes the front door anyway.

“Yet I am here,” Cloud says, nonchalant, pulling out plastic containers of what looks like fried rice and steamed broccoli.

“How did you find me?”

“Took a cab. We shared a ride, remember?”

He grabs both of Cloud’s wrists, forcing him to stop setting the table for a moment and focus his attention up at him. “I know you’re upset, but this isn’t some game. You can’t just show up here. In my private home.”

Cloud’s eyes seem to grow black, the pupils expanding as they stare into Sephiroth’s. “I’m not upset. I just wanted to talk.”

His pulse flutters beneath Sephiroth’s fingers.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“I’m not gonna get you in trouble,” Cloud whispers. His voice is strangely hypnotic, and Sephiroth finds himself leaning in closer.

That’s when the scent coming off his breath is undeniable. “You’re drunk again.”

“I can handle it.”

His hands slide off Cloud’s wrists. “Where were you today?”

“Felt like skipping classes.” He takes a beer bottle out of the bag as well. “Let’s just hang out, okay? I’m tired of being sad, aren’t you?”

The words hit harder than they should.

Sephiroth’s voice gets caught in his throat.

Cloud plops down into a seat at the dining table, pushing stems of bright green broccoli onto his paper plate. Stabbing one with a fork, he pops it into his mouth.

“I thought you didn’t like broccoli.” Sephiroth slides down into the seat opposite him, reluctantly scooping some rice onto his own plate.

“Sometimes I do,” he says, shrugging.

It’s just another one of those things that makes Sephiroth feel gaslit. He could’ve sworn Cloud said that he hated broccoli.

Didn’t he? That’s why Sephiroth avoided giving him any recipes with it.

Right now, Cloud’s behaving with more ease than he has all week. The alcohol probably has something to do with that.

“Do you drink a lot, Cloud?”

He takes a sip from the amber-colored bottle, staring at him evenly. “We all need our distractions.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I should’ve never let things go as far as they did.”

“You mean when I sucked your cock?” Cloud asks, a softly lingering emphasis on the last word.

Sephiroth closes his eyes, the weight of how badly he’d fucked up becoming apparent as they stop mincing words.

“When you called me a good boy?”

“That was improper of me. And you have every right to report what happened.” Sephiroth sighs, feeling heavy. “It was an abuse of my position.”

One bad decision, a split-second foolish urge to surrender to temptation, and everything he had worked for in the past decade now hangs in precarious balance, swaying against the wind like a shoddy house of cards.

Worse than that is his own sense of self crumbling—his morals, his principles, his self-control.

“Why would I do that?” Cloud says, shrugging, taking another sip. “It’s not a big deal. Relax.”

It’s strange. How friendly he’s being, after giving him the cold shoulder all week.

“I mean it, okay? I get it. You have stuff on the line, I’m not interested in getting either of us into a shitshow. We can just forget any of that happened, if that’s what you want.” He twirls a hand in the air, like something fluttering and disappearing.

Sephiroth doesn’t know what he really wants.

Or what Cloud wants, for that matter.

Finishing the beer, he sets it on the table, staring into its emptiness. “I can’t be the first student who’s made a move on you, right?”

“No,” Sephiroth admits. Every year he encounters them, but never allowed himself to be in a situation where it wasn’t shut down immediately.

Until now, that is.

“So what happened with them?”

“Nothing. Nothing happened.”

“So I’m special, then?” A pleased look sits on his exquisite face, skin flushed pink from either satisfaction or the alcohol.

“Cloud.” The name crawls out of his mouth as a reprimand, but he has nothing to follow it up with.

Throwing the plates in the trash, Cloud then wanders off to the living room, curling up into the corner of his leather sectional.

“Cloud,” he sighs again, standing in front of him.

It doesn’t help that he’s so small, covered even like this by his shadow, lounging around his house like a spoiled house pet, blinking sleepily.

Wordlessly, he goes to the linen closet and returns with a fuzzy throw blanket, draping it over him. Then Sephiroth tucks a throw pillow underneath Cloud’s soft, warm cheek.

“What am I going to do with you,” he whispers, more to himself than anyone else.

At that moment, his phone and laptop start ringing at the same time, the melody of it setting his nerves on edge.

“Who’s that,” Cloud murmurs sleepily, lifting his head.

Sephiroth slumps down on the couch, staring at his phone and its hideous vibrations for a moment, before hitting the reject call button.

“My father.” A man he doesn’t think of as that anymore. “I hate answering his calls.”

“Why?”

“He only calls to talk about himself. His next great discovery. All he wants is an echo chamber. As if everyone else exists just to be his audience.”

“Sounds like an ass.”

“He is.” The words start spilling out all on their own as Sephiroth finally vents out loud. “Doesn’t matter what I’ve accomplished. He berates me for not going into science. It’s never enough for him.”

“I hate my dad too,” Cloud mumbles into the pillow.

“Why?”

“Same.” He blinks, dark lashes brushing against the silky cover. “Nothing I did was ever enough.” The fabric by his eyes darken slightly, the silk becoming damp.

And without any hesitation or thought, he runs fingers through Cloud’s soft blond hair, tousling it as a gesture of comfort.

“Sorry you have to deal with that too,” Cloud whispers as Sephiroth’s thumb brushes past his cheek.

At the back of his mind, the paranoid thoughts filter through again. Maybe if it weren’t for his last toxic relationship, they wouldn’t, but the experience has left him questioning everyone’s motives.

It’s easier to be persuasive if someone likes you, or perceives you to be similar to themselves in some way.

Mirroring someone else in every way: having the same interests, the same fears, the same opinions. Building a connection on false premises, until the hook catches too deep, threatening to tear meat and bone if one tries to remove it.

“I think I was really sad yesterday.” Cloud blinks against the pillow. “I think I might be sad for a few days.”

His eyes drift shut, and he looks so vulnerable, so crushed, that Sephiroth can’t bring himself to make him leave.

Sephiroth awakens to soft lips pressed to his own, nipping at his mouth, and he snaps to alertness in the dark.

He grips Cloud’s small shoulders, staring at the blink of long lashes in the low light.

“What are you doing?”

Nothing comes out but a trembling breath at first.

“Don’t throw me away.” Then a mouth presses to his lips again, palms flush against his chest, and the taste is intoxicating; not cherries or whiskey, only warm skin and a desperate, hungry desire.

Slender fingers reach down to graze over his cock beneath his sweatpants, electrifying and exploratory like unbottled lightning, soft lips sucking on his own, and Sephiroth’s hips grind up instinctively, before he comes to his senses, forcing Cloud’s wrist back up.

“We can’t do this.”

“Why not?” A wet trail drips down onto his cheek from Cloud’s. “No one has to know. It can be just between us.”

“You do see the problem, don’t you?” Sephiroth sighs. “I have to grade you. I have authority over you. These rules exist for a reason.”

“I don’t care about grades.” Cloud runs a hand shamelessly over his chest and stomach through the thin cotton fabric, nails teasing along the muscles, breath warm against his skin.

That doesn’t make any sense, either. Based on records, Cloud is an exemplary student. The kind who does nothing but study and do extra credit assignments in order to get those kinds of grades.

Or had he done something else for them?

“Please,” he begs into Sephiroth’s neck, breathy and climbing on top of him. “Please, just don’t throw me away.” Kissing his jawline. “I won’t cause any problems, I promise.”

The conflict pulls him in two opposite directions. His limbs ache at the joints, trying to resist either option.

“You already put your cock in my mouth,” Cloud says into his ear. “What difference would it make?”

Another marketing trick. People are more likely to agree to a larger ask, once they’ve already agreed to a smaller one.

“What do you want, exactly?” Sephiroth asks, throat hoarse.

“To live,” Cloud says, before stealing his breath with the next kiss, cradling Sephiroth’s jaw in his palms. “To live a little.”

It has him gasping for air, and the next moments are a desperate blur of clothes shedding, hot skin like a furnace pressed to him, long limbs entangled with one another.

Interestingly, Cloud’s body appears entirely smooth and devoid of hair, as if he’d either planned for this encounter, or regularly maintains himself that way. All that does is give him an extra layer of unreality; as if he’s Sephiroth’s own personal porn fantasy come to life.

Far prettier than any actor or actress in a video, or any of the strangers who have walked through his door.

But he has to stay rooted in reality.

“Condom,” Sephiroth lets out between kisses. Cloud shifts off him long enough for him to reach inside his nightstand drawer for the crinkly square of foil and a bottle of lube.

He doesn’t even have the excuse of being drunk this time. But his mind is heady with something else—Cloud’s greedy kisses and slender fingers and the smooth, pale thighs straddling his sides.

It’s too hard to resist him. It’s taken him everything to resist, all these months.

And he’s right—what difference would it make now?

“Let me put that on for you,” Cloud offers breathlessly. He grabs the foil from him, then kisses a slow trail down his neck and chest. Hips riding him, supple ass grinding back against his bare cock until it lifts an inch. Then another.

“You’re teasing me,” Sephiroth groans.

“I know,” he replies, tilting his head back for a moment. The warm space between Cloud’s cheeks feels like the groove in a ripe summer peach, sandwiching his growing cock in a way that’s agonizingly sweet. “Are you enjoying it?”

“I’d prefer it inside of you.” Sephiroth tilts his hips up, eyelids fluttering as Cloud’s smooth cheeks continue thrusting back against his stiff erection. He must be expecting to bottom, judging by the offer to put on his condom. Perhaps he’s a bratty one.

“Want you inside me too,” Cloud murmurs with a panting, lustful breath over his mouth, before kissing him again.

His cock pulses and throbs, aching for more of the delicious pressure, and a warm palm strokes the underside, holding it between Cloud’s cheeks as his hips roll back. Sephiroth’s hands wrap around Cloud’s ghostly skin, thumbs resting against his lovely hip bones, then trace up along the curves of his ribs. Blond locks dangle by Cloud’s chin with each of his languid movements.

He’s beautiful. Intoxicatingly so.

After all the teasing, Cloud finally unrolls the rubber over his erection, his cock stiffening even more beneath the delicate fingers.

He crawls back up to kiss Sephiroth, hands roaming over the muscle of his chest and arms, moaning sweetly into his mouth.

“Tell me what a good boy I’m being.”

Sephiroth’s cock throbs up against him, slapping soft, warm curves, seeking relief, the urge to rut unbearable as Cloud grinds back passionately against his length. “You’re a very good boy.” He must particularly enjoy being praised. Craving validation. “Getting my cock all ready.”

The hot, sweet hole teases against him, their flesh throbbing together.

Cloud lashes lower, staring down at him, curious and assessing. “Do you like dirty talk?”

“I do,” Sephiroth admits, losing himself in the promise of pleasure. His hips snap up, cock slipping along Cloud’s cheeks with each thrust, tasting the furnace-like heat of his opening more sharply.

“Do you want me to call you Daddy?” He asks the question in a slightly cynical way, as if it’s a common request.

That is, in fact, one of Sephiroth’s more shameful kinks, and just hearing it from Cloud’s lips has his cock standing at full mast.

“Yes,” Sephiroth manages to let out. “I would like that very much.”

“Okay, Daddy,” Cloud replies with lurid and lidded eyes, moving his hips over him.

That makes Sephiroth groan with pleasure, and he can’t take much more of the indirect stimulation. “How do you like to be prepped? Do you want me to do it, or would you rather do it yourself?”

“Want you to do it,” Cloud murmurs against his heartbeat, slender body sprawled against him, thighs spreading wider over his torso. “Please.”

Uncapping the lube, Sephiroth drizzles the silky slickness over his fingers, then grips Cloud’s petite ass with both palms, spreading him. Then he traces a wet fingertip around his rim, slowly.

Cloud lets out a shuddering breath and a low moan. “Cold,” he whispers against the skin of his chest.

Sephiroth rubs both hands together, friction warming up the lube, then uses two fingers to stroke around the tight circle, occasionally moving to the skin of his taint. Running a thumb across his opening, it throbs against him once, as if responding favorably to the touch. “Better now?”

“Better.”

“Good boy.” His thumb dips in, testing out the resistance. Sinking all the way to the last joint as Cloud moans, rolling it to spread the warm wetness inside. “Need to open you up enough to take me.”

Cloud continues making soft little cries as his thumb dips in and out, circling the pulsing rim before each re-entry, taking his time with all the foreplay to get him relaxed enough. Sephiroth is longer and thicker than average, and his previous partners have always needed a little help adjusting to that.

“Feels so good. Need more,” Cloud gasps.

He smears more slickness around Cloud’s taint, applying pressure to the small spanse of skin there, before going back to his hole.

Cloud moans along his jaw, spreading his thighs even wider as Sephiroth plays with his opening, pushing inside with two fingers, then three, curling them repeatedly until Cloud’s whimpering helplessly against his chest.

“Right there?” The pads of his fingers brush against the molten softness of Cloud’s insides. “Is that where you need my cock to hit?”

Cloud’s hard without being touched, moaning from just his fingers, cock nestled between their stomachs.

“Yes, Daddy.”

His cock twitches in response, the aching need to fill something becoming intolerable. It would feel so very lovely to plunge into the wet, slippery warmth of his hole, to watch as Cloud’s pink mouth dropped open with pleasure, to see his fine brows upturned from getting fucked so hard, overwhelmed by the sheer size and girth of his cock.

Moonlight drifts in from the window, illuminating one side of Cloud’s slender body, the blond locks of hair by his jaw, and the stiff pink nipples. Highlighting his youthful and genderless beauty.

“Do you think you’re ready to take it now?” Sephiroth withdraws his fingers, then brushes a thumb over a hard nipple, tapping it lightly a few times as Cloud moans, hips twitching over him. “All of it?”

Lust is woven through his breath as Cloud bends down to kiss him again, soft lips brushing over his own. “Yeah. How do you want me?”

“I would like to see your face,” Sephiroth says, gripping around the narrow waist. “On your back.” He flips Cloud around until he’s underneath him, hands sliding beneath his knees, bringing them all the way down to his chest. “Folded in half. Taking my cock again and again.”

Cloud is all slim milky legs and rosy cheeks. He looks like a dream; a fantasy. As pretty as a girl without being one. “Yes, Daddy,” he replies in an innocent and obedient voice.

He feels filthy for enjoying that so much. The fact that Cloud apparently likes older men makes it feel even more taboo. Perhaps he’s looking for someone to take care of him—although, strangely, he seems largely unconcerned about money.

Cloud’s exquisite face contorts slightly as the tip of his cock goes in, and Sephiroth can’t tell if it’s from pain or pleasure. And he needs to know the line of acceptability.

“Safeword. If you want me to stop.”

Pondering on it, Cloud’s gaze falls to the side for a moment. “Broccoli?” Then his doe eyes land on him again. “You can be rough, if you want. I don’t mind.” He bites his lower lip coquettishly as Sephiroth continues easing in at a glacial pace.

Something at the back of his consciousness gnaws at him. But he can’t stop.

“I’d rather not hurt you.”

He already is hurting Cloud, regardless, isn’t he? As well as himself. There’s no promising path that starts with a professor fucking his student, especially not one who’s already displayed several red flags.

But it’s too easy to ignore, with the slick warmth swallowing up his cock, the nails digging into his back, and the sweet whimpers escaping Cloud’s slender throat.

“I can take it,” Cloud insists, eyes fluttering shut as he sinks in another inch. “Am I doing a good job?” Letting out a gorgeous, filthy moan after another two inches slide in.

It’s almost as if he had been designed to titillate. Knowing exactly which buttons to push and when.

“Taking me so well. You’re doing so well. So well-behaved,” Sephiroth murmurs as he finally bottoms out inside Cloud’s wet heat. “So tight around me. Do you feel full?”

“So full. It’s so deep, Daddy,” he murmurs, letting out a contented sigh, head rolling back.

Sephiroth brings Cloud’s knees all the way down to his chest, sinking in even deeper as Cloud gasps with surprise.

His hips roll, cock sliding in and out of the tight, wet little hole, Cloud’s toes curling as he fucks him, the sounds of Cloud’s slutty moans and the slap of his balls against Cloud’s petite ass filling the air.

The moans synchronize with the strength of his hips, becoming feverishly pitched with each frenzied slap, rewarding him with soft cries of pleasure on each thrust.

“Wish you’d come inside me,” Cloud moans, claw-like fingers digging into his back. “I’ll get tested if you want.”

He’s already speaking as if they’ll be doing this again.

And he’s probably right. Absolutely, undeniably right.

Sephiroth wants to breed him. Empty his seed inside him, over and over, pin Cloud down by the wrists, until he has taken every last bit Sephiroth has to offer.

“You can come on my face this time instead,” Cloud offers, breathing hard. “Mark me. Make me yours. Please.”

His hips stutter, eyes half-lidded with lust as Cloud whimpers with each hard smack against his ass, the seventh or eighth one getting Cloud to spurt warm streaks of come onto his own chest, dizzy and blissful as Sephiroth continues thrusting forward, chasing his own release.

“You’re even more beautiful when you come for me,” Sephiroth pants, gripping each slender ankle, bringing them back behind Cloud’s head as his thrusts become more frequent, watching as the throes of pleasure echo over Cloud’s angelic face, mouth open with ecstasy.

He doesn’t make it in time for a facial; Sephiroth groans with satisfaction as he finishes hard into the rubber sheath, and Cloud’s greedy hole milks every drop out of him, squeezing and pulsing, fingers digging hard into his back.

It’s very likely the best orgasm Sephiroth has ever had; addictively good, and he bends down to kiss Cloud’s sleepy cheek, relaxing against the heat of his body, basking in the misleading warmth of oxytocin and the intoxicating sense of intimacy.

Cloud ends up staying over for the rest of the weekend, wearing some of Sephiroth’s clothes, which look ludicrously big on him, in an endearing way.

They fuck in every room of the house, and Cloud gets so loud at one point that Sephiroth has to gag him with his own shirt, rolled up over his exposed nipples, so his neighbors don’t have to hear yes, Daddy being moaned over and over.

His cock twitches up with interest at the sight, and he can’t help but ask for more. “Can I tie your wrists up?”

Cloud nods, shivering as one of Sephiroth’s silky ties wrap around his slender wrists, pulled tight above his head.

His body is even more lovely in daylight, all flawless ivory skin and a boyish hint of muscle.

Sephiroth smooths his hands up the backs of Cloud’s thighs, pulling them apart wider. Letting the tip of his cock throb against the wet hole for a few moments, the pulse of his heartbeat, before sliding back inside.

His nipples are delicate and pink and erect, just like his cock, and Cloud lets out a muffled moan as a few of his loose silver strands brush across them.

“If you’re a good boy, I’ll take the gag out. Do you promise to be quieter?”

He nods, face flushed with heat and brows upturned, agonized lust over his features as Sephiroth slowly thrusts in and out of his well-stretched hole.

Taking the balled-up part of the shirt out, it’s wet with saliva, and strings of it stretch briefly before snapping back to Cloud’s lips.

Sephiroth could just about come from the sight. He’s beautiful. Undone. Desperate.

“Can I have your cum inside this time? Please?”

They had gone to a clinic with rapid test results yesterday—going in separately, as a precaution—and after being fully cleared, that option is now on the table.

“I should breed you.” His hips slam forward, relishing the slick and hot skin surrounding his cock, the heated flush over Cloud’s cheeks and chest, his wanton moans. “Fill you up with my seed until it takes root. But you’ve been so noisy all weekend. I don’t know if you deserve it.”

“I do deserve it,” he sulks, insolent.

He wraps a hand around Cloud’s slender throat, fingers going all the way around, and Cloud doesn’t even flinch. “Say my name.”

Cloud blinks for a moment, then smiles smugly. Such a spoiled little brat.

“Say my name,” Sephiroth repeats, leaning down over his ear, “or I won’t come inside. It’ll be wasted all over your chest again.”

Cloud furrows his brows. Still taking his cock, body shifting up with each thrust despite the indignance on his face.

It’s all a game. They both know it is.

“Say my name.”

“Sephiroth,” he finally moans out, throat throbbing against his palm.

“Good boy.”

The sex with him is too addictive—all their magnetic attraction, and how Cloud allows him to indulge in every preference, without any hesitation or judgment. Sephiroth hasn’t come this many times in a day, ever.

It’s clouding his ability to reason, but he can’t be bothered to care at the moment.

Sephiroth keeps thrusting, hand still wrapped tight around Cloud’s throat, but he never complains.

After pounding repeatedly into Cloud’s perfect, smooth ass for another ten minutes, kissing him to muffle some of the louder moans, his climax finally reaches a pinnacle, and hot floods of Sephiroth’s come shoot out into the tight, pulsing hole.

“Fuck,” he growls, hips hammering while riding out the intense pleasure.

Cloud bites his lower lip, letting out deliciously aroused whimpers as he ejaculates, adding to the glistening stains on his chest and stomach that they had left earlier, hips arching up, gasping as Sephiroth slams in with rough, measured movements, as if to fuck out any remaining spurts from him.

They dot over his bare stomach, translucent and milky as he cries out, one spurt even reaching far enough to leave flecks against his jaw.

The sight rattles his brain in a way that makes it almost compulsory to ask. It’s too enticing a sight to let slip away. “Do you mind if I take some photos of you?”

Still bound at the wrists over his head, barely muscled chest and stomach exposed, his body is marked with translucent streaks of white cum, some of it trickling out of his pretty hole, blush-pink from being used so thoroughly.

Cloud relaxes into the bed, out of breath. “That’s fine,” he says dizzily. “Just make sure the flash isn’t on.”

It’s strange. He came off as shy at first, awkward even, but Cloud is anything but that right now. Posing like a seasoned porn veteran, with zero inhibitions, although the alcohol might be to blame for that. Drinking up all of Sephiroth’s attention and praise, along with much of his liquor cabinet.

“You’re exquisitely beautiful,” he murmurs reassuringly, looking at Cloud’s half-lidded eyes through the phone screen. Heart skipping a beat as he presses the shutter button.

“Did I satisfy you?” His legs spread wider.

“Very much so. Don’t worry, these are just for me.”

They’ve gone so far past the boundaries of what’s appropriate that they might as well go all the way now. A few pictures for his private enjoyment won’t hurt anyone.

Sephiroth snaps a few more photos, then sets the phone down, nuzzling his nose against a smooth cheek as his fingers reach up to unravel the tie around Cloud’s wrists. “How are you feeling?” he murmurs into his ear.

Cloud exhales hard, rubbing the raw redness at his pulse point. “I’m great.” Then his sweet blue eyes flick up at Sephiroth again, hopeful. “Did I do well?”

“You did very well,” he praises, pressing lips to his slender jaw as Cloud moves closer to him.

Unexpectedly, a tear rolls down his pale, finely-freckled cheek as Sephiroth does so, and the salty brine of it flows freely into his mouth.

That is another taboo fetish, actually—one which he won’t disclose for now. It’s not that Sephiroth gets aroused by anyone’s distress; it’s more about the aesthetics, the physical sight and taste of it.

Or so Sephiroth tells himself.

He doesn’t need to give Cloud any more reasons to think that he’s utterly depraved. Even though it’s probably true.

“Is something wrong?” Sephiroth runs fingers gently through the soft blond strands. It may just be the feeling of a sub drop, but now Sephiroth’s worried that he may have pushed him too far; asked for too much.

It’s rather unsavory of him. Taking dirty photos of his student. For all of Cloud’s apparent sexual experience, he’s still much younger. Beyond that, there’s a persistent sense of something off about Cloud, continuing to loom in the background of his mind.

“It’s nothing,” Cloud whispers, rubbing his throat for a moment. Then he curls even closer, wrapping slender arms around him.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Sephiroth wakes up alone, groggily shutting the alarm.

He has no idea when Cloud left, but it must’ve been fairly early. It’s barely past six.

Looking around, there’s none of his things left behind; only a note on an index card by the nightstand:

Thanks. I had fun this weekend. Sorry I got all weepy, was still a little drunk. Do me a favor and don’t talk about any of this while we’re at school, okay?

Cloud didn’t even sign the note.

Sephiroth scans over the scrawled letters again. The tone feels ambiguous—as if Cloud might have regretted what happened, or not, once he began sobering up.

There definitely seems to be some degree of alcoholism going on, with the way Cloud is constantly nursing a drink. And he frequently complains of headaches and nausea, excusing himself to go to the bathroom—perhaps from being hungover.

It’s probably for the best. Sephiroth might be getting unhealthily attached while making disastrous decisions, and Cloud is letting him down easy. Offering him a graceful exit.

So later in the day, when Cloud shows up at his office, on schedule, he tries his best to act neutral and unbothered.

“Hey,” Cloud starts, twisting the hem of a backpack strap. “Sorry I made things so awkward.”

Sephiroth’s not really sure what to make of that. But given the adjacent offices and Cloud’s request to avoid talking about their weekend, he doesn’t ask for elaboration. “No, you’re fine. How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” He sets his bag down. “So what do you need help with today?”

“Grading the essay portions of this test. The ones I was working on Friday.” Normally Sephiroth would’ve brought it home to finish, but he was feeling too despondent, and then of course he hadn’t done any work over the weekend anyway.

Because he was too busy fucking the darling blond twink standing in front of him.

“Right. Sorry.” Cloud ducks his head. “I wasn’t feeling well that day. Sure, I’ll write up notes for them.” He glances up at Sephiroth through a flurry of dark lashes. “So… everything’s okay, right?”

Sephiroth doesn’t know what he’s asking. Whether it’s a rejection of sorts.

Is he embarrassed by what happened between them?

“Yes… everything is okay.”

Cloud nods and starts perusing the pile of tests to be reviewed alongside him. “What do you think of this? Free gift with purchase?”

“Hmm.” Sephiroth twirls his pen. “Well, it utilizes the idea of reciprocity. But giving the gift beforehand would be more effective.”

“Because the consumer would feel they have a debt to repay?”

“Exactly. And they would likely purchase more than they would’ve originally.” Sephiroth nods towards the paper. “Mark that one with an eighty-five, and provide an explanation.”

“That’s so clever,” Cloud murmurs, perhaps to himself. Looking up, his eyes grow round with curiosity. “Do you think that’s unethical?”

Sephiroth pauses.

Why does it feel like Cloud’s speaking in code?

“It doesn’t have to be. It can be a win-win for everyone.”

He’s already tried to put a stop to it, and that just made everything worse.

“As long as it’s an even exchange? As long as the consumer is happy with the product?”

Cloud stares at him. The contrasting image flashes in his mind: a doe-eyed slut with cum flecked across his chest and lips, juxtaposing with the guileless lamb currently in front of him.

Is he a wolf in sheep’s clothing? Or is he a lamb wearing a wolf hide? Either seems possible.

Sephiroth shouldn’t keep those pictures on his phone. Maybe download them to his computer, just in case.

“Yes. It might be a short-sighted strategy if the product itself is poor, or misrepresented.”

Nodding, Cloud jots down notes onto the exam for the next minute. “Because you lose trust, right?”

What’s he trying to say that he’s not saying?

“That’s correct. And trust is very difficult to earn back, once broken.” After a pause, Sephiroth’s eyes flick over to him, holding eye contact. “I’m trusting you, Cloud. Do you trust me as well?”

His brows knit together briefly, gaze falling back to the paper. “I… think so.”

There’s a bit of tension in the air after that, but it fades into a familiar routine, and Sephiroth doesn’t press any further.

Sephiroth walks into his empty apartment, sinking into the couch and rubs his face.

He’s being very unwise.

His last relationship—if one could really call it that—had hooked him in quickly with sex as well. Bubbly and charming, she possessed a larger-than-life persona, seeming to value all the same things as him, and Sephiroth had gotten drunk off the flattery and seduction.

Only later would he realize that none of it was real. The person she presented herself as in the beginning never actually existed.

The bait-and-switch. A deceptive form of marketing.

Beneath that facade was a manipulative, vapid woman who only wanted to use him as a trophy or a ladder; someone whom she could show off and use for connections. In hindsight, an early red flag was how she’d only seem wonderful to anyone who could provide utility; those without status to lend or praise to give were granted either her contempt or complete disinterest.

From what he’d last heard from his publisher, she managed to release a terrible romance series where the leads were either shallow and fame-hungry or cruel and bitter.

Because, he supposes, every villain is the hero of their own story.

Ever since then, Sephiroth hadn’t tried to get into another relationship. Only going for casual encounters, which he intentionally keeps impersonal and transactional.

It was all the little things that dosed him with toxins each day: subtle comments that undermined his confidence; treating him alternately hot and cold, which threw him into confusion, driving Sephiroth to apologize when he hadn’t actually done anything wrong.

She had a habit of twisting everyone’s words or actions to paint herself as a victim. Always deflecting blame, even within false apologies, and never accepted accountability for any of her behavior.

Because, of course—it was Sephiroth’s fault that she cheated, and Sephiroth’s fault that her tone-deaf book promotion received backlash. Sephiroth’s fault that her debut novel was critically panned.

And she was so skilled at manipulation that he even believed it at one point. That perhaps he hadn’t been supportive enough, or given her enough attention, or defended her from whoever managed to draw her ire.

He had always responded equally to either men or women, but that experience had soured him to the point that Sephiroth began to exclusively seek male partners. And of course, then he got into hardcore pornography and domming, and slowly his tastes became more and more off-color.

Cloud doesn’t quite give off the same energy as her, but all the inconsistencies and easy seduction give him pause.

The way he seems to have inserted himself deliberately into Sephiroth’s life—

And the way Sephiroth can’t keep him off his mind. Hooked on him. Left desperate to know where he stands with him. Pushed into decisions he’d normally refuse.

Sigh.

He logs onto the Kinkster website out of pure habit, then immediately closes the browser window.

That reminds him. Sephiroth takes out his phone and data cable, and transfers the pictures he’d taken of Cloud. Then he deletes the ones on his phone.

After a moment of hesitation, he double-clicks one of the file names, letting the photo fill up the screen.

His cock immediately responds, stiffening inside his pants at the sight of Cloud tied up, shirt pulled up to expose his small pink nipples, cum and sweat glistening over his chest, lips parted with pleasure.

Sephiroth gets up to close the curtains, then slips back down in front of his computer.

After unzipping his pants, his lustful cock snaps out, exposed to the cool air, and Sephiroth closes his eyes while he wraps a warm palm around the shaft. Hardening, throbbing inside his own fist as he recalls their weekend.

Daddy.

He strokes up and down, grunting, thumb brushing over the sensitive slit at the head, remembering how beautiful and submissive Cloud looked, begging for his cock and cum.

Please, Daddy.

His semen dripping out of Cloud’s hole like ice cream melting on a hot day. Then down those long, slender thighs, which spread as easily for the camera as they did for his cock.

Please, Daddy, please—

With a long, vicious groan, he strokes himself rapidly again and again, gaze drifting over the tempting pink nipples, the flower-petal mouth framed by golden blond hair, the perfectly curved ass that’s just begging to be fucked—

The orgasm stabs him like a knife through the gut, hot and overwhelming and breathless, sticky warmth leaking over the back of his hand as Sephiroth’s hips violently jerk up in his seat.

Once the feeling subsides, something resembling shame washes over him. Sephiroth exhales, tucking himself back in, and walks over to the kitchen sink to wash his hands.

Then he returns to the screen, closing the photos with a sigh.

No one else will ever live up to this memory. They wouldn’t be half as effective as these pictures, which sit now on Sephiroth’s harddrive like a beating heart beneath the floorboards.

This is the person Sephiroth told himself that he would never become. There were always rumors about other professors, the ones who would spend their time around twenty-year-olds, take on overly attractive assistants, and abuse their positions of power.

It’s as if Cloud is somehow transforming him. Molding him into someone else.

Emptying what used to be himself, then crawling into all the hollow spaces left behind.

On Wednesday, while exiting the cafeteria shop, Sephiroth spots Cloud eating a sandwich by himself in the outdoor seating area.

A lonely pang throbs in his chest.

He’s so used to Cloud dropping by regularly during office hours or lunch just to chat, and it probably bears no significance that Cloud hadn’t today, but the lack of clear definition in their relationship has all this anxious energy coursing through his veins.

While debating whether to say hello or not, a man with an ostentatious pompadour-mullet slides down next to Cloud, leaning in close, chatting him up. Offering something obscured from Sephiroth’s view by the backpack on the table.

A smile? Those seem fairly rare from him, and it’s unreasonably irritating to see Cloud direct one towards someone else.

Sephiroth only notices how tightly his fist is closed once he releases it.

Cloud is his. Only his. No one else’s.

The possessiveness curls around him like tendrils of suffocating smoke, until Sephiroth realizes that he’s standing there staring, and leaves before anyone can catch him like that.

Given their respective positions, Cloud is the one who should feel like a dirty little secret.

But instead Sephiroth is the one who does.

After class, Cloud waits for everyone else to shuffle out, then walks straight up to his desk, empty-handed.

“I don’t remember you giving this assignment.” His brows are furrowed.

“I assigned it last week. Everyone else handed in theirs.”

Flustered, Cloud rubs the spine of his notebook with anxious fingers. “I’m sorry. It must’ve slipped my mind. Can I hand it in on Monday?”

Sephiroth lets out a low sigh, setting his pen down. “You know I can’t give you special treatment. It’s a bad look.”

“I really, really had no idea about it. Please? Just a tiny extension.”

Somehow, the image of him yesterday, with someone else leaning in close, his pretty smile, refuses to leave his mind.

“Are you in a relationship with anyone, Cloud?”

His blue eyes look startled, round and wide. “What?”

“Are you seeing anyone? I had the impression you weren’t.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Cloud frowns.

“Are you embarrassed by me?”

“Why would I—sorry, what does this have to do with an extension?”

It doesn’t make any sense. Hadn’t Cloud told him that he didn’t care about grades? But then why would he even bother applying as a teacher assistant?

It’s as if he lies so casually that Cloud can’t keep track of what he said. Lying about things that don’t even matter, like broccoli.

Another red flag.

Sephiroth runs a hand through his scalp. He’s being so unprofessional, regardless—letting his emotions take over. “Nothing. Let me think about the extension. But you can’t be asking me for favors. It muddies things.”

“Okay,” Cloud says, a bit coldly. “It’s fine if you can’t.”

Perhaps Sephiroth is projecting too much of his own guilt onto the situation.

“It’s not that I don’t believe you, this is just a hard situation to navigate.”

“Right.” He hitches on his backpack, the frown still there, shifting his weight. “Whatever. I have to go now.”

Sephiroth grabs a slender wrist as he turns to walk away. “Can you please stay a minute? I was hoping to discuss something else with you.”

Cloud flinches, then shakes his grip off. “Sorry, I have to go now.”

Then he slips quickly out the door, leaving the air filled with an unresolved, prickly tension.

Was that unfair of him? Perhaps it would be unreasonable to deny the request. Sephiroth would willingly grant an extension for any other student with an illness or emergency, or something along those lines.

The alternating hot and cold attitude is reminding him of his ex, in a bad way, and Sephiroth’s gut grows queasy with the memory.

Remembering all the mind games that he’d rather never play again.

Whenever things feel out of control, there’s usually something Sephiroth can rely on to calm himself down.

Logging onto his Kinkster profile, Sephiroth sorts through the message requests, dismissing the ones from women who inexplicably try their luck, even though his preferences are clearly stated.

Finally, he settles on someone who goes by KnottyBoy. Well-built, twenty-seven, and decent-looking enough; although his body is more of an asset than his face, and incidentally, he happens to have blond hair and blue eyes. Though cropped rather short, and with cooler tones in the latter.

SilverDaddy:
I’m available tonight, if you’re interested

KnottyBoy:
I’m real horny
Big dick daddy
How do you want to play?

SilverDaddy:
Whatever you want from my list of likes

KnottyBoy:
Do I get to see your face first?

SilverDaddy:
[photo.jpg]

KnottyBoy:
Fuckkkk
You’re fuckin hot
Holy

SilverDaddy:
Thank you. Are you close to downtown?

KnottyBoy:
I’m about twenty minutes away

SilverDaddy:
Good. I’ll send directions.
Now, what would you like?

KnottyBoy:
Your big cock
I’m okay with ropes and whips
Light impact play
but not too much pain

SilverDaddy:
That is my preference as well
We can safeword it

KnottyBoy:
Okay
I checked out your reviews btw
Is it true that you never meet up more than once?

SilverDaddy:
That’s true, yes

KnottyBoy:
We’ll have to make the most of tonight then ;)
Wanna cum at least twice

SilverDaddy:
If you’re a good boy, I might let you

KnottyBoy:
Love a bossy top
See you later

Sephiroth sends over his address and directions. This KnottyBoy seems to have good reviews as well; praised for his “bubble butt” and for being “easy-going.”

Should be just the stress relief he needs.

Heading to his bedroom, Sephiroth goes into his closet and opens up the large red trunk at the bottom, pulling out a leather whip crop, a tasseled flogger, and a thick spool of hemp rope.

Leaving them on the bed, he then pulls out the nightstand drawer, grabbing a few condoms and lube.

He pauses for a moment. The memory of Cloud in his bed, lips glossy with cum, begging for more, abruptly invades his mind, along with the scent of alcohol-sweetened breath and clean skin.

There’s a tightness in his throat, and the taste of longing in his mouth.

Cloud’s the one who sent them down this forbidden path, Cloud’s the one who didn’t want to get off it, and now he won’t even acknowledge what the hell they even are half the time.

It’s utterly confusing, the way he behaves. Acting as if he had wanted it just as much, but Cloud’s moods or wants seem to change at the drop of a hat.

Sephiroth should’ve never entertained anything with him in the first place.

The doorbell rings a bit after dinner, and the evening doesn’t feel as exciting as it should be—with his body full of regret, instead of anticipation.

He gets up to open the door, legs heavy as they walk towards it.

“Wow.” KnottyBoy looks him up and down, cracking a charmingly imperfect smile with a tiny gap between his teeth. “You look even better in person.” Wearing a white button-up shirt and athletic track pants, he shrugs off a sports jacket while walking into the apartment.

All he can see is the coarseness and the wrong shapes, the unfamiliarity, and how he’s not Cloud.

“So that’s why you’re SilverDaddy?” Eyeing first the sweep of Sephiroth’s long hair, then his half-buttoned shirt and slacks. “I dig it.”

“Thank you. It’s a genetic melanin thing, I’m told. I’m not actually that old.”

“Thirty-two, right?” KnottyBoy licks his lips, popping open the buttons on his shirt to reveal a toned and tanned chest. “I like older men. They usually know what they’re doing.”

Sephiroth should feel that rush of euphoria, the bliss that lets him forget the emptiness for a while, but he doesn’t.

“I’m very sorry,” he sighs. “I must apologize, but I don’t think this will work for tonight.”

His expression flattens. “Are you… disappointed?”

“I’m just not in the right headspace. It has nothing to do with you.” Sephiroth’s lips tighten grimly. This feels so callous. He should’ve made up his mind earlier. “Can I at least offer you a drink?”

KnottyBoy makes a sucking noise with his teeth. “That’s alright, man. Would rather not waste any more time, but thanks.”

Just then, the doorbell rings again.

Sephiroth’s eyes shift towards the door, frowning.

Peeping through the spy hole, his heart stops thudding in his chest for a moment.

Shit.

“Who’s that?” KnottyBoy asks, lips pursed, slowly buttoning his shirt back up.

The bell rings again. “I see your eye in the glass, okay, open up,” Cloud says through the door.

Exhaling, he opens the door to stare down into Cloud’s darling blue eyes, and he feels it like frisson; the indescribable shiver of hearing a bow running across a cello’s melancholy strings.

They widen as they look past him, at the other blond in his apartment, buttoning up his shirt.

“Oh,” Cloud says, the color draining from his face, leaving behind a ghostly cast. “Sorry, didn’t realize I was interrupting something.”

“Ah, I see,” KnottyBoy says with a scoff, pulling an arm through a black sleeve. “You double-booked.”

“No, that isn’t—”

He walks up to the door, sizing up Cloud, scanning over him.

“Have fun, pretty boy. Think I might’ve dodged a bullet.” Then he pushes past Cloud roughly, disappearing down the hall.

“Who was that,” Cloud asks in a small voice, rubbing his shoulder.

“It doesn’t matter. What the hell are you doing here?” His heart is beating a mile a minute, and it came out harsher than Sephiroth intended.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to discuss something with me earlier?”

“I did. And you walked away from me.”

“Sorry. I had a test to study for.” Cloud peers past him, into the apartment. “Can I come in?”

Sighing, he takes a step back, holding the door open.

“Did you have dinner already?” Cloud steps out of his shoes, leaving them near the entrance.

Sephiroth closes the door, turning the lock with a loud click. “I did. If this is about the extension, I haven’t decided yet about that.”

“That’s not why I’m here.” Cloud sinks down on the couch, propping his socked feet on the ottoman serving as a coffee table, crossing one leg over the other. His black turtleneck clings so tightly to him that Sephiroth can see the shape of his chest and ribs.

Then he takes a can of beer out of his bag, popping the top open with a sharp fizzy sound.

Cloud pats the seat next to him, staring at Sephiroth expectantly.

“I don’t understand you,” Sephiroth says, staring back. “You want my attention, and then you don’t. You act as if my rejection hurts you, but then you pretend that there’s nothing between us. You avoid me, then you show up on my doorstep.”

There’s a plaintive look on his face that feels genuine.

Then again, some people are good at pretending. So skilled that Sephiroth can’t even tell that they’re wearing a mask at first.

Cloud sighs. “My mood changes a lot. I’m sorry.” He takes a slow sip from the can. “Did I ruin your evening plans?”

“No,” Sephiroth mutters. “I mean, I wasn’t—nothing happened.” Why is he even explaining himself? He doesn’t owe Cloud an explanation.

“Do you… purchase services a lot?”

Sephiroth rubs his face. “What? No. That wasn’t a prostitute, Christ.”

Cloud’s eyes lower as he shrugs. “Would there be anything wrong with that? Some people are just lonely, I think. They don’t know how to connect with anyone.”

It’s mildly insulting that Cloud is calling him out like this. And then even more insulting that he thinks Sephiroth would have to pay to find someone to have sex with.

“Do you screw all of your teachers, too?” he snaps.

Cloud’s dark lashes blink at him, a flirty smile forming on his sweet lips. “No. Just you.” Eyes and voice like a siren, calling out over dark waters, pulling him underneath the waves.

Sephiroth swallows thickly. Then he lowers himself down on the couch next to Cloud.

From somewhere inside his backpack, Cloud digs out another can, still frosty and cold to the touch, and holds it out as a peace offering.

Popping the tab open, Sephiroth clears his throat before taking a sip. “Why do you drink so often?”

“I’m not always drunk. I’m not even that drunk right now.” Cloud swirls the can, and it still sounds fairly full. Eyes more distant, he says, “Had a panic attack earlier. Can’t cope with it sometimes, so I get shit-faced.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

He shrugs with both his lips and his shoulders. “You get used to it. So, anyway, I’m here. What did you want to talk to me about?”

Sephiroth takes a long gulp. This is awkward. “I need clarification. On what your expectations are.”

Cloud’s eyes roll up and to the right, then to the left, before focusing on him. “Expectations?”

Maybe he’d foolishly thought that there was anything more between them than a few casual encounters.

“Do you intend for this to continue? Or do you want it to stop?”

“Do you want it to stop?”

Cloud sets his drink down, eyelids heavy, and crawls onto his lap, playing with the buttons of his shirt.

Sephiroth sighs, pushing him off as delicately as he can. Then he takes Cloud’s jaw between two fingers, the blond locks brushing against the back of his hand.

“I’m not asking you to fuck me. I’m asking you what this is.”

Something about his seduction feels too performative, and Sephiroth needs to know what’s underneath it. What his motivations are.

Cloud shrugs again. “It can be whatever you want it to be.”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Sephiroth says, irritated. “I don’t like things being undefined. Do you want a relationship? Do you want casual sex? A good grade? What do you want from me?”

“I… don’t want anything from you.”

The words sting.

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want anything.” His hand drops from Cloud’s delicate chin.

“I meant that I didn’t have sex with you for something in exchange.” Cloud curls up smaller, bringing his knees up. “Why does it need a label? Can’t I just like spending time with you?”

Everything would be simpler without emotions. They drift black in his blood, threaded with uncertainty and longing.

A moment of silence passes between them, stretching with infinite tension.

“I don’t think I can give you an extension.” His lips flatten into a thin line. Perhaps it’s his emotions taking over, perhaps it’s logic. “It wouldn’t be fair to the other students.”

“That’s fine.” Cloud shrugs. “It’s my fault for not doing the assignment.”

A vein by his temple twitches. That seems like the wrong thing to say, if Cloud had truly forgotten, as he claimed.

“I understand that it puts you in an awkward position.” Cloud gazes down, tucking his chin over his knees, wrapping his arms around them. Purposely vulnerable-looking. Small.

Maybe Sephiroth is simply trying to hold onto some shred of integrity, or hopes that it’s integrity, but he can at least attempt to be objective about Cloud’s academic performance.

But that’s not even what’s bothering him the most.

“Do you like me?” Sephiroth asks bluntly.

It feels like a stupid, childish question, but it’s the one that’s been plaguing his mind. He’s thirty-two, and behaving nearly two decades younger.

“I… like you.” Cloud’s eyes peek up from his knees, softly dark and luminous, like a midnight lagoon.

“Are you seeing anyone else?”

“No.”

Sephiroth picks up his beer and takes a sip. It’s warmer already. “We both stand to lose things if this comes out. Me more than you, most likely.”

“I know. That’s why I said that we shouldn’t talk about this kind of thing at school.” Cloud’s eyes scan over him, up and down. “So just act normal when we’re there.”

Sephiroth laughs a bit bitterly. “I’ve never known how to act normal.”

“You know what I mean. We can have one relationship on campus, another one outside of it.”

This is progress. This is some clarity. “Alright.”

Cloud’s fingertips drift playfully across his lap, over his slacks. “What were you going to do with that guy?”

His lips press together. “I’m not seeing anyone, either. I hadn’t actually arranged anything like that for a while, but they’re just one-night things to blow off steam.”

Sephiroth flinches as the fingertips graze directly over his clothed cock. It responds immediately, twitching beneath the touch.

“You could do it to me instead.” Cloud’s pupils are so dark and dilated that his eyes no longer appear purely blue, taking on a blacker tint.

Cloud wears sensuality like armor, and Sephiroth wants to disarm him. Strip him bare to see true vulnerability.

His fingers close around Cloud’s slender wrist, pulse throbbing beneath his warm touch, pulling it away from his cock. “I want to see the real you. Not this sex kitten act.”

Something dark passes over Cloud’s expression, as if the sun had been momentarily blocked out, eyes unfocused.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No.” Blinking, shaking his head, he sucks in a breath. Pulling his arm away. “Just don’t call me that, please.”

“Kitten?”

“Yes. Ugh. Don’t say it again.” Cloud rubs his temples and throat, inhaling deeply, like he’s trying to get rid of a headache.

“Sorry. Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

This feels more authentic. When the fine cracks in Cloud’s armor show themselves. Whether with seduction or a coldness, they seem to serve as a mask or shield, and Sephiroth needs to peel the layers back; see what’s behind them.

He needs something real to hold onto—some assurance that the illusion won’t crumble, and reveal that there’s nothing underneath.

“Will you let me see the real you?” Sephiroth asks, flicking a thumb over his lower lip.

Cloud’s eyes roll up towards him.

“What would you like me to do?”

Chapter Text

“Just do as I say.” Sephiroth tilts Cloud’s chin up. “But use your safeword if anything is too much for you.”

It’s a heady rush, how Cloud simply stares, awaiting for further instructions from him. Submissive and beautiful, with an unspoken intimacy in that trust.

“Say ‘Yes, sir.’”

“Yes, sir,” he repeats. Pupils blooming in the low light.

“Follow me to the bedroom.”

Cloud trails after him almost silently, still wearing socks. The rope and whips are sitting on the bed where he had left them, dark and stark against the white comforter.

His heart thuds in his chest. This is the moment when he expects Cloud to possibly turn around and never look back. Maybe express disgust; or worse—laugh.

Instead, his doe eyes slide towards Sephiroth expectantly, the gesture hypnotic. “What do you want me to do?”

It’s still said flirtily.

“Undress for me,” he says in a low voice.

Cloud obediently pulls his turtleneck over his head, then starts unzipping his jeans, pulling them down to reveal slender thighs.

“Leave the socks on,” Sephiroth orders, his cock already throbbing at the sight of Cloud’s pale exposed flesh, full of angular qualities yet remaining smooth, like a carefully carved youth from a Renaissance sculptor. He takes a seat on the bed, facing the closet with double mirror sliding doors to observe him undressing.

Both the front and back of Cloud are visible simultaneously; the curves of his tight ass as he bends down to yank the jeans off his ankles, and the faint muscles of his back and shoulders rippling slightly with each movement.

Then he’s completely bare, aside from the white socks, gorgeous, looking towards him with a face too innocent for any of this.

An angel. A devil from the woods. Temptation personified.

Sephiroth pats his thighs lightly. “Come sit in my lap.”

In their reflection, Cloud’s pale ivory skin contrasts with the black silk of Sephiroth’s button-up shirt and slacks, the darkness of them emphasizing the contours of his lithe body.

“Good boy,” he whispers over Cloud’s shoulder, and the skin beneath shivers. “Watch in the mirror.”

He runs his large hands over the tops of the slender thighs, from hip to knees, massaging them. They watch their reflection together as Cloud gets aroused from the innocuous touch, cock lifting inch by inch, twitching as his fingertips brush over Cloud’s stomach and hipbones.

“Fuck,” Cloud groans. Quivering against his thighs as palms smooth over his chest, thumbs brushing down over each sweet pink nipple.

Sephiroth touches everywhere except where he wants it, enjoying the way Cloud squirms in his lap.

“I’m going to tie your arms behind your back now.”

Cloud nods, face flushed with pleasure.

Grabbing a length of rope coiled around the spool, Sephiroth patiently loops it; underneath Cloud’s arms first, then around his chest, his elbows, and finally his wrists, in a manner that’s aesthetically pleasing.

It gives the appearance of a harness, and Sephiroth admires his own handiwork for a moment.

The sight alone is almost enough to make him come. Cloud looks beautiful, helplessly aroused, immobile.

“Not too tight? Is it uncomfortable?”

“It’s fine. Are you gonna get me off or what?”

Sephiroth chuckles, running a palm slowly down his torso, lower and lower, until Cloud’s throbbing dick grazes the back of his hand. Then he draws it back up his belly, eliciting another groan.

“I can edge you for quite a while,” he murmurs into Cloud’s ear. “You don’t come until I say you can, understood?”

“Yes.”

“Say, ‘Yes, Daddy.’”

“Yes, Daddy,” Cloud whispers.

“Good boy.”

His hard-on has become obvious even beneath layers of clothing, and Cloud shifts slightly over it, back and forth, attempting to give him a taste of his own medicine.

Such a brat.

“Stay still, or I’ll punish you by dragging it out longer,” Sephiroth warns with mock menace.

Cloud’s lower lip juts out in a pout, but he ceases grinding over him.

“Good boy,” he praises again. Behind him is the bottle of lube, and he squeezes out a few dollops over one palm. Then Sephiroth forms a loose fist, fitting it over the head of Cloud’s erect dick, eliciting a drawn-out moan.

“I want the real you,” he murmurs against Cloud’s neck. “I don’t want a performance. I don’t want you to think about my pleasure. Only your own.”

His fist slides down, over the hot throbbing length of flesh, then back up. Cloud’s breath speeds up incrementally, sucking in when the heel of Sephiroth’s large palm reaches the tip again.

Precum gathers at the head, clear beads disappearing as Sephiroth’s thumb drags them down into the lube, and Cloud’s socked toes start curling against the top of Sephiroth’s feet.

“Please,” he begs whenever Sephiroth stills any movement, clearly frustrated, narrow hips twitching to regain friction.

Sephiroth tsks into his ear. “Stay still first, and let Daddy take care of it.” Cloud shivers in his lap, but stops squirming. Then Sephiroth forms a circle with his thumb and index finger, then slips it down over the stiff flesh, dragging it down from tip to base. Then slowly, slowly back up.

It’s just enough to keep Cloud at the edge of satisfaction. The sounds he makes are more subtle, quieter in their desperate beauty, and Sephiroth can appreciate every barely perceptible whimper.

With his other hand, Sephiroth reaches beneath the coils of rope to thumb at the nipple caught between them, and Cloud lets out a delicious moan. He’s visibly straining to keep himself still, with the sleek, youthful muscles of his abdomen rippling beautifully as Sephiroth’s thumb drags across the surface of each nipple.

“There’s my good boy. Do you like the rough texture of this rope?” He lets the braided length brush over each sensitive nipple, stiff nubs reappearing either above or below the hemp.

“Yeah,” he moans, nearly crying out as Sephiroth continues tormenting him, withdrawing his hands each time the shortening intervals between breaths indicate that Cloud is near an orgasm.

After denying him for the fifth time, Sephiroth takes the flogger in hand and draws the soft leather tassels over the tops of Cloud’s shivering thighs and his torso.

“This won’t really hurt much. Just a different sensation,” he warns. “Is that okay?”

“You can hurt me,” Cloud says, eyes dark and sweetly dangerous, rolling his warm hair back against the crook of Sephiroth’s neck. “If you want to.”

“Why would you say that?” Actual pain isn’t something he wishes to explore, at least not anything beyond light whipping or slapping. Nothing that would hurt more than a pinch. Even then, any impact play he’s done is more about teasing, more about the unfamiliar sensations and heightened nerves, than any punishing aspect.

“Because I want to be what you want.”

That feels like something more bare than just a body. Vulnerable. Something that rings true.

“I want you,” he says next to Cloud’s ear, “more than I’ve ever wanted anyone else.”

Looking in the mirror to watch Cloud’s reaction, he slaps the flogger lightly against his thighs. His body flinches at first, but then relaxes back into position.

“I want you so much that I’ve broken my own principles to have you.” His lips brush against Cloud’s neck. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

The flush deepens on Cloud’s darling face, a different sort of pleasure visible on it now.

“Does that mean that I’m special?”

Sephiroth parts two strands of rope to expose Cloud’s nipples again, then slaps the flogger against them.

“You’re exceptional.”

Cloud lets out an airy little cry, and his throbbing cock lifts and falls, as if being inflated for a moment. The sight of how aroused Cloud has become, teetering on the edge of satisfaction, continually feeds his own pleasure.

Inside his trousers, Sephiroth’s own cock is rock-hard and iron-hot, barely held in by the fabric, but he practices restraint. He avoids grinding up against Cloud’s bare ass just yet, even though it’s so tempting.

“Please, can I come now,” Cloud begs, and his voice is tinted with genuine tears of frustration. “It’s been so long already. I need it.”

“Ask Daddy for it.”

Cloud sucks in a breath. “Please, Daddy. Please let me come.”

“You’ve been such a good boy,” Sephiroth says in a silky tone, setting the flogger back on the bed. Fitting his fist over Cloud’s length again, he uses the same pressure and speed that he likes to use on himself. “I think you finally deserve it now.”

With just a few pumps, Cloud’s back arches against him as he comes with a helpless cry, painting his sleek stomach with translucent white streaks, all the muscles in his beautiful torso and thighs all flexing as it pulses throughout him.

His cock continues to pulse inside Sephiroth’s hand, spurting more weakly with each aftershock of pleasure as Sephiroth strokes the rest of it out of him. “Good boy, that’s it, just like that, let it all out,” he whispers against the nape of his neck.

Cloud whimpers as he continues stroking after he’s all spent, overstimulated and twitching in his lap. Finally, Sephiroth grants him some mercy and strokes down the sides of his arms instead.

“That was really good.” Cloud’s dazed and content as Sephiroth drops him down on his back, maneuvering his thighs back against his chest.

“Can I fuck you while you’re still tied up?”

“Yeah.” Cloud seems slightly out of it, like he’d come so hard that he reached enlightenment, words slurred. “You can fuck me whereever you want.”

That wasn’t exactly his question, but it still works for an answer, so Sephiroth unzips, releasing his cock from its dreaded confines. It stands up tall and erect and blood-filled, eager for the forbidden heat of Cloud’s hole—for all intents and purposes, he was edging the both of them.

After working some lube onto his cock and into Cloud’s entrance, he finally presses inside with a satisfied groan, and the tight rim eagerly swallows up Sephiroth’s cock, slick and pulsing.

“Fuck,” he growls. The heat envelops him perfectly, and Cloud bites his lips as Sephiroth sinks his cock in, slow and deep.

Then he grips Cloud’s upper arms to steady himself, rolling his hips to plunge into the velvet warmth, rhythmic slapping sounds filling the air. Cloud utters a soft, nearly startled moan as he’s penetrated, and Sephiroth devours it with a kiss.

“Need it harder, Daddy,” he whispers, lashes brushing against Sephiroth’s cheek with each rough thrust.

Addressing him that way has his heavy balls twitching, aching to unload into Cloud’s tight ass.

“Is that so?” He runs the tip of his nose against Cloud’s soft skin, kissing the corner of his mouth. “So greedy that you need to come again already?”

“Wanna come while you’re inside me.”

That imagery makes Sephiroth groan with pleasure—the thought of his tight little hole, pulsing and squeezing around Sephiroth’s cock while Cloud’s heart races, milking his seed greedily.

“I’m going to make you come so hard that your hole will never know any other shape again but mine,” he murmurs into Cloud’s ear.

Then he flips Cloud around onto his stomach, lifting his hips, burying his cock inside him over and over feverishly, giving into the animal instinct to rut and to claim, running a palm over the intricate knots binding his slender arms together.

“Are you close?” Sephiroth asks between ragged breaths, gripping a handful of ass cheek, then he slides a hand possessively down Cloud’s front, resting over where a womb would be, were he a woman. “Relax your body now.”

“Yeah,” Cloud says, moaning into his pillows, overwhelmed.

Very faintly, Sephiroth can feel the intrusion of his own cock; a slight bulge underneath the press of his palm when he thrusts forward, probably due to how thin Cloud is. He could practically masturbate inside of him, and Sephiroth groans at the idea, palm stroking over Cloud’s sleek stomach, deliberately ignoring the neglected, weeping cock bobbing beneath it.

His hips begin speeding up, smacking hard into the back of Cloud’s slender thighs, making him moan louder. “Good boy. That’s right. Let Daddy breed you deep now.”

It’s arousing in itself, the difference in their size, and Sephiroth strokes Cloud’s stomach and hips with each thrust, caging him in, and Cloud lets out increasingly desperate cries until Sephiroth finally floods his insides with molten heat, hot spurts shooting out with each hard smack of his hips, grunting as their movement stutters to a slow halt.

He kisses a shoulder as Cloud comes right after him, breaths frantic and helpless, crying out sweetly as Sephiroth sinks all the way in, and Sephiroth stills completely to appreciate the hole fluttering and throbbing around him.

After leaving it in for a moment, Sephiroth withdraws his cock, and a string of pearly white comes out with it from Cloud’s gaping hole. Unable to resist, he immediately dips his cock back in, then back out. It twitches, contracting into a tight pink pucker, but returns to gaping.

His previous pornography addiction makes it hard to let the moment go, as if it’s not enough to simply burn it into his memory. “Do you mind if I take some pictures? A video?” Sephiroth asks, heart still racing.

Cloud mumbles something unintelligible against his pillow, nodding into it.

With unsteady hands, Sephiroth presses the red record button on the phone with a thumb. It’s moments like this when he truly feels like some kind of depraved soul, needing this kind of memento to revisit later.

His cock dips into Cloud’s gaping hole again, making it pulse and tighten. Then he does it again as Cloud lets out a small whimper. The pale wrists bound with rope are in the camera frame, and Sephiroth’s cock should be softening, but it’s not—still solid as he dips it in again and again, Cloud’s rim winking at the camera, contracting and expanding, with a delayed rivulet of cum dripping out of it after.

It’s the most beautiful hole he’s ever had the privilege of fucking, now marked with Sephiroth’s fluids and shaded a sweet pink.

Then the guilt settles in, and he stops the video.

He’s treating Cloud like an object, like a porn fantasy, when he said that he wanted him to be real.

“Sorry,” Sephiroth murmurs, reaching up to unravel the knots.

“You’re fine.”

The rope has left behind red imprints, though not overly deep; they should fade within the hour. Sephiroth rubs the marks, soothing the angry skin with salve, before retreating to the bathroom to retrieve a hot towel.

Cloud’s back is turned towards him when he comes back out, stretching his arms and gazing at the starry, distant skyline outside the window.

His face turns over his shoulder, doll-like features framed with golden strands, eyes faintly melancholy.

“You don’t have to clean me off,” he says, getting up. “Can I just take a quick shower while I’m here?”

“Of course.” Awkwardly, Sephiroth wipes himself down as Cloud gets off the bed, stooping gracefully to pick up his clothes off the floor before disappearing inside the bathroom.

Then Sephiroth ties his hair into a low ponytail while he waits, pulling his slacks back on and buttoning up his shirt.

Cloud comes out of the shower shortly after, smelling like his body wash, staring blankly at him, as if he’s focusing somewhere further away.

“Thanks,” he says. “I’m ordering a ride home.”

“Are you feeling alright?” Sephiroth’s heart throbs, heavy in his chest.

Then Cloud smiles, the sight of it like a cool wind on a humid day. “I’m great. Sorry. I’m just sobering up. Hate the comedown.” Stopping in front of him, he gets up on his tiptoes, leaving a soft kiss on his cheek.

“Can you let me know that you got home alright?” Sephiroth doesn’t like the idea of him getting into a cab alone, but he doesn’t want to overstep or express that out loud.

Cloud tilts his head. “Do you have Moogle Messenger?”

“No.”

There’s not really been anyone to message. Questions like this always make him feel a bit alien, as if he isn’t like everyone else.

“Give me your phone,” Cloud says, sticking a palm out. With a few taps, he quickly downloads the messaging app onto it and registers an account using Sephiroth’s auto-filled phone number. “There. That way we don’t have to use the school email or message system.”

Then Cloud adds the first contact there, and the name displays as just a blue butterfly emoji.

“Good idea.” It wouldn’t be good for there to be a paper trail of things that suggest an inappropriate relationship between them.

“Remember. Stay professional when we’re at school. No one has to find out.” Cloud holds up a single finger against his soft pink lips. Then he heads back to the living room, entering something quickly on his phone before picking up his backpack.

“Okay,” Sephiroth says, leaning against the door as he sees Cloud out. “Have a good night. See you tomorrow?”

“Sure thing.”

Cloud gives him a playful wink before waving goodbye, disappearing down the hall.

“Hey.”

Cloud arrives at his office about ten minutes late, swinging his backpack over the back of a padded chair.

“It’s not like you to be late,” Sephiroth says, looking up from his laptop.

“Sorry. I’ve had a really bad headache all morning.”

Drinking a lot will do that, but Sephiroth doesn’t voice that out loud.

His eyes fall across scabs laced along Cloud’s knuckles; reddish and violet bruises surrounding them. They don’t match Sephiroth’s ropework.

“What happened there?” Sephiroth immediately asks, nodding towards his hand, concerned.

“Oh—that’s nothing.” He digs into his bag, taking a stack of papers out, placing it right in front of Sephiroth. “I made up the assignment for this week.”

Sephiroth stares at it like Cloud had just dropped a live, venomous snake onto his desk blotter.

“I thought we agreed that I couldn’t offer you an extension.”

“You said you’d think about it.”

The way Cloud just ignores the things he said, introducing seeds of doubt, is unsettling. Hadn’t Sephiroth been very clear about that?

Did he just forget, because he was drunk?

Or is Cloud just rearranging things in a way that would make it hard to say no?

“I did think about it. And I don’t think it would be fair to the other students.”

Cloud bites his lip. “But I haven’t slipped up like this in a while. I really didn’t mean to miss the assignment.” He stares down at the desk, upset expression on his adorable face, perhaps more so at himself than towards Sephiroth.

If it’s all an act, it feels too convincing.

“It’s not a big portion of your grade,” Sephiroth sighs. “I might offer an extra credit assignment that would be available to everyone, and you could make up for it that way. Okay?”

Cloud doesn’t say anything, eyes still lowered towards the stack of paper.

“That’s fair, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I guess… that’s fine.” Cloud avoids looking at him, taking the papers back, stuffing them inside his bag. “Thanks.”

Sephiroth opens a drawer in his desk, shuffling around extra staples and paper clips to fish out some first-aid ointment and two band-aids.

Then he walks over, standing directly behind Cloud, who flinches when Sephiroth grabs his wrist.

Arched over his back, Sephiroth squeezes out the clear oily salve onto his knuckles, then spreads it with the pads of his fingers.

“You should always put antibiotic on things like this. You wouldn’t want it to get infected.” He peels the backing off the flexible, flesh-toned band-aids, then applies them carefully over the scabbed flesh.

“Thanks,” Cloud mutters under his breath.

The scent of Sephiroth’s body wash, full of vanilla and rose notes, still clings to the nape of Cloud’s neck. Letting the tip of his nose brush against it, he murmurs, “You smell good.”

Instead of replying, Cloud ducks out from beneath his arm and digs out the test scanning machine, plugging it in. Then he silently feeds the test sheets in for a bit, ignoring him, until going into a cursing fit a few minutes later.

“What’s wrong?”

Maybe Cloud is annoyed because Sephiroth is being too careless—should someone walk in and notice something off about their interactions, it might start problematic rumors.

“Nothing. I set the key for Friday’s class but this stack is from the Monday class.”

“It’s fine. You can just reset it. Here, let me help you—”

“No, I can do it myself,” Cloud snaps, face reddening a few shades darker, taking a step back.

Sephiroth drops back into his seat, the chair squeaking loudly in protest from the amount of force.

For the rest of the hour, Cloud mostly ignores him, except to ask some technical questions, and it seems like Cloud’s deliberately giving him the silent treatment, because he didn’t get his way.

This is giving him whiplash. Dealing with Cloud’s moodiness, and it feels too much like the experience he’d had with his ex.

Most of the time, she would be the most charming person in the room, until the second she didn’t get something that she felt entitled to; then her attitude would turn cold and vindictive.

He doesn’t even think about her by name anymore. It gives her too much significance in his mind. She’s not worth dwelling on.

“Is there anything else you need from me?” Cloud asks, his stare cold.

“No. Thanks for your help,” Sephiroth says, sighing.

“Okay.”

Then he just turns on his heels, without formally saying goodbye.

Perhaps he’s just irritable from feeling hungover, or upset that Sephiroth didn’t bother to read his assignment, but he didn’t want to entertain that at all. It would set a bad precedent.

The uneasy feeling in his gut makes him wonder if he keeps misreading Cloud. Whether this is all calculated; the way he makes him feel good one minute, then terrible the next.

To say that Sephiroth has trust issues would be an understatement.

Toxic relationships are quite similar to slot machines: the unpredictability of a reward makes all these neurochemicals flood out, creating an addiction, conditioning one to keep chasing the highs despite the destructiveness of the lows.

Somehow, Sephiroth had known, still knows now, from the moment his eyes first set sight on Cloud—like some Helen of Troy, like some Judas Steer, that he would be the one to lead him down the path of destruction.

🦋
Sorry
I’m really sorry
I was in a bad mood yesterday

Sephiroth stares at the notification, turning the vacuum off.

Silver
That’s okay.
Are you feeling any better?

🦋
A little bit

Silver
Did I do anything to upset you?

🦋
Not really
Just be more careful on campus
Remember that you could lose your job

His lips purse together. He doesn’t know what to think about Cloud anymore. He doesn’t know who is taking advantage of who, or whether there are any culprits in this situation at all. Sephiroth can’t tell if that’s a thinly-veiled threat, or just a reasonable request.

Silver
Yes, of course
We wouldn’t want an expulsion for either of us

🦋
Right
I miss you already
❤️

Sephiroth pinches the thin skin at the bridge of his nose. Cloud gives off a certain kind of energy. And looking back, the little red flags have been continually accumulating.

The moodiness. How thin he is. Showing up with unexplained cuts. Anger issues. How clingy he behaves at times, and avoidant others.

How he put Sephiroth on a pedestal, then knocked him down, repeating that process a few times.

But he’d like to believe that there’s a heart underneath there. At least his gut feels there must be one.

🦋
Sorry
I know that’s probably stupid to hear
Because I saw you yesterday and was sorta being
Well
a bitch

Silver
It’s fine, you don’t have to apologize.
We all have off days.

🦋 is typing...

🦋
why the periods :<

Silver
Periods?

🦋
Everything sounds too serious with a period
Like this.
Makes you sound mad.
Very angry.

Silver
Oh
I’m not upset
Sorry
I didn’t realize that had specific connotations

🦋
it’s okay old man
kidding kidding

Silver
Today I have learned something new

🦋
You’re welcome
I gotta go now
But do u think we can go somewhere next time?
instead of just hanging in your apartment
I miss going out

Silver
I don’t think it’s wise for us to be seen together

🦋
You can’t see it but I’m pouting right now
Doesn’t have to be a romantic dinner or anything like that sheesh
Just want to go out
See a movie or museum or go to the arcade
Mentor mentee vibes it’s fineeee

Silver
Okay
Just let me know when and where you’d like to go

🦋
I’ll probably just show up randomly on your doorstep unfortunately
Anyway gotta go

Silver
Okay

Sephiroth doesn’t watch movies that often. But he knows this archetype. Or at least variations of it.

Manic pixie dream... twink.

Cloud’s going to show him what it’s like to feel alive, bring color to his dull and solitary life, have dozens of strange quirks, smile at him with the face of an angel, be terribly mentally ill beneath the adorable exterior, then break his heart in irreparable ways, and Sephiroth will be left feeling even more lonely than he did before.

That just begs the question—is it worth it?

Is it worth having for just a moment, however brief? Knowing that it’s more than likely he’ll lose it all in the end?

None of that really matters. There’s already no turning back. No use in dwelling on what he can’t change.

So Sephiroth pushes the warnings out of his mind.

Chapter Text

Their first official date comes two days later.

Cloud shows up on his doorstep, as usual, wearing a loose grungy black T-shirt and black skinny jeans torn at the knees, along with the aroma of cherries and wine, and a bright smile on his pretty face.

“We’re going out,” he announces, stepping in past the threshold.

“To where?” Sephiroth raises an eyebrow.

“Horror movie. My treat.” He takes a glass flask out of his backpack and sips something amber-colored and dark. “Can you drive?”

Cloud seems to be a lot less inhibited whenever he’s drinking. That muddies things like consent, which concerns him. But it appears to be a default state of being for Cloud most of the time, and his faculties seem intact enough, so Sephiroth chooses to ignore the thought.

“That’s fine. I wasn’t planning on drinking.” Sephiroth hesitates. “I don’t think going out for dinner together is a good idea, though.”

A theater will be dark and fairly anonymous, and could be read as platonic. A dinner date, not so much.

Cloud shrugs. “We can just buy some sandwiches or something. Or eat a lot of popcorn.”

Since Sephiroth’s still wearing work clothes, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and gray slacks, he doesn’t bother changing again. Grabbing his keys off the kitchen counter, he stuffs them into his pocket. “Which theater?”

It’s a short drive, somewhere between the downtown and university districts.

At the movie theater, the clerk at the window asks Cloud for an ID card. Cloud starts digging around in his backpack, visibly irritated. “You think I’m not at least seventeen?” he mutters.

Then the clerk glances at Sephiroth. “Are you with him?”

Sephiroth feels caught, all of a sudden, and can’t find the words to answer the question.

“Because if you don’t have ID, it’s fine as long as you have a parent or guardian with you.”

Cloud looks up, eyes blinking innocently. Then, a smile spreads over his lips.

“Yep, he’s my Daddy.”

The silver-gray hair must make it more convincing. “Okay,” the clerk nods, taking the cash from Cloud, handing back two tickets. “Enjoy, I hear it’s real gorey.”

As they walk along the plush red carpets towards the concession area, Sephiroth pulls away from Cloud’s hand.

“Sorry, I don’t think we should do that in public. Just in case.”

Cloud responds by giving him a sulky pout, which makes him look even younger than he already does. “Fine.”

They get a big tub of popcorn, and Sephiroth watches as Cloud pumps extra butter on it without any sense of restraint. “You’re lucky that I’m not actually an old man, or this would be perilous to my arteries,” he comments.

Another pump. “Only an old man would say perilous.” Then another. Cloud pops a handful into his mouth, testing the flavor. “It’s good. Have some.”

“I’m going to get you something more nutritious later.” Sephiroth takes one popped kernel, the butter flavor overwhelming but pleasurable; its aroma full of warmth and oil.

“I’m sure there’s nutrition in your cum.”

He takes Cloud’s chin with two fingers, gazing into narrow blue eyes.

“Be a good boy, and I’ll reward you later.”

That seems to eliminate Cloud’s briefly sour mood. He beams a smile, cheeks rosy, stealing bits of popcorn from the bucket as they head towards the theater.

Sephiroth finds himself scarfing down mouthfuls before they even get there.

“Told you it was good,” Cloud says in a satisfied, matter-of-fact tone.

A few trailers play, and Cloud thrusts the giant popcorn bucket back towards him. “You hold it.”

Then the theater darkens. It’s not overly crowded; probably because it’s a Wednesday night, and the movie has already been out for a few weeks.

“Do you like horror movies, Cloud?”

“Yeah. Not Halloween-themed ones though. I read this one is funny. But dumb-funny.”

For all of Cloud’s alcohol-fueled sociability, he seems to be just as isolated as Sephiroth—he’s never mentioned any friends, and doesn’t bring up family in a positive way either. The way he said read instead of heard echoes Sephiroth’s kind of loneliness.

Sephiroth had always done a lot of reading, and the books kept him company.

Or perhaps he’s just projecting his own issues onto Cloud.

The movie does appear strangely humorous, with the protagonist making very poor decisions.

“No! The power just cut out, don’t go in there!” Cloud yells at the screen. “You moron.” A few pieces of popcorn drop from the handful he waves with a fist.

Everything seems more amusing with Cloud’s ongoing commentary. Sephiroth keeps digging into the popcorn bucket; they both do, until there’s only a quarter of it left, with mostly half-popped kernels at the bottom.

During the climax of the film, when the two leads are running from the killer, screaming their lungs out, Cloud’s hand slips underneath the bucket, pawing at Sephiroth’s crotch.

Sephiroth turns his head to stare at him, and Cloud just gives him that same sly, self-satisfied smile.

The heel of his palm strokes slowly over Sephiroth’s trousers, making him harden incrementally each time it passes over his cock.

It’s just enough to be sexually frustrating, Cloud’s slender fingers spreading to outline down the sides of his hardened shape. The movie is too loud and action-filled for anyone to pay attention to them.

A small moan escapes from Sephiroth’s throat, and Cloud leans over, whispering a single word into his ear:

“Daddy.”

His cock jumps against Cloud’s fingers beneath the silky trousers in response, and Cloud gives it a firm squeeze.

Then Cloud withdraws his hand, leaving him painfully unsatisfied for the final arc of the movie.

As the lights come back on, a bit of the discomfort from his stiff erection has subsided, and Cloud’s pretty smile is both aggravating and impossible to hate.

Lowering himself to speak into Cloud’s ear as they exit the theater, he says, “So you wanted a punishment. Not a reward?”

“You can punish me if you want,” Cloud says breezily, dumping the empty popcorn bucket into the trash. “But buy me dinner first.”

They pick up some hot grilled sandwiches from the adjacent mall in the complex, eating in a mostly empty food court, chatting between bites.

“That movie was kinda bad. But in a good way, right? Like so bad that it’s good.” Cloud wolfs down the sandwich.

Sephiroth doesn’t understand the logic exactly, but he expresses agreement anyway. “I can see that, yes.”

A drop of mayonnaise rests on the corner of Cloud’s mouth, and Sephiroth brushes it off without even thinking, thumb lingering over his lips.

“Not in public, remember?” Cloud tilts his head at him pointedly.

“Right. I forgot.” Sephiroth’s hand drops. “Why were you trying to hold my hand, then?”

“I forgot too.” Cloud crumples up some of their scraps, dumping them on the tray. “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

For whatever reason, it feels awkward to go in there with him, so Sephiroth just waits outside. And he didn’t drink anything anyway.

Cloud emerges shortly, looking a little pale but refreshed. “We’re going ice skating,” he announces cheerily.

“What?” The suggestion seems very random, but then Sephiroth recalls that there’s a rink in this building. “This late?”

“Just for a tiny bit.” Cloud tugs at one of Sephiroth’s sleeves at the elbow. “Then you can punish me all you like.”

Over at the skate rental counter, the girl manning the desk chews gum, eyeing Sephiroth with increasing interest. Then she scans Cloud over as well, perhaps pondering the nature of their relationship.

“Your shoes, please. What size?”

Cloud’s already taking his sneakers off and handing them to her. “A seven, please.”

Following his cue, Sephiroth takes his shoes off, even though the request was unexpected. They must hold their shoes as collateral for the rental.

“Fourteen,” he says, placing them on the counter.

Observing the contrast between their shoes, Sephiroth must appear oafish beside Cloud. That, or Cloud appears extra petite next to him. Perhaps both.

The girl whistles. “Don’t get a fourteen too often.” She gives him bedroom eyes along with a wink, and Cloud bristles beside him. The girl then disappears behind the counter area.

“Do you even like women?” Cloud rests his chin on a hand, elbow on the counter. “She wants your dick so bad.”

“At one point I did. Not quite so much anymore.” His ex managed to spoil them on a whole for him. “And you?”

“Not really. Sometimes I do, I guess. I prefer men, though.”

The girl returns with the two sets of skates, and Cloud turns to her with a haughty expression on his face.

“Twenty dollars, handsome,” she says, blowing a bubble, looking him up and down before popping it. “You know, you’d be even cuter with a smile.”

Cloud’s eyes narrow, his face resembling something like a kitten hissing from being fawned upon. “Give me a reason to smile, and I will.”

“Enjoy,” she replies, rolling her eyes, handing him two numbered tags in exchange for the cash.

Taking the skates, padding around in black socks, Cloud picks a bench a bit further down and starts lacing up the skates. Sephiroth follows suit, snapping on the buckles the same way Cloud does.

Then he stands up, testing the balance of the metal blades on the bottom. It’s not terrible.

“Have you never skated before?” Cloud tilts his head, the longer locks on one side of his face dropping with it.

“No,” Sephiroth admits reluctantly.

“So you’re a skating virgin.” Cloud’s smile widens a fraction with mischief. “Don’t worry, I’ll go slow enough for you to keep up.”

Sephiroth scoffs lightly, then penguin-paddles awkwardly behind Cloud, following him to one of the entry points to the rink. “It can’t be that difficult.”

It is, in fact, unnerving to get on the slippery ice, and Sephiroth clings to the wall, tentatively taking a few steps along the perimeter, trying to remain dignified as he does so.

Cloud drifts backwards effortlessly with ease and grace, skates and legs wide apart, a bemused expression on his face.

“It’s okay, take your time.”

“This ledge is too low,” Sephiroth grumbles, and it is.

“No, you’re just too tall.”

He glides a short distance past him while Sephiroth slowly clutches along the wall. The ice is smooth and bright and looks unforgiving, so Sephiroth would very much prefer not to fall.

Cloud advances each leg forward in confident sweeps, occasionally whirling around to observe him, slowing down, waiting for him to catch up. Raising one eyebrow. “Eventually, you’re gonna have to leave the wall. Rite of passage.”

“Just give me a moment,” Sephiroth mutters, slightly embarrassed. Especially since he plans to dom Cloud again later. Slowly, he holds onto the wall less and less, daring to drift slightly away from it.

“That’s it. You’re lucky there aren’t any kids in here.” They’ve gone about halfway around the perimeter.

There’s maybe fifteen other patrons, mostly young adults. “Why?”

“Well, when it’s really crowded, there’s always some kids who cling to the wall and refuse to let go. Then all the wall bitches like you have to yield.” Cloud skates backwards a bit, tracing a lazy figure eight path over the ice before returning.

“Wall bitch?”

“Yeah. It’s okay, though. Everyone starts off as one.” Cloud glides closer up to him, nearly startling Sephiroth off balance, and grabs his arm to steady him. He then holds out his other hand, offering it. “Trust me? I won’t let you fall.”

Sephiroth stares at it, apprehensive, before accepting Cloud’s hand, clasping it tightly.

They go out slowly towards the center, and there being no wall to cling to feels very unsettling, but Sephiroth allows Cloud to continue leading him forward. Or rather, he doesn’t have a choice anymore, having given Cloud control of their trajectory.

“The more you’re afraid to fall, the worse it is. Try not to think about it.” Cloud moves slower. “One leg at a time, like you’re trying to kick something behind you.”

With a few more pointers, Sephiroth starts getting the hang of it, and it feels much like the smooth lift-off of a plane once it finally gets off the runaway. Strangely satisfying. Fun, even.

“See? It’s not that scary,” Cloud says, laughing. “Want me to teach you some tricks?”

Sephiroth chuckles. “I think I’ll just focus on not falling flat on my face, thanks.”

“Do you think I could let go?” Cloud says breezily. “Would you be able to handle it?”

“No.” Then the thought occurs to him, and he narrows his eyes. “Did you do this on purpose? So I’d have to hold your hand?” Or have an excuse to, Sephiroth supposes.

“Maybe,” Cloud says with a satisfied little smirk. “Okay, I won’t let go then.”

They skate around some more, stopping to a halt when some teenager almost crashes into Sephiroth, whom Cloud growls at in a feral way. “Hey, watch it!”

The teen flips up his middle finger at them, before skating to the opposite side of the rink.

“I should kick his ass,” Cloud mutters, grip tightening around his hand. “But he’s not worth the time.”

Then they glide back towards the perimeter, and Cloud teaches him how to brake properly. “Bend your knees more. Like this.”

“Oh, I’m going to bend your knees more than that later,” Sephiroth says in a low, husky voice, staring him down.

“Looking forward to it,” Cloud answers innocently, stepping back out onto the rubbery mat outside of the rink.

They sit down at the nearest bench, then begin unlacing the skates.

“So did you have fun? Despite being dragged here against your will?”

Sephiroth chuckles. “I did. Thank you for suggesting it. Wish I was more graceful about it. Where did you learn how to skate?”

The smile dies abruptly on Cloud’s lips. “My dad used to take me,” he says, then continues unbuckling his skates.

Cloud doesn’t offer any more information than that, so Sephiroth doesn’t press on it during their trip back to the counter.

A different clerk is there now, a middle-aged man, and he eyes Cloud with an unsavory interest. It’s not clear whether Cloud notices or not, until he gives the clerk a onceover after he returns with their shoes.

Once again, that possessiveness snakes through him, an ire that feels alien. Sephiroth holds his tongue, because it’s unreasonable of him to bark at someone for simply staring at Cloud.

In the car, Cloud takes his flask out again, drinking the last third of it. He must have drunk more of it while in the bathroom.

“So how are you going to punish me?” Cloud screws the cap back onto the empty flask.

“You’ll see,” Sephiroth says, adjusting the rear view mirror. Then he glances over. “How do you even balance that well while drinking—what is that, whiskey?”

“Yep.” He stuffs the container back into his bag. “I told you, I can handle it.” A hint of irritance has drifted into his tone.

The street lamps flash over the car as Sephiroth drives down a busy road. He decides to change the topic. “Did you notice that clerk staring at you when we returned the skates?”

“Yeah. I did. Why?”

“Would you have returned his interest, if I weren’t in the equation?”

“Are you jealous, Seph?” Cloud leans back in his seat, rolling his face towards him coyly.

No one has called Sephiroth that since the little neighbor girl he would occasionally babysit as a teen. It’s strangely warm, hearing the nickname again out of the blue. “Perhaps. I’m also just curious.”

“Worried that I’m gonna find myself a new Daddy?”

Sephiroth glances at him, fingers brushing briefly along his jaw, searching within those gorgeous blue eyes. “I trust you.”

Infidelity is one of his triggers. Betrayals in general, actually.

“Yeah, I’m just kidding.” Cloud yawns silently, stretching his long limbs and flexing his fingers.

“You didn’t answer the question.” Sephiroth takes a right turn to veer onto the highway briefly.

“He kinda had serial killer vibes. You know, like in the movie. That weird neighbor who feels a bit off. So no, I probably wouldn’t have.” Cloud takes a hard candy out of his pocket and pops it into his mouth.

“If we went to school together, you’d probably have said the same thing about me,” Sephiroth chuckles with a slightly bitter edge.

All the other children took Sephiroth’s silence to mean that he was some kind of disturbed freak, and it wasn’t until Sephiroth had a growth spurt one year that the pure sheen of attractiveness became enough to compensate for some of his social deficits in their eyes.

“Nah. I’m sure we would’ve been friends, then.” Cloud picks at a hangnail by a cuticle, sucking on the candy loudly. “Most kids always thought I was pretty weird.”

His paranoia about Cloud has lessened from how he’d felt in the beginning; the worry that Cloud was deliberately trying to mirror him, or pretending to have things in common.

It was what his ex had done; like the glowing light of an anglerfish, she drew in prey with an attractive lure, while her true massive and hideous body remained hidden in the shadows.

An apt metaphor, too, as the males of that species are small compared to the size of their counterparts, and mate by fusing to the female’s body; losing the parts they don’t need anymore—eyes, organs, limbs—to eventually become a mindless appendage, serving as nothing but an extension of the female.

Five years with her had left Sephiroth as a husk of his former self, depressed and catering to her every whim, so that seems about right.

Cloud listens with fascinated horror as Sephiroth explains all this, although he leaves out any references to his ex.

“A large female anglerfish often has multiple suitors attached, whose only function is to provide sperm. A male anglerfish no longer needs his eyes, after fusing permanently to her body, so he loses that ability. The rest of him atrophies, no longer needing to eat, with her blood providing all his nutrition.”

“That’s messed up. Poor little guys.” Cloud lights up, the admiration evident on his face again. “That’s really cool that you know all these random interesting facts.”

Other kids used to treat him like an outcast for being so encyclopedic and random, so Cloud’s reaction is reassuring.

After finding a parking spot near his building, they go back to Sephiroth’s apartment, and Cloud flops down onto his couch, boneless. “So have you thought about how you’re going to punish me?” he asks airily.

“Hmm.” Sephiroth paces in front of him, hands clasped behind his back. “I’ll have to think of something creative to surprise you.”

What punishment would be appropriate for Cloud teasing him at the theater and ice rink?

He starts clearing the items off his work desk, placing them temporarily on the kitchen island counter: a desk blotter, an hourglass, canister of pens, and various stacks of paper and mail.

“You should be punished, shouldn’t you? For teasing me in the movie theater.” Sephiroth takes a medium-sized towel out from a drawer and lays it over the surface of the desk. “Being an insolent little brat.”

Cloud is leaning back on the couch, arms behind his head, smirking. “Are you going to edge me again?”

“In a slightly different way, yes.” Sephiroth walks up to the windows, drawing the linen curtains closed on both. Then he takes a tall glass from the cupboard, and pours cold water from a pitcher into it.

“What did you have in mind, exactly,” Cloud asks, suddenly wary, sitting upright again.

Sephiroth walks up to him, staring down, holding out the glass. “You’re going to drink two glasses of water, and then you’re going to hold it until I let you come.”

Cloud’s pretty blue eyes stare up at him, a subtle, playful challenge in their depths.

“Make me,” he says, the syllables rolling extra long off his bratty tongue.

“Oh, I intend to,” Sephiroth says in a silky, husky tone. He holds the glass up to Cloud’s lips. “Drink.”

Neither of them move for a moment, nor blink.

After a few beats, Cloud takes the glass from him, and starts gulping it down, throat bobbing as he does, eyes still fixed on him.

“Good boy,” Sephiroth says, palm caressing down one side of his face.

Finishing the last drops, Cloud gasps, then gives Sephiroth the glass. “I’m going to regret this in about a half hour, aren’t I?”

Sephiroth takes the pitcher and fills it to the brim again. “I think you’ll enjoy it, actually.” He holds the edge of the glass to Cloud’s lips again, fingers tilting his chin up.

More loud gulps as Cloud swallows down the second glass of water. He wipes his lips on his forearm after Sephiroth takes the glass away. “Yeah? You really think so?”

“It can be quite a different sensation, with pressure building from the inside. But you’ll have to be good about controlling it. Use your safeword anytime you wish to stop.”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to get a few accessories. Undress yourself in the meantime,” Sephiroth orders, eyes flicking over him once.

Immediately, Cloud starts pulling his t-shirt over his head.

Sephiroth retreats to his bedroom, opening his trunk of toys. In the left compartment, he picks up a silky black blindfold, a sealed feather, and a thick flesh-colored dildo with a remote control. It has most likely depleted any charge by now, so he grabs the charger stand as well, along with a bottle of lube.

When he comes back to the living room, Cloud’s completely naked, knees tucked against his chest, arms wrapped around them. His eyes widen as he spots what Sephiroth is carrying.

“I have to charge this for a bit first,” Sephiroth says, setting up the dildo stand on the kitchen counter. “In the meantime, I want you to lie down on the couch. On your back.”

Obediently, he lies down, arms resting along his sides, stretching his toes.

There isn’t even a shadow of a hair on Cloud’s smooth, pretty body, projecting this fine sheen of unreality; no stubble on his face, either, and Sephiroth now wonders if he’d gotten it lasered off at some point.

“I’m going to blindfold you for this part. Is that alright?”

Cloud nods, adjusting his position for comfort as Sephiroth secures the silky material around his eyes.

“Good boy,” he soothes, running a palm across the top of a pale thigh, watching as Cloud shivers from the contact, muscles contracting.

Then he takes the black feather out of its package, brushing it against the very tips of Cloud’s delicate pink nipples.

“Ah,” comes out of his throat, strained, muscles tensing more as Sephiroth draws it down lightly over the faint lines of Cloud’s abs, then teases below his navel.

“Are you feeling like you have to go yet?”

“Not yet, no.”

Sephiroth plays with his nipples, sucking on them briefly, tongue flicking against them as Cloud whimpers, before spreading the saliva around in circles with the tip of the feather.

Cloud’s hips tense, and his soft pink cock starts hardening, lifting and falling. Steadily increasing in height, the sight of his undeniable arousal urging Sephiroth’s own cock to harden inside his pants.

He seems fairly sexually experienced for his age. Cloud barely ever hesitates to any of his requests, even a strange one, like tonight.

“I never asked how old you are.”

It’s somewhere in Cloud’s university record, but Sephiroth hadn’t looked at it very closely at the time, beyond getting a general sense of his academic performance.

“How old do you think I am?” he murmurs, an amused smile spreading over his lips.

A terrible thought occurs to him—what if Cloud is some precocious student who skipped a few grades? It would explain a few things. All the mood swings and sensitivity. The uncontrolled horniness and impulsive behavior.

“Well, I assumed you were at least twenty-one, based on all the drinking,” Sephiroth says, swallowing. Although that might not necessarily have been a correct assumption on his part.

“I’m seventeen.”

“What?” Sephiroth’s blood drains from his face.

“Relax, I’m twenty-two.” Cloud chuckles underneath the blindfold. “Thought you were going to jail for a minute, didn’t you?”

Sephiroth doesn’t answer the question right away. Instead, he runs the edge of the feather against one of Cloud’s erect nipples, drawing it across as Cloud lets out another moan, cock quivering, now lying parallel against his stomach.

“You might be worth it.”

He strokes the back of Cloud’s thighs with a palm, lifting his knees up. Then he ghosts the feather along the soft curves of his ass, avoiding the most sensitive parts, appreciating the way Cloud flinches, sucking his breath in sharply.

While Sephiroth waits for the charger to finish, which should be in another five minutes or so, he takes the opportunity to lavish attention over Cloud’s nipples again with his tongue. They appear unusually sensitive, judging by the noises Cloud tries to stifle, squirming deliciously beneath him.

Transparent fluid seeps from the head of Cloud’s pink cock onto his belly. Sephiroth palms at his lower stomach again. “How about now? Are you starting to feel a little full?”

Cloud nods, breathing hard, and Sephiroth brushes knuckles against his darling face. Then he unties the silky blindfold, and Cloud rubs his eyes, blinking, adjusting to the light.

“Now I would like for you to sit on my desk. Both knees up.” Sephiroth’s getting harder at the thought already, with a sliver of shame slinking somewhere in the background of his mind. “Show me everything.”

Slipping off of the couch, skin pale and flawless, shoulder blades sharp and thighs slim, he’s sylph-like, beautiful, slightly unreal; like a hallucination.

With ease, Cloud climbs onto the desk and does as he’s told, spreading his legs fairly wide.

Sephiroth takes the dildo off the charger, then strokes it while Cloud watches him, coating the length with lube.

“Looks the same size as yours,” Cloud says, eyeing it curiously.

“I know.” He takes a seat in his office chair, rolling up to the desk. Cloud doesn’t even flinch, exposed as he is. The position is meant to feel quite vulnerable, but Cloud holds it confidently.

A little humiliation gets him off, and Sephiroth would like to try it with Cloud, but it seems to be a challenge with him.

Lifting the dildo, he squeezes more lube onto it, and then presses it to Cloud’s hole, kissing it with the tip. Then he takes the remote out from his pocket with his other hand, and turns it on for just a few seconds.

“Fuck,” Cloud says, clenching his teeth, cock jumping in response.

“Are you left-handed or right-handed?” Sephiroth can’t remember exactly; rummaging through his mind, there might have been instances where Cloud used either one.

“Left-handed,” he says. Then he holds a palm out.

Strange that he hadn’t noticed that before, since Sephiroth is left-handed himself.

Sephiroth squeezes lube onto Cloud’s slender fingers. “I want you to prep yourself. Not for pleasure, just for function.”

Cloud pouts deeply, like it’s a chore. He takes two fingers and plunges them in slowly, working his way up to the second knuckle, then the lube into himself, spreading some around the rim, while Sephiroth has a front row seat.

His legs and thighs look slimmer and even longer like this, knees tucked close to his ears on the narrow depth of the wooden table.

The sight is mesmerizing, sending electric throbs of lust throughout his cock as he watches Cloud’s fingers plunge and disappear inside his slick entrance.

Sephiroth squeezes more lube out over his hole and the fingers dipping into it; Cloud slips a third one inside, giving him a slutty, half-lidded stare.

“Are you enjoying the view?”

“Very much so.” He caresses the back of one of Cloud’s thighs. “Are you feeling the need to go yet?”

“A little, yeah.”

“Good.” Sephiroth picks up the dildo again. “Are you ready for this?”

“You’re not going to fuck me with your cock?” Cloud sounds so disappointed that it’s nearly adorable.

“Well, I wouldn’t get to enjoy the view then, would I?” he says.

His thighs tense as Sephiroth rubs at his hole with the tip, testing at pushing inside a bit. It gives quite easily, and Cloud closes his eyes and lets out a moan as Sephiroth eases it in slowly, sweetly, until three-quarters of the dildo disappears into him.

“How does it feel? Are you starting to feel pressure from the inside?”

Cloud nods, opening his eyes again, staring at him drowsily, although Sephiroth doesn’t know whether it’s from lust or the alcohol.

“I don’t want you to come until I say that you can. Warn me if you’re getting close,” Sephiroth says, brushing a thumb along the pulsing perimeter of his rim, wet with lube and stretched wide around the dildo. “Can you do that for me?”

“I’ll try,” he replies, jerking from the touch, then letting out a filthy sound as Sephiroth begins thrusting the cock in and out. “Fuck.”

The sight is lewd, and Sephiroth imagines that it’s himself plunging into Cloud, making his tight little hole throb and coaxing strangled sounds from his throat.

Meanwhile, he turns the vibrations on at random intervals, which has Cloud shaking and twitching on his table.

“Wait, wait, don’t,” Cloud gasps as he reaches for the remote again. “I’m gonna come if you turn it on again.”

“Good boy,” he says, kissing his calf. “Let’s give it a break. Is the need getting more urgent?”

“Which need?”

“Both.”

“I would like to come soon,” he says with a moan. “I have to go, too.”

“Badly?”

“Not yet.” Cloud’s eyes slide towards him in an appraising way, studying his gaze. “You don’t want me to, like… piss on you or anything, right?”

Actually, if they were going there, Sephiroth would prefer it the other way around. One of the more shameful kinks that he’s wary of disclosing, and he tries his best not to imagine Cloud’s sweet face wincing from the trickling warmth. “No. I just want you to hold it in until you come. Then you may go to the bathroom and relieve yourself.”

“Okay.”

“So hold it until then. Actually, you shouldn’t be able to go, really, not until you get soft, anyway.”

Cloud swallows, eyes widening. “Oh.”

Then Sephiroth takes the dildo and presses the vibrating tip to his hole again, making Cloud suck in a breath, solid cock twitching. Moaning as he rubs it up and down against his opening, then between the curves of his cheeks, leaving it pressed to his perineum for a moment.

“Fuck,” Cloud hisses, head falling back, an aroused flush visible over his chest and neck. Small toes curling next to Sephiroth’s elbows near the edge of the desk.

Cloud bites his lip, brows turning upwards, knitting together, as Sephiroth brushes it over his nipples, holding the vibrating cock against them.

“Good boy. Don’t come yet.”

A sweet, stifled whimper comes out of Cloud, chest heaving, his nipples receiving only a short reprieve as it rises and falls, away from the vibrator’s touch.

Sephiroth presses a palm down on where Cloud’s bladder should be, low in his belly.

Then he wraps his lips around the tip of Cloud’s cock as he curses, hips bucking, trembling from the vibrating cock alternately stimulating his nipples, then his hole, while Sephiroth sucks him off at the same time.

“Stop, stop, I’m close,” Cloud cries, almost agonized, shifting his weight. He’s squirming. “I, uh, really have to go now.”

But he can’t. He won’t really be able to, unless he comes and loses the erection, and the realization of that must have Cloud squirming more desperately.

Sephiroth leans back in his chair, staring at him gamely, stroking Cloud’s ankles. “Who was a naughty boy at the theater?”

“I was,” Cloud says weakly.

He presses the vibrator against his hole again and turns it on as Cloud groans. “Louder. I can barely hear you.”

“I was naughty,” Cloud gasps, hips jerking as he pants. “I won’t do it again, Daddy, please, please.”

With a satisfied smirk, Sephiroth sets the dildo down. “Would you prefer to come on my cock, or the vibrator?”

“You,” he says, tone desperate. “Please, I need it so bad.”

Sephiroth stands up, rolling his chair back, unzipping, taking his cock out. It’s luckily been erect for quite some time now.

He picks Cloud up by hooking underneath his arms, Cloud’s legs and arms clinging around him, and carries his weight briefly, before hoisting him up against a wall.

Then he spears his cock up into Cloud’s hole, groaning as the velvet warmth surrounds it, sucking him in like it was made for him.

Cloud whimpers with need, or perhaps urgency, as Sephiroth fucks him wantonly, hips slapping up loudly against his pale, pretty body.

“Daddy, fuck, I need to—”

“Who’s the wall bitch now,” Sephiroth murmurs into Cloud’s ear, gripping underneath both knees as he drives his cock in relentlessly, lifting them higher.

“I am. Please, harder, it’s so good, I need to come, please.” Cloud’s head rolls back, then rests forward against his shoulder, beautiful tears gathering at the corners of his eyes.

“Is it more intense like this? While being fucked?” Each thrust is accompanied by the harsh sounds of skin smacking against skin, Cloud’s soft strands of hair jostling against Sephiroth’s cheek every time he jerks up into him, slender arms wrapped around his neck.

“Yeah, it feels great,” Cloud says, voice strained with desperation and exasperation. “But I really, really need to finish soon.”

There’s an unsavory urge to lick the tears of frustration off of Cloud’s cheeks, but Sephiroth exercises restraint.

As a show of mercy, he pounds more deeply into him, hand gripping around Cloud’s cock, jerking it at the same time. Each powerful thrust and stroke sends him closer to the edge, and it seems to be doing the same for Cloud.

“Please, please, yes, fuck—”

It doesn’t take very long, just a couple of minutes or so, before Cloud comes with a particularly vocal cry, cum shooting up against his own stomach and chest, nails digging feverishly into Sephiroth’s back while he slams up inside, harder and harder.

Sephiroth follows soon after, grunting as he comes, continuing to thrust into the sweet throbbing hole while hot cum begins to drip out of it.

“Daddy,” Cloud begs as Sephiroth buries his cock into him repeatedly, not quite softening after his orgasm. “Can I go now?” He squirms, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, wriggling slightly in his grasp. “Please, I really have to.”

“I’m almost done,” he murmurs, riding out the comedown from his orgasm. “Be a good boy, and hold it.”

Cloud sucks in a breath, whimpering.

It pleases him, how well-behaved he’s being, despite the clear desperation. Finally, Sephiroth lets him off his cock.

From the bathroom, loud profanity comes out in an unintelligible string while Sephiroth wipes himself down, tucking his cock back in.

He knocks. “Cloud? Are you alright?”

The toilet flushes, followed by the sounds of the faucet. Then the click of the door as it opens; a dazed, relieved look on Cloud’s face.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He rubs his eyes a bit with the back of his hand. “Can I take a quick shower?”

“Yes, of course.” Pausing, Sephiroth asks, “How did it feel?”

“Everything, or…?”

“When you relieved yourself.”

“Weird. But a good weird. Like I was coming again?” His cheeks flush, reddening adorably.

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Very much so,” Cloud says with a little quirk of his lips, echoing his words.

Sephiroth smiles. “Good,” he says, brushing a palm against his cheek, then down a bare shoulder. “I’m glad.”

While Cloud showers, Sephiroth cleans up his toys and puts them away.

He emerges, fully dressed, golden hair still springy despite being damp.

“I gotta get going.” He sits down on the bench at the entrance, pulling on his sneakers.

“Would you like me to drive you home?”

“No, no, it’s fine. I’ll order a ride.” Cloud smiles, skin glowing. “Thanks for coming with me to things. I had fun.”

“I’m glad. So did I.” He pauses. “Thank you for indulging my kink as well, I hope it wasn’t too strange.”

“It was,” Cloud murmurs, pausing before looking up, “an interesting experience.” Then he gets on his tiptoes, kissing the side of Sephiroth’s cheek. “See you tomorrow in class. Remember, no hanky panky at work.”

“I’ll try my best to keep my fondness for you under wraps,” he says, knuckles stroking down Cloud’s cheek again, before watching him turn down the hallway.

After he leaves, Sephiroth takes a hot shower himself, lathering up with hints of rose and vanilla.

This was never supposed to happen. His regular life colliding with his kink life. Although keeping them separate also induced a certain sense of shame; this need to hide a part of himself, the separation dividing his identity into two increasingly distinct halves.

Cloud makes him feel whole.

At the moment, he’s back to being a bachelor living his professor life, responsibly brushing his teeth and turning in early for bed to practice good sleep hygiene.

That night, he dreams of Cloud, but in the dream, he’s shy and stammering, virginal, taking his cock with a reluctant look on his face.

It’s ambiguous as to whether he’s enjoying it or not, the cries somehow both distressed and pleasured, face turned to one side, eyes shut tight while Sephiroth drives his cock in, thrusting feverishly. Sweet, quiet whimpers coming out as Sephiroth buries himself inside over and over, gripping onto his small wrists.

It shouldn’t be titillating to him, but it is.

When Cloud opens his eyes again, they’re completely black, as if possessed by some kind of devil, teeth sharp, taking him in, devouring him, eager to milk all of his seed.

The creature moans like a lustful banshee, screaming as if the cock he’s taking is both an instrument of pleasure and pain, razor-sharp nails drawing rivers of blood from Sephiroth’s back, wailing like a chorus of devils on each thrust.

Sephiroth pounds into him deeper, faster, forming a cage around Cloud with his larger body, kissing lips that taste of whiskey and hellfire, its heat burning trails down his throat.

During the dream, the shift goes ignored, and Sephiroth murmurs soft praises into Cloud’s delicate ear as he comes, lips brushing over the numerous salty tears left from earlier.

When he awakens, the details become vague, fading into a blank space in his mind, like something pulled into a black hole; its whereabouts unknowable, remaining a mystery.

Sephiroth’s cock is hard, which he feels somehow shameful about, and an unsettled feeling of doom rests at the pit of his stomach.

Trying his best to go back to sleep, he ignores that until it, too, disappears past the event horizon of his mind.

Chapter Text

Over the next two months or so, things go relatively well for them.

Sephiroth tries to remember to behave “normally” during office hours, which feels strange, as if they’re enacting a play for a theater without an audience.

Cloud texts him at all strange hours of the day and night, and they end up having most of their personal conversations on Moogle Messenger, keeping things strictly academic-related while working and via email.

On the few occasions that he’d forgotten—slipping a hand around Cloud’s waist, asking what hard no’s he has in terms of kinks—well, that pissed him off in ways that didn’t seem proportionate to the offense.

To be fair, there are enough adjacent offices and students walking in and out for office hours that it’s simply the smart thing to do. But it just feels strange to keep up the pretense when it’s only the two of them.

One instance that had made Cloud particularly irritated with him was when Sephiroth asked if he’d like to stop by his place later that evening, and Cloud had blown him off coldly, leaving without answering, to his complete bafflement.

A few days after that, Cloud had apparently felt bad enough about the tantrum that he ended up pulling Sephiroth into the back room with all the projectors, then proceeded to give him the most stunning blowjob of his life. Just hoovering him down like his life depended on it, gargling his cum until he was dry and spent.

And although Sephiroth couldn’t really be upset with him anymore after that, he still pulled Cloud over his lap, then Cloud’s jeans down to his mid-thighs, and spanked his picturesque ass with one hand, while the other stuffed four fingers into Cloud’s petite mouth to serve as both a bit and a gag.

Not that he spanked very hard; just harsh enough for the creamy flesh to blossom into a sweet coral pink, and for Cloud to shed a pretty tear or two.

Then Sephiroth cupped the sore flesh in his palms, massaging both globes, while Cloud moaned quietly and miserably, aroused by every caress; stiffened cock dripping onto his slacks while Sephiroth’s own throbbed underneath it, fingers tracing wet circles around the tight pink rim until Cloud was begging for his cock.

It’s been hard to not want to fuck him all over campus after that.

Some texts will come in at two in the morning, usually suggestive selfies, to strong-arm Sephiroth into replying instead of going back to sleep.

🦋
[photo87.jpg]
[photo92.heic]

The first picture had been taken from a low angle: highlighting the curves of his ass, contrasted with the straight lines of his slim, milky thighs. Above them lies a svelte back, lightly muscled, and bright blue eyes next to golden locks peeking over a shoulder. It’s a vantage point that would probably be unflattering for anyone else, but with Cloud, he looks like a twink lover’s wet dream.

In the second, his pretty knees are lifted up to his chest, covered by white knee socks, with all the actual naughty bits cropped out of view. But there’s cum flecked over his torso and clavicles, and a heavy-lidded look in his eyes.

With a stab of arousal in his gut, Sephiroth realizes it’s a motion photo—one that comes with a few seconds of video attached—and he presses on the image to play it:

Cloud moans in the picture, biting his lip as the movement from his shoulder implies stroking between his legs, and there’s a stuttered gasp as the first few droplets of cum dot over his hollow sternum. Then a long spurt follows it to splatter across his chest, all the muscles on his stomach contracting as he comes.

Fuck.

🦋
Thinking about you
Came so hard after edging myself

Silver
How long did you touch yourself for?

🦋
an hour

Silver
Did you use toys?

🦋
I don’t have any toys :(

Silver
You can play with mine if you want
Bring the knee socks next time

🦋
Okay
Send me some pictures too :)
Still horny

Sephiroth pauses. Then he scrolls through some pictures he’d already taken, from his private photo album, but without his head cropped out. He picks one with him sitting in a velvet chair, fully erect, wearing nothing except knee-length leather boots, holding a whip crop.

Silver
[photo112.png]

🦋
Lmaooo
Is that from your kink website
I like your hair, it looks so pretty in a bun

Silver
Why are you laughing
?

🦋
lol just thinking about that guy who left you a bad review haha
No daddy big dick for him
The Dilf that got away 😔

Silver
It was my fault
I changed my mind before either of you showed up
Couldn’t stop thinking about you
I left him four stars for courtesy, though

🦋
Very polite

Silver
You should go to bed
Don’t be late for my class

🦋
But I don’t wanna go to bed
I want to keep talking to youuu

Silver
You’ll be tired and cranky if you stay up this late
Be a good boy and go to bed after you jerk off to my picture

🦋
That’s bold of you to assume
But yes I am doing that right now
almost there, Daddy ;)

Silver
Good boy
Hurry up

Cloud doesn’t respond for the next few minutes.

🦋
Cumming

Silver
Was it good?

🦋
Sure was
Thank you for your assistance

Silver
You’re welcome
I was thinking of going somewhere this weekend
The weather will be nice
Are you free?

🦋
I don’t think I can go for the whole weekend
But maybe we can go up to the Mt. Nibel hill or something
It’s nice at sunset

Silver
Okay
Maybe we can have dinner there too
Let me know
Goodnight

🦋
Ok
Goodnight 💕

Sephiroth shuffles back snugly underneath the covers, annoyingly hard, but he’s a bit too tired to even attempt to relieve it. Late night chats with Cloud have been depriving him of sleep lately.

He’s so utterly addictive.

Back when he was still reeling from his first break-up, and repulsed by women entirely, Sephiroth had turned to pornography to fill the emptiness.

There were many skin tones and body types, and he was drawn naturally towards the pretty, androgynous ones, with a similar feminine beauty but none of the same shapes. At first, Sephiroth would watch very basic things, videos with titles like Muscle jock pounds hot twink over massage table.

The algorithm then suggested other videos in his preferred category, and many appeared to be a weak pretense for the younger one to call the older one “Daddy,” or “Father”: priests spanking lithesome altar boys, or naive stepsons slipping into the bed of a stepfather with graying hair.

When he was younger, other children always made fun of Sephiroth’s prematurely silver hair, and his parents wouldn’t let him dye it, no matter how much they teased him. Later on, Sephiroth would grow a long mane, turning it into a branding strength—having a distinct physical feature makes one more memorable, and being more memorable results in more sales and success.

Online, he watched one video after another, following down the twisted rabbit hole, until he was watching twinks getting tied up, whipped, gangbanged, double-penetrated, fisted, even pissed on.

In some ways, pornography ruined him, serving as an empty substitute for intimacy, conditioning him to seek novelty through increasingly depraved kinks.

And then, to alleviate that emptiness and satisfy his curiosity, Sephiroth began meeting strangers on the kinkster website. Casual encounters and domming filled the emptiness slightly more than pornography; at least they provided touch and emotional release, as well as a mutually beneficial service to others.

Now, the thought of Cloud is the only thing that gets him hard at all; everything else pales in comparison.

He has enjoyed the extra time spent with Cloud beyond either the bedroom or classroom. Their outings to different places have now become some of his favorite memories to pluck out from the vault of his mind, like a worn but well-loved book, and they provide a different sort of intimacy: experiencing new places together, chatting about various things, or begrudgingly learning novel activities for someone his age, like “paintball”, or how to play that rhythm dancing game at the arcade.

Sephiroth can’t help but feel that things as they are won’t last—that it will all come crumbling down, and bury one or both of them in the wreckage.

Whether it’s fear or intuition that keeps weaving that through his mind, the thought won’t go away.

Silver
I’m here, please message me when you get here

He waits for a while. Growing slightly impatient as the minutes tick past.

Cloud’s probably just late. His arrival to class has become increasingly tardy lately, which Sephiroth had scolded him over, since they’re both insistent about avoiding the appearance of favoritism.

Sephiroth then made a few small compromises here and there—offering optional extra credit for when Cloud misses homework assignments, which he always conveniently blames on forgetfulness.

It feels as if his morals are eroding a little more each day; a few months ago, Sephiroth would’ve thought any thirty-something going after someone freshly graduated deserved every bit of disdain and more.

And yet, here they are.

And yet, he feels happier than any time in recent memory.

Silver
Did you get lost? Did something else come up?

He paces on the hill a bit, watching the pink and teal shades of dusk blanket themselves over the landscape. Warm lights in houses down below start flickering on.

Silver
Sun is going to set soon
You’re going to miss it
But dinner under the stars will still be nice too

Sephiroth stares at the messages. No ellipses. No indication that Cloud had read them. He tries dialing through the app, although he’s never tried that before, but it doesn’t ring.

Silver
I’m worried
Just tell me if you’re late
Or if you can’t make it

Another twenty minutes passes, each one gnawing at the edges of his consciousness. Part of him wonders if the lack of courtesy is just a generational thing.

Silver
Where are you
Just reply to me, please

Still no answer. He waits a few more minutes, and it’s already been nearly two hours of waiting now.

Silver
I’m going to your apartment if you don’t reply

All the terrible possibilities run through his mind, and Sephiroth rushes back into his car, looking up the address from their shared trip, tapping it into the driving app on his phone. Perhaps he’s overreacting, but it’s better to overreact than to regret having done nothing.

He eats one of the sandwiches along the way while traffic is slow, as well as a handful of crackers, trying not to yell at others and himself for the delay; when he finally arrives, Sephiroth hurries out of the car, leaving the rest of the food in the passenger seat.

No one answers the doorbell.

Sephiroth knocks on the door again.

Through the thick wooden door, he calls, “Cloud? Are you home?”

Still no answer.

With an ear pressed to the painted wood, he tries to determine if there’s any sound coming from inside the apartment.

Nothing besides white noise. Like listening to a seashell. If he strained hard enough, there could possibly be the sound of breathing beyond the door, but it’s impossible to tell.

Frustrated, he presses the doorbell a few more times. Ding dong. Ding dong. Dingdongdingdongdingdong. Then Sephiroth leans his ear against the door again.

Abruptly, the door opens, startling him, and Sephiroth stumbles forward, nearly losing his balance and falling onto someone.

Cloud’s pale face greets him, the skin around his eyes and nose reddened and pink, gaze unfocused.

His knuckles are bright with blood, thick rivulets of it dripping slowly onto the ground, hand clenched tightly into a fist.

“What happened? What’s wrong?” He grabs Cloud by the shoulders, but he appears frozen or shell-shocked, and doesn’t respond; eyes staring blankly past him.

Closing the door quickly, Sephiroth whirls around, looking for anything suitable, and grabs a hand towel off the kitchenette counter, then returns to Cloud.

The expression on his face is so strange—

As if he’s afraid.

As if he doesn’t even recognize Sephiroth.

Cloud takes a step back from him, lips trembling, and starts rubbing his face with his palms, accidentally smearing blood onto it and his white t-shirt.

“What’s wrong,” he asks again, heart pounding in his chest.

Sephiroth grabs his wrist to steady him and attempt to dress the injury, but Cloud raises a forearm to cover his face; then he starts crying, in a way that’s deeply unsettling, for reasons Sephiroth can’t quite pinpoint.

It’s at that moment that it sinks in: there’s something very, very wrong with Cloud.

“It’s me. Sephiroth.” He doesn’t smell like alcohol, but Cloud might have taken too much of something else.

Cloud rubs at his face like he’s trying to wash something off violently. Fingers clawing at his own neck and the air around him. Abruptly, he slumps down to the ground, head and limbs going limp, like a marionette doll with no owner.

To take advantage of the sudden stillness, Sephiroth quickly wraps the cotton towel around the wounded fist, then tilts Cloud’s blood-stained face up, a dazed, unaware look resting over it.

He takes out his penlight keychain from a pocket and shines it directly into Cloud’s eyes.

The dilated pupils don’t shrink.

“What did you take?” Sephiroth asks too harshly, a coil of panic wrapping around his throat. He grabs Cloud’s chin to force him to look back up after his head drifts down.

“What did you take,” he repeats.

Finally, some clarity and recognition seeps into his gaze, facial features relaxing. “Nothing.”

He must be lying.

“Be honest with me.” The confusion and agitation he just witnessed wasn’t normal.

Cloud stares at him. “I am.”

Sephiroth presses two fingers against the pulse at his neck, trying to count the heartbeats. Cloud’s skin is feverishly warm. “Do you feel pain anywhere? Are you dizzy?”

“No.” He sounds much more lucid now, and tries to get back up, placing a hand against the wall to brace himself. “I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

With blood staining his jaw and cheeks, flecked across his shirt, he could be someone fresh off a crime scene, or an ethereal-looking vampire.

“Why didn’t you answer any of my messages?”

Cloud slips out of his grasp and walks towards the kitchen. “I didn’t see them. Sorry.” He turns the cold faucet on, wincing visibly as it drenches his hand and the towel.

“I was waiting for you hours ago.” Sephiroth’s eyes narrow, glancing towards the reddened towel sitting in the sink. “This is a fresh cut. What were you doing that entire time?”

Cloud doesn’t answer, and it grates on his nerves, voice rising in response.

“Do you have any idea how worried I was? Why didn’t you at least let me know that you couldn’t make it?”

This feels too naked. Baring his emotions. Revealing how invested he is in all this. And the last time Sephiroth did that, it was exploited; all of his own vulnerabilities turned against him.

“I’m really, really sorry,” Cloud says, lowering his eyes. “I had a bad panic attack. Didn’t mean to worry you.”

“That’s… alright.” Sephiroth tears off a few sheets of paper towel, cringing slightly for being so harsh with him. He dampens one piece to clean the red streaks on Cloud’s face, then folds the rest around his wounds. The bleeding seems to have stopped for the most part. “How are you feeling now?”

“Better.”

Cloud takes a can of beer out of the fridge with his uninjured hand, popping the lid with a thumb. Then he takes a few audible gulps. “Wanna hang out here for a bit?”

Sephiroth looks around. It’s a very sparsely furnished apartment. Simple. A couch that’s a touch too small for someone his own height, but reasonably spacious enough for Cloud.

“Okay. I still have some food in the car. Did you have dinner yet?”

“Not really hungry,” Cloud says, making a face. “I’m sorry for ruining our plans. Do you wanna put it in the fridge?”

For some reason, he’s very reluctant to leave Cloud’s side. He seems to be behaving normally now, but the fixed pupils and confusion earlier give him pause. “No, it should be fine in the car. Are you sure your head is feeling alright?”

“Told you, I’m fine.”

Cloud opens a drawer, tearing a roll of gauze tape with his teeth, then wraps his injured hand with it. Sinking down onto the couch, beer in hand, he pats the seat next to him. “Do you want anything to drink?”

“No, thank you.” He eyes the blood stains on Cloud’s shirt. “You’re not going to get changed?”

Looking down at his shirt, Cloud makes a dismissive hand gesture. “It’s fine. I’ll just take a shower later.”

Sephiroth slides down next to him. It’s surprisingly comfortable.

Cloud takes another sip, then looks evenly at him. Slowly sizing him up. “You think I’m an addict.”

“You seem to drink a lot.”

“I told you, I try not to overdo it.”

It occurs to him then—Cloud is always much more at ease whenever he’s drinking. Less anxious. Perhaps he treats it as some kind of self-medication. That’s right—Cloud did mention that he drinks as a way of dealing with something very specific.

“Do these panic attacks happen often?”

Cloud would often excuse himself and disappear into the bathroom, and now Sephiroth wonders if there was more going on than his frequent claims of not feeling well.

Like taking illicit substances. Or perhaps secretly drinking during daytime.

“Pretty often, yeah. That’s why I’m not always great about keeping plans.” He takes another sip, eyes wistful and distant. “I just wanted to see the sunset with you.”

“We can go another day.”

Cloud clears his throat. “I’m sorry for being so flaky. I didn’t mean to be.” Then he leans forward, pressing lips over Sephiroth’s, one hand sliding slowly up Sephiroth’s thigh. “Let me make it up to you.”

The soft, wet press of his lips could get him drunk alone.

But Sephiroth draws back from him. “No, it’s alright. You should rest.”

“I don’t need rest. I need you.”

He runs a hand through the blond locks of hair, resting it at the back of his neck. His sweet blue eyes are full of melancholy. “Cloud. What did you cut yourself on?”

Cloud hesitates for a moment, chewing on his lower lip. “Glass.”

“Glass?”

“A photo frame.”

“Did you hurt yourself on purpose?”

“Not on purpose, no.” He shakes his head.

“But you do hurt yourself?”

Cloud crawls off his lap, sighing, reaching for his beer again. “Do you ever… get, like, really mad at family?”

“Yes. That’s why I don’t pick up their calls half the time.”

“I didn’t mean to break the frame.” Cloud makes a little shrug, taking another gulp. “Just lost my temper, that’s all.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” Cloud gives him a lustful, voracious glance. “I’d rather do this.” He straddles Sephiroth’s lap, palms smoothing over his chest.

“I’d rather talk.”

Cloud’s face falls, his sweet blue eyes bewildered. “Why?”

“I want to hear more about you. Tell me about your family.”

“You gonna be my therapist now? Figure out why I have Daddy issues?” Cloud flops back onto the couch and stares up at the ceiling. “There’s not much to say. Hate my Dad. Hate my Mom sometimes too.”

“Why?”

Cloud picks up his beer and takes a long, slow sip. A bitter smile lifts one corner of his mouth. “It’s funny. Didn’t find out he wasn’t even my real Dad until I was twelve. She lied the whole time.”

“I… went through something very similar.” Sephiroth didn’t think he would ever meet anyone who could relate to that particular situation.

“Really?”

“It’s a bit complicated. I have an Uncle. Who is my biological father.”

Cloud appears startled. “Oh. You mean… your mom and her brother—”

“No, no.” Sephiroth shakes his head, mortified. “They’re not related. None of them are. I’m just used to calling him Uncle. But it’s more that the three of them have an… unusual arrangement. The man I thought was my father took on that role, but he wasn’t really my father. I didn’t find out until I was in my mid-twenties.”

“How did it feel? To find out?”

“Like a betrayal.” Sephiroth’s lips curl at the memory. “Like my entire life had been a lie. But I was relieved, too, in some ways. I would’ve hated being any part of him.”

Cloud takes another sip, staring off into space. “Yeah. I guess there’s a silver lining somewhere.” His liquid eyes catch the warmth of the lamp light. “Did you ever feel like he loved you?”

Sephiroth leans his head back on the couch, shoulders slumping. “Sometimes, yes. But that’s what made all of it even worse.”

In retrospect, that was exactly why his relationship with his ex had left such deep scars. Although it was easier to dismiss the emotions and hurt from that, once Sephiroth realized that there was nothing genuine about her feelings for him at all.

Things are a bit more complicated with his father.

There hadn’t really been anyone to talk to about this, and suddenly a certain weight feels lifted off his shoulders. There hadn’t been anyone to confide in, not since his terrible ex, who is probably the reason why he stopped sharing anything at all. Everything Sephiroth told her in confidence was like giving her a knife to cut him with.

“I thought mine did too,” Cloud says, almost too quiet to hear. His pretty blue eyes lower, staring distantly at the ground. “Sometimes.”

“Do you still talk to your parents?” Sephiroth asks, tucking a lock of hair by Cloud’s jaw behind his ear.

“They’re dead.”

Something in his chest pinches sharply. “I’m… so sorry, Cloud.”

And while it feels awful that the thought crosses his mind at all, Sephiroth can’t help but wonder if it’s another one of those random lies that he tells.

Something his ex used to do was make up fake sob stories just for sympathy and attention. And she wasn’t above using sensitive topics like that.

But Cloud’s not like her—he’s not.

He’s different.

“It’s okay. It happened a while ago.” Cloud’s brows knit together, and he clears his throat. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get all blue. What about you? How often do you talk to yours?”

“I’ll entertain a call maybe once a month. Twice, if I’m feeling generous.” Sephiroth lets out a long sigh. “I deliberately looked for jobs at least an hour or two away, so they can’t drop by whenever they want. They’ve been trying to convince me to work at the same company.”

“What company is that?” Cloud’s bare foot slides along his calves.

“Shinra Beauty. My father wanted me to go into science. He values little else.” Sephiroth glances at Cloud. “You would hate him. Most everyone does. Except my mother, but she has questionable taste.”

“I’m sure I would.” Cloud finishes his beer, placing the empty can onto the glass coffee table, then rests his head against his own palm. “So… you’re not going to fuck me tonight?”

“I could. But I’m enjoying our little chat.” He tilts Cloud’s chin up, then draws a thumb across the soft, exaggerated pout.

“You can still enjoy it with your cock inside of me,” he says coyly, leaning back, brushing the sole of his foot across Sephiroth’s bulge. Cloud smiles lazily as he hardens underneath the slender arch of his heel. “Are you into feet?”

“Only if they’re as lovely as yours.” He caresses the slim milky ankle, and Cloud preens like an exotic bird, adjusting the hems of his clothing to present himself. The flimsy cotton shorts show off his long, enticing legs and thighs.

“Want me to give you a foot job?”

“I haven’t actually tried one of those before.” Sephiroth runs a bare palm across Cloud’s knobby knees. “But I’m assuming that you have?”

He had assumed that Cloud was the shy, virginal type when he first saw him, actually. But he’s far more forward than Sephiroth ever imagined.

“Giving, yes.” Lustful blue eyes flick down to his crotch, voice soft in a hypnotic way. “Take your cock out, Daddy.”

That makes him throb even harder, the fabric tightening at his crotch. Sephiroth unbuttons, unzips, and frees his veiny erection; it slaps up against his shirt.

“See? Knew you wanted it tonight.” Cloud smiles with the satisfaction of a spoiled brat, toes brushing against a thick vein along his shaft.

“You’re very hard to resist,” Sephiroth replies, caressing his bare ankles.

The couch is a bit cramped, but it’s just long enough for Cloud to lean back and stretch his legs across Sephiroth’s lap, and he uses the inner edges of his feet to sandwich Sephiroth’s cock.

Slowly, he slides his feet up and down the length, getting him even harder. Moisture beads at his tip as Cloud spreads his legs, butterfly style, so that he can caress Sephiroth with the soles of his feet.

“How are you liking it?”

Sephiroth lets out a low groan. “I think you can see that I am enjoying it very much. Didn’t think I would.” He grabs one of Cloud’s knees, halting the movement. “Take your clothes off. I want more of you to look at.”

Cloud peels the T-shirt and shorts off obediently, revealing a smooth and peachy body underneath. He’s half-hard already, and Cloud lies on his back again, knees angled up to use the soles of his feet, exposing his pink hole and cock to him.

Now Sephiroth can reach over and stroke along Cloud’s hard little cock, observing how the lovely muscles in his milky torso ripple in response as he strokes and squeezes. “You’re so beautiful, did you know that?” His eyes drift down, down to the enticing pink pucker, and Sephiroth circles around it with a fingertip.

“Am I really?” A pleased smile curves over Cloud’s lips as his thighs part a little more, hole throbbing underneath his touch.

“Extremely.”

Relaxing into the couch, Cloud throws his head back, lips slightly parted, continuing to work him with his feet, soles alternately rubbing along the sides of Sephiroth’s hard cock.

Sephiroth reaches for Cloud’s ankles, lifting them and spreading his thighs apart even more. Hesitating for a moment, he asks, “Can I spit on your hole?”

Cloud tilts his head curiously at him, playful; resembling a sweet little dove. “Do you watch a lot of porn, Seph?”

The question takes him aback.

“I used to, yes.”

“Real kinky stuff?”

“That’s a bit subjective.” He strokes a finger around Cloud’s tight pink rim. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“You can spit on it.” Cloud lifts his knees, exposing himself more, eyes hungry with lust. “You can do whatever you want to me, Daddy.”

Another pulse of heady pleasure shoots straight to his cock, and Sephiroth gathers saliva in his mouth for a few seconds, before spitting down on him from above. The viscous fluid drips past Cloud’s taint before sliding lewdly into his hole, and it draws back briefly on contact, throbbing in a fascinatingly erotic way.

Sephiroth leans down closer and releases a larger glob of spit, and Cloud moans as Sephiroth’s thumb spreads the saliva around his tight little rim.

On impulse, he kisses along the insides of Cloud’s calves, starting at the knees. Pressing his mouth softly up the trail, kissing his ankles, and finally the edges of his feet.

“You are into feet, huh?” Cloud smirks at him, utterly confident in his nakedness, without any hint of embarrassment.

“There’s very little I’m not into.” Cloud’s skin tastes clean, vaguely fragrant, like he had recently showered. Getting ready for their date, he supposes, until the panic attack left him housebound.

That gives him an idea.

“Are you clean?” He eyes the rosy little hole with unsavory interest. “Can I rim you?”

“I just showered earlier.” Cloud blinks at him innocently. “You want to put your tongue in my ass?”

The filthy words feel jarring, coming from his angelic face.

“I would like to fuck your ass with my tongue, if we’re being specific.” He presses a soft, warm palm to Cloud’s hole, grinding the heel against it as Cloud moans. “Taste your sweet hole. May I do that?”

The answer comes in the form of another moan. “Yes, please.”

Sephiroth folds his legs in half, pressing Cloud’s knees down against Cloud’s shoulders, lifting his hips for better access to his ass, and starts off by drawing light circles just barely inside the rim with the tip of his tongue.

Cloud curses, moans, gripping a handful of his silver hair as Sephiroth’s tongue plunges deeper, lapping devilishly against the pulsating hole, exploring all its forbidden contours.

“Ah,” he cries out as his tongue circles him again and again, kissing the opening tenderly before returning to licking.

He hadn’t rimmed Cloud before, but he assumes it’s not his first time receiving. Cloud flushes sweetly, making strained noises as he licks against his hole, poking the tip in occasionally, causing his hips to buck against him. It tastes clean, just like pressing his lips to any other skin surface, except eating him out makes Cloud’s thighs quiver as Sephiroth holds them down.

Then he starts fucking him properly with his tongue, thrusting with the small, wet muscle as deeply as he can.

“Oh, fuck.” Cloud gasps and writhes, like the sensation is too overwhelming, and his moans are filthy as Sephiroth’s tongue swirls inside his hole, lips occasionally pressing a kiss to the rim at the same time. Hips tensing in his grasp as his tongue flicks rapidly inside of him.

The hole starts pulsing against his lips, throbbing, and he licks lengthwise along it, up and down, drawing whimpers from Cloud. Tongue tracing the alphabet against his opening for a while as Cloud’s hips jerk.

“Could make you come from this,” Sephiroth says, withdrawing halfway through. “If you give me enough time.”

“I believe it,” Cloud lets out, strained, as he presses another kiss to his hole, tongue tracing around the rim in a circle.

“Or just rim you until you’re begging me to fuck you.”

Sephiroth licks a slow line up his opening. Then a half-circle to the right of it.

Cloud’s hand grips his hair tightly, letting out sinful cries as he does it again and again, sweet pink cock twitching in response to the shapes Sephiroth traces with the tip of his tongue.

Drifting along a sinuous path, curving to the left, then right, then left again. Drawing another slow line up his hole, vertically. Tip swiping across the top of it.

By the time Sephiroth gets to the end, Cloud is writhing helplessly in his grip, letting out moans that would put a whore to shame.

He stiffens his tongue to a point again, and licks and sucks and thrusts until Cloud’s a sobbing mess, precum forming sticky trails over his stomach, sleek hips quivering against Sephiroth’s forearms.

“Fuck,” he whimpers, hands tightening along Sephiroth’s scalp. Sephiroth moves up to lick along his taint, then the base of his balls, up his shaft, half-tempted to take all of him into his mouth.

“Wait,” Cloud says as his lips hover near his cock. He lowers his legs, sitting up, eyeing Sephiroth’s erection. “I haven’t finished with your foot job.” He pokes at it with his toes, and it jumps against him. “Do you want me to finish you off with my feet? Or would you rather come inside me?”

“Perhaps I have enough energy for both.” Sephiroth caresses the curves of his ass. “Lie face down for me.”

Repositioning himself, Cloud’s ass is now perfectly positioned in view, knees bent, feet swinging in the air. Sephiroth brings them down by the ankles, guiding them gently around him to create a crevice for his cock to fuck.

Cloud then continues stroking him with his feet, toes brushing across the slick precome at the head while Sephiroth moans from all the playful touches. His palm cup the curves of Cloud’s ass possessively, all warm and smooth, then slides up to his thin waist.

“Are you close?” Cloud’s head turns over his shoulder, tone coquettish. The strokes with his feet speed up, alternating on each side.

“Yes, I’m close.” The movement lacks some pressure, so he pushes Cloud’s feet closer together, and starts thrusting up into the narrow gap formed between them, groaning.

“Do you want me to stop moving? Would you rather take control?” Cloud asks, cheek pressed into the couch.

“I’ll take control,” he says, gripping a slender ankle tight.

It’s a perverse sight, watching the head of his aroused cock poke up between Cloud’s slim feet, then disappear back down, over and over, as he thrusts.

There are other parts of him that are more beautiful than his feet, but all parts of him are. From the small curve of his ears to those pointed elbows, slender hips to thin ankles, and everything in between.

It occurs to him right then how much he views Cloud as an object sometimes. As if viewing him through a filter, seeing only disembodied parts instead of a whole person.

“Are you coming yet, Daddy?”

Sephiroth wonders exactly what kind of Daddy and Mommy issues Cloud has. It isn’t so much looking to be taken care of as much as wanting his attention and approval. Maybe something similar to himself; emotional neglect and criticism.

“Almost there, sweet boy. Just give me a minute.”

Faster and faster, his hips hammer up, staring at Cloud’s lovely back and ass and thighs all the while, breath and pulse quickening, until Sephiroth comes violently, white spurts dripping down over the tops of Cloud’s feet, between his toes, lacing across his ivory ankles.

Cloud slides his feet up and down, milking out the last of it from him, and some come spurts onto Sephiroth’s shirt.

Oh well.

He lifts Cloud’s ankles to his mouth to taste his own hot, salty cum. Licking the slender jut of bone, then the flat tops of them, and the curve of the heel.

If Cloud has any judgment, he keeps it to himself, patiently waiting for him to finish.

Afterwards, Cloud flips himself around, resting back on his elbows, still naked. “What do you think they’d think of us, if they saw us like this?”

Sephiroth pauses. “Who?”

“All the other students who wish you were fucking them.”

The topic makes him uneasy, but he tries not to show that. “Is that a fact?”

Cloud smiles breezily at him. “Especially the girls. You should hear how they talk. Remember that one who stopped by the office last week?”

Sephiroth does. She’d worn a very short skirt and low-cut top, flaunting goods that he has no interest in.

It’s strange. Cloud seems to remember things very clearly sometimes, but other times, he appears terribly forgetful.

That was something he’d chalked up to white lies or lack of focus, but it’s another one of those incongruent things that sit uneasily at the back of his mind. All the alcohol, maybe.

“You haven’t told anyone about us, have you?”

“Of course not.” Cloud eyes him, tilting his head, knees going up slightly. “Do you think I look better than her?”

That’s another thing Sephiroth has noticed—Cloud seems to require frequent validation about his looks, despite being objectively more attractive than the vast majority of the population. Unfounded insecurity, he supposes. Or jealousy, although Cloud never hounds him about it the way his ex used to; looking back, she must’ve been projecting her own lack of loyalty.

Yet at other times, Cloud seems to hate Sephiroth commenting on his appearance at all. He supposes it depends on how moody Cloud feels on that particular day.

Yet another one of those inconsistencies that leave Sephiroth confused about how to behave around him.

He smooths a hand along his bare thighs and hip. “You’re more beautiful than anyone I’ve ever seen.” Leaning over him, stroking up his sides, his long silver hair traces patterns over the bare flesh.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Cloud’s expression shifts, brows twisted. “You should leave. It’s late.”

“I thought you wanted to be fucked tonight.” He nuzzles his nose along Cloud’s jaw, tilting his chin towards him.

Cloud turns his face and pushes him off abruptly, then walks over to pick up his clothes off the floor, shrugging back into them. “I did, but I changed my mind.”

Sephiroth doesn’t know what to feel. “Did I offend you?” Maybe the rimming was too much for him. He hadn’t planned to kiss him for the rest of the night, or anything like that.

With a sigh, Cloud says, “No. But I need you to get out. Sorry, I’m just not feeling well.” Wincing, he rubs at his face and neck again.

“I could stay. Take care of you?”

“No. Please just leave. Now.”

A strange agitation drifts over his delicate features again, and Sephiroth would rather not leave him alone.

But Cloud’s being quite clear about what he wants, so he tucks his cock back in and zips up.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll message you later. Sorry.”

“It’s… alright.” He’s worried, but Sephiroth obliges and walks out the door. Cloud doesn’t waste a second, slamming it in his face, a muffled “Bye!” coming from inside.

The sound of the chain lock clicks into place.

Cloud behaves so strangely at times.

Mismatched puzzle pieces, some of them still missing. An incomplete picture.

Back in his car, Sephiroth glances at the uneaten sandwich and crudites. He takes a napkin from the pile to clean up the semen on his shirt still, then looks up towards the window of Cloud’s apartment.

The blinds draw shut just as he does.

He should be questioning things more. All the things that don’t add up. The bizarreness of it all that Cloud plays off as nothing.

An owl hoots in the distance. The moon is wan and round and yellow tonight, like a golden coin.

After getting home, Sephiroth showers, shampoos, gargles minty mouthwash, and brushes his teeth before bed. Then he changes into silken pajamas and braids his hair briefly, so that it won’t get overly tangled while he slumbers.

As Sephiroth lies awake in his own bed that night, his mind races too much to sleep. Replaying the dialogue of their evening, over and over, as if that would help him understand.

Chapter Text

🦋
I’m sorry
just wasn’t feeling well
didn’t want you to see me like that

Silver
That’s okay
What was it?

🦋
Not sure
my head hurt a lot
Stomach too

Silver
Are you feeling better now?

🦋
better, yeah
Thanks

Silver
That wasn’t your first time getting rimmed, was it?

🦋
No lol

Silver
Okay
I was just wondering, that’s all
It’s very important that you’re honest with me, especially if anything makes you uncomfortable

🦋
Sure I will
I’ll make up for everything on our next date ok?
Promise

Silver
There’s nothing to make up for
Please just rest
You should go back to sleep

🦋
Ok
Goodnight ❤️

Silver
Goodnight

“How are you feeling?”

Cloud sets his backpack down on his chair. “Fine.” He pulls out a folder, handing it to him. “I did some research for your next lecture. Should be mostly an older audience. Entrepreneur types.”

“Thank you.” His eyes flicker over to Cloud’s bandaged hand. “How’s your hand?”

“It’s fine,” Cloud says, a hint of annoyance slipping into his tone.

His moodiness is throwing Sephiroth off again. “How are your other classes going?”

The tone comes out even more flatly: “They’re fine.” Then Cloud slides down into his seat, reaching for his backpack again.

Sometimes it feels like trying to walk around eggshells. Unsure of when he might say something that will set Cloud off. Sometimes he doesn’t have to say anything at all, and it still happens. But it’s not exactly the same as how things were with his ex—there’s no rhyme or reason to his mood swings, except perhaps that Cloud is much more irritable while sober.

Strangely, Cloud appears to be writing notes with his right hand. Perhaps it’s because his left one still hurts. But he seems to be ambidextrous. Not left-handed as he claimed.

Another one of those unnecessary white lies.

Or perhaps Cloud had originally been left-handed, and had been forced to use his right—Sephiroth’s parents tried that, but he stubbornly refused. It felt like one of the few things he ever had control over.

“Would you like to go out for lunch today?”

Cloud looks up at him, eyes hard, lips tightened. “No.”

The terse nature of his replies makes Sephiroth uneasy. As if he had messed up somehow, but he can’t be certain of what that might be. Again, another echo of the past he’d prefer not to revisit. “Maybe another day then?”

Instead of replying, Cloud pulls out his laptop, expression full of ire, and starts working on a slideshow presentation.

Working in silence fills the room with more and more uncomfortable tension, until Sephiroth can no longer tolerate it. His ex always used the silent treatment to punish him, or perhaps simply to control him; it always made him desperate to win her favor again, groveling without even realizing he was doing it.

“Is there something else you’re into that you would like to try some time?”

Perhaps Cloud is upset that they didn’t get a chance to go somewhere. But that wasn’t Sephiroth’s fault, was it? Or perhaps unhappy that they had indulged in Sephiroth’s likes and kinks, but not necessarily Cloud’s.

“What do you mean?” Cloud closes the lid on his laptop, traces of annoyance still on his face.

“Could be anything. Even going out somewhere special. Something besides seeing the sunset?”

“I’m not into anything.” Stuffing the laptop back in, he hauls the backpack on again. “See you on Thursday.”

Then he slips out the door soundlessly.

Now he wonders again if Cloud had lied to him about not taking any drugs. Perhaps last night was an adverse reaction to one, and that’s what he was trying to hide from Sephiroth so badly.

He frequently lies for seemingly no reason. But so far, they have always seemed to be random, inconsequential things. Or perhaps the kind of lies someone tells because they want to seem more interesting.

But wouldn’t being ambidextrous already be much more interesting? There doesn’t seem to be any reason to lie about that.

It doesn’t make any sense.

Sephiroth replays the conversation from last night again in his head, wondering if there was anything he had said or did that could’ve been unintentionally upsetting. But Cloud seemed fine, based on their texts. Even apologetic after rushing him out of his apartment.

He tries not to dwell on it too much, but it lingers on his mind anyway.

Silver
Did I do something to upset you today?

🦋
No
You just caught me in one of my moods
Sorry

Silver
The hot and cold thing really bothers me, actually.
To be completely honest with you.

🦋
I’m sorry
:(
I’m really sorry Seph

Silver
There was someone like that in my past.
Although there was always a reason for her to turn cold.

If she didn’t get her way, for example.
I don’t think you’re like her, but I wanted to be honest about this.

It’s been on my mind for awhile.

After thinking about it, he quickly edits out the full stops:

Silver
There was someone like that in my past
Although there was always a reason for her to turn cold (edited)

If she didn’t get her way, for example
I don’t think you’re like her, but I wanted to be honest about this (edited)

It’s been on my mind for awhile (edited)

🦋 is typing…

Sephiroth waits for the reply to appear, feeling terribly juvenile for worrying so much about whether his thoughts are coming across properly.

He feels a bit awful that their encounter last night got so filthy. They were supposed to go out somewhere, and Cloud’s hand was injured, and it didn’t even seem like a particularly fun evening for him.

As if he wasn’t feeling well, but felt it necessary to get him off anyway, even if Cloud didn’t actually feel like being intimate.

And instead of picking up on any reluctance, Sephiroth spent a half hour rimming him.

But Cloud seems to turn things sexual completely on his own most of the time. So it’s hard to know how to behave around him.

🦋
Thank you for telling me
I’m so sorry you had to deal with all that
And I hate that I remind you of someone like that in any way 🥲

I try really hard some days to control my moods but sometimes I just can’t
today was a bit of a bad day

Silver
I understand
I’m sorry it wasn’t a good day
Have you seen any doctors at all?

Might help quite a bit
With your panic attacks as well

🦋
I haven’t
Too much anxiety

Silver
Maybe you can work your way up to it
There’s no shame in needing help for these things

🦋
Ok
I’m sorry again
please don’t be mad at me

Silver
I’m not upset, just concerned
And I wanted to be transparent about it
You didn’t do anything wrong

🦋
Okay
Thank you ❤️
I’m sorry for stressing you out

Silver
Don’t worry about it
Have a good night ❤️

🦋
Good night ❤️❤️

Sephiroth doesn’t usually use emojis, but Cloud said that they help with conveying tone properly. The double hearts on the screen help reassure him a little, that it was good to finally touch on the unspoken issues between them.

On Wednesday night, Cloud shows up on his doorstep again. Mildly scented with alcohol, as always.

“You should curb this habit while you’re young. Your liver will thank you.”

Cloud waves a hand in the air. “Eventually. I could stop anytime I want.”

“I think that’s what addicts usually say.”

“No, I really could.” Flopping down on his couch, Cloud props his socked feet up on the ottoman, flexing his toes. He notices Sephiroth staring at them. “Did I unlock a new kink for you?” he asks coyly.

“Perhaps.” He closes the door behind him, then takes a seat on the couch next to him. “Are you feeling alright?”

“I’m okay.”

He tilts Cloud’s chin up.

“Are you really, though?”

Cloud sighs against his fingers, chin briefly melting into them for a moment. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being such a mess.”

“I don’t exactly have all my shit together, either. And I’ve had more years than you to figure it out.”

His soft cheek leans closer into his palm, warm, strands of blond hair brushing against his skin. “Sometimes I hate the way I am.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I tried to explain, you’d probably think I’m crazy.”

“Try me.”

“Or send me to a mental ward.”

“I’m sure it’s not that out there. You can tell me.”

Cloud leans his head back against Sephiroth’s shoulder, letting out a tired sigh. “It’s nothing. Forget I said that.”

He runs a hand idly through Cloud’s scalp and his tousled hair. “I’m here anytime if you want to talk. It doesn’t have to be today. Whenever you need.”

Cloud doesn’t respond to that. There’s nothing for a while except the steady stream of his quiet breaths, and a warm weight resting against his chest as Sephiroth’s fingers comb through the strands of Cloud’s hair.

“Seph?” Cloud asks, cheek warm against his heartbeat. “Have you ever watched teacher-student porn?”

Sephiroth’s fingers go still. An exhale caught in his throat.

“Not judging.” Cloud turns his darling face to look up at him with those magnetic blue eyes. “Just wondering.”

“Among other things, yes.” It’s far from the worst thing he’s ever watched, but a little gross considering his profession.

A palm smooths up his chest slowly, flirtily. “Do you rewatch my videos? The ones you took of me?”

Sephiroth clears his throat. “Sometimes, yes.”

“We should do one together.”

Something low in his gut twitches. Sephiroth trusts Cloud now, more or less, but at the same time, he doesn’t. Because he’s always so full of dangerous ideas.

“C’mon,” Cloud coos. “It’ll be fun. Or would you rather roleplay a pizza delivery guy?” Cloud flicks lightly at his arm with two fingers. “Priest? Police officer?”

After all the filthy pictures and videos he’d taken of Cloud, it doesn’t seem fair to refuse.

“It’s not really roleplay if we’re actually teacher and student though, is it?”

Cloud walks two fingers up his thigh, towards his crotch. “You keep saying you like the way I look when you make me come, right? So let’s make a memory out of it. Together.” He winks at Sephiroth playfully, and traces a fingertip around the hard outline of his stiffening cock. “Something to cherish when you’re feeling horny and I’m not around.”

Sephiroth sighs. “I can’t say no to you.” He doesn’t say it playfully, more as a factual statement. A resignation.

Cloud gets up, dragging him by the hand. “That’s because you don’t want to,” he replies with a faint smugness.

In the bedroom, Cloud props his phone up on the dresser, adjusting the angle until it stays in place.

Sephiroth takes a seat at the edge of the bed after retrieving a bottle of lube, clasping his hands together. “So how is this going to work?”

Cloud looks at him over his shoulder, smiling in a deadly way. “You’re going to be the big, bad teacher making me earn my grades.”

“And you?”

“I’m going to be the F student you can’t resist. The F is for the best fuck you’ve ever had.”

“That’s a twist on the truth.”

“Why?” He blinks innocently. “Am I actually the best fuck you’ve ever had?”

“You are. The rest of it, I meant.”

“Aww. I’m honored. Ready? Be as sleazy as you want.” Cloud presses the red record button, then saunters towards him.

Cloud straddles himself over his lap, wrapping arms around his neck. “Talk dirty to me,” he murmurs into Sephiroth’s ear.

“You’re so exquisite when I make you come,” he says, speaking at a volume intended for the camera, grasping for the right thing to say. Sephiroth runs his lips across a collarbone, then up his jugular. “I want to watch it again and again.”

Cloud glances behind him, looking directly into the camera. “Yeah? You like me that much?” He shifts to one side, adjusting himself so that both their profiles can be seen.

Sephiroth runs his tongue across a hot, smooth clavicle, then up towards the delicate jaw. Fingers gripping tighter around Cloud’s tiny, slim waist. “No one does it like you.”

Then he peels open Cloud’s shirt, revealing creamy pale shoulders as he starts pulling it down past them. Roughly unbuttoning his jeans and sliding them down his thighs, letting Cloud kick off the rest, which bares his perfectly fuckable ass. “Can’t stop thinking about you.”

“Do you think about me during class?” he asks far too innocently while sitting naked on his lap.

“All the time.” Sephiroth unbuttons his own shirt, shrugging it off. Kicking off his trousers, cock hard and curving up against Cloud’s. He grips each side of his ass possessively, gently squeezing the flesh, as if Sephiroth were checking for the ripeness of a peach. “Want to bend you over and make you mine in front of everyone,” he says with a groan.

Cloud pulls back from him, laughing, one corner of his mouth lifting into a little smirk. “Pretty sure that’d get us both expelled.”

“I’m loathe to admit, that would almost be worth it.”

It’s true. The color Cloud has brought into his monotonous life seems more valuable than what he had before, however ephemeral it may be. Even with all the risk it brings.

He kisses the slender, pale throat as Cloud laughs against his lips. Then he cups Cloud’s jaw to press a deeper kiss to his mouth.

Wet. Sweet. Traces of whiskey.

“I can’t fail this class, professor. What can I do to earn my grades?”

Cloud’s breath pauses as lubed fingers press into his hole, moaning and parting his thighs more as he works them in.

“On your back is how you’re going to earn them.” He shoves Cloud roughly onto the bed, then lifts his knees until his thighs are pressed flush against his chest.

Then he re-inserts three fingers at once, observing how Cloud’s cock twitches with interest as he does, getting more erect.

“You’re too big, Professor,” Cloud says, trying to stifle a laugh. “I don’t know if I can take more than your fingers, sir.”

“You’ll take it if you want to graduate this semester,” Sephiroth lets out in a sinister, silky tone, and the roleplay is much more fun than he expected. It’s taking some effort to not break character. He circles a thumb around Cloud’s slick opening, feeling the muscles tense and relax against him in anticipation.

“Yes, professor,” Cloud says sulkily, though a naughty smile forms on his lips. “If that’s what I have to do.”

He gives himself a few rough strokes before allowing the tip to spring up fully, then possessively taps it against Cloud’s hole a few times, groaning as he does so. Sephiroth guides the head against the pulsing, sweet opening, tracing its edges slowly, then lines himself up to dip inside. The tight, furnace-like heat envelops just the head of his cock briefly, a bit past the widest portion of it, and then Sephiroth pulls it back out, drawing out a sweet moan from Cloud along with it.

Cloud is noisier than usual as he dips the tip back in, gasping, back arching as the head breaches his hole again. Sephiroth observes how the tight skin stretches to accommodate the ridge, then snaps back to tautness as the start of his shaft makes its way in, stretching back over the bulbous head each time he withdraws.

The sight stirs an unbearable heat of arousal, with pleasure pulsing through him as his cock stiffens, growing heavy, dipping it in and out of Cloud so quickly that he whimpers louder, going successively deeper each time.

“Surely you can handle more than that?” His voice is sweetly mocking. Sephiroth smooths one palm over Cloud’s chest, then his stomach, then lastly over his pretty pink cock, stroking its length a few times with a tight grip.

“I’ll try, Professor.” Cloud pouts like the spoiled brat he is. “Please, just be gentle with me.”

Cloud then bites his lips and rolls his head back as Sephiroth sinks all the way to the base, into all the delicious, velvety heat. Crying out as Sephiroth snaps his hips hard, folding his petite body nearly in half, their skin slapping together with each powerful thrust.

“Sir—sir, it’s too much,” Cloud says with a low moan, his eyes and teeth shut tightly, but Sephiroth knows it’s all play. He told Cloud his safeword as well, but neither of them had ever had to use it thus far.

“Too bad. You should’ve studied more. Now you have to earn it the hard way.” He pounds into Cloud’s hole, relentless, swallowing all the sweet moans coming out of Cloud’s mouth as the unforgiving slaps of skin against skin flood the air. “By taking my cock. Take it, slut.”

“I can’t, sir, please,” Cloud moans out, fingers gripping into his arms, tears forming at the corners of his eyes, but his legs spread wider. His pupils are dark with lust as Sephiroth grabs his chin to kiss him, hips still thrusting feverishly against the back of Cloud’s thighs.

“That’s it,” Sephiroth lets out, breath ragged over his lips, speeding up with every thrust. “That’s how you earn it.” Rhythm growing faster and faster. “Earn it, earn it, earn it.”

“Yes, Professor,” Cloud moans out, making slutty, helpless little whimpers, knees curling softly against Sephiroth’s ribs.

It’s sending a chill through his body, a dark frisson, while holding Cloud’s wrists together above his head, hips pounding faster with each cry of pleasure.

He pulls Cloud up roughly into his lap, quickly thrusting back into his tight ass.

“Ride me,” Sephiroth orders. “Earn it if you want to pass my class, dirty slut.”

Something lights up in his pretty blue eyes; as if being degraded and being told what to do fulfills some deep need.

With an exaggerated shyness, Cloud sinks slowly over his cock, arms hanging loosely around Sephiroth’s neck. Eyes fluttering shut as his slender hips move up and down.

“Have I been a good boy?”

“So good,” Sephiroth groans, steadying Cloud’s waist with his grip, thrusting up to meet his movements, and Cloud releases a lewd moan as he’s fucked more properly. “Taking my cock so hard and deep.”

Cloud’s short of breath now, continuing to bounce weightlessly over his lap, fully impaled on his cock with each thrust. Milking him for all he’s worth. “You’re gonna give me,” he moans out, “a good grade now, aren’t you?”

“Straight A’s,” Sephiroth says with a tender kiss. Palms caressing his delicately beautiful body, gripping the sides of his tiny waist. “Anything you want.”

“Want it inside me,” Cloud murmurs against his lips, their foreheads touching. “Want it so bad. Want your cum inside me, Daddy.”

Being called that always brings with it a perverse excitement, a sense of being the one in control, and Cloud’s back arches sweetly as Sephiroth fucks up into him harder, his breath becoming fragmented from being jostled.

His fingertips dig into Sephiroth’s back as the primal urge to dominate takes over, rutting up nearly violently between Cloud’s smooth thighs.

“Good boy, Cloud,” he groans, hips taking a life of their own, each thrust speeding up until the sounds of their flesh smacking together harshly echoes over the room.

“Daddy,” Cloud begs into his ear, strained, and that does it—

With increasingly deep thrusts, he slams up into the sweet, forbidden heat and Cloud cries out, clutching more tightly as Sephiroth unloads his orgasm into the blissful throbbing flesh, balls twitching and slapping against Cloud’s ass. “That’s a good boy,” he praises sweetly through ragged breaths. “Take it all now. Every last drop.”

After a sharp, punctuated snap of his hips, Cloud whimpers, hips jerking as he comes helplessly between their pressed stomachs, hot liquid spurting all over their abs while Cloud clings to Sephiroth’s arms and shudders in his lap.

“Good boy,” he repeats, murmuring into the soft curves of Cloud’s ear while he pants, stroking a palm down his slender back. “Letting me breed you like this.”

“Yes, Daddy,” Cloud whispers back, rim tightening around him with each thrust, eager to keep him inside.

Sephiroth snaps up into him a few more times, fucking the cum back up into him while slowly softening, and Cloud relaxes against him, boneless and blissful, a flush of afterglow on his skin.

Angling his ass towards the camera, Cloud then looks over his shoulder, staring at the phone. Cum trickles slowly down their thighs, with his cock still nestled snugly inside of Cloud. Then he turns back towards Sephiroth.

“Wasn’t that hot?” Softly lidded eyes stare at him, lashes brushing over charming freckles.

“That was fun,” Sephiroth chuckles. He presses lips to Cloud’s damp temple. “And hot,” he agrees.

Cloud tries to unmount him, but Sephiroth grips more firmly, holding him in place. “Where are you going? Don’t you want to keep my cock warm?”

“Don’t wanna waste battery.” Then Cloud slips out of his grasp, picking his shirt back up off the floor. Walking up to his phone, he turns it off, then he starts pulling one arm into a sleeve.

“You’re not going to show me?”

A tiny wink flashes at him. “I’ll send it to you later.”

An uneasiness turns in his gut again. Perhaps simply concrete evidence of their affair makes his own choices harder to ignore.

Or is it that there’s always been something a bit off about Cloud? Something that he can never quite pinpoint, but which leaves him filled with a nameless, subtle anxiety nonetheless.

Glancing over, he can see the beginnings of a bruise forming along Cloud’s slender thighs as he bends down to pick up his jeans.

Sephiroth grabs a pair of black sweatpants and pulls them on, not bothering with a shirt. In the bathroom, he spot-cleans his torso with a wet towel, wringing another to bring to Cloud, only to see that he’s already fully dressed.

“Leaving already?”

He makes a strange, perplexed sort of smile. “I just feel… it’s hard to stay awake right now.”

“Stay the night then.”

“Can’t.”

“Why?”

“I sleep better in my own bed.” Cloud sits at the edge of the mattress, pulling up one sock, then the other.

He stills when Sephiroth curves a hand under his jaw.

“What aren’t you telling me, Cloud?”

Cloud doesn’t look at him.

“Did I hurt you?”

“It’s nothing.” He rubs his eyes, frowning. “I promise, it doesn’t have anything to do with you, I just feel like going home.”

Sephiroth sighs. By now he’s getting used to some of Cloud’s eccentricities, and he’s willing to look past them, but he’s no closer to understanding them than in the beginning.

“Alright.”

He walks Cloud to the door, and he actually does look a bit unwell—skin paler than usual, forehead dotted with sweat. “Are you sure you’re okay to go home on your own?”

“I’ll be fine. See you tomorrow in class.”

“Did you remember to do the paper that’s due?”

“I… think so. Yeah.” Cloud makes a crooked smile at him, pointing a finger gun. “Remember, you promised me straight A’s.”

“I also said that you can have anything you want.”

“And a pony.”

“Do you really want a pony? I can get you one.”

“Nah. I’m kidding.” His dark lashes flutter. “Goodnight.” Cloud waves to him, then turns down the hall.

Sephiroth watches him disappear as he takes a right towards the elevator lobby, then steps back inside, letting out a breath.

Cloud hasn’t stayed the night since their first weekend together. Sephiroth assumes that perhaps Cloud doesn’t want to be around others during his panic attacks, which he’d only partially observed once at school, and quickly left the room at Cloud’s request, which was practically barked at him.

But there seems to be more than that. Much more that he’s not saying.

If only Cloud would just be forthcoming about whatever’s going on, but the whole truth seems impossible to wring from him.

This feeling of welcoming doom, this beautiful doom, with open arms—it must be what Nietzsche meant by hope being the worst of all evils. It clings to him like a blade stuck in his chest, its handle waiting to be turned; like something destined to destroy him, and still, Sephiroth refuses to let it go.

Chapter Text

Sephiroth awakens to lively, chirping birds and a stream of warm sunlight cutting across the bed.

Rubbing his eyes blearily, he picks up his phone off the nightstand. There’s a couple of notifications that came in two hours ago.

🦋
[video.mp4]
Hotttttt right?
Look at us
Miss u already
❤️

The message is an immediate reminder of the strange rollercoaster of a relationship he has right now.

Cloud had dragged him onto an actual one a few weeks ago, and Sephiroth enjoyed watching Cloud have fun more than the ride itself. It’s an infectious energy.

People ride roller coasters for enjoyment, don’t they?

But they expect to be in one piece at the end.

Cloud holds no such promise of leaving him whole.

Briefly, he plays a bit of the video. Seductive and mesmerizing, Cloud reminds him of a nymph or siren. Some kind of mythological, tempting being. Ethereal in his beauty and drawing out the basest desires; reducing Sephiroth to an animal rutting madly.

Almost as if he weren’t real. As if he’s just a figment of Sephiroth’s imagination, catering perfectly to each of his heart’s desires.

They make a strikingly beautiful pair, visually: silver and gold, lithe and muscled, and the grainy lighting lends the video more the appearance of an erotic film than the more crass, high-definition pornographic videos many studios put out nowadays.

“I can’t, sir, please.”

“Ah—”

His cock twitches at the sounds of moans and the impact of flesh.

Sephiroth sighs.

If he weren’t already filled with so much shame, he might ask Cloud to openly resist more the next time they roleplay.

He can’t even get off on this properly. Too busy thinking about how any of this would look to his colleagues or his family or his professional contacts, even if he doesn’t like half of them.

After downloading the video, Sephiroth turns his phone off.

During school hours, they play their usual game of pretending that there’s nothing but a professional relationship between them. That’s good for whenever someone unexpectedly walks into Sephiroth’s office, and avoids drawing the attention of Cloud’s classmates.

But today, Cloud’s staring at him from his seat while sucking on a lollipop. Licking it, sometimes leaving it in his mouth while taking notes, which makes his cheek bulge out in a way that’s both suggestive and distracting.

It’s not something he wants to call attention to, so Sephiroth tries his best to ignore it.

His senseless cock responds anyway—which Sephiroth also tries to ignore, along with the irritatingly mischievous smirk dancing at the edges of Cloud’s lips.

After class, Cloud stays in his seat until every other student has milled out. Then he finally walks up to his desk.

Sephiroth takes his reading glasses off, looking up, mildly irritated by Cloud’s lack of adherence to his own rules. “I thought you wanted us to be discreet during school hours.”

“Making an exception today.” His eyes seem darker than usual, the pupils blown wide and endless. Honestly, recreational drug use shouldn’t be a surprise to him at this point. It goes along with all the other reckless, impulsive behavior. But it doesn’t seem like Cloud will be honest about it, even if he asks.

“Where’s your paper?”

Cloud pops the lollipop back in his mouth and digs in his bag. “Thought I didn’t have it, huh? I finished this last week. So there.” The words come out slightly garbled around the candy.

He slaps the essay on top of the pile with all the others.

“Good. I’m glad you did the assignment.”

“Ditch your office hours today.” Cloud’s eyes are as glossy and round as the lollipop that keeps popping out of his mouth. It’s his second one, and the scent of artificial cherries wafts off it.

“What?”

“Ditch your office hours so we can go see the sunset.”

From the nostalgic, glimmering look in his eyes, one would think he’s a vampire who managed to find a rare opportunity to enjoy the sun again.

When he says nothing, Cloud frowns. “Pretty please? Just this once?”

Cloud’s pouting slightly, lips and tongue stained bright red, looking like the most adorable bloodsucker to ever walk the earth, and he can’t say no.

“Okay,” Sephiroth sighs. The hill is further out and usually unpopulated, so the chances of being spotted by any of his colleagues or students is low, especially on a weekday.

“I’m going shopping. I’ll bring snacks and stuff, so just meet me there around five-thirty. Okay?”

He’s so bright and happy-looking that Sephiroth can’t help but smile back. “Alright. See you then.”

At the bottom of the hill, Cloud’s sitting cross-legged on the grass, a few pastel-tinted paper bags next to him.

“Where’d you park?”

“Around back.” Sephiroth steps up to him, the breezy wind pulling on his long strands of silver hair. He stoops down to pick up the bags. “Shall we?”

“We shall,” Cloud answers with a lilt. Then he starts climbing up the dirt path.

Gravity isn’t in their favor, but Cloud’s as energetic as a kid, chattering all along the short incline up, talking about all his favorite sunsets.

“I didn’t know you were such a fan of nature.” Sephiroth rolls out a blanket that he retrieved from the trunk of his car. “Grab the other end?”

Cloud helps him lay it flat. “I’m not.”

“Why are you so excited then?”

He scratches his chin, looking up at the sky. “You know how seeing fireworks on television isn’t the same as seeing it in real life?”

“Yes. Concerts work that way too.”

“It’s like that. Or a movie. It’s not the same at home compared to when you’re in a theater, y’know? It’s more real this way.”

Cloud always brightens noticeably whenever they go out somewhere new together. Maybe he only enjoys going places when there’s someone to go with him. Or maybe the panic attacks limit him to familiar places most of the time.

Taking a seat down on the blanket, Sephiroth pokes around the bags. There’s sandwiches, chips, pickles, soda. Surprisingly, no alcohol.

“The air smells different at dusk, too.” Cloud closes his eyes, the orange light painting his skin a golden hue. Then he opens them again, pointing. “Look.”

Turquoise and fuchsia streaks through the sky, the clouds some indescribable neutral shade, the sun shimmering, golden-red and fiery at this hour.

“It’s beautiful.” And something Sephiroth would never bother to look at on his own. Even though there’s an opportunity every single day.

“It is, isn’t it?” Cloud pops open a bag of chips and crunches on one, handing the rest to him. “Wanna share a sandwich?”

“Sure.” Sephiroth takes half of the mini baguette. There appears to be ham and cheese and frisée salad tucked in between the loaves. “Looks delicious.”

The fresh air, the vivid colors, Cloud’s beaming face, it all makes him feel alive. In a way that makes the rest of his life from before feel monochrome.

“Told you it’d be nice.” Cloud steals another chip from the bag.

“Do you come up here often?”

“Not often.” The wind plays with the golden strands of his hair, whipping them around. All the faint freckles on his cheeks are more visible in direct sunlight.

“You’re even more beautiful than this sunset.” Sephiroth runs the back of his knuckles against his cheek.

Cloud doesn’t take his eyes off the horizon. “Would you still like me if I weren’t pretty anymore?”

“You’re beautiful in more ways than one.”

“What if I turned into a worm?”

“I’d build you a nice terrarium and keep you in my office.”

“Seph?”

Cloud turns to look at him, cheeks rosy as the blush on an apple.

“Yes?”

“I just wanted to say that… even if it doesn’t work out in the end, I enjoyed my time with you.”

The words that were there get caught in his throat, dissolving, and Sephiroth forgets what he was going to say.

It’s as if Cloud had viewed them as doomed from the start as well.

Or perhaps never had any intention of staying.

“Are you… dying? Or breaking things off?”

Either idea fills him with immediate dread, but the first one especially. His mind flashes back to all of Cloud’s complaints of not feeling well; all the constant headaches and nausea, his gauntness and lack of appetite. Or even how happy he is just to see a sunset.

The thought casts a different light on other things as well; the desperation beneath all his sexual overtures, the nonchalance towards money, drinking so carelessly, and the insistent desire to see new places.

As if his time is somehow limited.

“No.” Cloud shrugs. “Some things you just have no control over, you know? So I just wanted to say that.” His thin fingers curl over Sephiroth’s, lacing between them.

He hopes this one isn’t a lie.

“I’ve enjoyed my time with you too.” The words taste melancholy as they leave his mouth. “I hope that we can enjoy it for longer.”

“Yeah. I do too.” Cloud plucks up a dandelion puff, twirling it around for a moment, before blowing its seeds into the wind.

The sun finally finishes setting past the horizon, all the stars shining in its place instead, scattered among the purplish canvas of night. They lie down peacefully for a bit, with Sephiroth pointing out constellation clusters.

“That one’s Ursa Major. The bear. See the points?”

Cloud leans closer to him, squeezing one eye shut, as if that would help him see. “That doesn’t look like a bear. It looks like a wagon.”

“Astronomers take many creative liberties.”

“What else is there?”

Sephiroth points to the left side of the sky. “The six stars here. In the shape of a kite. It’s called Boötes.”

“Booties?”

“It means bear-keeper. It’s very close to the other one. Like it’s guarding it.”

“You’re so smart.” Cloud digs noisily through the chip bag resting on his skinny stomach. “They all just look like random dots to me.”

“You’re smart as well. Knowledge isn’t necessarily intelligence. Intelligence is more about the recognition of patterns.”

“Well, see, you just proved my point. I would’ve known that if I recognized patterns.” Cloud traces a finger along the kite shape Sephiroth had pointed out.

“You’re very intelligent, Cloud. I wouldn’t say that to you if I didn’t mean it.”

Cloud stares up at the stars. “I’ve never been a very good student.”

That doesn’t seem true at all. His undergrad GPA is exemplary. But it doesn’t seem to be false modesty, either—it sounds like Cloud believes what he’s saying.

Maybe it’s related to the father whom he never felt like he was enough for. Sephiroth can relate to that only all too well.

“Whoever made you feel that way was wrong. Very few students actually understand what I teach as well as you do.”

Cloud rolls his head over, eyes studying him for a moment. “You’re biased,” he says. Then he gazes up at the stars again.

Sephiroth doesn’t have a reply for that.

The wind ruffles through Cloud’s hair, pale skin drinking up the moonlight. Sometimes he seems like an old soul, wise beyond his years, and yet terribly young at the same time.

“What’s that one? The two really close together?”

“That’s Castor and Pollux. They form the Gemini constellation. Commonly referred to as the twins.”

Cloud lights up, the interest resembling the sort of curiosity usually only observed in children. “What’s their story?”

“Well, they’re not quite twins, neither in mythology nor astronomy.” Sephiroth takes Cloud’s delicate hand, pointing it towards the stars. “The brighter one is Pollux. It’s closer to the Earth, and is a single giant star.”

“And the other one?”

He tilts Cloud’s wrist slightly. “That’s Castor. It’s actually a cluster of stars, even if it appears to be a single one to the naked eye.”

“Hmm.” Cloud appears to contemplate that, shifting his head to look at it from a different angle. “Interesting. What’s the myth about?”

“Zeus was king of the gods on Mt. Olympus. He was also a lecherous adulterer. Leda, Queen of Sparta, had caught his eye, and he mated with her in the form of a swan.”

“Wow.”

“Yes. Greek mythology is quite interesting. That same night, she also copulated with her husband. So the resulting children had different fathers. Castor was human, but Pollux was half-god.”

“So they were very different then.” Cloud forms a cylinder with his fingers, squinting at the stars like it’s a telescope.

“They were, but they were also inseparable. When Castor died in battle, Pollux was so heartbroken that he begged Zeus to make his brother immortal as well. Pollux then gave up half of his immortality in order to share it with his brother, and the two would spend half the year in the heavens, half in the underworld.”

“That’s nice. That they could always be together.” Cloud gazes up at the constellation, a wistful look on his darling face.

“Yes.” Sephiroth brushes his knuckles against Cloud’s warm cheek. “Are you ready to go?”

Cloud gets up, dusting off his knees and palms. “Did you like the sunset?”

“Yes. Very much so. Thank you for bringing me up here.” Sephiroth places the leftover food in one of the paper bags. “Can I drive you home?”

“Sure.”

He holds Cloud’s hand as they walk back down the dirt path, and the fingers intertwine and lock with his own. “Be careful. It’s dark.”

A quiet “mm,” is all he replies with as they go down.

Once inside his car, Cloud automatically crawls down and starts giving him a blow job. Sephiroth doesn’t do anything to stop him; instead he leans back, one hand on the steering wheel and the other cupping the back of Cloud’s head.

Cool night air drifts over his bare cock, alternating with the wet heat of Cloud’s mouth and the dry but pleasant touch of his skillful fingers.

No one is around besides an owl somewhere in the distance; no one there to witness Cloud licking a slow, heated line up a particularly thick vein, all the way to the tip of his cockhead; no one to hear any of the wet sucking noises or ghostly kisses.

His hand tightens at the back of Cloud’s head when he comes, stifling a groan, spilling hot come into his mouth, some of it getting onto Cloud’s chin and his thin fingers. Cloud then takes care to swallow the excess, licking clean any residue before coming up for air.

Afterwards, he gazes up at Sephiroth for approval with those sad, beautiful blue eyes of his. Tinted with the faintest desperation, but it’s there.

His theories on Cloud’s hypersexual behavior have varied over time: At first, Sephiroth thought that seduction was just his chosen tool of manipulation. Then he thought that Cloud used his physicality to avoid emotional intimacy. After that, it simply seemed to be how he expresses affection, or a side effect of impulsivity.

Today, he even thought it might be because Cloud was hiding a terminal illness.

All of those seem like potential half-truths. But Sephiroth sees it more clearly now, and he wonders why he hadn’t before.

It’s because Cloud believes it’s the only thing that gives him any value.

The thought deepens his guilt.

On Friday evening, Cloud shows up to his house smelling of alcohol again. Though, as he points out, never off balance or mispronouncing words, so Sephiroth drops the topic.

As always, the visits start out feeling like a therapy session of sorts, and then inevitably lead to the bedroom.

Cloud’s underneath him in only an unbuttoned oversized shirt and silky boxer shorts—both of them Sephiroth’s—and he’s even harder to resist like this.

“Wanna roleplay something again?” He smiles luridly, face full of mischief.

Sephiroth nibbles on Cloud’s pouty lower lip, pulling on it lightly with his teeth before letting go. “What would you like to play this time?”

“You pick.” Cloud smooths a soft, warm palm up the muscles of his stomach.

After a moment of hesitation, he asks, “Do you know what CNC is, Cloud?”

“You mean rape play?” Cloud blinks, saying it so casually, as if they were discussing the weather. As if it weren’t taboo at all.

Hearing the actual term out loud makes a vein near Sephiroth’s temple twitch. “In essence, yes.”

“You wanna be, like… an intruder or something?” Cloud tilts his head back in a contemplative way, bare throat and ivory collar bones exposed. Sweet blue eyes drifting idly over the ceiling before they settle back on him.

“Something like that.”

Admitting any of this feels quite vulnerable, but it seems safe enough now to do so, without fearing any judgement or repulsion.

Cloud’s gaze falls off to one side, almost uncharacteristically shy. “How would it work?”

Guilt is slipping back into his gut at the idea of having Cloud indulge his worst fetishes; urges Sephiroth feels terrible for even having, even if it’s all consensual play-acting. It feels too exploitative on some level, simply because of their age difference.

But then it also feels like trust and relief—the idea that he could show every part of himself in front of someone else, even the most shameful ones, and still be accepted.

“You would resist me,” he says hesitantly.

“Would I be crying?”

“Light resistance. Not as if you’re fighting for your life. More reluctant and afraid.”

“While you’re doing what?”

Sephiroth takes a deep breath.

“Touching you. Tying you up. But you start enjoying it. You’re conflicted.”

“Touching me how?”

“Fingering you. Prepping you for my cock.” Sephiroth pauses. “While holding you down.”

Cloud doesn’t say anything for a moment.

“I don’t think I can do that,” he finally lets out reluctantly, fine brows drawing closer. “I’m… really sorry.”

The shame still pours over Sephiroth like gasoline, burning his throat with its fumes, even though Cloud doesn’t seem to be judging him. He had only ever revealed this kink to complete strangers, which was always easier to do.

“That’s alright. Of course.” It’s a good thing for Cloud to assert boundaries. He so rarely ever does.

“I mean, we could still roleplay that. If you want. I could still act afraid or cry. And the rope tying part.” He shrugs, nonchalant. “It just can’t be too sexual, that’s all.” Cloud tugs on Sephiroth’s belt buckles. “You could hit me.”

That, he didn’t expect.

“With my belt?”

“Yeah. Or your hands.”

“How hard?” The words immediately spill out on their own, to his great horror.

“You can make it hurt. Just not too much.” Cloud plays with his belt, undoing it slowly.

Sephiroth warms to the idea, although he wishes that he didn’t. “Perhaps I could also find you all tied up after getting rid of the ‘intruder’. Dry your tears and take care of you.”

“Yeah. Sure. We could do that.”

“So you can start by pretending to be asleep after I turn off the lights. Is that alright?” Sephiroth clears his throat.

“Okay.” Cloud curls onto his side and closes his eyes, obedient as always, the very picture of a slumbering angel.

“Then I’ll start tying you up. You’ll act afraid.” The thought of it already has Sephiroth’s cock shamefully erect, twitching against his trousers.

“Got it. Go ahead.”

“Remember. Use your safeword if we need to stop for any reason. Understood?”

Cloud affirms with a nod, though with his eyes still closed.

Sephiroth’s brimming with an excitement that feels awful. He unbuttons his own shirt, slipping it off, then turns the dimmer switch down to the lowest setting. After that, he draws the curtains fully closed.

For a few minutes, he just stands by the side of the bed, staring at the curve of Cloud’s back, falling and rising with each breath. Full of hesitation.

Then he crawls onto the mattress and grips one of his small wrists, quickly securing rope around it.

Cloud opens his eyes groggily, then thrashes violently in his grasp, breaths panicked, blue eyes wide with shock.

“What are you doing—stop, let go!”

He’s strangely good at acting. Almost too good. Distress falls over his pretty face, and it shouldn’t make Sephiroth hard.

And yet it does.

But it isn’t real—no one is getting hurt. It’s just a game of pretend, so there’s no harm being done, is there?

“No, don’t,” Cloud begs, pathetic and pitiful, letting out a frightened whimper, struggling uselessly against his much, much stronger grip. That alone gets Sephiroth’s cock to lift another inch.

It’s almost disturbing how convincing he is. Not because it makes the roleplay feel too real, but because it makes Sephiroth wonder if anything else had been an act.

“Be quiet.” Sephiroth grips his jaw tightly, clamping a palm over the soft pink mouth, then he finishes tying the knots, securing one of Cloud’s slender wrists to a corner post of the bed.

Hyperventilating and whimpers ring almost authentic as Sephiroth takes a step back, surveying the lurid sight with satisfaction. Cloud cowers beneath him: small, helpless, intimidated.

He hates that the sight of it sends another throb straight to his already painfully hard cock.

“Let me go.” Cloud starts crying in a way that shouldn’t be arousing, the thin skin around his eyes sweetly reddened. “Please, don’t hurt me, please.”

“I told you to be quiet, didn’t I? You’re not being very quiet,” Sephiroth murmurs with a low menace, loosening his belt, a threat to the movement. It drags loudly against the floor as he approaches Cloud.

Cloud flinches hard when the first lash comes down across his bare thighs and calves. He shuts his eyes tight after being hit a second time. He doesn’t cry out or make any sound, even after the third.

Each lash leaves a bright pink welt that decorates his skin beautifully, temporary ones that shouldn’t leave marks for too long.

“Hit me harder,” Cloud says, breaking character for a moment, opening one eye to squint at him.

What Sephiroth enjoys about this type of thing is feeling in control. Feeling trusted. Giving pleasure that slowly erodes the feigned resistance. The adrenaline rush from it all.

Not causing actual pain.

That was the self-imposed limit he never let himself tread past, at least.

But he brings down the belt harder, watching the pink deepen, and something primal blooms in his gut, from the way Cloud is at his mercy—under his complete control. And how willingly he placed himself there.

Sephiroth lashes him again, and again, until Cloud finally screams out, leaving him sickly satisfied, cock throbbing with each wince and shudder.

“Is that enough? Will you behave now?” He takes a harsh breath, all his blood rushing down.

Cloud shakes his head, darling face dotted with tears.

Harder, his eyes say.

The next crack down of his belt, it sounds as if it’s immensely painful, from the broken, anguished cry Cloud makes.

Stepping over that line feels like playing with fire.

What starts off as a tiny flame could eventually engulf an entire forest, burning rows of houses in its wake.

“Enough? Do you want more? Or will you behave and do as you’re told?”

He trusts Cloud to use his safeword. But all Cloud does is tremble, shrink away, and to his own repulsion, it makes Sephiroth’s cock twitch.

Another lash strikes against his bare thighs and calves, and Cloud lets out an indignant, pained shriek. After an even harder one, he bites down on his lip, either from pain, or to prevent the cry from coming out.

A perverse pleasure flows through him—this feeling of pure power. It’s not about desire or trust anymore. It’s not about pain, or even sex.

It’s only about power, and who currently holds it.

Cloud cries out as the next five lashes fall over his back and reddened thighs, drawing a horrible sound from his throat as the rough belt smacks against his skin, before Sephiroth finally snaps to his senses.

It clearly isn’t a performance anymore.

“Spaghetti. Time out.” He bends down quickly to undo the knots around Cloud’s left wrist and he sobs, shoving at Sephiroth’s chest, kicking with his legs. “You’re alright, you’re alright. Shh.”

“Stop,” Cloud whimpers, though his voice is sharp with anguish. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you so much.” It seems like Cloud is stuck, somehow: still trapped in the roleplay. His palms push Sephiroth away, frantic, hitting his chest, panicked breaths trapped in his throat.

He hasn’t snapped out of it yet.

“Cloud. You’re safe. This isn’t real.” He cups the softly reddened cheeks, his worry rising as Cloud hyperventilates while he does so. “This isn’t real,” Sephiroth repeats.

It takes a long time, but Cloud stops fighting him. Eyes losing their distant quality, but to Sephiroth’s dismay, he still flinches when Sephiroth reaches up to brush away a glistening tear.

“You’re safe,” he tries again, but Cloud’s sobbing continues, pained little heaving sounds that twist like a knife in his chest. Sephiroth wipes the tears off Cloud’s face with a tissue, but they won’t stop.

Guilt floods his insides upon seeing all the angry red welts on Cloud’s thighs, and from the way he shakes when Sephiroth lifts the shirt’s hem to survey the extent of the damage.

“Why didn’t you use your safeword?”

He’s crying too hard. Wheezing between each high-pitched sob, the kind of sound that only accompanies true sadness. Sephiroth presses his lips to his temple, but all Cloud does is cry harder in response.

Cloud’s still partly somewhere else. Still in the scene.

“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, Cloud.”

The feeling makes him sick inside. Whatever it was that he felt briefly, when the power was the only thing in front of him, instead of Cloud. Seeing what that did to him.

That isn’t who he is.

That isn’t who he ever wants to become.

“Sorry,” Cloud mumbles after his breathing finally calms, wiping his face on his sleeve, then he rubs at his eyes. Clutching the sides of his shirt together. “Sorry, just give me a minute.”

He slithers out of his grasp and goes into the bathroom, shutting the door.

Sephiroth puts his shirt back on, then slumps into a velvet armchair with a sigh. He can hear Cloud blowing his nose for a while and the sound of running tap water.

A few moments later, Cloud steps back out, the skin around his eyes and nose slightly pink and raw, and it somehow only enhances his delicate, ethereal beauty.

Then he crawls back onto Sephiroth’s lap, and Sephiroth has to consciously pull his hands and lips off his neck.

“You should’ve asked me to stop.”

Cloud shrugs, damp lashes lowering. All the wet trails on his face remain unreasonably arousing. “It’s fine. I just wanted to feel something intense.”

“It was too intense. For me.”

His heart sinks at what he’s about to say. They had always known it was doomed, but they went down this path anyway. Sephiroth wipes away the hot tear falling down the curve of Cloud’s cheek with a thumb.

“I can’t do this anymore. With you.”

“What do you mean?” Distress creases between his fine blond brows.

“This. Us.”

“No, it’s not a big deal,” he insists. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” Cloud lowers his lips to try to kiss him again.

“No, it isn’t.” Sephiroth holds onto his jaw and shoulder, gently but firmly pushing him back. “This isn’t healthy.”

A hurt expression lines his features, disbelief in its contours. “Okay. So you wanted to pretend-rape me, but I’m the one making this unhealthy.”

Sephiroth strokes his sweet, devastated face. “That’s different. This isn’t good for you. Or me. I can see it.” He brushes away another hot tear dripping down Cloud’s reddened cheek. “You see it too, I know you do. You’re using me to hurt yourself.”

Cloud’s lower lip trembles violently, eyes creasing with pain.

Like the alcohol. The cuts he shows up with. Whatever other drugs he self-medicates with. How he eats either far too little or far too much.

The way he relates to Sephiroth is just another way to express that lack of self regard.

He cups Cloud’s face with both palms, the words painful to say, but he needs Cloud to hear them. “You don’t deserve to be hurt.”

Cloud then bursts into tears, laying his head down against Sephiroth’s chest. He sobs and sobs, voice cracking as it falls apart in his throat. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Sephiroth cradles his head against him, stroking his face as he sobs endlessly, and Cloud feels so fragile in his arms, with all of the pain and sorrow spilling out of him immeasurably infinite, larger than either of them, overflowing the entire room.

The rest of the weekend, Cloud won’t leave his mind.

Is he eating?

Is he well?

On the surface, Cloud hadn’t seemed to take the breakup too badly. It seemed he understood, despite being upset. The reasons why they can’t be together.

Was it premature for Sephiroth to end it now?

He had told Cloud that it wouldn’t change everything. That they could still socialize as friends. Or at a later point, perhaps they could reconsider everything.

Whether he added the last part to soften the blow, or because he can’t let go himself, Sephiroth doesn’t know.

Silver
Did you eat something?

Silver
We can talk again about it after a few days
Get some rest

Silver
I’m very worried about you
Please say hi when you’re feeling up to it

He sighs, foot tapping out of anxiety. Cloud is most likely taking it much harder without anyone to see.

Silver
Don’t drink too much
Maybe we can chat more after office hours on Monday
I have assignments from your class to grade before then

Perhaps now, Sephiroth will return to who he was before all of this. Even if that person was gray, predictable, structured.

The devil he knows is better than the devil he doesn’t.

Everyone he meets inevitably changes him. He carries traces of his parents. His supposed Uncle. The neighbor he spent time with when he was young, and his daughter, whom he used to reluctantly babysit, before they moved away. His two-faced ex who left him weary and distrustful, especially of women.

But more than anything else, Sephiroth fears the person he might become while being with Cloud.

Because Cloud is someone who tests his boundaries and drags him to the edges of cliffs. Someone who takes him to places he would never go on his own.

And Sephiroth doesn’t want to harm him any more than he already has.

Or become the monster he had always feared was inside of him.