Archive of Our Own

Sephiroth keeps his apartment clean. So clean, in fact, that there exists hardly anything within it to dirty up. In the tiny kitchen, he keeps his electric kettle plugged in beside a mountain of tea boxes, but apart from that and a roll of paper towels, very little else takes up counter space. He doesn’t cook— never has. Shinra provides all of his meals for him, boxed up in a timer-cooled container and sitting on his doorstep every Monday morning. His food for the week, every calorie and carb counted, every protein and vitamin tallied up and adjusted according to what his weekly blood work suggests he could use more or less of.

His living room is much the same. A few newer, unused blankets sit folded on the couch, Sephiroth never having touched them once. They’d come with the apartment, like the couch, the television (which he never uses), the shower curtain, and his bed. All he’d had to buy when he’d moved in was bedsheets and the spare household or toiletry item, since most of his soaps and conditioners he owned he just had to move from the lab’s private showers and into his own, even more private shower. The bathroom is probably his favorite part about the whole place— no one else gets to use it apart from him, which means no one else will steal what products he meticulously picks out to keep his hair free of tangles and smelling nice. It’d been such a stupid thing, how angry he got when he realized some of his things were being stolen from him when other people were using the lab showers, but he couldn’t help it. There’s no worse smell than semi-pure, almost-fully undiluted mako, and with all the mako baths he gets, if he doesn’t take the time to scrub the foul smell out, he’ll reek of it constantly, much like the lab’s head scientist does. Though, he doubts that any amount of scrubbing would rid Hojo of the smell since he spends so much time cooped up around the stuff.

All in all, though, his place is nice. It’s not particularly homey, but it’s his, so he’s content. His bedroom is the one place he lets himself keep a little more decorated, Masamune hung on the wall by hooks, the windowsills lined with little potted plants he keeps killing on accident, and his bed absolutely drowning in blankets he’s collected over the years. His room back in the lab had been so cold all the time, so he’d taken to hoarding whatever blankets he could get his hands on when he lived there. Small blankets, large ones, soft ones, tattered ones, some covered in busy patterns and others plain… he’d loved and still loves them all, no matter what level of physical comfort they bring him. They’re his, so he loves them regardless.

He sinks into them after showering, his skin burning from the bath he’d been given only hours before. His hair feels good now, but that’s about the only part of him that does. Every inch of him feels like he’d just been tossed in a basket full of nails and doused in lemon juice afterwards, and he’s nauseous to Hel and back. He’s always nauseous after baths. Always sick. He usually spends the first hour after the drain on the grated floor of the tank or the tile floor of the shower room spitting up stomach acid and shivering like a leaf in the wind as the last bits of fever work their way through and out of his body. He hates the mako baths, almost— almost— as much as he hates the man who administers them.

Sephiroth keeps a special place in his heart reserved for Hojo specifically. Hatred is not an emotion he’s unfamiliar with, his childhood riddled with the feeling, but he keeps the worst of that feeling stored away for the professor. If there’s one man who truly deserves it, it’s Hojo.

Today, thank Gaia, Hojo had appeared too busy with other things to spend too much time poking and prodding Sephiroth after he’d had his technicians haul him out of the tank. Usually, he takes his time, running gloved fingers over Sephiroth’s raw skin, pressing down on sensitive areas, asking if his touch hurts. The answer is always yes, and Hojo always takes that as a sign purely to find areas of Sephiroth that hurt to touch worse.

And every now and then, Hojo’s self control, which he doesn’t have much of in the first place, morphs along with his touch. Those are the times Sephiroth hates Hojo the most.

It’s only happened a few handfuls of times, the majority of those times being when Sephiroth had still been a boy and his body hadn’t fully acclimatized to the harsh chemicals and he’d been sicker than he ever was now, but Sephiroth remembers it well. Hojo’s hands were always wandering. They still wander, but now that Sephiroth has a bathroom to himself, Hojo has less of an excuse to try and wash him off himself after the baths— not that he always needs the baths as an excuse anyway.

The first time had been in the lab showers, under the too-hot spray of hard water against Sephiroth’s skin. He’d been thankful, even then when he didn’t understand much of what was happening to him, that the water hurt so badly, because it meant what Hojo was doing to him hurt just a little less in comparison.

The second time had been just a few weeks after that, in Sephiroth’s old room, on his pile of blankets he kept there to shield himself from the harsh lab temperatures. They worked in that aspect. They did not, however, shield him from anything else.

Sephiroth doesn’t remember much about what spare times followed the first two, and he doesn’t try. He doesn’t need to, anyway. Hojo’s still around, and Hojo’s still Hojo.

He knows he’ll never be free of the man until one of them is dead, so he won’t hold his breath.

A knock on his bedroom door startles him out of his dark little spiral, and he jolts upright as the door swings open.

Genesis walks in, his expression equally as haughty as the air about him, and gives an amused little laugh as his eyes land on Sephiroth sitting in the midst of his blanket pile with a self-deprecating storm brewing behind that stony, ever-present mask of indifference.

“How did you get in? I locked the door.”

Genesis tilts his head as he takes in his surroundings, seeing them for the first time.

“It would seem you did not lock it well enough,” he responds airily. “And don’t you remember? You told us we could come over tonight.”

Sephiroth stares a moment more before letting his eyes drop to the floor. He had promised… and he’d also forgotten.

“Genesis, come on, you’re being a dick,” Angeal snaps, only barely stepping in far enough to grab the redhead by the arm. His eyes adjust to the darkness of the room quickly, and he blinks a few times, seemingly stopped in his tracks. “Oh.”

“‘Oh?’” Sephiroth parrots back.

Angeal’s eyes snap to his, and he shakes his head sheepishly.

“Nothing, I just…” he lets Genesis’ arm go and raises a hand to scratch at the back of his neck, which Sephiroth can see very quickly heating up, even in the dark. “Your room just doesn’t look how I thought it would.”

“It’s cute, isn’t it?” Genesis prods, and Sephiroth stands, patience wearing thin.

“Excuse yourselves for a moment so I can get dressed. Go wait in the living room.”

“Dressed?” Genesis laughs. “You’re dressed well enough,” he turns to Angeal again, “isn’t he? And besides, I don’t think it’ll matter all that much an—”

“Genesis, come on,” Angeal replaces his hand on the man’s arm and tugs him out, closing the door behind them.

Sephiroth lets out a breath.

Fuck. Fuck, he really had forgotten he’d promised to let them see his apartment today. Genesis has been begging for months about it, making known his dissatisfaction every chance he’s given at the fact Sephiroth’s seen both his and Angeal’s apartments but they’ve never seen Sephiroth’s. He just had to go and forget that today was going to be another bath day.

He’s been forgetting a lot of things recently.

He carefully pulls on a pair of loose black sweatpants, his arms and legs still shaky from today’s hefty bout of chemical exposure, and slips on some socks. His skin is still a bit raw, so dressing comfortably will be important for the next day or so.

As he joins the two in the living room— well, joins Angeal. Genesis is currently rifling through the refrigerator, spouting off complaints about how he’s got nothing good to eat— he takes a few deep breaths and composes himself. Sulking will do him no good, and ‘sulking’s for children.’ Hojo’s practically beaten that line into his brain, so it’s something he lives by.

“Do you own truly nothing?” Genesis shouts across the room before slamming the refrigerator door shut. “I knew your palate was not nearly as refined as my own, but this is appalling, Sephiroth, even for you.”

“Shinra supplies my meals,” Sephiroth answers, refusing to sink low enough to entertain Genesis with whatever heated response he’s looking for.

Genesis sighs, waltzing over and tossing himself dramatically onto the couch cushion on Sephiroth’s left. Angeal sits to his right, brows pinched in discomfort. He clears his throat a little and turns to Sephiroth.

“If now’s a bad time—”

“It’s not,” Sephiroth answers quickly. He doesn’t give himself time to think about it. He doesn’t really feel like thinking all that much right now.

“What an awfully fast response,” Genesis teases, leaning into Sephiroth so the lilting hum of his voice falls a bit closer to his friend’s ear. “Have you been thinking about it?”

“Gen, a little decorum—”

“Oh, he’s fine,” Genesis brushes Angeal off, then gently takes Sephiroth’s jaw in hand, pulls his face in, “aren’t you?” and kisses him.

They’ve been fooling around for just a few weeks, but already, Sephiroth’s gotten better at kissing. He’d been abysmal (Genesis’ wording— “Have you never kissed anyone before? Oh, Sephiroth.” ) when he first started out. It hadn’t been his first kiss, but it’s not like he could tell Angeal and Genesis that. Whenever he’d kissed before, most of his involvement had consisted of attempting to keep his mouth sealed shut, anyway. No learning to be found in that.

Genesis slides himself gracefully onto Sephiroth’s lap like a cat, wrapping his arms around his neck and prying his mouth open with his tongue so he can taste him.

“I’ve certainly been thinking about it,” he divulges between kisses. “Angeal can tell you all about it. He talked to me about you yesterday as I touched myself.”

“Genesis!”

“What?” Genesis snaps, suddenly rounding on Angeal from where he sits atop their friend. “Are you going to get onto me the whole time or are you going to let Sephiroth enjoy the fact that we’re here?”

“We barged in— broke in, actually. I’m still not convinced he’s actually comfortable with us being here right now.”

“You asked him as much and he said yes,” Genesis rebuts, talking back to Angeal as if Sephiroth isn’t even in the room. “He’s a grown man, not a child who doesn’t know how to say no.”

This, without warning, strikes a chord within Sephiroth, and he tenses. With how Genesis is straddling him, it doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Sephiroth…” Genesis says quietly, turning his attention back to him. As gentle as his voice may sound, he fails to hide the frustration. “Do you want us here right now?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t even sound convincing to himself.

Sephiroth doesn’t like the way Genesis is looking at him. It’s scrutinizing, like he’s a bug under a microscope. Or a human specimen under a doctor’s vinyl-gloved hands.

“We can do this another day, you know,” Angeal cuts in.

They wait what feels like a lifetime for an answer, and Sephiroth finally nods.

“That may be best.”

As he lays in bed, after the two have gone, he realizes that a small part of him didn’t expect them to leave.

A small part of him expected them to stay and insist— demand, perhaps— that he let them have sex with him. They’ve fucked a few times before, so sex isn’t anything new and terrifying, but the idea that they could’ve stood their ground and wormed their way into his pants anyway has his skin alight with nerves.

They could’ve, Sephiroth thinks as a hand wanders idly down to the front of his pants to squeeze at his clothed cunt, dampening quickly as his mind mulls it over. They could’ve violated him against his will.

He grits his teeth and shoves his pants down to his thighs.

They could’ve insisted.

He buries his fingers in himself, not even fully aware that he’s doing it.

They could’ve… 

Grinding his cock into the heel of his palm, he chokes on a moan.

They could’ve raped him.

With a bitten-off shout, Sephiroth squeezes his eyes shut and arches, coming hard and fast into the blankets he’s laying on.

Sephiroth refuses to leave his apartment for a week.

He doesn’t want to see either of them, not for anything they did, but because he can’t believe he’d think such terrible things about either of them.

What a friend he is, imagining that sort of thing. Angeal would never, and nor would Genesis. They simply aren’t like that. Hojo is, and Hojo’s a vastly different type of man. Hojo couldn’t care less about Sephiroth apart from his own sick interest in what capabilities his body possesses— both out in the field and here within the deep, dark depths of Shinra’s backrooms.

A heads-up for a mission is sent out to him in his mail, and soon enough, he has no choice but to leave.

He showers for no other reason aside from clearing his mind and pulls on his clothes, descending the floors by foot so he has no chance of running into anyone except the spare janitor here and there.

The two run-ins he has on the way down serve to brighten his spirit a little. One janitor, a girl maybe only a few years older than him, drops her supply bucket as he passes her. Her deep brown eyes go wide as he turns back to identify the loud crashing sound, and he watches as she shakily picks the thing back up and turns the other way to continue going about her business. The second one is with an infantryman, and his reaction serves to bring him even more distracting entertainment than the first.

His voice is soft and stuttery when he opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out beyond an amalgamation of jumbled words.

Sephiroth resists the urge to laugh, and instead asks, “are you alright?”

“Y-yes,” the boy stammers. “Yes, I’m fine. Sorry, sir.”

Bullshit, because he looks as if he’s about to either faint or wet himself where he stands.

Sephiroth nods, gives a small smile, and leaves the boy shivering in place, starstruck as he watches the Silver General in all his intimidating glory flutter away as he continues on his way to the building entrance.

By the entrance doors, Lazard is already waiting for him.

“You’re late.”

“I apologize.”

Lazard just waves it off and beckons him out, pointing at a truck pulled up to the front.

“Looks like you’re ready, so go ahead. Genesis is leading this one, so please…” he begs, sounding exasperated already, “try to get along. At least in front of the civilians.”

Sephiroth agrees, but when he climbs into the truck, he knows already that he’s going to be breaking that promise.

“Where are the others?”

Genesis is leaned back against the divider, one leg crossed over the other and an arrogant look on his face. There’s a book— a copy of Loveless— laying next to him on the bench. He was probably reading it while he waited.

Sephiroth understands, as an infantryman shuts him in and bangs on the truck twice, signaling that they’re ready, that this is an ambush.

“There are no others,” Genesis says simply. “Just you and me.”

Sephiroth’s brow twitches, but he takes his own seat and crosses his arms.

“Oh no,” Genesis says, standing up and taking one of the dangling handholds in his fist for balance to loom over Sephiroth as the truck starts up, “no, you don’t. You’ve been absent all week and you haven’t been returning my calls. Or Angeal’s, for that matter.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Throwing a petulant little tantrum, oh, I’m sure.” Sephiroth doesn’t respond. “What is it that we did to upset you?”

“You didn’t upset me.”

“No?” Genesis takes Sephiroth’s chin in his hand and tilts his head up, much like he’d done only a week ago before Sephiroth made him leave. Their eyes meet and somewhere behind Genesis’ expression, Sephiroth sees some far off, sick, depraved satisfaction at being able to look down at him.

“Oh, so that’s how it is,” Sephiroth murmurs, then takes Genesis’ wrist in his hand and pulls it off, using it as leverage to help him stand. At his full height, he towers over Genesis easily. “You think by pulling a stunt like this and getting us assigned to some throwaway mission that you’re going to get me to heel. Is that it?”

Usually, when Sephiroth assumes this position with someone and talks to them like that, they fold over to kiss the ground at his feet, terrified of what terrible things he’d do to them if they didn’t. But Genesis, always so proud, does none of that, his face lighting up with anger instead as he puffs his chest out, attempting to contend with the man glaring him down.

“Heel?” Genesis spits at him bitterly. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d love nothing more than to get the great Sephiroth on his knees with his head bowed for me, but we both know that’s never going to happen. Why is it that when I request something so simple as a conversation, you turn your nose up and decide you’re too good to grant me the pleasure?”

Sephiroth doesn’t quite know how to respond. He’s not… that’s not it. That’s not it at all. And he can’t even tell Genesis that, because that’d mean telling him what the real reason for his radio silence was instead, and he can’t do that.

Genesis would never speak to him again. He’d be disgusted, and so would Angeal, once word got around as to why Genesis decided to cut Sephiroth out of his life.

Angeal and Genesis are…

They’re his only friends. He can’t afford to lose them.

So, he puts his foot down, looks Genesis in the eye, and tells him to drop it.

They don’t speak to each other for the rest of the mission.

The next time he’s ambushed, it’s Angeal. Though, since it’s Angeal, it feels a little less like an ambush and a little more like a parental intervention.

“Genesis is upset, you know,” he says from his spot against the wall, and Sephiroth had almost missed him as he’d turned the corner.

“I know.” He continues walking.

Angeal breaks into a jog behind him to catch up, coming up close to his side and making no attempt to steer clear of Sephiroth’s personal space like he usually does. This must really be bothering him, then.

“What did you two talk about? He won’t tell me.”

“We didn’t talk about anything.”

“You must have talked about something , or he wouldn’t be so pissy with you. And he’s incredibly pissy. It’s starting to become unbearable.”

“And you’re not ‘pissy?’”

Angeal pauses for a moment, thinking, then answers, “no.” They’re outside of Sephiroth’s apartment now, and Sephiroth turns and asks if he’s going to follow him inside.

“May I?”

Sephiroth considers him and the fact that no matter how hard he knows Angeal is going to try, he’s not going to get anything out of him, but he relents anyway and nods for him to follow in behind him.

Angeal lingers a little in the doorway, but ultimately shuts himself in with the other man and pads into the kitchen with him, both still decked out in their SOLDIER First uniforms. Sephiroth takes some cloudy-looking stuff in a water bottle out of the refrigerator and unscrews the cap, downing big gulps of Gaia-knows-what.

Angeal settles into one of the stools at the counter and crosses his arms over the granite.

“It’s something about sex, right?”

Sephiroth almost chokes, almost, but manages to hold it in long enough to put the bottle down and clear his air passage before he makes an even bigger fool of himself in front of Angeal. The other night was already bad enough. He really had been acting childish, and he can’t stand thinking about it. He wishes the other two would just drop it and leave him be for a while, but it’d seem neither of them are capable.

“Why would you think that?”

“Just a hunch,” Angeal says, sounding a bit amused at Sephiroth’s reaction. It’d been pretty well-concealed, but he knows Sephiroth. The question had very obviously spooked him. “You seemed fine for the most part, just tired, but…” Sephiroth eyes him warily. “Do you feel bad about saying no?”

“No,” Sephiroth responds, then takes another sip out of the bottle, well-prepared for any potential verbal jumpscares, this time.

“Then, what? Did something happen after we left?”

He answers with a “no” again, but he hesitates, and Angeal latches on.

“Okay, so something did happen.” Sephiroth just ignores him, choosing instead to focus on getting the contents of the half-gallon bottle down as efficiently as possible. It’s some electrolyte and vitamin mixture that the labs sent him after some imbalance the blood draw detected, and it tastes terrible, but the bitter taste is the only thing keeping him grounded right now. “Sephiroth,” Angeal starts, sounding every bit as diplomatic as he looks, “I’m your friend. And Genesis is, too. You can tell us.”

Sephiroth slaps the empty bottle down on the counter.

“I can’t,” he says thinly. “And neither of you seem to understand that.” He’s breaking apart in front of Angeal’s eyes and he hates it. He hates the way it feels. Hates the way Angeal’s looking at him, as if he’s something to be fucking pitied.

“Whatever it is, it’s probably not as bad as you think it is.”

“No?” Sephiroth retorts, a cruel, sarcastic smile twisting the features of his pretty face. His mind feels foggy, and he doesn’t trust himself to say anything more.

Angeal groans and rubs the heels of his palms into his eyes, a sign that Sephiroth has learned means he’s attempting to stave off an impending migraine.

“Look,” he sighs, dropping his hands and squinting at Sephiroth through his lashes. “I wouldn’t usually care about this crap, but you’re both acting like children. I feel like I’m surrounded by children and I’m tired of it. So either I need you to tell me or I need you to tell him or I need you two to fight it out or I need everyone to forget anything was ever wrong in the first place, because to me, it doesn’t feel like anything was ever wrong in the first place, so I don’t understand why there’s something wrong now. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells because of some invisible problem that you can’t seem to get over.” When Sephiroth’s expression hardens, he adds, “And Genesis,” to even out the blame, but Sephiroth knows what he meant, and now he’s truly upset.

Angeal is taller than him, only by an inch or two, but he cowers as Sephiroth stalks over and fists a hand in his sweater vest.

“Have you ever been raped?” Sephiroth hisses lowly, and Angeal’s face pales.

“What?”

“I have.” He tightens his hold and brings Angeal closer. Close enough that he can see the patterns in Angeal’s mako-infused eyes swirl about in confusion and fear. “Multiple times. I know what it feels like, and I know how it starts.”

For a long moment, Angeal doesn’t say anything. He just stares, his mind trying to come up with something to say in response that isn’t an exclamation about how unbelievably fucking lost he is. He finally seems to make the connection, and he looks horrified.

“Sephiroth,” he says, and the way he says it sounds accusatory, though Sephiroth knows it’s not meant to be. “Did you… did you think we were going to force you into it the other night? When we were over?”

“For a moment,” he says, voice dripping with a venom he doesn’t truly mean. He knows he’ll regret it, hurting Angeal like this, but he’s started and now he can’t stop. “For a moment I thought you were. Maybe it was the fact you both broke into my apartment right when I was about to try and sleep.”

“You know us!” Angeal snaps, anger flaring like he’s an injured, cornered dog. “You know we wouldn’t do that to you! We asked, and you told us no, and then we left. And that’s all. You’re our friend. We’d never do something like that to you.”

“And that’s the problem.” Sephiroth’s anger dwindles when Angeal’s expression turns from one of defensiveness to one of confusion once again. He truly won’t understand, but Sephiroth’s shot himself in the foot, now. He’ll be seeing this through whether he wants to or not.

“I don’t… I don’t get it.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Sephiroth murmurs, his grip in Angeal’s clothing loosening and his hand falling back to his side. “I misinterpreted things because, for a moment, I forgot I had friends instead of handlers. It was my fault, not either of yours.”

“Okay?” Angeal brushes himself off. “I still don’t get what you’re saying.”

“It got me off. Later, after you’d gone. The thought of it.”

The kitchen is quiet, and the air is rigid where they stand. Sephiroth waits for the lecture to continue and worsen, waits for the slap and the cold, cold floor connecting with his face. Waits for the degradation.

But it never does. Instead, Angeal just stares.

“Seph, is that really all?”

What? What the fuck does he mean is that really all?

“It’s disgusting.”

“Well—”

“I’m disgusting.”

Angeal grabs Sephiroth by the wrists when his hands come up to dig at his scalp anxiously. It’s a habit he’d picked up last year, and he’s been shedding hair like nobody’s business because of it.

“Now you’re really acting like a child,” he says, pulling Sephiroth’s arms back down and forcing him to look him in the eye. “So what, you get off thinking about… that. That’s not that bad. I get it. You have some stuff you have to work through, so… that’s a good way to do it.”

Sephiroth opens his mouth to respond, but he flounders. Nothing will come out. Angeal pulls his PHS out of his pocket.

“W-what—”

“I’m texting Gen. Telling him this whole thing was a bunch of bullshit and you two need to talk it through like you and I just did.”

“Please don’t—”

“What? Tell him you’ve got a rape kink?”

“Is that… really what that is?”

Angeal can’t help the laugh that stutters out of him.

“Yeah, Seph, that’s what that is. Gaia, you’re really out of the loop.” He tucks the device back in his pocket and pushes himself away from the counter and towards the door, leaving Sephiroth standing, wavering, in the kitchen. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He doesn’t see him tomorrow, because tomorrow is another bath.

Sephiroth stands, naked as the day he was born in front of the professor, who’s busy sticking wires to him and hooking him up to monitoring machines. His dark glasses glint green, reflecting the light of the tank they’re standing next to. It hasn’t been filled yet, but the glass is stained an electric green color, the mako impossible to scrub off completely given how often the tank’s used. It’s built up over the years.

“Today’s will only be three hours,” Hojo informs him, then pulls open the tank’s door, motioning for Sephiroth to climb in.

“Why?”

Hojo sneers when he doesn’t move right away.

“Why, would you like for it to be longer?”

“No.”

“That’s what I thought. Keep your questions to yourself, then, boy.”

Hojo’s face, through the glass, looks even more warbled than it usually does. There’s a hiss and a clicking sound as the tank seals, and the veins in Sephiroth’s right arm fill with ice as the sedative floods his system and he blacks out.

The three hours pass terribly slowly, nightmares filling in the gaps that the sedative isn’t quite strong enough to keep silent, and when he comes to, he’s retching. It burns the back of his throat as it comes up, and his fingers dig into the tiles that line the floors of the shower room as Hojo stands above him, pelting him with cold water from the hose.

There’d been something different about this bath, he can feel it. It’d felt more concentrated. Maybe that’s why it was so short—  perhaps it was a trial run to see if his body could handle it.

As long as he isn’t actively dying, he knows Hojo will consider the bath a success.

His nervous system is on fire and every time he moves, he cramps, so eventually he stops trying and lets himself go limp on the wet, grimy floor as he’s rinsed.

Finally, the freezing water blessedly cuts off and Hojo drops the hose back into its hook on the wall.

“Not feeling too good, are you, boy?”

Sephiroth shakes his head, hugging his arms tight around his chest to try and keep himself from shivering.

“As expected,” Hojo says, and slides his lab coat off to hang it up on the clothing rack on the wall. “So don’t worry.”

Sephiroth’s vision is cloudy when he looks up at the man, haloed in grimy white LEDs. Hojo comes more easily into focus when he stoops down in front of Sephiroth, rolling his sleeves up, and Sephiroth tries shrinking away but another wave of cramping stops him. His voice betrays him when he tries begging. All that comes out is a rasp, his vocal chords a complete wreck along with the rest of his body.

“Let’s get you feeling a bit better before we have to send you back, hm?”

Sephiroth shakes his head again, but he knows it won’t do anything. Hojo’s going to do what he wants anyway.

And fuck… it’s been months. He doesn’t clearly remember the last time they’d done this. He’s thankful that it doesn’t happen as often as it had when he was a child, but that doesn’t make him hate Hojo for it any less.

At least this time, Hojo seems content with burying a gloved hand between Sephiroth’s legs and getting him off that way, satisfied this time solely with watching him come undone by his hand.

While Hojo’s working him, Sephiroth’s mind wanders to Angeal. How if Angeal were the one touching him like this on the floor of the lab showers, Sephiroth doesn’t think he’d mind it as much. Or Genesis. Sephiroth can’t imagine Angeal being intentionally cruel during sex, but fuck… Genesis would be cruel. 

He closes his eyes and imagines it’s Genesis touching him. Wordlessly forcing him closer and closer to his peak. Pressing his thumb against his cock and crooking his fingers inside him, assaulting that little place hidden within the dip of a bone that Hojo told him is only there to help him feel good. 

To call this enjoyable would be a stretch, but it’s not nearly as bad when he’s imagining Genesis in Hojo’s place. The only thing that’s proving difficult to imagine away are the gloves. The rubber feels terrible against his skin, but despite it, Hojo’s fingers still manage to do the trick.

It’s the weakest orgasm he’s had in his life. He barely moves, the only evidence that he’s finished being a bit of fluid leaking out in a feeble spurt against Hojo’s palm.

Genesis had evaporated about halfway through, when Sephiroth’s mind had given up on trying to make this any more bearable, but he’d been there long enough to keep Sephiroth from having a full-blown panic attack, which he assumes is better than nothing.

“Good boy,” Hojo coos, stripping his soiled gloves off and tucking his bare hands into his pockets. “I’ll have an assistant redress you and escort you back to your room.” It goes unsaid that he wants to disappear as quickly as possible so he can use his new jackoff material while it’s still fresh in his mind.

Sephiroth is fine with that. The sooner Hojo leaves him be, even if it’s alone and shivering on the wet shower floor, the better.

He can warm up with his blankets once he’s back in his room anyway.

Sex is an odd thing to Sephiroth. He doesn’t remember craving it before Hojo began making him participate in it with him. And what a depraved thing, too, that his body’s decided for him that the thing he’s begun craving most since the start of their backstage relationship is the very thing he wakes up every morning before a bath dreading.

It becomes so much worse, so much more intense, once his mind decides to drag Angeal and Genesis into the equation. Perhaps it’s a control thing. With Hojo, there is no control. All of the power lies with the doctor and none of it with Sephiroth. But with Angeal and Genesis… well, if they were to decide to try and hold him down to do the same sort of thing to him, he’d have the choice of either letting it happen or throwing them both off and running them through with his blade.

Not that he fantasizes about killing his friends. They truly are dear to him, and he doesn’t wish to see them die. But… the fact remains that it would be all too easy to overpower them and flip the tables on the dynamic if he were ever to find himself being taken advantage of by them. He’s unable to have that sense of security with Hojo, and he doesn’t crave sex with him like he does his friends. When he thinks of it this way, like being assaulted is something he’d still be able to have some semblance of control of… the fantasies almost seem excusable.

He groans exasperatedly and lets himself into his apartment, the mental gymnastics he’s going through to try and justify this making him sweat. He wants to believe that thing Angeal said, that it’s really not that bad, but despite trying to rationalize it, he still feels like he’s the one taking advantage. Everything’s been muddied since that night, and nothing makes sense. He wishes he could call Angeal over to lay with him, or Genesis over to fuck him out of his spiral. He’s wound too tight, and what little “help” Hojo had so graciously gifted him the other day had done nothing but intensify his need for satiation.

He’s busy stripping himself for the shower when Genesis texts him.

He and Genesis haven’t spoken since that day in the back of that truck, and it’s been over a week since then. A little under a month since they’d been in his apartment. He’s spoken to Angeal in passing, but Genesis has taken to avoiding Sephiroth just as much as he’s been avoiding Genesis.

He hadn’t expected him to text. He hadn’t expected him to reach out at all. As much as the thought had pained him to even consider, he’d almost expected Genesis to be done with him.

Call me, the text reads.

Huh.

His finger lingers over the call button for a moment. He doesn’t know if he has it in him to take another chewing-out right now.

In the end, his curiosity wins and he calls him.

The line stalls for a moment, and Sephiroth uses the pause to begin running the water. He’s caked in sweat from today’s training, and he knows he won’t be able to go to sleep unless he scrubs himself clean of it.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Genesis’ voice buzzes through as the call clicks to life. No preamble, no greeting.

It’s unlike Genesis to get straight to the point of things. Usually, he dances around what he wants purely because he enjoys making Sephiroth guess.

“I’m…” Sephiroth begins, and his chest tightens. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed Genesis’ voice. “Training. Tomorrow’s another training day.”

“What time?”

“Ten in the morning.”

“So you’ll be up at six, then, I take it?” Always earlier than he needs. Genesis has made fun of him for it before, but Sephiroth doesn’t understand how Genesis can wake up only an hour before he’s supposed to be out and still have time to gather himself before the day.

“Yes…”

“Alright.”

“Genesis,” Sephiroth starts. He doesn’t know what he’d been planning on saying. Perhaps he hadn’t been planning on saying anything… perhaps he really is as soft as Hojo says he is and he’d just missed the way Genesis’ name sounded in his mouth.

“I’d like you to give me a safeword.”

The bathroom’s grown hot and muggy, and Sephiroth’s hair has begun clinging to his shoulder blades. The running water sounds like mind static, and it grows impossibly louder as he tries understanding what Genesis just asked him for.

“A what?”

“A safeword,” Genesis repeats. “To use instead of the word ‘no.’”

“Why would..?”

Sephiroth’s nerves light up.

Oh.

Genesis couldn’t possibly be implying…

Could he?

“A safeword,” Sephiroth tries the word out for himself, and it feels odd on his tongue. He thinks he gets the picture, but… there’s no way this is really what he thinks it is.

“Yes, Sephiroth. I’d like one.”

Genesis has always been a serious person, in his own way, but this… Sephiroth’s never heard him sound quite like this.

“Uh…” Sephiroth stalls, shifting his weight from foot to bare foot on the warm tile floor. “‘Mideel.’”

A heavy silence drags out between the two of them as Sephiroth waits for Genesis to say something, anything.

“Good.” Genesis says, finally. Sephiroth lets out a breath and fills his lungs with air again. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then.”

The line clicks off.

Even after the shower, sleep doesn’t come easy. Sephiroth can’t stop thinking about the call.

What if he’d been imagining things? Misconstrued what Genesis had meant and interpreted it as being something entirely different? He’s never heard the term ‘safeword’ before, so he knows it’s entirely possible that he’d understood it incorrectly, but…

His boxers are wet with slick as his mind mulls it over, and he falls asleep that way— needy and aching between the legs for something he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to have or not.

It’s still dark outside when he wakes and begins pulling his clothes on. He’s not in the habit of getting his hopes up about things, so he goes about his morning as he usually would. He pads into the kitchen after dressing himself and puts the kettle on, leaning up against the counter in his SOLDIER gear as he waits for the water to boil. Regardless of whether anything happens or not, he’ll be reporting to the SOLDIER floor anyway for a long twelve hours of pushing his body to its limit. It’d serve him well to at least try and empty his mind out before he leaves. He’s been bringing his own personal demons up to the SOLDIER floor with him lately, using them as invisible target practice for Masamune. It’d worked well at first, but the longer he’s let it go on— let his personal life bleed into his life as a SOLDIER— he’s come to realize just how distracting it is.

He has to deal with those demons himself. Before he goes in to train.

The kettle shuts off and he pours a steaming mug of hot water, picking out the bag of lemon slices he’d requested with last week’s meal delivery from his refrigerator. He crushes one in his palm above the mouth of the mug and drops it into the water, bringing the ceramic to his lips and taking a long, scalding sip of it to wake his body up just as a knock sounds on the entryway door.

All the work he’s done  to calm himself since waking up becomes instantly voided the moment he puts his mug back down on the counter.

And he feels irredeemably stupid once he opens the door and there’s no one standing there but a delivery man, holding a small paper bag of medication from the labs.

“What’s in it?”

“I don’t know, I’m not a scientist.” The man hands it to him, holding out a clear electronic tablet for him to sign his name off on. Once, during a particularly rebellious phase in Sephiroth’s teenage years, Hojo had found out that Sephiroth wasn’t accepting the supplements he’d been sending up, so now he always demands a signature on drop-offs to ensure that he at least hasn’t turned any of the delivery men away. Getting Sephiroth to actually take the medication had been a whole different story, but after a few threats and particularly horrid pain tolerance training sessions with the man, Sephiroth had caved. Now, he takes what he’s given, despite knowing what’s in the shit he’s putting into his body or not.

“Making house calls with the drudges, now, Sephiroth?”

Sephiroth goes stiff as a board as Genesis’ voice flutters in through the doorway. He hadn’t heard his footfall as he’d come up.

The delivery man cowers as Genesis steps up to him, looking down his nose at him and flicking his hand in a dismissive little wave.

“Shoo.”

The guy looks like he’s offended enough to say something back for a moment, but ultimately stomps off with only a snarl and a few curses muttered under his breath as soon as he’s turned his back to them.

That dour seriousness that Sephiroth had heard from Genesis last night has all but disappeared, and Genesis stands there in all his usual haughty, self-satisfied glory.

“Genesis—”

“I’m going to fight you.”

Sephiroth scrunches his brows.

“What?”

A hand reaches out and shoves Sephiroth backwards, startling him and making him drop the bag of medication. The bottle inside must have been glass, because he hears it shatter as it hits the floor.

Genesis steps over it and shuts the door behind him, giving Sephiroth another harsh shove backwards.

“Come on, Sephiroth,” he taunts, leering at him. He shoves at him again, and again, and brings his other hand up to shove him with both hands, attempting to goad Sephiroth into shoving back.

“What, here?”

“Where else?” Genesis says, and when he comes to the conclusion that shoving isn’t enough to bait Sephiroth, he draws his fist back and slams it into the side of Sephiroth’s face, sending him stumbling backwards into the side of the kitchen counter.

Sephiroth’s expression hardens.

Of course he’d interpreted wrongly. Genesis hadn’t been interested in fucking him— he’d been interested in beating the shit out of him.

Well… two can play this fucking game.

He quickly pushes himself off the counter and lunges forward, striking Genesis clean across the face right back. Genesis falters and grabs the side of his face with his palm, but effectively dodges the next punch Sephiroth tosses his way and throws himself at Sephiroth’s middle, wrapping his arms around him and tackling him to the floor.

It’s still too early for Sephiroth’s mind to be in it, but his nerves quickly begin to wake up to offset his lack of preparation for a fight.

And Genesis is playing dirty, so Sephiroth will play dirty right back.

He grabs Genesis by the hair and yanks him off, flipping their positions and using his weight to slam Genesis into the concrete flooring, knocking the wind out of him. Genesis lashes out like a feral animal, swiping his nails across Sephiroth’s face hard enough to draw blood, and that gives him enough leeway to push himself up and shove Sephiroth backwards. He stands quickly and sends a kick to Sephiroth’s side, and Sephiroth counters by jumping into a squat, despite the burning in his lungs that tells him to slow down, and swiping Genesis’ feet out from underneath him.

Genesis’ back hits the concrete again and he chokes, turning on his side as Sephiroth gives him a moment to collect himself. He coughs, splattering the floor with blood, but it’s not enough to convince Sephiroth to go easy on him. He’d started this shit anyway, so Sephiroth’s going to indulge him until he passes out or tells Sephiroth to stop.

Or uses the safeword, Sephiroth’s mind supplies bitterly.

Sephiroth’s vision is tinted red, and all he can see is Genesis’ flaming red hair, his long red coat fanned out underneath him as he struggles to breathe, his ruddy red cheeks, their color exasperated by their fighting…. As he draws his foot back for a retaliating kick to Genesis’ ribcage, his eyes gloss over Genesis’ right hand, hidden underneath his coat and seemingly clutching at his stomach. Right as Sephiroth buries the toe of his boot in Genesis side, something zaps him in the shin, sending a powerful jolt of white-hot electricity up his leg and forcing his limbs to lock up as his nervous system goes on the fritz.

He falls onto his knees and doubles over, his head bowed. Static pushes loose strands of hair up from his scalp, and the ends of his hair scatter as electricity pushes them apart.

Genesis chuckles from his place on the floor next to him as he pushes himself up, spinning the damned weapon by the loop on the end around his finger.

“Borrowed this from one of our Turks,” Genesis says. “Pretty effective, isn’t it?”

“You…” Sephiroth chokes, still recovering as the last bits of static work their way through his body. “That’s cheating.”

“I do believe I never laid out any ground rules, my dear.” Sephiroth can hear him smiling as he bends down and wraps his hand around the collar of Sephiroth’s jacket, tugging him onto shaky legs. Sephiroth doesn’t even realize Genesis is dragging him backwards into his bedroom until he’s falling onto his back on his pile of blankets, his pauldrons rattling against each other as he does.

The room is spinning and the blankets underneath him are soft, and for a moment, he feels like a kid again, thrown helplessly onto his mattress as the shadow of a man much too old for him joins and overtakes his own.

Genesis’ eyes glint dangerously in the low lighting of the room, and he settles his weight down on Sephiroth’s hips. Distantly, Sephiroth realizes that neither of them have taken their shoes off, and he cringes as he thinks about all the dirt that must be falling off their soles and onto the bed.

But nothing matters beyond the next words that come out of Genesis’ mouth, because within the next moment, he’s leaning down and murmuring into Sephiroth’s ear, “you remember our safeword, yes?”

It’s like he’s shocked him with that magrod again. His lungs tighten up and his eyes go wide as he feels one of Genesis’ hands stroke down his neck.

“Gen, I don’t understand, what—”

“Angeal told me everything,” he says, biting Sephiroth’s lobe and piercing it with his canine, making Sephiroth wince. “Including that pesky little personal problem you seem to be having lately.” Bastard.

“It’s not—”

“What makes you so special, hm?” Genesis draws back up and suddenly, his piercing blue eyes are all Sephiroth can focus on. “What makes you the only one out of us who gets to be so self-deprecating? We all have our issues, but you seem to think you’re so much better than Angeal and I that you get to wallow, that you get to shove your problems onto us to deal with. I don’t think that’s fair, do you?”

“That’s not what I was doing.”

“No?” Genesis challenges. “Then what? You were so ashamed that you decided we’d all be better off if you just ignored us for the rest of your life? Sephiroth, even if I found this little fetish of yours as repulsive as you seem to, what makes you think Angeal and I are deserving of that kind of treatment? We’re grown men. Don’t you think we should be able to decide for ourselves what we think of something like that?”

“No, I—” Sephiroth pauses as his brow furrows. “You… you don’t find it disgusting?”

Genesis stares at him for two seconds too long, and Sephiroth begins to squirm. Then, he chuckles, low and dark, and takes Sephiroth’s chin between his fingers yet again.

“Let me tell you something, Sephiroth,” he drawls, “because you very much seem to have missed it. I am not one to indulge in things purely for the sake of others. Perhaps I’m selfish, but if something holds none of my interest, I simply won’t participate.”

“That isn’t news,” Sephiroth deadpans.

“No?” Genesis grins. “Do you think I asked you for a safeword last night just for fun? Just to have? Never to use?”

“I…” Sephiroth doesn’t really know. He’d assumed it’d been for… well, assuming has gotten him in a lot of trouble before.

“You’re really having trouble with this, aren’t you?” Genesis laughs cruelly. He runs his fingers up the side of Sephiroth’s face and tangles them in his hair, tugging his head back and baring his throat to him. He stoops down, far too close, and far too personal. Sephiroth feels like he’s bared his soul to him with the way Genesis’ glassy eyes are looking right through his own. “I’d like to hold you down,” he coos, and Sephiroth’s breath hitches as Genesis uses his free hand to ghost down his front. To dance over the skin exposed through the window of his coat. “I’d like to fuck you as you scream and beg for me to stop. And I’d like to keep going.”

Sephiroth shudders and swallows. He doesn’t believe what he’s hearing for a moment, but Genesis’ weight on top of him is all too real and it’s becoming harder and harder for his mind to deny it.

“The ever-coveted ‘Silver General,’” Genesis sighs. “I did a little digging into your fanclub recently, you know. The seedier parts of it. I found forums online that talk about what kind of lover people think you’d be in bed.” Sephiroth grimaces. “Do you know what most of them think of you?”

Sephiroth doesn’t, and he doesn’t think he wants to know, but Genesis tells him anyway.

“They think you’d be rough. They talk to each other about how big they think your cock is, how heavy they think your balls are and how loudly they think they’d slap against their ass if you were to fuck them. They jerk each other off in a circle, positively drooling over their idea of you. They can’t seem to imagine you as anything but hard lines and brutal, relentless sex.” Genesis smirks, a little scoff puffing out against the side of Sephiroth’s face. “They’re right, in a way, because that’s certainly the way you present yourself to people. You give them no room to think anything else of you.” Genesis isn’t lying. One of the few things that Sephiroth is able to take pride in is the way he’s able to twist his image into something frightful. Something terrifying and powerful enough that people should have no issue putting their full trust in him as long as he swears he’s on their side, fighting for them. “That’s exactly why I’d like to take you apart on my cock. Make you scream. Make you cry. To the people of Midgar, you are nothing short of a god. And I find that arousing… the idea of a god on his back for me, forced to take the seed of someone he deems below him into a cunt that no one suspects he has.”

Fuck.

Sephiroth’s leaking into his pants, he can feel it.

Genesis, as if he can fucking smell it, smirks.

“Does that sound like something you’d like, sweetheart?”

Sephiroth’s heart is racing, attempting to beat itself straight out of his chest. He nods, because his mind can’t focus on anything apart from how badly, how very, very badly he wants that.

“I’d like a verbal answer,” Genesis says, and pulls his hand from Sephiroth’s hair. “I refuse to force myself on you unless you’re absolutely sure that you want it. I won’t be stopping once I start to ask for the safeword, either. You’ll have to agree to use it if you need it.”

“Y-yes.”

“Yes, what?”

Sephiroth’s face burns, but he’s never wanted anything so badly in his life, so he forces the words out, despite how embarrassing they feel.

“I… I want that.” Sephiroth says, his voice barely louder than a whisper. “I want you to do that to me.”

The grin that splits Genesis’ face is nothing short of devilish, and his brows draw up in faux mockery as he runs his thumb over Sephiroth’s bottom lip, pressing it into his mouth and digging his nail into the flesh of his tongue.

“I wonder what your little fans would think of you if they were to see you like this,” he coos. “Helpless… begging for love like a misguided child.” A high, cold, mirthless laugh rings out like bells over Sephiroth’s head as his vision goes cloudy with want. “I wonder who it was who hurt you like this.” Genesis’ tone is taunting, but behind those pale blue eyes, Sephiroth can see something else. Even now, as he’s readying Sephiroth to be assaulted, he cares. Deeply. He hides his anger well, but Sephiroth can still hear it bleed through that façade he’s got on. He doesn’t even know who it was, who it still is that’s hurting Sephiroth, but Sephiroth can see him plotting on how he’s going to rip them limb from limb after he’s done with Sephiroth here. “Perhaps a fellow SOLDIER… hmm… no, I don’t think they’d get that far.”

He pulls his thumb from Sephiroth’s mouth and presses his palms to his stomach, dragging them down and undoing Sephiroth’s belts as he goes.

Memories flicker in and out of Sephiroth’s mind, but he suppresses them.

This isn’t the same thing.

“Could have been Lazard,” Genesis continues, “though I don’t think he has the balls on him to try. Maybe it was an executive. Maybe it was Shinra himself.”

Sephiroth squirms under Genesis as his belts fall away. The sound they make as they hit the floor sends a fire through his stomach, and his lashes flutter as Genesis moves on to his pants.

“Go on,” Genesis coaxes with a gentleness that doesn’t match the ferocity he’s begun yanking at Sephiroth’s clothes with. “Tell me. Who was it? Who wormed their way into the great Silver General’s pants before I could?”

“Hojo,” Sephiroth mutters weakly before he can think any better of it.

“Ah,” Genesis smiles bitterly. “Of course it was.” He unzips him, then rips his pants down his legs with a strength Sephiroth’s never seen him use before, even out in the field.

“G-Genesis, wait—”

“What?” Genesis snarls as he slots himself between Sephiroth’s legs. “Is the slut having second thoughts?” He tugs Sephiroth’s pants all the way off and tosses them on the floor to join the belt pile, then splays his hands over the kidney belt he’s left on. “I don’t think I’ll take the rest off. I like seeing you in your little silver pauldrons and long black coat. Reminds me of your status. And makes you look like a fucking hooker.”

Adrenaline pumps through Sephiroth’s limbs and he bats Genesis’ hands away as he attempts to dip his fingers under the harness to grope at Sephiroth’s chest and faded surgery scars. The scars are old— Hojo had been all too willing to do the surgery for him when he’d come to him at fifteen, demanding the horrid things growing on his chest be taken off. He’d been on blockers at the early age of thirteen, when Hojo had decided it’d be better for him to be a man instead, because SOLDIER doesn’t take women, not even mako-and-J-cell enhanced ones. For once, Sephiroth and Hojo had agreed on something. Sephiroth hadn’t been able to stand the thought of growing into someone who looked like Scarlet or one of the lab’s female assistants, and Hojo had been giddy at the fact this wouldn’t be something Sephiroth fought him on.

Genesis pushes his coat open and leans down, sealing his mouth over one of Sephiroth’s nipples. He bites down and Sephiroth hisses, pushing at Genesis’ shoulders and trying to shove him off.

“Now, now… are you going to fight the whole way through?” Genesis sits back and grinds the tent in his pants against Sephiroth’s clothed cunt. “We haven’t even gotten to the good part yet.”

A chill runs up Sephiroth’s spine as Genesis’ cock rubs up against him, and he begins pushing himself backwards up the length of the bed, trying to scramble away. Genesis grabs his ankle and Sephiroth kicks him square in the jaw, resulting in a shouted curse from the redhead and a fiery doubling-down in his efforts to get Sephiroth to obey.

“Get off,” Sephiroth heaves, panicked, and never before has the adrenaline from a panic mutated so beautifully into such an all-consuming arousal.

“No.”

There’s a scrabbling of limbs as Genesis attempts to hold Sephiroth still as he thrashes, trying to buck Genesis off as he climbs back over him.

“Gen— G-Genesis, get off!”

“I thought I told you no,” Genesis growls, taking Sephiroth by the hair and pulling his face into his bulge. “Won’t you be a good boy and listen?”

Sephiroth violently shakes his head, trying still to push Genesis away but to no avail. Though the pouch of fabric holding Genesis’ throbbing cock (he’s in a fucking jockstrap. Sephiroth didn’t even know Genesis owned those. He’s certainly never seen him in one before), he can smell the man’s salty-sweet musk. He smells like burnt caramel, a mixture of that sickeningly sweet moisturizer he uses and the sweat that’s gathered since the shower he must’ve taken last night.

Genesis pulls his cock free and humps the underside against Sephiroth’s lips, and Sephiroth watches as precome drips down in a thin line and wets his cupid’s bow, easing the slide as Genesis rubs it back and forth over his mouth.

“Now, Sephiroth,” Genesis says, giving himself a few slow strokes and digging that red leather past Sephiroth’s lips to pry his mouth open. “I trust you can be good for me and keep those pretty teeth away from my cock, yes?”

Sephiroth, in defiance, bites down hard on Genesis’ thumb, and the man retracts his hand quickly with a yelp. That hand comes right back down to land a slap across Sephiroth’s face, bringing a pretty pink bloom to his right cheek as the pain of the strike settles in.

“I don’t think you quite understand how this is going to work,” Genesis snarls. “It’s cute, seeing you struggle like this, but one way or another, you will heel.” Snippets of their conversation on the truck float through Sephiroth’s mind, and vaguely, he realizes that he’d been right. Genesis does get off on putting himself above him. “Open your mouth.”

“Don’t,” Sephiroth begs, his breath coming out in hysteric pants. “Please, d—”

Genesis shoves his cock into Sephiroth’s mouth as he’s talking, and he shoves it deep. Sephiroth chokes and tears spring to his eyes as his gag reflex attempts to push the intrusion out, but Genesis doesn’t stop. He looks Sephiroth in the eye meaningfully and wipes a stray tear away.

“Seph,” he says gently, “you can’t speak, so tap me twice if you need genuinely to stop.” Sephiroth’s still choking, but he shuts his eyes and gives in to Genesis, allowing him to sit at the opening of his throat snugly. His hands curl in the soft blankets underneath him, running over their raised patterns and string pulls. He’s never felt so grounded— so safe— as he does in this moment. “Do you understand?”

He nods, and Genesis hums an acknowledgement.

“Good. Now, suck. And if I feel teeth, you’ll be sorry.”

It takes quite a bit of work to suck at him while he’s seated so deep in his mouth, but Sephiroth manages it, using what little room he has underneath the other man to bob his head a bit up and down the velvety shaft. His efforts make Genesis groan, and he pets Sephiroth’s hair, letting his mouth fall open in pleasure as he begins moving his hips to meet the other First’s mouth.

“Fuuuck,” Genesis sighs. “That’s it. There’s a good bird. Your mouth is heaven. I’d almost be content to stay here and breed your throat, but that’d be putting this to waste, wouldn’t it?”

Sephiroth’s eyes snap open as he feels the leather of Genesis’ glove slide down his mostly-bare front and slip past the band of his underwear. His pupils blow wide as Genesis touches his cock, runs those slender fingers along his slit and dips them in teasingly, but despite how good it feels, he starts struggling again. His throat closes up around Genesis and Genesis chokes on a moan, biting his lip as the pressure around his cockhead increases. It’s so much that he ends up pulling himself out and giving Sephiroth another slap for hurting him, though given the way Genesis is panting, Sephiroth knows he did the exact opposite.

Being laid bare in front of Genesis after he tugs his underwear off is humiliating. It always is. But Sephiroth wears that humiliation like a stone mask, letting none of it show on his features aside from a slight burning behind his cheeks. Angeal and Genesis are the only ones (aside from Hojo) that know him well enough to pick up on it, and when Genesis points it out, all it does is make that blush on Sephiroth’s face just a little brighter.

“Fuck you. Fuck you, don’t— don’t touch me.”

Genesis positively keens at Sephiroth’s outburst, using his strength to hold him down as he pulls his legs open and slips between them once again.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse,” he muses, wetting his fingers with the slick dripping from Sephiroth’s cunt and dampening the blankets. “I like it. It sounds pathetic coming out of you.”

Sephiroth snarls as Genesis shuffles forward to slap his cock against Sephiroth’s own smaller one that twitches and pulses in time with his racing heartbeat. Genesis gives it a cruel little flick, right over the head. How horrid that such a simple thing can knock the wind out of a man like Sephiroth so quickly. If it were Hojo here, looming over him instead of Genesis, he’d be barking insults at him, telling him how weak he is. How disappointed he is.

Genesis just laughs, entertained with how Sephiroth’s body jerks every time he lands another little flick to his cock.

“S-stop!” Sephiroth wheezes. “It hurts!”

“Does it, baby?”

“Yes, Gen, please—”

“‘Please?’” Genesis chuckles. “Don’t kid yourself. If you truly wanted me to stop, all you would have to do is fight me off. But you’re here… on your back for me. Letting me hold you down and hurt you. And it’s turning you on. You’re going to lay there and let me breed you, too… and by the time I’m close enough to finishing, you’ll be begging me to fill you up. You won’t be able to help it. No whore is.”

For a moment, Sephiroth wonders if Genesis really means exactly what he’s saying, and Sephiroth’s face pales. The safeword rolls around in his mouth, and it tastes bitter on his tongue. He doesn’t want to use it.

His fears abate when he hears the crinkling of a condom package being ripped open, and he swallows down the word as if he’d never even considered using it in the first place.

“Now… be good for me.”

The blunt head of Genesis’ cock presses into the opening of Sephiroth’s cunt and he shoots upright, grabbing Genesis by the throat almost entirely on instinct. Genesis’ eyes are wide as Sephiroth stares him down, still taller than him, even in bed. The surprise quickly gives way to a new, more vicious determination, and Genesis grabs Sephiroth’s throat right back and peels the hand on his own throat off with his fingers.

Genesis tries again to penetrate him, but Sephiroth is faster than he is and clamps his thighs around his middle, using Genesis’ body as leverage to flip their positions and shove him into the bed.

“I told you not to touch me,” he hisses, his silver-white hair falling in ribbons over Genesis’ face.

“Mm,” Genesis sneers. “And I told you to be a good boy and let me do what I want.”

He pulls Sephiroth’s head down by the hair and headbutts him hard, using the momentary dizziness of the impact to dig his fingers into Sephiroth’s hips and slam his cock into him.

Sephiroth’s mouth falls open in a silent scream above him, and by the look on Genesis’ face, the redhead’s never seen anything so beautiful. He pulls their hips flush together, grinding up as far as he can go in this position, and it surprises both of them when the movement pulls a whimper out of Sephiroth, too.

“Oh, sweetheart…” Genesis purrs, gently cupping Sephiroth’s head and pulling him to the mattress so he can climb on top of him again. “You really are getting off on this, aren’t you? Mm…” he leans down and presses a chaste, mocking kiss to Sephiroth’s lips. “Sick fuck.”

Sephiroth can do nothing but murmur out a broken string of “please, please, stop, I can’t, it hurts, Gen please, please stop…”

Genesis brushes Sephiroth’s hair out of his face and wipes the sweat off his brow with his thumb.

“Does it feel good, baby?” Genesis pants, picking his pace up. “Yeah? You like being dirtied like this, don’t you? You’re taking me so well, you know. Like this is what you were made for. Perhaps it was. Perhaps I should just keep you here like this all day, use you to milk myself dry. Empty everything I have in you and fill you up with children you don’t want. Do you like the sound of that?”

Sephiroth shakes his head, and a particularly hard thrust wrenches a sob from him.

He’s not faking. It does hurt. It hurts terribly… but he can’t bring himself to really tell Genesis to stop. He doesn’t really want him to.

He likes the pain. It’s grounding… and it feels good.

It’s nothing like the pain with Hojo ever is— the kind that makes him sick to his stomach, makes him wanna puke all over the man’s starched button-down and navy microchecked tie. Hojo always smells like chemicals, too, but Genesis’ scent is sweet and cloying and wraps him up in something soft as he fucks deeper and deeper into his cunt.

“You’re so— fucking warm,” Genesis moans, slipping a hand underneath Sephiroth’s crossed suspenders and groping his chest. Sephiroth just throws his head back in a choked-off sob as Genesis moves faster, huffing like a steam engine as he very clearly begins nearing his peak.

And that’s when Sephiroth feels it— the tight coiling in his belly and the needy, insistent ache right below it.

Fuck. Fuck, if Genesis doesn’t stop—

“Almost there…” Genesis bites out. Sephiroth can feel his cock twitching inside him. “Just a bit more.”

“G-Gen—” Sephiroth starts in a panic, but still, he can’t bring himself to use the safe word. It’s too overwhelming. It feels far too fucking good. “Genesis, it’s— it’s too much. It’s too much, Gen, stop, you have to stop—”

“Hush, now,” Genesis leans in close and kisses him properly, biting down on his lip and sucking it between his teeth. “You’re close, too, I can feel it. Just let go. Let go, sweet bird. Sing for me and let me feel you come on my cock as I fill you up.”

It’s too late to stop it.

Sephiroth’s entire body tenses up in overstimulation as that coil snaps and he comes, slick gushing out of him and spewing over Genesis’ cock like a broken pipe.

“Oh… Seph, you—” Genesis, through his own haze of pleasure, looks absolutely elated, and he huffs out a disbelieving little laugh. “Fuck, I didn’t— hahh, I didn’t know you could do that.” And Sephiroth is still coming as Genesis is quickly pulled into his own orgasm right alongside him.

With one last thrust, he slams himself in as far as he can go and comes, mouth falling open and eyes fluttering shut as he empties himself inside.

“Where’s Genesis?”

Lazard crosses his arms and leans back in his seat, choosing to ignore the question.

“You will be assigned SOLDIER Second Class Zack to go with you instead—”

“Director,” Sephiroth insists. It’s not like Genesis to play hooky anymore. He certainly used to, but that’d been before he got caught and reprimanded so severely for it he swore never to skip another day of work again.

Lazard sighs and looks frustratedly off to the side.

“He’s been suspended.”

“What?"

“For two months.”

Since he knows that’s all he’s going to be getting out of the man, Sephiroth just nods and tells him he’ll find this Zack person to let him know he’s been temporarily reassigned.

As he walks the hallway, he hears whispers among SOLDIERs standing in little groups.

“Did you hear?”

“There’s no way… why would he do something like that?”

“I dunno, man. He’s always been kinda… y’know.”

Sephiroth just breezes past, unwilling to involve himself in anything that could be considered gossip, but when he opens the VR training room, he knows immediately what happened.

There’s a boy in the arena, his spiky black hair flailing this way and that as he dodges virtual monsters, and behind the glass on Sephiroth’s side of the room, there stands Hojo clicking his little ballpoint pen and looking as miffed as he does every other day.

Today, however, his arm is held up in a sling, so he’s forced to set his clipboard on one of the desks to write his observations down, and as Sephiroth pads closer, he can see a thin piece of black gauze taped over his left eye. As soon as Hojo sees him, he shoves his clipboard across the desk to an assistant and barks at them to finish the observation for him before quickly crossing the room and dragging Sephiroth out by the collar.

As soon as they’re out of the training room, he’s slamming Sephiroth into the wall with what little strength he has left and snarling in his face.

“You little bastard,” he hisses, his one un-taped eye narrowed with hatred behind his shaded glasses. “You fucking told someone, didn’t you?”

The groups of SOLDIERs that are still out here gathered in the hall turn his way, and Sephiroth stares them down, daring them to say a word before he turns back to Hojo.

“I wasn’t under the impression it was supposed to be a secret.”

He’s not lying. Hojo had never told him he wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. Perhaps he simply thought Sephiroth would forever keep it to himself, the shame of telling someone that he, the strongest SOLDIER First Shinra has ever seen, would let someone like Hojo rape him.

“I thought you’d be smart enough to read in between the lines,” Hojo shoves at him again. “But I guess I should have suspected you’d tell someone eventually given how nothing I say or do seems to get through that thick skull of yours.”

“I apologize.”

Sephiroth knows he’ll be in for the most painful bath of his life later for this, but he can’t help how satisfying it feels looking down at Hojo and seeing him so unsettled.

“Don’t give me that shit, boy.” Hojo shoves him one last time for good measure, then lets him go. Sephiroth brushes himself off and runs his eyes over the doctor, really looking at him. He’s still breathing heavy with the exertion it took to drag a man so much taller and heavier out practically by his ear like a naughty schoolboy, and when Sephiroth narrows his eyes and Hojo scoffs and turns to walk away, he notices a limp that hadn’t been there before today.

“Professor…” Sephiroth says, and he doesn’t mean for it to come out as a drawl but it does anyway. “What exactly did Genesis do to you?”

The way Hojo freezes on the spot is almost comical, limbs locking up like a boy caught with his hand in a cookie jar. He doesn’t round on Sephiroth again, only turns his head and tells him he expects him on floor 66 at 4 pm sharp on Thursday.