[It’s true that his taste in men is inordinately questionable, and one might wonder what that says about Sephiroth — but maybe such thoughts are better left unspoken.]
You assume that one is always independent of the other. You’ve never requested anything more.
He burns for you because you are something unattainable to him. Beyond the scope of what a mortal mind and body should be exalted with.
[Yazoo might only be a facet of himself, made manifest, but he is still so much greater than the humans who tread the face of Gaia like an encroaching plague. Sephiroth might not ever look upon the Remnant the same way Reno does, but who does he ever grant that kind of favor to? Even Cloud is given a glimmer of wretched hate in his undying obsession for him.]
Do not pretend that he could satisfy you in ways that I could not. That’s an offense on its own.
I don't have to be unattainable. I could let him have me whenever I please, if I chose to.
( But he hasn't, and in truth? Yazoo hasn't decided whether he ever will—which is in no small part because he already suspects Sephiroth's claim to be true. Reno yearns for what he can't have. Giving it to him would be to break his hold on him, and Yazoo likes being able to press this small advantage. )
I will concede that you likely have the ability to satisfy me. It simply didn't occur to me that you might have the desire to.
[Yazoo cannot fool him. Sephiroth does not believe that he allows Reno to take him whenever he pleases — he knows that the thrill of power and control is not one easily forsaken for a few languorous moments of pleasure. Not unless it’s well and truly worth it.
( In this, Yazoo knows he can't lie. Something dark and heated stirs low in his belly as he considers the question, because if Sephiroth fucks like he fights? He could be everything Yazoo wants from a partner—everything and more. )
Yes. I would.
( But he has a question. )
Did I displease you in selecting him before coming to you?
Disappointed, maybe, that you’d not even consider me to start. But maybe the onus is mine to leave a lasting impression, so that it doesn’t happen again.
[But rarely is Sephiroth so conciliatory, and so—]
[One must work for it, after all. Sephiroth won’t disappoint those who do.]
Yes.
Tell me where you are.
[This is just a thinly-veiled contrivance of a request. He could find Yazoo anywhere on Gaia, manifest himself before him as a storm or a silent whisper. But even he can play at courtesy when it amuses him.]
[As before, and as ever when a conversation has run dry of its usefulness, there is no reply.
A warehouse nestled along the outskirts of a piecemeal city isn’t the most alluring prospect, but Sephiroth doesn’t care much for ugly glamour of the population’s attempts to right themselves in a post-Meteorfall world. The building is abandoned and decrepit, save for the scant telltale signs of half-lives making this their home and headquarters, and the connection to those shards of himself here is strong, secure. The air, stringent as it is tangible, grows thick and cloying; the atmosphere pressurizes, tightens as though becoming a cord pulled apart at both ends, and when reality feels as though it might snap in two—
Sephiroth appears where Yazoo has holed himself away, his footsteps cat-quiet, his roving gaze to match. Silver sways with each step, trailing danger behind him — so, too, is Masamune gripped in the smooth leathers of his left hand, the steel a gentle crescent shimmer in the pallid light. A promise, a threat, an instrument to prove that subduing and seduction can exist in the same breath, a violent part of himself that manifests wherever he appears; perhaps all of the above.
It shines like crystal as he approaches, and his grin is too softly sharp to be kind.]
I can already taste your anticipation.
[Down to his core, buzzing between the empty spaces of every atom in his frame — and Yazoo’s, too, that anticipatory ardor so prevalent that if Sephiroth reached out and ripped it from the Remnant’s spine, it would be shaped just like him.]
( The message goes unanswered, as Yazoo expected. It doesn't stop him from watching his phone for a few long moments as he tries to rationalise what has just happened—tries to understand why now, why Sephiroth would smartly remove Reno from the picture and place himself in his stead. Possessiveness, perhaps? He's gone to lengths to ensure that all three of his Remnants understand their place in this withered world: they may have developed their own personalities, yes, but they are little more than instruments of his will, and there's every chance he simply finds the idea of someone else interfering with his belongings somewhat distasteful.
There's also the possibility that Yazoo simply wounded his pride in choosing Reno. Is this simply a way for Sephiroth to prove that even in this he is superior? That his reach extends beyond the battlefield and the heavens to deep, shattering bursts of pleasure? Yazoo's pulse quickens at the thought, feeling a strange, previously untapped curl of dark want beginning to stir at the base of his spine—
But then the air begins to change. He feels it in a shiver of gooseflesh that pours itself over his shoulders, his hips, his thighs, pulling every atom of his being to attention as Sephiroth bends the planet around himself yet again. Stillness holds Yazoo in place when he manifests before him. For one icy second he thinks he might hate him almost as much as he aches to bring their cells together again—hates his beauty, his strength, his unshakeable place as Mother's favoured son—but that bitter feeling melts into something familiar with each whisper-step of his approach.
Maybe it isn't hate. Maybe it's love—a word that has a slightly different meaning to the Remnants than it might anyone else on Gaia. For Yazoo love can be distilled into three things: obsession, purpose, and the bone-deep need to please. Bright eyes slide along Masamune, skim over his chest, then lift to meet a matching malachite gaze, and Yazoo feels the barest hint of a smirk settling into the corner of his lips. )
Then I won't need to flatter you with words.
( He tilts his head. Whatever attraction he'd had to Sephiroth beforehand seems somehow amplified in his presence, thrumming and pulsing thick between them as he takes a playful step back. The Turk? Already forgotten. Yazoo can already feel his body reaching for Sephiroth's the way it couldn't for anyone else—not even Mother—and he exhales softly as he feels his body beginning to flush. )
Shall I tell you what I wanted him to do to me?
( There's velvet-soft suggestion in his voice, and the slits of his pupils swallow up more green with darkness. )
[When Sephiroth had been subsumed by the Lifestream a second time, swallowed whole by the Planet’s entangling life essence, so much was stripped away in order to preserve himself. All the useless shards of humanity, weak remembrances that made him too soft, until only the core of his hatred remained — just a crystallized, pulsing thing of baleful agency to keep him anchored and conscious in Gaia’s beating heart. And then came the Remnants from those same thrown-away fragments, forced solid, ensuring that his desires were made physical across the face of a world still struggling to recover from his summoned hellfire. Instruments of his will, as they both rightly know. Sephiroth exists in every strand of them; he could wind himself so tight around their cores that each breath would be a trial, then release them so suddenly that they would cry out for more. They are a part of him as much as they are him, such an obvious truth that it is understood without the need for articulation.
Yet he had crafted them as separate from one another, all the same — three brothers who represented incomplete pieces of himself, made deadly and beautiful. Time, distance, and conscious awareness had placed wants and desires into their grasping hands, and the need to exist in the world, rather than merely stand at ready to be deployed, was the only natural result. Sephiroth knows that his authority over them is absolute, that if he commands they shatter themselves into a thousand pieces, he will find them broken and at his feet in his next breath. But for all else in-between, they are not so easily cowed — like children with restless brambles in their veins, nipping at his bootheels when he deigns to be present, asking for more, give them something more.
They might seek it elsewhere. They might find satisfaction in the transient things and little people all around them, but in the end, they would be reminded that Sephiroth should be the only presence that crowds their minds when the day is at its close.
For there are pieces of the man that even the Lifestream could not dilute. His pride, his possessiveness, his predilection towards obsession. And when Yazoo speaks of the Turk and all he can offer, it makes him want to gut the redhead as much as it amuses him. A fragment of himself, desiring a loyal Shinra dog? It connects Sephiroth back to an old origin point from a life long discarded and mostly forgotten, and that is both an offense to be corrected as much as it is an irony that makes him grin wider.
Yazoo steps away, but the gesture is the same as pulling a rubber band back too far. Their anchored connection elasticizes tightly, decrying any distance, and Sephiroth simply steps forward in turn. The length of his blade sweeps away the security that space could have provided with anyone else, but this is nothing revelatory.]
Yes.
[—is his reply, plain and cool. His gaze crawls along the lithe curvatures of Yazoo’s form, but ultimately settles on his face.]
Tell me what you fantasized. How you hoped he would please you.
( Occasionally, Yazoo wonders whether some part of him pushes at Sephiroth for the sole purpose of getting to feel. He doesn't doubt that people consider him the most emotionally distant remnant but he would beg to disagree: Yazoo simply knows what is and isn't worth his time and energy. Where Kadaj has his volatile temper and Loz has an almost child-like sensitivity, Yazoo's waters are calm, deep, and difficult to stir. It takes a lot to pull any kind of emotion from him. Why? Because human affairs are rarely worth the trouble, which manifests in a kind of unaffected aloofness that sets him apart from his brothers.
What does matter is this. The mako-bright crackle of energy between them as Yazoo dances back, as Sephiroth presses forwards, catching his breath in his throat and setting his pulse fluttering in the hollow of his throat. It's a dangerous game to play with the most deadly creature to set foot on Gaia since their Mother—but in the same way that Sephiroth can reach into him, Yazoo can feel the prickle of his connection with Sephiroth. The edges of their game are sharp, but they wouldn't be here if they didn't sense the mutual opportunity in it. )
I wanted to fight him.
( Yazoo says easily, thick lashes dipping low over his eyes. )
He gives me everything when he's trying to kill me. I wanted to feel that while he was fucking me.
( His smirk widens just a fraction. Yazoo isn't confined by the idea of normal and abnormal desires: in truth he simply doesn't have enough experience of society to understand that what he wants might be considered strange to some, not least because "erotic preferences" weren't really part of what Sephiroth wrought into being within the Lifestream. Dark impulses are simply impulses. Strange arousal is simply arousal. Yazoo may be the quietest remnant, but nothing excites him more than the glint of real danger and a pair of heated eyes.
His gaze drifts to Masamune for a second time. )
He would have enjoyed trying to make me beg for it. I wanted him to hold me down—to push me into the wall and give me bruises to remember him by, if he could manage it.
( Yazoo finds Sephiroth's eyes. Reno may have been able to grapple him, but even he has to admit that it's unlikely he'd have been able to make him really feel it. That, at the very least, Sephiroth will undoubtedly excel in, and a shiver runs the length of his spine as he imagines the hand holding Masamune clutching at the back of his neck. )
I wanted to feel like I was falling apart on his cock.
[Yazoo relays to him fantasies of violence, of having control wrested away under the bruising touch of another, of having to desperately supplicate himself and beg for permission to fall to pieces. He knows that these fantasies are, at their core, indicative of a larger want to please, the same sort that run opposite yet parallel of Sephiroth’s own desires. In that way, they truly are cut from the same cloth; two entities of deep violence, enthralling and addictive, finding ways to twist brutality into arousal through either the use of a hungry blade, or the sting of it gliding across one’s skin. Sephiroth will always garner pleasure from oppressive control, every part of his darkly-clad frame meant to exude authority and inspire obedience, and if Yazoo lacks someone to oblige him that role, he will fill that void until every part of him is spilling over at its edges.
No one else could do it better, more perfectly, than him.
The thought is enough to make a writhing warmth twitch at the base of his belly, and Masamune smiles with the same sloping curvature as the one spread across Sephiroth’s features.]
Very appeasing of you, to offer yourself as an outlet for someone else’s wild pleasures. But he would never be able to satisfy you in that way.
[Sephiroth’s teeth are a perfect row of white, revealed for a fleeting moment as he gently bites and pulls at the leather fingertips of his right glove, slipping it off and dropping it to the ground like the skin of a dead animal. Masamune exchanges hands, and he grants the same treatment to his left, revealing slender fingers that belie his ability to break so much and so many in his palm.
He crosses the electric space between them, those same fingers reaching out to cup just beneath the bone of Yazoo’s jawline, the jolt of their connection heady. He can sense the tempo of his pulse tapping beneath warm skin.]
Yet I can. Would you struggle against me, Yazoo? [Masamune seems to shine all-too-bright.] I can make any conflict between us sing in ways you’ve never experienced before.
( It doesn't occur to him that Sephiroth's intention might be to mock him until after he's said his piece. Yazoo can see that he's smiling—a gentle, dangerous thing that offers little insight into what he's thinking—but other than that? He simply listens, until the dark thread of his fantasies are completely unspooled between them. It's another way in, Yazoo realises. Another weakness he's offered up in his eagerness, his need to be dismantled now something that Sephiroth could use against him if he so chose to. It would be so easy for him to tuck that information away with a chilled comment, for him to dismiss himself from Yazoo's presence with a curling smirk—
But he doesn't. A sliver of light gleams along Masamune's length and Sephiroth speaks, shows his teeth, then slowly removes the wrap of his gloves to leave his hands strangely, almost intimately bare.
Not mocking, then. Yazoo feels himself shiver with bright anticipation when he closes the distance between them, the charged weight in the air pressing heavier, heavier, until his palm touches the curve of his cheek. The throb of his pulse quickens in every cell of his body to the point where it's very nearly a distraction, but then he supposes there's nothing in creation that could actually draw his attention away from Sephiroth in this moment. )
Yes. Until the pleasure of submission overtook the pleasure of the struggle.
( He turns his head just enough to press his cheek against Sephiroth's palm—the gesture perverse in its tenderness considering the nature of his desires. With skin touching skin Yazoo feels their connection taken on a dimension he hasn't experienced before: he can feel Sephiroth, can feel the parts upon which he himself was modelled as well as the pieces that could make him whole. It's a stark reminder that he was designed to be incomplete, and that letting Sephiroth sink himself inside him might be as close to to complete as he ever gets.
Yazoo blinks slowly, and a hand reaches up to gently curl over the other man's wrist. )
I need it.
(I need you, he doesn't say, if only because both of them already know. )
[The cresting anticipation is palatable, vinous-smooth and yet impossibly full, like it might balloon between them at any moment and burst. As Yazoo dips his cheek gently into the curve of Sephiroth’s naked palm, it feels as though time has frozen itself, and a thousand little knives have materialized above their heads, waiting for the precise moment to—]
Then I will grant you what you want.
[—drop.]
What you need.
[He is not kind enough to offer a more generous preamble, and the effort would be wasted on him, anyhow — for Yazoo yearns for danger and the trigger-fire impulses of violence, and Sephiroth will keep his promise by granting it to him wholly.
His touch twists into a vice-grip, his long fingers lowering just enough to clench hard around the other’s throat, and Sephiroth presses his advantage to twist on his heel in a half-turn, propelling Yazoo forward and along as if he were made of rags, or air, or something so delicate that every impulse would dictate that he break it.
Sephiroth slams his back into the adjacent wall, and the entire warehouse groans in protest, low and mourning. What follows is the telltale sound of Masamune being brandished — that crystal reverb, melodious — and a glint of silver steel as the upper portion embeds itself in the plaster, while the rest is balanced askew and whisper-close to Yazoo’s form. From diagonal across the neck, close enough to kiss the clavicle, running past the chest, all the way down to where Sephiroth grips its hilt near the hip.
His eyes are the embers of a fire, lit brightly; his slit pupils lend to the imagery of a predator about to consume its prey whole. And Sephiroth, he only grins.]
Fight me. Struggle against me. I want to see you vying for control under my touch.
[Blessedly, his grip around Yazoo's neck relaxes, but only to thumb across his jaw again, then roughly against his bottom lip. The tip of Sephiroth’s boot knocks the spread of Yazoo’s feet evenly apart, skewing his balance into a tightrope walk of either remaining pressed against the wall or falling onto his blade.]
( The force with which Yazoo is crushed into the wall is enough to separate plaster from brickwork. It drifts to the floor in thin streams as he fights to regain the breath punched out of him: Sephiroth is stronger than all three of his remnants, but it would take more than that to properly incapacitate any of them. Still, it's enough to stun him into inaction as Masamune glides between them and sinks into the wall, the bright call of the blade more serene than it has any right to be. Yazoo lifts his chin instinctively, as much a small act of defiance as it is an attempt to keep the tender skin of his throat away from the blade.
Pulling in a breath of air comes a little easier when Sephiroth loosens his grip on his throat. Committed to this lesson he looks feral—a dangerous, wild thing bred for despair—and when he shows his teeth Yazoo feels the very stuff that makes him sing out for him. The thumb to his bottom lip colours the moment with a suggestive hue, and Yazoo waits for the pad to rub over the fullest part before catching it in a sharp bite.
It's more a mischievous nudge than intent to cause harm, but no less viper-quick for it. )
Without a weapon?
( Slender fingers move to flex and curl as he readies himself to fight. He shifts his weight back to the wall when Sephiroth kicks his legs open, immediately forcing him onto the back foot, and feels the coil of tension between them twist that bit tighter as they hold each other's gaze. Fine. Yazoo can do this unarmed. He has no intention of letting those goading words—don't disappoint me, brother—actually come to pass.
That it will be more a heated struggle than a fight is obvious. Yazoo is effectively pinned in place but he still has the use of his hands, which immediately come up to fist in the front of Sephiroth's long duster and pull him in even closer. Masamune gleams pale between them, and in pulling him close Yazoo hopes to rob him of the ability to manoeuvre it further. It's risky: Sephiroth could simply cut through the plaster and set the blade into his skin, but with any luck it'll give him the half heartbeat he needs to squirm from the other man's grasp.
Yazoo attempts to slip free quickly, but whether he's fast enough remains to be seen. With any luck he won't end up having to explain to their brothers why Sephiroth put him through a wall and compromised the building. )
[Very much so without a weapon. None of the three brothers could ever overtake him in ability — strength, speed, endurance, everything — so this disadvantage is certainly nothing new under the sun. But Yazoo is yet further declawed without his firearm, and Sephiroth will not be so merciful to soften his assault to accommodate; he will assail him, give him the wearisome struggle he wants, allow him to fight tooth and claw if he so chooses, so that the inevitable will be all the more satisfying for both.
And tooth and claw, it is — the sting of a bite across the knuckle of his thumb, the flash of defiance as green irises meet green. Sephiroth thinks he should pry his brother's jaw open and find a far better use for the soft insides of his mouth, but that's a notion better suited for when obedience is torn from his spine. For now, the other's fingers fist into the leathers of his coat, pushing him forward to lessen any lingering degree of breathing room.
The steel of his own sword is but a knife's edge away from his own body, sparking further amusement in Sephiroth's crescent grin. It's simple enough to brace his knee against the wall to keep balance, and push Masamune deeper into the plaster, causing it to cut in a perfect line that runs the length of the weapon. It chases Yazoo's body beneath it, perilously, but he escapes its bite by a hair's breadth.
Yazoo had always been so quick on his feet, like moonlight slipping away. Sephiroth turns his head to look at him with satisfaction, while the rest of his frame wrenches Masamune free from the wall.]
Good.
[He moves towards him, then, each step the feeling of a portent rising like a storm.]
But how long can you keep slipping away? Why don't you bite back a second time?
[He can indulge him the offensive. It's like inviting him straight into the open maw of a monster, but what better sacrifice is there to make?]
( The wall cracks again when Sephiroth pulls his blade free. This is what he asked for, isn't it? A delicious thrill of heat runs the length of Yazoo's spine to puddle low at the very base: his brother is perfect destruction, capable of bringing ruin to all he touches with both a feather-soft brush or the full force of his swing. Dark heat curls into his belly at the thought of it: it's parasitic, almost, the way Yazoo wants to soak up his greatness, but then he supposes it's only natural for him to be drawn towards everything he could have been.
Sephiroth was right. Reno wouldn't have been able to give him even a fraction of what he craves. )
Your mistake is assuming slipping away is all I plan to do.
( Yazoo doesn't offer more. He cuts the through the air like the flit of a dagger, slim and sharp and silver-bright, one hand immediately going for Sephiroth's throat in a mirror-image of how he'd slammed him against the wall. While he knows he wouldn't be able to execute such an attack on his brother there's the chance it'll stall him for a moment, which gives him a split second to pull back a fist which he aims at the elegant slope of his jaw.
Fighting like this doesn't come naturally to Yazoo. Sephiroth wants his teeth and claws, so teeth and claws it is, but hard-hitting punches and close-range viciousness are his brothers' domain. He excels in ranged attacks, acrobatics, and dipping in and out to strike, but he supposes there's something to be said for holding his quarry in place while beating the shape of his fist into its face.
Something to try on someone else, another time. They both know how this will end, and anticipation is already crackling heavy across Yazoo's skin as he crowds Sephiroth's space. )
[Yazoo’s like a bird flying into an open hand clawing itself into a fist. Quick and furious and a silver flurry of defiance, but made of hollow bones so effortlessly broken. It’s easy to see how Sephiroth is not so much assaulted as he allows himself to be; how he doesn’t even feign to dodge the Remnant’s grasping hand as it coils tightly around his neck. For all his brother’s effort, he might as well be gripping iron.
Sephiroth allows the first grappling reach to make a hard purchase, but refuses the fist following it up, countering with a lift of his free forearm to knock it aside. This close, their bodies are already so alight with buzzing heat, and perhaps it isn’t so surprising that Yazoo had attacked in a way that mimicked his own, as though he should always seek to merge into him through emulation, an offered flattery made of violence.
It’s titillating in a darkly satisfying way, the thought of receiving him whole coiling pleasurably around his nerves, drifting down his spine, warm and welcome. Sephiroth tilts his chin up to better offer the tract of soft flesh that is his neck; just a tease of that bobbing Adam's apple, because he intends to tear it away in the next second, humming an amused sound that Yazoo can likely feel beneath his fingertips.
His free hand lashes out to grab him so hard by the shoulder that his brother’s bones might groan in protest, and the subsequent attempt to push him down is paired with Sephiroth's knee jutting upwards. The intent is to slam the angle straight into his middle, to better encourage him to double over and be brought to heel on the ground.]
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And what is it that you like about him so much?
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He fights like he wants to kill me, and he enjoys it.
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I would hardly call that remarkable. How is it any different than what I could give you?
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It's different because I know he wants to fuck me. You merely want to subdue me.
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You assume that one is always independent of the other. You’ve never requested anything more.
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Why would I ask for more from a man as cold as you? How could I know?
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[Yazoo might only be a facet of himself, made manifest, but he is still so much greater than the humans who tread the face of Gaia like an encroaching plague. Sephiroth might not ever look upon the Remnant the same way Reno does, but who does he ever grant that kind of favor to? Even Cloud is given a glimmer of wretched hate in his undying obsession for him.]
Do not pretend that he could satisfy you in ways that I could not. That’s an offense on its own.
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( But he hasn't, and in truth? Yazoo hasn't decided whether he ever will—which is in no small part because he already suspects Sephiroth's claim to be true. Reno yearns for what he can't have. Giving it to him would be to break his hold on him, and Yazoo likes being able to press this small advantage. )
I will concede that you likely have the ability to satisfy me. It simply didn't occur to me that you might have the desire to.
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He knows this because he, too, feels similarly.]
And what of you? Would you desire that?
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( In this, Yazoo knows he can't lie. Something dark and heated stirs low in his belly as he considers the question, because if Sephiroth fucks like he fights? He could be everything Yazoo wants from a partner—everything and more. )
Yes. I would.
( But he has a question. )
Did I displease you in selecting him before coming to you?
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[But rarely is Sephiroth so conciliatory, and so—]
I said you need only ask. So ask me.
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Fine.
Will you please fuck me?
well this Went Places, I’m sorry lmao
Yes.
Tell me where you are.
[This is just a thinly-veiled contrivance of a request. He could find Yazoo anywhere on Gaia, manifest himself before him as a storm or a silent whisper. But even he can play at courtesy when it amuses him.]
L m a o I love that we're this way
smh at us.... i'm just gonna wing it
A warehouse nestled along the outskirts of a piecemeal city isn’t the most alluring prospect, but Sephiroth doesn’t care much for ugly glamour of the population’s attempts to right themselves in a post-Meteorfall world. The building is abandoned and decrepit, save for the scant telltale signs of half-lives making this their home and headquarters, and the connection to those shards of himself here is strong, secure. The air, stringent as it is tangible, grows thick and cloying; the atmosphere pressurizes, tightens as though becoming a cord pulled apart at both ends, and when reality feels as though it might snap in two—
Sephiroth appears where Yazoo has holed himself away, his footsteps cat-quiet, his roving gaze to match. Silver sways with each step, trailing danger behind him — so, too, is Masamune gripped in the smooth leathers of his left hand, the steel a gentle crescent shimmer in the pallid light. A promise, a threat, an instrument to prove that subduing and seduction can exist in the same breath, a violent part of himself that manifests wherever he appears; perhaps all of the above.
It shines like crystal as he approaches, and his grin is too softly sharp to be kind.]
I can already taste your anticipation.
[Down to his core, buzzing between the empty spaces of every atom in his frame — and Yazoo’s, too, that anticipatory ardor so prevalent that if Sephiroth reached out and ripped it from the Remnant’s spine, it would be shaped just like him.]
Hollow laughter, stares at hands
( The message goes unanswered, as Yazoo expected. It doesn't stop him from watching his phone for a few long moments as he tries to rationalise what has just happened—tries to understand why now, why Sephiroth would smartly remove Reno from the picture and place himself in his stead. Possessiveness, perhaps? He's gone to lengths to ensure that all three of his Remnants understand their place in this withered world: they may have developed their own personalities, yes, but they are little more than instruments of his will, and there's every chance he simply finds the idea of someone else interfering with his belongings somewhat distasteful.
There's also the possibility that Yazoo simply wounded his pride in choosing Reno. Is this simply a way for Sephiroth to prove that even in this he is superior? That his reach extends beyond the battlefield and the heavens to deep, shattering bursts of pleasure? Yazoo's pulse quickens at the thought, feeling a strange, previously untapped curl of dark want beginning to stir at the base of his spine—
But then the air begins to change. He feels it in a shiver of gooseflesh that pours itself over his shoulders, his hips, his thighs, pulling every atom of his being to attention as Sephiroth bends the planet around himself yet again. Stillness holds Yazoo in place when he manifests before him. For one icy second he thinks he might hate him almost as much as he aches to bring their cells together again—hates his beauty, his strength, his unshakeable place as Mother's favoured son—but that bitter feeling melts into something familiar with each whisper-step of his approach.
Maybe it isn't hate. Maybe it's love—a word that has a slightly different meaning to the Remnants than it might anyone else on Gaia. For Yazoo love can be distilled into three things: obsession, purpose, and the bone-deep need to please. Bright eyes slide along Masamune, skim over his chest, then lift to meet a matching malachite gaze, and Yazoo feels the barest hint of a smirk settling into the corner of his lips. )
Then I won't need to flatter you with words.
( He tilts his head. Whatever attraction he'd had to Sephiroth beforehand seems somehow amplified in his presence, thrumming and pulsing thick between them as he takes a playful step back. The Turk? Already forgotten. Yazoo can already feel his body reaching for Sephiroth's the way it couldn't for anyone else—not even Mother—and he exhales softly as he feels his body beginning to flush. )
Shall I tell you what I wanted him to do to me?
( There's velvet-soft suggestion in his voice, and the slits of his pupils swallow up more green with darkness. )
How I wanted him to touch me?
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Yet he had crafted them as separate from one another, all the same — three brothers who represented incomplete pieces of himself, made deadly and beautiful. Time, distance, and conscious awareness had placed wants and desires into their grasping hands, and the need to exist in the world, rather than merely stand at ready to be deployed, was the only natural result. Sephiroth knows that his authority over them is absolute, that if he commands they shatter themselves into a thousand pieces, he will find them broken and at his feet in his next breath. But for all else in-between, they are not so easily cowed — like children with restless brambles in their veins, nipping at his bootheels when he deigns to be present, asking for more, give them something more.
They might seek it elsewhere. They might find satisfaction in the transient things and little people all around them, but in the end, they would be reminded that Sephiroth should be the only presence that crowds their minds when the day is at its close.
For there are pieces of the man that even the Lifestream could not dilute. His pride, his possessiveness, his predilection towards obsession. And when Yazoo speaks of the Turk and all he can offer, it makes him want to gut the redhead as much as it amuses him. A fragment of himself, desiring a loyal Shinra dog? It connects Sephiroth back to an old origin point from a life long discarded and mostly forgotten, and that is both an offense to be corrected as much as it is an irony that makes him grin wider.
Yazoo steps away, but the gesture is the same as pulling a rubber band back too far. Their anchored connection elasticizes tightly, decrying any distance, and Sephiroth simply steps forward in turn. The length of his blade sweeps away the security that space could have provided with anyone else, but this is nothing revelatory.]
Yes.
[—is his reply, plain and cool. His gaze crawls along the lithe curvatures of Yazoo’s form, but ultimately settles on his face.]
Tell me what you fantasized. How you hoped he would please you.
[Let him turn it all inside-out.]
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( Occasionally, Yazoo wonders whether some part of him pushes at Sephiroth for the sole purpose of getting to feel. He doesn't doubt that people consider him the most emotionally distant remnant but he would beg to disagree: Yazoo simply knows what is and isn't worth his time and energy. Where Kadaj has his volatile temper and Loz has an almost child-like sensitivity, Yazoo's waters are calm, deep, and difficult to stir. It takes a lot to pull any kind of emotion from him. Why? Because human affairs are rarely worth the trouble, which manifests in a kind of unaffected aloofness that sets him apart from his brothers.
What does matter is this. The mako-bright crackle of energy between them as Yazoo dances back, as Sephiroth presses forwards, catching his breath in his throat and setting his pulse fluttering in the hollow of his throat. It's a dangerous game to play with the most deadly creature to set foot on Gaia since their Mother—but in the same way that Sephiroth can reach into him, Yazoo can feel the prickle of his connection with Sephiroth. The edges of their game are sharp, but they wouldn't be here if they didn't sense the mutual opportunity in it. )
I wanted to fight him.
( Yazoo says easily, thick lashes dipping low over his eyes. )
He gives me everything when he's trying to kill me. I wanted to feel that while he was fucking me.
( His smirk widens just a fraction. Yazoo isn't confined by the idea of normal and abnormal desires: in truth he simply doesn't have enough experience of society to understand that what he wants might be considered strange to some, not least because "erotic preferences" weren't really part of what Sephiroth wrought into being within the Lifestream. Dark impulses are simply impulses. Strange arousal is simply arousal. Yazoo may be the quietest remnant, but nothing excites him more than the glint of real danger and a pair of heated eyes.
His gaze drifts to Masamune for a second time. )
He would have enjoyed trying to make me beg for it. I wanted him to hold me down—to push me into the wall and give me bruises to remember him by, if he could manage it.
( Yazoo finds Sephiroth's eyes. Reno may have been able to grapple him, but even he has to admit that it's unlikely he'd have been able to make him really feel it. That, at the very least, Sephiroth will undoubtedly excel in, and a shiver runs the length of his spine as he imagines the hand holding Masamune clutching at the back of his neck. )
I wanted to feel like I was falling apart on his cock.
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No one else could do it better, more perfectly, than him.
The thought is enough to make a writhing warmth twitch at the base of his belly, and Masamune smiles with the same sloping curvature as the one spread across Sephiroth’s features.]
Very appeasing of you, to offer yourself as an outlet for someone else’s wild pleasures. But he would never be able to satisfy you in that way.
[Sephiroth’s teeth are a perfect row of white, revealed for a fleeting moment as he gently bites and pulls at the leather fingertips of his right glove, slipping it off and dropping it to the ground like the skin of a dead animal. Masamune exchanges hands, and he grants the same treatment to his left, revealing slender fingers that belie his ability to break so much and so many in his palm.
He crosses the electric space between them, those same fingers reaching out to cup just beneath the bone of Yazoo’s jawline, the jolt of their connection heady. He can sense the tempo of his pulse tapping beneath warm skin.]
Yet I can. Would you struggle against me, Yazoo? [Masamune seems to shine all-too-bright.] I can make any conflict between us sing in ways you’ve never experienced before.
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( It doesn't occur to him that Sephiroth's intention might be to mock him until after he's said his piece. Yazoo can see that he's smiling—a gentle, dangerous thing that offers little insight into what he's thinking—but other than that? He simply listens, until the dark thread of his fantasies are completely unspooled between them. It's another way in, Yazoo realises. Another weakness he's offered up in his eagerness, his need to be dismantled now something that Sephiroth could use against him if he so chose to. It would be so easy for him to tuck that information away with a chilled comment, for him to dismiss himself from Yazoo's presence with a curling smirk—
But he doesn't. A sliver of light gleams along Masamune's length and Sephiroth speaks, shows his teeth, then slowly removes the wrap of his gloves to leave his hands strangely, almost intimately bare.
Not mocking, then. Yazoo feels himself shiver with bright anticipation when he closes the distance between them, the charged weight in the air pressing heavier, heavier, until his palm touches the curve of his cheek. The throb of his pulse quickens in every cell of his body to the point where it's very nearly a distraction, but then he supposes there's nothing in creation that could actually draw his attention away from Sephiroth in this moment. )
Yes. Until the pleasure of submission overtook the pleasure of the struggle.
( He turns his head just enough to press his cheek against Sephiroth's palm—the gesture perverse in its tenderness considering the nature of his desires. With skin touching skin Yazoo feels their connection taken on a dimension he hasn't experienced before: he can feel Sephiroth, can feel the parts upon which he himself was modelled as well as the pieces that could make him whole. It's a stark reminder that he was designed to be incomplete, and that letting Sephiroth sink himself inside him might be as close to to complete as he ever gets.
Yazoo blinks slowly, and a hand reaches up to gently curl over the other man's wrist. )
I need it.
( I need you, he doesn't say, if only because both of them already know. )
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Then I will grant you what you want.
[—drop.]
What you need.
[He is not kind enough to offer a more generous preamble, and the effort would be wasted on him, anyhow — for Yazoo yearns for danger and the trigger-fire impulses of violence, and Sephiroth will keep his promise by granting it to him wholly.
His touch twists into a vice-grip, his long fingers lowering just enough to clench hard around the other’s throat, and Sephiroth presses his advantage to twist on his heel in a half-turn, propelling Yazoo forward and along as if he were made of rags, or air, or something so delicate that every impulse would dictate that he break it.
Sephiroth slams his back into the adjacent wall, and the entire warehouse groans in protest, low and mourning. What follows is the telltale sound of Masamune being brandished — that crystal reverb, melodious — and a glint of silver steel as the upper portion embeds itself in the plaster, while the rest is balanced askew and whisper-close to Yazoo’s form. From diagonal across the neck, close enough to kiss the clavicle, running past the chest, all the way down to where Sephiroth grips its hilt near the hip.
His eyes are the embers of a fire, lit brightly; his slit pupils lend to the imagery of a predator about to consume its prey whole. And Sephiroth, he only grins.]
Fight me. Struggle against me. I want to see you vying for control under my touch.
[Blessedly, his grip around Yazoo's neck relaxes, but only to thumb across his jaw again, then roughly against his bottom lip. The tip of Sephiroth’s boot knocks the spread of Yazoo’s feet evenly apart, skewing his balance into a tightrope walk of either remaining pressed against the wall or falling onto his blade.]
Don’t disappoint me, brother.
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( The force with which Yazoo is crushed into the wall is enough to separate plaster from brickwork. It drifts to the floor in thin streams as he fights to regain the breath punched out of him: Sephiroth is stronger than all three of his remnants, but it would take more than that to properly incapacitate any of them. Still, it's enough to stun him into inaction as Masamune glides between them and sinks into the wall, the bright call of the blade more serene than it has any right to be. Yazoo lifts his chin instinctively, as much a small act of defiance as it is an attempt to keep the tender skin of his throat away from the blade.
Pulling in a breath of air comes a little easier when Sephiroth loosens his grip on his throat. Committed to this lesson he looks feral—a dangerous, wild thing bred for despair—and when he shows his teeth Yazoo feels the very stuff that makes him sing out for him. The thumb to his bottom lip colours the moment with a suggestive hue, and Yazoo waits for the pad to rub over the fullest part before catching it in a sharp bite.
It's more a mischievous nudge than intent to cause harm, but no less viper-quick for it. )
Without a weapon?
( Slender fingers move to flex and curl as he readies himself to fight. He shifts his weight back to the wall when Sephiroth kicks his legs open, immediately forcing him onto the back foot, and feels the coil of tension between them twist that bit tighter as they hold each other's gaze. Fine. Yazoo can do this unarmed. He has no intention of letting those goading words—don't disappoint me, brother—actually come to pass.
That it will be more a heated struggle than a fight is obvious. Yazoo is effectively pinned in place but he still has the use of his hands, which immediately come up to fist in the front of Sephiroth's long duster and pull him in even closer. Masamune gleams pale between them, and in pulling him close Yazoo hopes to rob him of the ability to manoeuvre it further. It's risky: Sephiroth could simply cut through the plaster and set the blade into his skin, but with any luck it'll give him the half heartbeat he needs to squirm from the other man's grasp.
Yazoo attempts to slip free quickly, but whether he's fast enough remains to be seen. With any luck he won't end up having to explain to their brothers why Sephiroth put him through a wall and compromised the building. )
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And tooth and claw, it is — the sting of a bite across the knuckle of his thumb, the flash of defiance as green irises meet green. Sephiroth thinks he should pry his brother's jaw open and find a far better use for the soft insides of his mouth, but that's a notion better suited for when obedience is torn from his spine. For now, the other's fingers fist into the leathers of his coat, pushing him forward to lessen any lingering degree of breathing room.
The steel of his own sword is but a knife's edge away from his own body, sparking further amusement in Sephiroth's crescent grin. It's simple enough to brace his knee against the wall to keep balance, and push Masamune deeper into the plaster, causing it to cut in a perfect line that runs the length of the weapon. It chases Yazoo's body beneath it, perilously, but he escapes its bite by a hair's breadth.
Yazoo had always been so quick on his feet, like moonlight slipping away. Sephiroth turns his head to look at him with satisfaction, while the rest of his frame wrenches Masamune free from the wall.]
Good.
[He moves towards him, then, each step the feeling of a portent rising like a storm.]
But how long can you keep slipping away? Why don't you bite back a second time?
[He can indulge him the offensive. It's like inviting him straight into the open maw of a monster, but what better sacrifice is there to make?]
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( The wall cracks again when Sephiroth pulls his blade free. This is what he asked for, isn't it? A delicious thrill of heat runs the length of Yazoo's spine to puddle low at the very base: his brother is perfect destruction, capable of bringing ruin to all he touches with both a feather-soft brush or the full force of his swing. Dark heat curls into his belly at the thought of it: it's parasitic, almost, the way Yazoo wants to soak up his greatness, but then he supposes it's only natural for him to be drawn towards everything he could have been.
Sephiroth was right. Reno wouldn't have been able to give him even a fraction of what he craves. )
Your mistake is assuming slipping away is all I plan to do.
( Yazoo doesn't offer more. He cuts the through the air like the flit of a dagger, slim and sharp and silver-bright, one hand immediately going for Sephiroth's throat in a mirror-image of how he'd slammed him against the wall. While he knows he wouldn't be able to execute such an attack on his brother there's the chance it'll stall him for a moment, which gives him a split second to pull back a fist which he aims at the elegant slope of his jaw.
Fighting like this doesn't come naturally to Yazoo. Sephiroth wants his teeth and claws, so teeth and claws it is, but hard-hitting punches and close-range viciousness are his brothers' domain. He excels in ranged attacks, acrobatics, and dipping in and out to strike, but he supposes there's something to be said for holding his quarry in place while beating the shape of his fist into its face.
Something to try on someone else, another time. They both know how this will end, and anticipation is already crackling heavy across Yazoo's skin as he crowds Sephiroth's space. )
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Sephiroth allows the first grappling reach to make a hard purchase, but refuses the fist following it up, countering with a lift of his free forearm to knock it aside. This close, their bodies are already so alight with buzzing heat, and perhaps it isn’t so surprising that Yazoo had attacked in a way that mimicked his own, as though he should always seek to merge into him through emulation, an offered flattery made of violence.
It’s titillating in a darkly satisfying way, the thought of receiving him whole coiling pleasurably around his nerves, drifting down his spine, warm and welcome. Sephiroth tilts his chin up to better offer the tract of soft flesh that is his neck; just a tease of that bobbing Adam's apple, because he intends to tear it away in the next second, humming an amused sound that Yazoo can likely feel beneath his fingertips.
His free hand lashes out to grab him so hard by the shoulder that his brother’s bones might groan in protest, and the subsequent attempt to push him down is paired with Sephiroth's knee jutting upwards. The intent is to slam the angle straight into his middle, to better encourage him to double over and be brought to heel on the ground.]
Do you also plan to kneel?
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