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Sepsis	By : ladysanzennine Category: Final Fantasy VII > Het - Male/Female > Sephiroth/Aerith Views: 2066 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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Chapter List
- 1-1
- 2-2
- 3-3
- 4-4
- 5-5
- 6-6
- 7-7
- 8-8
- 9-9
- 10-10
- 11-11
- 12-12
- 13-13
- 14-14
- 5
- 6
- 7
Sepsis
Chapter 6
By Lyralina Sanzennine
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy 7 is property of Square Enix.
Sephiroth had never answered Aeris’s question of course, when she’d asked him why he was being so gentle with her; why he was caring for her. He’d never spoken a word to her at all, in all the days they’d spent together. Instead he would sit with her in silence, watching over her while she slept. And he would feed and heal her.
He left her quite often in those days and she had no idea where he went or what he did. Those periods were the worst. The headaches seemed to last for hours and all she could do was clutch her head and sob dryly. Her body, at least, had mostly healed and was no longer so incapacitated.
But in the aftermath of those painful attacks, she was always left with the feeling that something was missing. She would sit or lie on the bed, silently staring into the flames in the fireplace across the room, and try to think.
She remembered him, of course. She remembered that he had been evil and mad and had caused her friends so much anguish…and she remembered that he had killed her.
-a blade through her stomach-
But the images and the feelings were all strangely fuzzy, like paintings made of thick brush daps. The harder she tried to examine them, the more distorted they became until the pressure behind her eyes became so great that she once again gave up and stopped trying to think and remember.
It was so difficult, if not outright impossible, to reconcile this with then. He was breathtaking and gentle but he had been cruel and terrible, hadn’t he? And wasn’t she alive now because of…
Oh, what? Her?
Aeris shook her head and rested her chin on top of arms crossed on top of her knees. She was good though, so sweet and loving-
But no, that wasn’t right either. She was the one that tormented her.
Behind closed eyes she could see the blurred images of a young man with wild blonde hair and a beautiful woman who fought with her fists. There were others too, dear to her but less prominent than those two. A ninja girl and men who were so different from each other…and…a cat? One lion-like creature with a flame-like tail and a mechanical cat on a mechanical moogle.
Aeris groaned into her arm. That was ridiculous. A mechanical, fortune-telling cat that fought with a megaphone? Why couldn’t she properly remember anything?
Her bedroom door opened and she looked up to see him in the doorway. Sephiroth, her mind supplied. The man who had carefully taken care of her when she had been completely helpless.
The man who’d killed her?
She looked at him and saw that he was carrying a basin of water and towels in his hands. He walked to the center of the room and gracefully set down the large, metal container. Still holding the other items in one hand, he straightened and held out his gloved left hand, palm facing outwards. A controlled stream of unnatural fire flew from his hand with perfect precision towards the surface of the basin’s water, quickly heating it.
He pulled the black leather glove from his hand and reached down to brush the water with his fingers. Satisfied with the temperature, he covered the short distance to her bedside placed the large towel in a folded heap beside her. He handed her the small facecloth.
“Bathe yourself. I will return once you’re finished,” he said.
She stared at him openly, too shocked to hear him finally speak to her. In the seconds it took to regain her senses, he had already left, quietly shutting the door behind him with a click.
Aeris stared at the cloth in her hands. She ordered her limbs to move and they responded slowly.
In the back of her mind she registered the quality of his voice and smiled absentmindedly at the thought. When he spoke, his voice was low and smooth. His voice…suited him, really.
Her legs uncrossed themselves beneath the sheets and she slid her feet haltingly to the ground. As she stood, the coverings fell away from her body and she was reminded of her nakedness. She assumed her old clothes – whatever they had been – had been destroyed. She thought they used to be pink. Even now, she knew that the color pink was a favorite of hers. Red was too.
But that wasn’t important now. Bathing was not going to be easy.
She was very glad that he’d brought her a bath, though. After days of sweat-soaked nightmares, she felt filthy, and no doubt the sheets were the same. As she carefully lowered herself to kneel by the basin, she idly thought that maybe he’d decided a bath was necessary. But she felt too sore everywhere to be too embarrassed by the notion.
Carefully, laboriously, she cleansed herself, from her face down to her toes, and it was such a wonderful feeling, to be free from grime after so long. She shifted her position on the floor every few minutes, her limbs quickly cramping from disuse. By the time she finished her ministrations, the water had long turned cold. She stood and wrapped herself in the large towel he’d brought her. She dried herself and sat down on the edge of the bed.
Hours passed by but he didn’t return.
Aeris shivered, cold now, with only the towel wrapped snugly around her form. She looked at the crumpled sheets by her body and contemplated cocooning herself in the bed again. But she was clean now and they were dirty, and she suspected that cleanliness would be a rare pleasure for the time being.
Her eyes flicked upwards towards the fireplace. Without a second thought, she stood on still-shaky legs and made her way over the lush throw rug that lay before the mantle. She sat down and drew her legs up towards her, wrapping her arms around them, naturally assuming the protective fetal position.
Where was he, she wondered?
The flames flickered, gradually dying down as the hours continued to pass without any sign of him. It was strange because there was…nothing. The room was perfectly silent, filled with the soft roar of the small fire. Aeris fidgeted uncomfortably. This was so wrong somehow – this stillness.
The room itself was dull. Though perfectly preserved as befitting the mystical Ancient city, it seemed so utilitarian to her, filled with only the basic furniture with nothing of the slightest interest.
With a start, Aeris realized that she was bored and it was shocking because she couldn’t remember at all the last time she had felt restless and in need of a distraction. Her memories were a confusing mess of pictures and emotions, but they hinted at excitement all the same.
She turned her thoughts inward; there was no external stimulation to be had. But memory was too elusive to try and grasp.
There was a purpose to all this, wasn’t there? She asked herself with a slight frown. In front of her the flames danced prettily and a long moment passed by while she lost herself in them. She tried to recall, searching for answers in the fire, but just as she couldn’t quite grasp the image of the blonde-haired boy, this escaped her too.
He killed me, she tried to remind herself with a certainty she couldn’t manage to believe in. So then I must have been dead.
That was odd, wasn’t it? If she had been dead, then she should still be dead. But she was very much alive, unless of course, this was all some sort of hallucination. Or worse, what if this was her hell?
No, that can’t be right, she chided herself, I was a good person in life. I wouldn’t have gone to hell.
I was, wasn’t I…?
She thought so.
Self-flattery, huh, Aeris?
She pouted at the fire. It wasn’t just that.
I think I would have gone to the Promised Land.
She paused for a moment in her thoughts. Promised Land?
But then I was brought back to life. Yes, she nodded to herself, that’s it. I was revived.
But that couldn’t be normal.
She brought me back, didn’t She?
Aeris shook her head, futilely trying to clear it.
Yes, She brought you back to life, and back when you were alive in the first place, you used to be friends with a robotic cat that sat on a robotic moogle that killed monsters with a megaphone. And now, you’re being taken care of by a man that’s as gorgeous as he is scary.
She checked herself there. That was interesting thought.
In the background of the fire, she pictured him, face and body. He was quite the piece of work, she admitted, contemplating the mental image she’d conjured. He had a body that any man would be jealous of, and long, silver hair that any woman would envy. Yet there was something…wrong…about him.
He looks…she struggled to find the words…a little demonic.
She wasn’t sure if that was accurate. It was so faint and he seemed so, well, sweet, she thought with a small twist of her lips. He never smiled at her, had just talked to her today for the first time, but he was charming nonetheless. Sometimes in the way that he touched her-
Aeris blushed. Not that he’d really touched her, except for that time he’d drawn the sheets over her body. But there was his mouth to consider…
Stop it, she ordered herself.
She wondered where he was now. Her stomach growled softly, causing her eyes to glance downwards in that direction. She almost groaned out loud at the sound and the realization that she couldn’t even remember when she’d last eaten anything. The countless hours of nothingness and now boredom made her press her lips together in both irritation and worry.
He is coming back, isn’t he? She asked herself rhetorically.
But she supposed, at that, that she should be thankful for the boredom. Stagnancy was a blessing, really, as her days lately had been filled with shearing headaches and terrible screams from every part of her body.
I guess then, that I’m glad that it’s so peaceful.
But, somehow, it wasn’t peace at all. It was foreign and so, so empty, and for some reason she swore that this was wrong. She felt fragmented, and there was no true peace when the self wasn’t whole. Like something should have been filling the silence that was no longer there, ripped away, locked away, taken away away away from her.
A red flash tore across her head, behind her eyelids, and she gasped and clutched at her face. Her hands hid her face from outside view and it was such a useless gesture, but so innate all the same. As though she could, just this once, somehow escape the pain that threatened to come crashing down full force at any-
It crashed then.
And she was on the floor. She gasped and writhed and the rough texture of the carpeting beneath her burned against her skin, but she didn’t notice. She fought it though, fought it with all of the willpower she could drag upwards within herself. She threw her conscious mind against the assault, not wanting to give in to the torture so willingly as she had many times before. Beads of sweat gathered at her hairline, above her lip, in the crevice between her breasts.
If it was real – physical – she could fight it. She knew how. Aeris curled around herself protectively and envisioned the thing that was clawing at her psyche. She could almost feel the smooth, strong metal of her fighting staff beneath her palms; could almost see the beautiful glow of materia orbs slotted into the length of the weapon. She had neither magic nor steel in hand, but she pushed against it all the same.
Time passed without meaning as the metaphysical battle raged inside her own body. Mere minutes might have passed, or hours, or days. For Aeris, it was all eternity as agony bled into agony and resistance met with unyielding bonds.
* * *
She woke up in his arms.
A small sigh of contentment escaped her lips. In the half-sentient state, she squirmed slightly, unaware that she was trying to snuggle deeper into him. The last thing she wanted to do at the moment was open her eyes, but with regret, she slowly forced them open and took a few seconds to orient herself.
He was sitting on the bed – and the sheets appeared to have been changed – propped up against the headboard by the pillows. She lay between his sprawled legs with a separate sheet secured modestly around her body. Her head was pillowed in the crook of his neck; she could see the fine texture of his skin after she blinked the sleep out of her eyes. Her arm was wrapped around his side and the other hand rested lightly against the center of his chest.
His decidedly bare chest.
Even in her disoriented state, she was aware enough to blush at the situation. Though he was still clothed in his close-fitting black pants, it was all more intimate than she was prepared to deal with. She shifted her head slightly and noticed that his boots and gloves had been discarded. He was lying with her, barefoot, and it lent him a strange air of, well, vulnerability, she supposed.
And he was stroking the skin of her shoulder lightly, absent-mindedly. She stilled herself, waiting for a reaction from him to signal that he knew she was awake. It never came and he simply continued to touch her with perfect familiarity, his bare fingers occasionally traveling further to brush the line of her collarbone.
It was wrong. Even in all her dazed uncertainty about absolutely everything, she knew that this was wrong. Aeris tried to command her body to move, to protest, but it did neither. It was content to lie on him as it was. Oh, who was she kidding? She was content to lie on him just as she was.
His voice interrupted her conflicting thoughts, and she found herself glad for the distraction. “Are you hungry?” he asked.
With a well-timed growl from her stomach, Aeris remembered that she had been hungry for quite some time now. Since even before the last assault on her mind. Embarrassed, she turned her face deeper into his neck, hiding in the fall of his hair.
“Yes,” she answered tentatively, “I am, a bit.” Her voice was still too quiet and rough from disuse. Privately, she thought it was more than a bit unfair that he not only had prettier hair than she did, but a nicer voice at the moment.
And the thought was so utterly irrational, especially at a time like this, that she mentally shook herself at it. What’s wrong with me, she wondered? She tried to focus on all the things that were important – and there were so many – but always her thoughts were disrupted and would quickly fall to pieces around her.
At the moment, she was distracted by the feeling of his skin beneath her fingers, warm and smooth as it was. Carefully, she pushed against his chest. His body was unyielding under her hand.
With effort, she shifted her torso slightly so that she could look at his face. His mako-enhanced eyes returned her gaze silently; his expression never changed. Not for the first time, she found herself drawn to the eerie pupils of his eyes – thin, feline slits. It was unnatural, uncanny, but fascinating, perhaps for exactly those reasons. She wondered why his pupils were so different from the norm, and a distant part of her seemed to know the answer.
Her gaze dropped lower, over the smooth planes of his face and the clean structure of his jaw. He was…attractive…and it was terrible. She didn’t want it-
did she?
-knew on some level that she should have been horrified with herself.
Because he had killed her?
Perhaps. Likely. Or for some other reason. Wasn’t he a complete stranger?
But he had been so patient with her. He had so readily, inch by slow inch, healed her and brought her back to some measure of health.
But why would he do that? Why did he hold her like this?
And he had skillfully, time and again, chased away the terrifying shadows and screaming, psychotic voices. She didn’t know how, and worse still she didn’t know why, but she knew that he did. She knew that if offered the choice, she would gladly beg him to stay with her day and night, because each moment he spent away from her carried an awful threat. The monsters beneath her bed were real and no amount of optimism or disbelief or light could push them away.
In that moment, Aeris quietly wondered if maybe she was the one who was mad. But crazy people didn’t realize that they were crazy, right? She fervently hoped that the fact that the matter worried her was proof enough that she was still sane.
Still, she wondered, was it possible that she’d always been like this? Was it possible that she had been sick for quite some time, and that he’d always cared for her like this? Was he the lover she couldn’t quite recall from memories struck with incomplete amnesia?
But there had been a sword, and there had been blood and pain, while the light had faded steadily to the sound of voices screaming her name.
Or had she imagined all that?
She didn’t know. There was little she knew these days, but she knew that he was safe and warm and good to her.
And yet a part of her was terrified of him. It quickened her pulse. Altered her breathing.
Aeris groaned out loud, squeezing her eyes shut at that. She twisted her head to the side so that her hair cascaded down to shield her face from him.
He moved beneath her and she started at the sudden touch of his hand on hers. Calloused fingers grasped her much-smaller hand and brought it upwards. She froze. The sensation of his lips against her knuckles shocked her and brought her back to all the times he’d pressed his lips against hers. Not quite kisses, their purposes having been too functional and not romantic. All the times she’d drank from his lips…
She was breathing harder.
And somehow, she doubted that he would choose to have her eat on her own. Even after she’d regained some of her strength, he’d continued to feed her various broths with his mouth. She wondered if he simply enjoyed it. She certainly couldn’t complain.
He released her hand to reach over to the bedside and returned with a precisely-cut, bite-sized piece of a sandwich. Lettuce and cold cuts lay between the small, thick slices of bread in his grasp. Wordlessly, he placed the morsel against her lips and she obligingly opened her mouth to accept the food he offered her. In the comfortable silence, she chewed without looking at him.
“You’re recovering nicely,” he said softly. His lips hovered just over her forehead. “You should be strong enough to walk in a few more days.”
“I’d like that,” she responded, tentatively. “To go for a walk.” His fingers fed her another piece of sandwich and she savored it. As she ate, he gently stroked the hair of her bangs away from her face, tucking the stray tendrils behind her ears.
“I’ll take you,” he told her.
She tilted her head to smile up at him, genuinely happy at his promise. The prospect of getting out of the small, stifling room excited her. He turned to smile back, just a faint upwards twist of the lips. It was shocking and she was sure that her face betrayed her surprise, but she didn’t care. He was beautiful when he smiled and she couldn’t help but wonder what he looked like when he really smiled. Did it ever touch his eyes?
Within minutes, the sandwich he’d prepared was finished and he produced a single glass of red wine.
“A celebration,” he whispered, “To your health.”
In the light of the fire – she noticed it had been fed – glints of orange and yellow sparkled in the velvet red of the wine. She watched the glass, sleepily entranced. Even the crystal it had been cut out of seemed to dance in the flickering firelight with flashes of blue and green.
She tipped her head backwards expectantly. He didn’t disappoint her. He took a slow sip and brought his mouth to cover hers. Their lips parted and the drink poured onto her tongue. It was rich and sweet, sharp in its flavor. At the taste, she thought she would be quickly intoxicated. She felt lightheaded.
“Why do you do this?” she whispered.
“Why do you think?” he asked back. A glimmer of amusement lurked beyond the feline pupils. He reached towards her and lightly traced the curve of her cheek with his fingertips.
Their eyes never left each other as he repeated the motion. Her eyelids felt strangely heavy but she didn’t shut them. Not knowing why, she studied him carefully in the quiet moment.
He took her hand again. Brought her fingers to his lips. They parted, just a fraction, so that her fingertips slipped deeper into him. He pressed his lips together, sealing a kiss on her digits.
She inhaled unsteadily.
The mako glow of his eyes flared.
Then his mouth was on hers again. She drank from his mouth, giving no hint of wanting to stop. He faded in and out in front of her eyes for an instant. The heady drink made her feel strange. She nearly giggled. But then his lips were caressing her brow and tracing the curves of her cheek. She shivered. Her eyelids drifted shut but he pulled away all too soon.
It was bizarre, feeling so comfortable and languid with this stranger that she might have loved or might have hated. He was a man who might have been her mortal enemy but was her savior all the same. He was dark and enigmatic, but beautiful and powerful, and whatever else he was, she knew that she was content here with him.
From between the edges of the sheet that was wrapped around her body, one leg pushed further outside of the loose cocoon to brush against his. The buttery texture of his leather pants was soft against her too-pale calf. It felt so natural to reach out for him like this – to hook her leg around his and pull him just a little closer.
She drank the rest of the wine from his lips.
When she moved her head to look at him, the room tilted unexpectedly.
Her thoughts were fuzzy. She felt herself squint slightly at him. She felt too warm in his embrace.
In her giddy state, she barely noticed when he put the glass away and nudged the empty plate further from them. He grasped her around the waist and twisted himself from beneath her. She found herself lying on her back and he hovered just inches above her. Aeris held her breath at the expression in his eyes. His pupils were dilated. She felt flushed and dizzy and it would have been too easy to succumb and let her eyelids drift softly shut.
And then he was kissing her – just the barest of caresses of his lips against hers. His pants brushed against the exposed flesh of her leg, against the curve of her calf and the crevice of her knee. Her legs shifted slightly apart of their own accord; the sheets slid slightly higher on her thigh. The tip of his tongue slowly traced her lower lip, still too light, causing a small sound of desperation to escape from her mouth. Her lips parted just a little further, beckoning, but he showed no signs of noticing. With one arm propping himself up, the fingers of his free hand grazed the column of her neck. She arched backwards at the touch, welcoming it and offering herself up for more.
Emboldened by the wine, she wrapped her own arms around the expanse of his body, greedily taking in the texture of him. His body was hard beneath her touch, but covered in surprisingly delicate skin. She could trace the shape of each muscle in his back, clearly defined as they were.
But she wanted him to kiss her – really wanted to be kissed. The bare contact of his tongue against her lip was maddening. She tried to push the kiss further, tried to dance with his mouth, but before she could, he pulled away. She would never know how she had understood the expression on his face, the chastisement, but instinctively she knew that he would not accept such actions from her.
She frowned at him. He paid her disappointment no heed.
He bent down towards her again, and with breathless anticipation she hoped he would continue. But he turned aside to nuzzle at her neck, raining open-mouthed kisses there. His hot breath tickled her skin and then he gently bit her – not hard enough to hurt or mark her, just enough to elicit the reaction he wanted. She moaned at the lengthy assault on her neck. The leg that she’d wrapped around his contracted in an effort to pull him closer.
He returned his mouth to hers with soft, dry kisses. She trembled as his fingers brushed her collarbone and swept across her chest to the edge of the sheet that covered her. He pushed the material down, just a little, to caress the upper curve of her breast. She trembled at the touch and gasped. Her nerves wound tighter and the sensations shot from his touch downwards to her center. Her fingers reflexively tightened their grasp on his body.
His lips parted and he was so close –
Then suddenly he was gone and the loss of his heat shocked her into opening her eyes. She blinked in confusion and the room tilted again before her vision cleared to reveal him standing by the bed, facing the fireplace. He bent to fix his boots onto his feet and retrieved his coat from the ground. He quickly encased himself in it, finally snapping the center clasp shut at his waist. His hand reached out and took hold of the gloves that lay on the bedside table.
He looked back at her before opening the door. His face told her absolutely nothing.
“Sleep,” he said to her softly, before turning firmly and shutting the door behind him.
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Sepsis