City of Endless Night

The wind carried a foul smell, that of smoke and rusted metal. Green and pink chemical fires still burned in the distance and Cloud Strife could hear the faint swell of far-off screams. Midgar was crippled. The great floating city had crashed to the ground, its internal systems of power and life support damaged in the cataclysmic blast unleashed by the destructive machine called Diamond Weapon. Aftershocks still caused the city to tremble.

Cloud gripped a metal railing and leaned out to look down at the street seven levels below. In the enclosed city, the bridges and ramps crisscrossed like the strands of a spider’s web. A madman might have designed Midgar, for all the sense that showed in the placement of its connections and pathways. There was a confused rusty tangle stretching out below. Scaffolding masked each building’s face, the great metal frames joined each to the next with ladders, stairs and ramps radiating out at strange, haphazard diagonals.

These were broken-down apartments, shops, and houses covered in graffiti and missing so much of their concrete sheaths that they appeared pockmarked. Their tin roofs were damp and pitted with rust. The wealthy sections of Midgar were built overhead, blocking the levels beneath and boxing them in like the walls and lid of a coffin. The darkness below was just as thick and final as that of the grave. The slums of Midgar were in thrall to perpetual night, the only light shed from streetlamps and blinking neon signs. Midgar, named for the legendary giant serpent—perhaps because of the empty darkness in its great belly.

As Cloud thought this, light fell upon the roof of the tenement across the way. His eyes traced the light up to a spotlight hanging from a Shinra Corporation helicopter circling above like a vulture. Black-suited Turks leaned out the doors, appearing to search for something or someone…With a laugh, Cloud realized that it was most likely him. A reckless lack of caution seized him and he waved at the helicopter, but it flew away in the other direction, dragging its light with it. He watched it go, then sighed and looked down at his hands wrapped around the dirty iron rail of a creaking bridge.

The bridge’s ramp ran along the wall outside the ratty motel where he and his companions had rented rooms for the night. He slid his fists along the rail and stared, transfixed, at the flakes of rust that his hands peeled off the iron. He watched the flakes fall away to be caught up in the artificial breeze generated by the city’s giant ventilation units.

Cloud shivered and felt goose bumps lift on his bare arms. He had bought some clothes off of the motel owner’s son as soon as they had all signed fake names in the guest book, and he had changed from his battle uniform into normal clothes with some relief. He now wore a ragged, well-worn and stretched-out navy blue tank top and too-big denim jeans that hung loosely around his hips, leaving his belly bare. He did not go into the motel to get a jacket, though he was cold. Instead he stayed outside and forced himself to watch the fires burning—to see the signs of the destruction that he had brought upon the world.

And it was because of him, all of it—his fault, all of it. Cloud was a fool and a puppet. He had been weak and stupid, had let his will be overpowered and his mind controlled by the wicked, insane Sephiroth. Through Cloud, Sephiroth had wrought great evil: the poisonous magic of the Lifestream released, towns and cities ravaged in its path, the destructive robots called Weapons awakened, Midgar in flames and ruins, all because of Cloud and his inability to master his own mind. He deserved to have died ten times over for his mistakes, but by some cruel twist of fate he was alive while those around him died by the score. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people dead because of him, while he lived on to prompt even more chaos, to create even more devastation.

(And Aerith? What of his lost love, murdered by Sephiroth as Cloud stood by in helpless stasis? No, no, mustn’t think of her, no! Poor dead Aerith, her death on Cloud’s head, her blood on his hands…)

Cloud shivered again and rubbed his arms, but the trembling continued. He clenched his teeth and tightened his fists against the oncoming seizure. His body still suffered from the aftereffects of exposure to the Lifestream and its poisonous green slime called Mako. The doctor had said it could take months, even years to fully recover. Cloud had pushed himself and the others hard to get to Midgar in time to stop Diamond Weapon, and he had taken a lot of hits in the battle against the mechanical monster. His body was too weak—muscles and bones quaked within his flesh as his brain lost control over them. He felt his skull knock back against his spine and his vision went blurred. His legs gave out and he slid to the floor, draping his arms around the rail in a half-conscious effort to keep from falling off the bridge.

He rode the seizure like a buoy on a rough ocean wave, grunting and convulsing on the creaky metal scaffolding seven stories up, clinging to the railing as a lifeline. His teeth chattered with the force of his quivering neck and jaw and he nodded spastically like a jack in the box wobbling at the end of its spring. He felt ghost sensations on his flesh as his nerve endings shuddered and fooled him with the illusion of heat, cold, the pressure of a touch on his neck, back, hips. He gasped air in a determined fight to draw each breath. He heard the sound of his cries, his wheezing, the clacking of his teeth, but all from a distance as if he were suspended somewhere above his body.

Slowly the shaking lessened and it became easier to breathe. His arms and legs still twitched but the intensity of the convulsions diminished until he felt his muscles relax. Slowly, slowly, he stopped trembling and slumped his face forward against arms that still hooked at the elbow around the metal rail above. He sat leaning forward, legs hanging over the edge of the ramp, ass half in the air. With a grimace, he shimmied back so his thighs rested on the corroded metal floor.

He became aware that he still felt the touch on his back and half-turned. Vincent Valentine was there, rubbing the tense muscles of Cloud’s neck and shoulders, running soothing hands over the rigid flesh of his back and at the base of his spine and his waist. Cloud stiffened, drawing in a hissing breath, and Vincent looked up even as his hands stilled.

“What are you doing?” Cloud said.

“When you’re having a seizure, your muscles are so tight that they knot up and convulse. It helps if you massage them,” Vincent said, explaining while making it seem like it should have been obvious.

Cloud pressed his lips together to keep them from trembling. “I didn’t ask for your help.”

Vincent lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “You couldn’t ask for anything in that condition.”

Cloud scowled. “I wouldn’t have asked even if I could.”

Vincent nodded. “I know. That’s why I did it anyway.”

With his brow furrowed, Cloud turned and faced forward again. Vincent disconcerted Cloud, with his unflappable calm and bewitching red eyes that watched everything with their unchanging gaze. The man never seemed to lose that knowing expression, as if he had all the wisdom of the ages trapped in his golden claws. Those claws…

Cloud whirled around and looked down at Vincent’s left hand.

“You’re not wearing…” Cloud trailed off and looked up.

“My glove, you mean?” Vincent lifted his left hand, turned it and stared at it as if contemplating the black leather fingerless glove he wore in place of the sharp-clawed mace. “No, not tonight.”

“I didn’t realize that—I mean I thought—” Cloud stopped; he sounded like a moron.

“You didn’t realize that it came off, you were going to say?” A very small smile curved Vincent’s lips upwards. “You didn’t think that there was a hand under there, eh? Bones and flesh beneath the claws?”

Cloud exhaled sharply and shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”

Vincent nodded and gave a soft sound that might have been a laugh. “Well, then you were mistaken, Cloud. There is a hand beneath the hard metal of the glove, and tonight... Tonight I favor the man over the machine and have put the claws aside.”

Cloud wanted to know why tonight, for the first time, Vincent had taken off the glove, but he did not ask. He was tired of playing the young fool for this cold man who remained a stranger to Cloud though in the course of their quest together they had traveled the world.

The mechanical breeze stirred again and Cloud felt it tickling sensitive skin. He realized he still had his arms up, leaving part of his sides unclothed thanks to the poor fit of his borrowed tank top and the stretched fabric of its straps. With his arms, shoulders, underarms and sides bare, he felt vulnerable, exposed to the line of sight of all those who might pass on the street far below. And when he half-turned and saw Vincent’s red eyes fixed on the bare expanse of his skin, he felt naked. Blushing, Cloud dropped his arms to his sides and pressed his hands into the ridged metal of the ramp’s floor.

It occurred to him that Vincent was still kneeling behind him, knees nudging his rear. Cloud turned his head, but could not meet those blood-red eyes as he cleared his throat and said, “Do you mind?”

Vincent made another noise that Cloud was certain was a chuckle, and slid forward to sit beside him on the edge of the ramp. Cloud, who had been hoping that Vincent would take the hint and leave him alone with his thoughts, sighed. He stretched his arms out behind him and leaned back on his hands, his shoulders jutting forward as he shifted his weight.

They sat in silence for a time and Cloud once again focused on distant noises. He could not pick out any more screams or the muffled crash of explosions, but the far-off stains of smoky green and pink light told him that chemical fires still raged in other parts of Midgar.

The world shook again and Cloud thought that he was having another seizure. He glanced at Vincent and found the older man looking back with wide eyes.

“Aftershocks,” Vincent said, grabbing the metal grid of the ramp beneath him. Cloud reached up to take hold of the rusted railing, but as it lurched in his hand, he thought better and also got a tight grip on the ramp.

The building across from theirs swayed in the quake, the scaffolding pinned to it shaking and sending up clouds of rust and dirt. A ramp that ran along the face of the tenement broke free and careened toward the street below, taking a big chunk of the building façade with it. Cloud shouted and leaned out as far as he dared to see if there were any people in the falling object’s path. The pavement below was clear where the ramp struck ground and crashed with the groan of twisting metal. From the boarded-up windows it seemed the building across was abandoned. No one had been harmed in the fall, but they just as easily could have been and Cloud would have been responsible for further death and pain. The city’s shudders slowly subsided and all was still, but no one came out to investigate and the pile of corroded metal lay in a tangle on the street.

“It will probably still be there a year from now,” Vincent said, his voice low and mournful as it sometimes was, when the wind stirred his hair like that and his eyes seemed to glow. The black-haired man tightened his left hand into a fist and stared into the distance.

Cloud let out his breath in a sigh and hooked his elbows over the railing again. “Probably. No one will care enough to get rid of it—no one will want to take the time.”

Vincent’s red eyes slid toward him and Cloud shivered. Somehow, even after all that he had seen, there was still a part of Cloud that was spooked by the sight of the unnatural red of Valentine’s eyes.

Then, with a start, Cloud realized that Vincent had changed clothes, too. The sight of him without his ubiquitous golden-clawed glove had distracted Cloud from the fact that the man had also shed the long red robe he always wore. He was wearing close-fitting black pants and a black shirt that was open in the front in a deep V. It left a broad expanse of his white chest bare. With his headband also missing, allowing his black hair to flow free, and the glove gone it was almost as if Vincent were…human. A man.

And more than just a man. He was tall and slim, and his skin, so very pale against his dark hair and clothes, was striking. His face was fine-featured and sharp, his mouth small compared to his large eyes. That face, which Cloud had seen become monstrous in battle when Vincent had been pushed to his limit—that face was beautiful.

Vincent was beautiful, no longer quite frightening, but a mysterious creature seemingly born of the night—this night. The opaque darkness reached out its black teeth and tongue to consume Vincent, leaving only his white face and chest and his ghostly red eyes to glow from the shadows.

Cloud half reached out to snatch Vincent back from Midgar’s endless night before the neon “Vacancy” sign in the motel window behind them flickered on, bathing Vincent in pink light and bringing Cloud to his senses.

He continued to stare at Vincent, not thinking or caring how it looked. The V of flesh left bare by Vincent’s shirt revealed his slender, muscled build. One nipple was only partly covered, and Cloud’s eyes fixed on the half-exposed knot of flesh, the tight, pink bud centered in an aureole of light-brown skin.

And then, as Cloud knew that he would, Vincent turned and caught Cloud staring. Cloud let his gaze travel up to Vincent’s face and found a smile occupying the thin bow of Vincent’s lips. Vincent shifted, and Cloud thought that this time he really would leave, but then Vincent moved behind Cloud, stretched his legs out to either side of Cloud’s hips and settled so that his crotch was pressed against Cloud’s ass. Cloud’s face grew hot and he tensed, but then Vincent’s hands were on his back, rubbing the thick flesh there and the hard, sore muscles beneath.

Cloud sat ramrod-stiff for a full ten seconds before giving in to Vincent’s hands. He slumped, letting his elbows hooked around the rail support his weight and pressing even closer against Vincent’s pelvis. Vincent was skilled, his fingers working just hard enough to hurt even as they massaged out the deep-tissue ache. Yes, this was what Cloud needed now, punishment paired with relief, the easing of one agony as it was replaced by a lesser pain. Cloud’s guilt was a heavy rock in his chest and a strain throughout his body—could Vincent be offering release? A reprieve in the form of an exchange? And what would Vincent want in trade?

Cloud dropped his left arm to his side, pressing his hand into the grate floor of the ramp, and as he did so the stretched strap of his tank top fell, leaving his left shoulder bare. Vincent moved against him and then his lips, warm and soft, lay a tender kiss on the rounded flesh of Cloud’s naked shoulder.

A scene flooded Cloud’s mind, a memory of lying awake one night out in the countryside where monsters wandered the grasslands and forests, and battle greeted the group of warriors every hundred yards. Cloud had taken first watch, then woken Cid Highwind, the brash pilot who walked with his hips thrust forward, cloaked in defiant pride. As Cid took the watch, Cloud fell asleep beside the dying embers of the campfire. He woke hours later, some sound rousing him from a nightmare where he wandered endlessly in the icy darkness.

Cloud lifted his head and saw Cid sitting on a boulder, flinty eyes raking the landscape for the slight movement or noise that could signal a monster attack. Yet it was he who had made the sound that woke Cloud. While his gaze was steady, Cid’s mouth was twisted, uttering reluctant groans. His hands were buried in Vincent’s hair as Vincent knelt before Cid, lips wrapped around Cid’s cock. Cloud was still, made no noise, and lay awake listening until long after Cid’s groaning had ceased and Vincent had taken over the watch. Cloud lay awake all night, only catching an hour’s sleep just before dawn woke them all with its insistent light.

Now those lips were on Cloud’s skin, placing another, firmer kiss on the expanse of hard muscle stretching from shoulder to neck. The lips lingered at the base of Cloud’s neck, Vincent’s hot breath stirring the small hairs there. Cloud suppressed a shiver that arose through his body from a well deep in his center. Warmth and excitement stirred in an unfamiliar place, and Cloud was not sure what to do about the sudden hardness trapped between his thighs.

“Is this okay?” Vincent murmured and without waiting for an answer began to stroke Cloud’s right side where the stretched tank top left sensitive flesh exposed. Cloud’s weight was supported entirely by his right arm twisted around the bridge’s railing; if the rail were to collapse and fall to the street he would go down with it. Vincent’s hand tickled the blond hair of Cloud’s underarm, then slipped under the fabric of Cloud’s tank top to cup the muscle-striped skin stretched over his rib cage. “And this?”

“Mm,” Cloud said, trembling under Vincent’s hands. Cloud had worked hard to make his body strong, to build the muscles that gave shape to his arms and chest, his stomach and legs. The body-strength that would compensate for the weakness of his mind and soul; that would help him to succeed, to survive every task that fell into his path. It was with those muscles that he lifted the weapon he had chosen for himself, the giant Buster Sword that was as wide and tall as Cloud. Every stroke he delivered with that massive sword was a victory, and when he dealt a death blow with his blade, it was backed by his body’s every muscle and sinew sheathed in blood and flesh.

Yes, Cloud had earned his might and the victories it brought him, had won it from the teeth of monsters and madmen. But now, driven on through agony and endless pain, his body, so traumatized, threatened to give out on him. His great strength availed him none and he sank backwards, falling…but not so far. As he let go of the rail, Cloud’s back settled against Vincent’s chest and his head rested on Vincent’s collarbone.

Vincent took advantage of Cloud’s position and, tilting his head, fit his mouth over Cloud’s. Cloud reached up and put his hand on the back of Vincent’s neck. Cloud’s blond spiky hair was crushed against Vincent’s jaw and cheek and Vincent smoothed it away with a pale hand. The kiss began slow, but Cloud gasped against Vincent’s mouth and slid his tongue between Vincent’s lips. Vincent took the prompting and deepened the kiss, working Cloud’s lips and tongue as if he would devour Cloud, eat him up and swallow him down. Cloud’s hand tightened on the nape of Vincent’s neck, drawing him closer.

Cloud’s erection raged now, straining against the denim of his jeans, and his breath came quick or not at all. His mind went blessedly empty and he sobbed against Vincent’s mouth, turning so that his lips trailed across Vincent’s cheek and left a sheen of saliva.

Vincent dropped his mouth to Cloud’s neck and suckled the sensitive flesh as he wrapped his right arm around Cloud’s middle. Their bodies could get no closer, back to front and front to back, without climbing inside one another. As Vincent lapped at his neck, Cloud moved his hand up into Vincent’s glossy black hair and gathered a silky handful.

Cold air slapped Cloud’s back as Vincent moved away from him, and Cloud moaned. Then Vincent’s hands were on him again as Cloud slid to the floor, maneuvering them both until Cloud lay flat on the ramp with Vincent stretched over him.

Vincent’s face hovered over Cloud’s. The red eyes were like pools of blood staring into Cloud’s weak soul. He trembled and grabbed fistfuls of the front of Vincent’s black shirt. Vincent’s long hair fell around Cloud’s face like a curtain, and it framed an enigmatic expression. Vincent’s lips were parted as they ushered his panting breaths and his eyes were narrow and smiling. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he said, toying with one long lock of Cloud’s blond hair. “Are you sure?”

Cloud did not speak in reply, only let his gaze fall on the exposed nipple again. He lifted his head to Vincent’s chest and closed his lips around the brown circle, licking and sucking the hard knot of flesh. Vincent threw his head back, exposing his white neck, and moaned.

Then, Vincent said, “Can I fuck you?”

Cloud’s throat constricted. He had never—But, “Yes,” he found himself choking out, his teeth grazing Vincent’s neck. “How—”

“Here,” Vincent said, nudging Cloud, who rolled over onto his stomach. “Like this,” Vincent said, wrapping an arm around Cloud’s middle and lifting him. Cloud got up on his knees and elbows, feeling awkward and uncomfortable as Vincent undid the buttons on Cloud’s jeans and slid them down. “Ha!” Vincent cried with a laugh and Cloud turned his head to glare at Vincent over the double curves of his own naked ass.

“What?” Cloud snapped, jumping as Vincent traced a finger along the crevice between his buttocks.

“You’re not wearing any underpants,” Vincent said, twitching his eyebrows. “I never figured you for the kind to go commando, Cloud, I have to say.”

Cloud took a deep breath and prepared to tell him where he could stick it when Vincent pushed two spit-wet fingers into Cloud’s asshole. Cloud gasped and then grimaced as Vincent opened his fingers, widening the tight channel and lubing the pathway. He drew his fingers out and then Cloud could hear Vincent unzipping his pants. Cloud shook with the force of his pounding heart, thinking of how much it would hurt when Vincent entered him, how much he wanted it to hurt. He braced himself and felt the tip of Vincent’s cock press at the tight opening and push its way inside.

Cloud could not help but cry out at the intrusion as Vincent slowly filled him. Vincent was laying kisses on Cloud’s lower back and whispering, but Cloud could not hear what he said. Vincent pulled back, then drove into Cloud again and again with a rhythm that began slow and then gathered force and speed. As Vincent moved over and inside of him, Cloud dropped his head and stared down through the metal grate floor of the ramp, down to the bridge below it and the ladder below that, all the way down to the street seven levels beneath them. The metal cut into his knees and elbows and it hurt, but the pain was good, like a balm that had both killing and healing properties.

Vincent’s hand closed around Cloud’s cock and began to stroke the hard shaft, but Cloud fumbled back to rip Vincent’s fingers away. Vincent tried again to gain Cloud’s cock but Cloud would not let him.

“I want you to enjoy this,” Vincent gasped between heaving breaths.

“No,” Cloud said, pushing Vincent’s hand away again. “Stop, don’t.”

Cloud didn’t want to enjoy this, though his cock remained defiantly erect as it rubbed against his abdomen. He didn’t want to—but then Vincent pistoned his hips and Cloud nearly fell over. Pleasure like a crashing ocean wave flooded and receded and then flooded again with the repeated thrusting of Vincent’s hard cock against some spot inside Cloud. Cloud threw his head back and opened his mouth and choked out a shout.

“Hush,” Vincent said, sounding pleased as he slipped his left hand over Cloud’s mouth.

Cloud lost his head completely as again and again he felt the tip of Vincent’s erection hit deep inside of him behind his balls. Hot aching fury! Curse words spluttered from his lips and died against Vincent’s hand, still covering Cloud’s mouth. His entire body moved with the rhythm of Vincent’s thrusts. He was under someone else’s control again—not the murderous, mind-raping Sephiroth this time, no. Now he was a captive by choice, the driving force of Vincent’s hips rocking him on his elbows and knees. Oh, how could pleasure hurt so much? And how could pain feel so good?

Cloud bit down, hard, and tasted blood, but not his own. Vincent’s hand jerked away from Cloud’s mouth, but Cloud would not let it go and he clamped his lips around the wounded finger, sucking it clean.

Again and again Vincent invaded Cloud’s body and rocked him with burning, violent pleasure—pleasure that drove away the pain of guilt and allowed the searing, scorching tears to pour from his eyes, the sobbing to burst free from his chest. And as he came, as his cock spurted hot cum on his abdomen and chest, as it felt like his soul was being ripped free from his body, he opened his mouth and cried, “Aerith! Aerith! Aerith!” and then collapsed beneath the drooping weight of the spent Vincent.

With his eyes closed, Cloud twined his limbs with Vincent’s until they lay wrapped around each other on the metal floor. Cloud’s pants were still around his knees, and Vincent’s cock was warm and limp against Cloud’s thigh, but they made no move to dress themselves. Their skin pressed and stuck together with cum and sweat, but they lay entangled and half-naked.

Cloud jerked and his eyes snapped open when he realized what name he had cried in the midst of orgasm, but Vincent’s face was serene and Cloud wondered if he had even noticed. It didn’t really matter, Cloud thought; Vincent had probably been thinking of someone else, too.

Soon the cold, artificial breeze brought goose bumps to Cloud’s bare lower half and he shifted away from Vincent. Vincent stretched and opened his red eyes with a small smile. He took Cloud’s hand as Cloud sat up and kissed a knuckle. Cloud looked down, cursing himself for blushing, and Vincent gave a soft chuckle. They didn’t look at each other as they dressed. Cloud took off his tank top, wiped his stomach and ass clean of cum with it and then threw it over the side of the bridge. He watched it fall until it was caught in the sucking pull of a giant air ventilation unit, where massive fan blades shred the top to tatters.

They both stood, and Cloud turned back to stare out over the bridge rail again, but Vincent put his hand on Cloud’s shoulder and said, “Come inside.”

Cloud looked down and took the hand in his, turning it to see the wound he had left with his bite. The perfect white flesh was marred by his teeth marks, still bleeding sluggishly. Cloud frowned at what he had done, but Vincent pulled the hand back and held it up, wiggling the fingers to show that they were not harmed. Cloud saw that it was Vincent’s left hand that he had bit—the hand that usually wore the golden-clawed mace.

“Come inside with me,” Vincent said, leaning his face close to Cloud’s and putting his warm, pink lips against Cloud’s ear. “Share my bed tonight?” His lilting tone made it a question.

Cloud hesitated, and as he stood there with his mouth open, Vincent took his hand and pulled him close. The kiss was slow and lingering as they got a good taste of one another, hands lifting to cup each other’s faces, hair mingling, dark with light. Maybe, Cloud thought, Vincent was not as cold and distant as he had always seemed. His hand on Cloud’s felt warm.

“Yes,” Cloud said against Vincent’s mouth. They pulled back, ending the kiss. Vincent took Cloud’s hand and led him into the dark motel lobby, down the hall to the threshold of their room, and to the bed beyond.

End